Free to Be is a community of small groups, made of families and individuals, who come together to find the freedom to be their full selves, in the midst of the chaos of our world. We commit to allowing the individuals of each small group to speak their truth, and allow for our shared identity to be one of commitment to belonging, learning, and accountability.
Those of us in the organization who claim Christianity as our framework for understanding God, recognize and acknowledge how these same frameworks have been and continue to be used as weapons, that have real life consequences for individuals, families, and communities around the world.
Bad theology kills.
One of the ideologies that has come as a result of the misuse of the Christian framework is Christian Nationalism.
“Christian Nationalism is a political ideology, whether explicit or not, that includes the beliefs that the U.S. Constitution was divinely inspired and enjoys godly status, that Christianity should be a privileged religion in the U.S., that the nation holds a special status in God’s eyes, and that good Americans must hold Christian beliefs.” 1
This conflation of Christian identity and national political ideology harbors the evils of white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy, colonialism, queerphobia, transphobia, and militarism.
The sin of Christian Nationalism is idolatry. It makes God a mascot for one country, as opposed to acknowledging that God has the same love for all people and all nations. And that, this Love shows up to bring comfort to the afflicted and affliction to the comfortable of every nation.
So what does Christian Nationalism look like in our daily experiences?
It looks like the cars that you see out on the road that are covered in American Flags and a Jesus fish or “Fear God!” sticker, whose driver is choosing to cut you off, speed away, and create a lack of safety on the road for everyone.
It looks like the insistence that there is “one correct church” that associates with “one correct political party”. While you are participating in those communities, you will notice that families are expected to show up with one acceptable shape; one dad, one mom, multiple children, all with clear and distinct gender roles and expressions.
It looks like chaotic reactions of individuals in leadership, using messages of blaming, should-ing, and othering, that create feelings of shame, fear, and guilt.
It looks like the need to “save our country” from the grasp of any other understanding of the divine.
What is the antidote for Christian Nationalism?
Community. Belonging. And a Willingness to do the work of cleaning up our side of the street.
Similarly, these are the components of 12-step communities that offer addicts and those harmed by people in active addiction, a path to recovery, healing, and the reclaiming of their power and agency while removing the need to escape into their use of substances.
It is at this intersection of 12 Step Community and the acknowledgement of Christian Nationalism as sinful, that Free to Be and Odd Grace Community co-host a bi-monthly Bible Study called Recovering from Christian Nationalism.
Recovering from Christian Nationalism
We acknowledge that we, as Christians coming to know God in this current era of American history have had Christian Nationalism baked into many of our experiences of coming to know God within the institutional church and our daily lives.
We start each session by saying:
“Welcome to Recovering from Christian Nationalism. We are followers of Christ who recognize our complicity in Christian Nationalism. We are committed to dismantling the evil of Christian Nationalism in order to create beloved community. This work begins by dismantling Christian Nationalism within ourselves and being transformed by the Universal Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We use the 12 Steps of Recovery to guide our work, as we share the experience, strength, and hope we have gained through practicing their principles in all of our affairs. “
We then spend the time together experiencing a selection of one of the gospels of the Christian Bible. We read the selection three times through, pausing after each read to consider what it brings to mind, how it makes us feel, and how we are invited to take action in response to the text.
It is our hope that through these experiences of belonging in community who together experiences Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension as told in the gospel, we may be granted:
- the serenity to accept the things we cannot change about the history of conflating our love of God and love of country and the harm we have caused and experienced as a result,
- the courage to change how we understand who God is and our allegiance to our country,
- and the wisdom to know the difference between what we need to accept, and what we need to work to change.
To sign up to receive more information about our on-line gatherings, fill out the registration form here.
God, grant us the serenity, to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.
- ELCA Advocacy Statement: WE ARE CHRISTIANS AGAINST CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
ELCA : Social Statement on Faith and Civic Life ↩︎
