The Hell of Christian Nationalism
Moving from analysis to Christian witness and resistance
This weekend, I’m delivering a paper on Hell in white Christian nationalism at the SBL/AAR Conference in San Diego.
I’ve always seen my academic work as practical. And so I want to unpack it here for readers who want to resist what goes by “white Christian nationalism” but just don’t happen to run in academic circles.
The doctrines of Hell have “gone rogue” in white Christian nationalism. By “rogue” I mean Hell has become situated in a story other than the Christian story. Hell has become a free floating concept, a vague abstraction for “justice” and retributive violence torn from the drama of redemption.
Hell in Christian nationalism is, well, nationalized. When Hell is nationalized, it serves America. And it can prime citizens and Christians alike for violence.
Like President-elect Trump’s speech on January 6, “And we fight. We fight like hell. If we don’t fight like hell, you may not have a country anymore.” Some might dismiss this as mere rhetoric. But I think that’s misguided.
All you have to do is look at the prayers of January 6 to see how Christian doctrines of Hell are situated in White Christian Nationalism.
Hell is potent. And these beliefs about Hell prime adherents towards real-world violence. And believe me, there’s plenty to show for it. Like this shirt, documented by journalist
.
Talk about hell saturates our political, social, and cultural fabrics today. And theology is implicated in this, too. We don’t have to look far back in the past to find ways that Hell has been “nationalized” by evangelicals in America and used to prime citizens for State-exercised violence.
At the height of American involvement in World War I, evangelical revivalist Billy Sunday preached a gospel super-charged by conspiracy theories against immigrants.
He invoked Hell to great effect, but with lasting damage up to our own time:
“They say [America] is the melting pot. Well then it’s up to us to skim off the slag that won’t melt into Americanism and throw it into hell.” — Billy Sunday
Sunday’s use of Hell is a harbinger of today. This helps explain our moment, one on the verge of mass deportations through the use of domestic military deployments.
This analysis of Hell in the constellation of White Christian Nationalism is no mere academic exercise. It has potential for us, right now. And yet it’s not lost on me that I am offering this analysis as a theologian. Which means, this has to be more than analysis.
It’s one thing to offer analysis that answers the question, why does the call to “fight like hell” resonate with so many avowed Christians today?
It’s another to ask, where is the proper place of Hell in a Christian witness that resists Christian nationalism?
Theology cannot stay put in analysis. Talk about God always leads to witness. In the worship that announces “This is who God is, this is what He’s done, and this is who He loves.” And this worship always issues in a responsibility and solidarity with others.
The Church doesn’t need to reject analysis, but it cannot help but move beyond it. It’s a move I’m thinking a lot about these days. Because, whether on X, Blue Sky, Instagram, we seem to be drowning in commentary, and in deep need of commitment.
Analysis is everywhere. But the vocation of the Church isn’t so much to produce analysis as it is to offer a prophetic witness. This witness isn’t confined to posts, but is firmly rooted in practices that require a presence in and participation with a community.
Which is why the conclusion of my paper, as with much of my work, attempts to reorient rogue theological elements out of their political, social, or economic logics back into the drama of redemption. This includes talk about Hell, but only and always connected to the drama of God’s redemption and liberation.
And I can summarize this conclusion simply: Christians are not called to belief in Hell so much as they are called to belief in Jesus. Belief in Christ necessitates a sort of disbelief in nationalized Hells, or all sorts of false but dangerous Hells we construct and project onto our social world. All while taking seriously the Scripture’s language about judgment and redemption.
The Church that confesses this is quick to point out, with William Stringfellow, that “the first place to look for Christ, is in Hell.” By reintegrating Hell back into (and under) the Name, Jesus Christ, we destroy attempts to universalize Hell into a vague concept of justice and retributive violence, efforts we control.
We resist a Christian nationalism that too easily confines its political opponents to damnation, and justifies their subjugation according to nationalist logics.
By speaking first of Jesus, not Hell, the Church becomes a community of witness, a community who gives witness to God’s reconciliation, redemption, and righteousness.1 All bound up in the reign of Christ. When the Church gives witness to this reign, and the drama of redemption, it announces a warning that all those who tie their hopes to this age, its ways of violence, and subjugation, will suffer the end of the age itself. The Christian hope and vocation is to testify prophetically that the end of the age gives way to a new creation in which God’s forgiveness issues in a peace which secures justice and righteousness for all. In other words, a community of hope which, even today, gives a witness that resists even the hells we create for ourselves.
See
whose church is going through a teaching series on Revelation. He has an excellent, recent article on Hell in readings of Revelation.
Yes, have heard my US family use the T-shirt understanding of heaven as exclusionist and hell as inclusionist. How did white evangelical theology get so twisted and degraded? Will they have to experience fleeing their homeland before they can grasp what's happening in our world?
I was searching for something to help me understand Christian Nationalists view of hell. This has been a very helpful article.
I'm a member of a "Fans of David Bentley Hart" Facebook group. Hart may be one of the most famous "universalist" Christian theologians (perhaps to underscore his universalism, Hart sometimes refers to himself as a "Vedantic Christian", to emphasize his love and respect for the theistic traditions in Vedantic philosophy.
Well, a Christian Nationalist showed up the other day, to express his belief that everyone who believes as Hart does will end up in Hell, being tortured for all eternity.
I visited this fellow's FB page, and first, asked him a question I often ask fundamentalists, "What does the phrase "In God we live and move and have our being" mean?" Hart takes this in a sense common to Vedanta, Sufism, Kabbalah, Christian mystics, etc, that the Supreme Divinity is all pervading, and resides in a special way deep within our hearts, with whom we can commune as eternal souls, and of course, goes hand in hand with the title of his book, "All Will Be Saved."
This fellow - I'll call him Joe - said the verse simply meant that we should follow Christ and be His disciple. This was so bizarre and such a non sequitur that I tried to engage him further, in as polite a way as possible.
I made a special effort over the 8 years I lived in Greenville, SC to talk with students at the fundamentalist Bob Jones University, who were always unfailingly polite. In my 50 years as a New Yorker, I don't think I ever met anyone in person who I knew to be a fundamentalist. I was so baffled and startled by their views (from young earth creationism to the idea that all who don't believe as they do will end up in hell) that I spoke with them quite regularly.
But honestly, I don't think in my 70+ years I've ever come across someone who spoke with such passion about how those who don't believe as he does (which comes to close to 8 billion people) would end up in Hell.
I later asked my friends at the Hart FB group - "Is this really some kind of sadistic schadenfreude? Is he really taking such pure delight in thinking of all the suffering and torture that will be inflicted on all who don't think of him? (I was particularly concerned as the nominee for Defense secretary seems to share this belief)
I heard one charitable explanation, and I wonder if this makes sense to y'all. Someone said often people whose lives have fallen apart, who then become "saved by Christ," are actually anxious that others believe as they do, and express their grave concern by warning people if they aren't saved as well, they'll end up in terrible suffering."
That sounded nice to me, but I've just heard too many fundamentalists seem to express a kind of subtle (or not so subtle) delight in the fact that non believers will suffer eternal torment.
IT's like that Trump supporter 1 year into his first administration, who said, "He's hurting the wrong people."
I wonder what others think about this attitude among Christian nationalists. Do you take a more charitable reading of their concern about non believers going to hell, take them as being more malicious, or some combination of the two?