In this episode of New Lines’ Wider Angle podcast, Riada Asimovic Akyol speaks with Andrew Whitehead, one of the foremost scholars of Christian nationalism in the United States. They discuss the perceptions of Christianity’s relationship to American identity and civic life as well as the findings of Whitehead’s research about “Christian nationalists” among different ideological adherents and traditions.

Whitehead is the lead author, with Samuel Perry, of the award-winning book “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States.” His next book, “American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church,” is due out in 2023. 

In this conversation, Whitehead explains some of the theological and ideological beliefs that Christian nationalism includes and elaborates on how Americans feel about the idea that the United States is a Christian nation or that it should be a Christian nation. He also sheds light on an important distinction between influential “postmillennial” and “premillennial” advocates of Christian nationalism. At the same time, Whitehead clarifies why it is important to distinguish Christian nationalism from religious commitment and that Christian nationalism does not necessarily mean talking about “evangelicalism” or “white conservative Protestantism.”

Listen to the conversation to hear more about the powerful myths, symbols and narratives that Christian nationalists use to advocate a special kind of Christianity and its place in America’s civic life. Whitehead powerfully illuminates the wider angle about this ideology and why strong support for it is “a threat to a pluralistic democratic society.”