Confronting the Myths of January 6
An excerpt from my collaboration piece on January 6 published today for Time
The following is a short excerpt from my new collaborative piece with sociologist Andrew Whitehead sharing new research on the intensification of Christian nationalism, the myths about January 6, the threats they pose, and how we might find a way forward. It was published today for Time.
…no matter how accountable our politics, we cannot stop the intensity of Christian nationalism by ignoring its “Christian” elements.
Democracy can do everything in its power to protect itself from this ideology. But at best, it will always leave the distinctively Christian elements that drive Christian nationalism untouched. Here, there remains a crisis to be resolved by free and fearless Christians willing to implicate themselves by publicly admitting the ways in which Christian beliefs fueled a national tragedy.
The tragic testimony of a Capitol Police Officer before Congress was perhaps really reserved then for Christians in America: “It was clear the terrorists perceived themselves to be Christian.”
The renewal of Christian civic presence in a pluralistic society begins when Christians stop confusing the power to crucify with the power of the Crucified One.
This power is what David Bentley Hart calls the “anarchy of charity” — the opposite of domination. To our fellow Christians in America, we cannot sanitize or mythologize January 6. These myths do nothing but protect the power of a fast-regrouping Christian civic machine looking to install a certain vision of Christian morality through coercive force. We cannot be a reconciling presence championing the cause of retribution.
But the incentive to forget an event like January 6 always arises from the will to power. For every “remembering” in American history there is also a “forgetting,” for every Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11, there is the Stono rebellion or Osage murders. The Lost Cause myth sustained the cultural white supremacy of Southern States in the wake of their defeat in the Civil War. It aided in the construction of Jim Crow.
The Christian Nationalist myth of January 6 leads us down similar paths, towards more violence and retribution, in denial of the Jesus some Americans claim to follow. These myths, today, mask the intensifying of Christian Nationalist ideology, threatening our political system, and damaging a civil sphere that we hope can yet become a common ground. Reckoning with and resisting these myths through accountable politics and a more responsible Christian presence are part of the way forward.
You can read the piece in its entirety here. I was honored to collaborate with Dr. Andrew Whitehead, a leading scholar on the sociological dimension of Christian nationalism, the co-author of “Taking America Back for God” and the author of “American Idolatry.” You can find him on Substack over at
Really wonderful working with you on this! Onward, together!