We the (Chosen) People: Christian Nationalism Now / Eliyahu Stern & Philip Gorski

For the Life of the World / Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Is America a nation Chosen by God? A New Jerusalem and Shining City on a Hill? What is the shape of Christian Nationalism today?

Now 4 years past Jan 6, 2021 and anticipating the next term of presidential office, Yale professors Eliyahu Stern and Philip Gorski join Evan Rosa for a conversation about religion, politics, and the shape of Christian nationalism now.

Together they discuss what religion really means in sociological and historical terms; the difference between religions of power and religions of law or morality; the American syncretism of pagan Christianity (perhaps captured in the Qnon Shaman with the horns and facepaint); the connection between nationalism and the desire to be a Chosen People; the supersessionism at the root of seeing the Christian conquest of America as a New Jerusalem; and how ordinary citizens come to adopt the tenets of Christian Nationalism.

Eliyahu Stern is Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual and Cultural History in the Departments of Religious Studies and History and his current project is entitled No Where Left to Go: Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7.

Philip Gorski is Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology at Yale University and is author of The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy (with Samuel Perry) as well as American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present.

Special thanks to our production assistant Zoë Halaban for pitching this conversation.

About Eliyahu Stern

Eliyahu Stern is Professor of Modern Jewish Intellectual and Cultural History in the Departments of Religious Studies and History. Previously, he was Junior William Golding Fellow in the Humanities at Brasenose College and the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford. He is the author of the award-winning, The Genius: Elijah of Vilna and the Making of Modern Judaism (Yale University Press in 2012). His second monograph Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s (Yale University Press, 2018) details the ideological background to Jews’ involvement in Zionism, Capitalism, and Communism. His courses include The Global Right: From the French Revolution to the American Insurrection, Secularism: From the Enlightenment to the Present, Modern Jewish Intellectual History, The Holocaust in Culture and Politics. He has served as a term member on the Council on Foreign Relations and a consultant to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. Currently, he is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Center of Jewish History.

His latest project is entitled No Where Left to Go: Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7.

About Philip Gorski

Philip S. Gorski is a comparative-historical sociologist with strong interests in theory and methods and in modern and early modern Europe. He is Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology at Yale University. His empirical work focuses on topics such as state-formation, nationalism, revolution, economic development and secularization with particular attention to the interaction of religion and politics. Other current interests include the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences and the nature and role of rationality in social life. He’s author with Samuel L. Perry of The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, as well as American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present.

Show Notes

• Trump: “I’m a nationalist.”
• Increased ownership and proud identification as Christian Nationalism
• Eliyahu Stern, No Where Left to Go: Jews and the Global Right from 1977 to October 7
• The human practice of religion
• “ The way one person will invoke Christianity will be something very different than say the way a church or the way another person or another religious figure is going to invoke that term.”
• Humility and a leap
• “ The History of the Sacred from Babylon to Beyoncé”
• Religion vs “The Sacred”
• ”Western nationalism itself is, the offspring of a Christian supersessionist appropriation of Judaism.”
• “A new chosen people”
• The Deep Story Philip Gorski tells in The Flag and the Cross
• Pagan understandings of nationalism
• “The Deep Story runs something like this. America was founded as a Christian nation. The founders were Orthodox Christians. The founding documents were based on quote, biblical principles or perhaps even divinely inspired. The United States has a special role to play. In history as an exceptional or chosen nation in order to carry out that mission, it's been blessed with unique power and prosperity. But the project, the mission, and also the prosperity and the power are all increasingly endangered by the presence of non-whites, non-native born people, non-Christians on American soil.”
• Covenantal logic
• The tendency to see oneself as “Chosen”
• England, Netherlands claiming the mantle of Chosenness for political purposes
• “Jews are sitting around the world and they're trying to figure out how to unchosen themselves.”
• Supersessionism and the interpretation of the Old Testament
• The Promised Land Story: American Conquest
• The Exemplary Story: A Shining City on a Hill
• How do we gather and absorb political narratives like Christian Nationalism?
• How is Christian Nationalism passed on?
• Larger network of international Christian Nationalisms
• The Arms Race or Game of Thrones that Nationalisms assume
• Russian Christian Nationalism and recovering a “Christian Civilization”
• Christian Nationalism is a political strategy
• “ I don't think anybody … believes for a second that Donald Trump, or Vladimir Putin, or for that matter, Viktor Orban are serious Christians by any reasonable definition of that term.”
• “White-supremicism in more acceptable garb.”
• Losers of free market economics
• Free Market Capitalism and erosion of social bonds and relationships
• Strong borders, blood and soil
• Fear of immigrants
• Trust
• What is the deeply felt need of someone who comes to identify as a Christian Nationalist?
• Human needs threatened by social instability and inequality
• Lip service for the sake of power
• What “Christian” does next to “Nationalism”
• Trump embraces Nationalism for himself
• Globalism vs Nationalism
• Second Iraq War as a mistake
• “Proponents are not religious in the conventional sense”
• “ When we're talking about Christian nationalism, we have to first and foremost recognize that we're talking about a different understanding of Christianity than what Americans are accustomed to seeing as the dominant understanding of what that term signifies.”
• The crucial distinction between Religions of Power and Religions of Morality
• Powerful protector
• “Modern-day Cyrus”—The comparison between Trump and the biblical figure of Cyrus
• What is religion? What kind of religion is operative in Christian Nationalism?
• ”It is not just centered in evangelicalism anymore.”
• First Things and Catholic Integralism
• New Apostolic Reformation
• Dominion Theology
• “This is about occupying institutions, seizing power, and using the state to impose a particular vision and a particular hierarchy.”
• Jan 6, 2021
• Rising paganism in America
• “How could Christians embrace Trump?”
• Merging of Shamanism and Christianity on Jan 6
• Trancendental versus immanent versions of Christianity
• Neo-paganism and magical understandings of the world
• Concerns and hope as Trump takes office in January 2025
• Further toward the politics of grievance and victimization
• “Trump as a backstop”
• Israel’s reliance
• Can Trump negotiate international peace?
• “The cynical side of me says  my greatest hope lies in Trump's failures.”
• Hope for more careful, nuanced conversations about Christian Nationalism

Production Notes

• This podcast featured Eliyahu Stern and Philip Gorski
• Edited and Produced by Evan Rosa
• Hosted by Evan Rosa
• Production Assistance by Zoë Halaban, Macie Bridge, Alexa Rollow, and Emily Brookfield
• A Production of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School https://faith.yale.edu/about
• Support For the Life of the World podcast by giving to the Yale Center for Faith & Culture: https://faith.yale.edu/give