51ÂÜÀò

 

Special guest Tim Milosch (Ph.D.) joins today’s podcast to speak with Tim and Rick on the multifaceted phenomenon of Christian Nationalism. They cover questions including, What is Christian Nationalism? Why has it been important and garnered so much attention? Who are the kinds of people who identify with this cultural phenomenon? What are some of the confusions around Christian Nationalism? And what are noteworthy cautions for Christians who are thinking through how to practice political engagement?

Transcript

Tim Muehlhoff: Welcome to the Winsome Conviction Podcast. My name is Tim Muehlhoff. I'm a Professor of Communication here at 51ÂÜÀò and Co-Director of the Winsome Conviction Project, along with my good friend, Dr. Rick Langer. Rick, welcome.

Rick Langer: Thanks, Tim. And I co-direct the Winsome Conviction Project with Tim. I've also served a long time as a Professor at 51ÂÜÀò, though at the moment I'm now retired. And I'm pretty excited about the guest we have today. One of the people I've enjoyed getting to know over the course of my years at 51ÂÜÀò is named Tim Milosch. I was thinking we'd have to do some work to figure out who's who as we're talking. So I realize it's saying Tim M. doesn't really cut it, does it? Because we've got two Tim M.'s here. So I'm assuming that the context will work. Otherwise, you can hold up your hand and identify yourself as needed.

Anyhow, Tim is the, now he's the Interim Director of the Digital Learning here at 51ÂÜÀò. He's been an adjunct faculty member in Comm Studies and also Political Science department, and he serves in a variety of capacities. One in particular I want to highlight is that he has served as the Advisor for the Braver Angels College Debate and Discourse Alliance, which has a chapter at 51ÂÜÀò. I have gone there, I don't know what, three times or four times when you guys have been doing your debates, Tim. And it's been really fun to see that. So we'll talk a little bit about that later or another time, but we really appreciate all you do. So thanks for coming and joining us on the podcast.

Tim Milosch: Oh, thanks for having me, guys. It's so fun to be here and chat with you guys.

Tim Muehlhoff: One of my all-time best friends, probably one of the longest friends I have, is Tim Downs. He was on staff with Crew forever. We stay in touch. And it was the two Tims, that was the problem we had for years and years. So here's how we resolved it. Plastic Tim, real Tim.

Tim Milosch: Oh, okay.

Tim Muehlhoff: And I won't say in our relationship which one that was, but clearly this is the Winsome Conviction Podcast, Tim, so we'll just go with plastic Tim, real Tim, maybe.

Tim Milosch: Wow.

Tim Muehlhoff: Maybe not.

Tim Milosch: Wow.

Tim Muehlhoff: It was an idea. It was a brainstorm.

Rick Langer: Nothing like a warm welcome for our guest, Tim, and that was nothing like a warm welcome. All right.

Tim Milosch: I've got all my plasticity jokes ready to go.

Tim Muehlhoff: Hey, but Rick, why don't you explain a little bit why we're so excited to have Tim on at this particular time in our country's history, political season?

Rick Langer: Yeah. So one of the things that has been particularly controversial, I would say even inflammatory in our political discourse in the last few years is the issue of Christian nationalism. The phrase, one of the things we're going to talk about very soon is exactly what does that mean, what does it not mean, and those sorts of things. But it's become a little bit like the way we use critical race through CRT. It becomes sort of a flaming word that is almost bound to inflame controversies.

And one of the problems with any word that works like the flamethrower kind of word is that it makes discourse go bad. We tend not to hear what people are saying. We tend not to understand people. We end up doing that thing where we're like two ships crossing in the night. As Tim Muehlhoff and I often talk about, we fail to achieve disagreement on topics like this because we fail to understand what the other person is really thinking and meaning. So with that said, Tim Milosch does his own podcast. We can give a shameless plug for Tim, Talking 51ÂÜÀò Politics, I believe. Is that the name of the podcast, Tim?

Tim Milosch: It's a little more precise. Tim Talks politics.

Rick Langer: Tim Talks Politics.

Tim Milosch: But I am talking about politics on the podcast, so that works too.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Tim Muehlhoff: Will you change it to Plastic Tim talks politics?

Tim Milosch: No, we only use that phrase when we're citing Muehlhoff.

Rick Langer: All right, then let me recapture this discussion. So I was delighted when I heard a podcast that Tim Milosch did with Mark David Hall. Now, Mark David Hall is a historian politician, so political science guy. He spends a lot of time on the politics of the American founding. So you tell me if he's a historian or a politician. He's a professor at George Fox, right?

Tim Milosch: Now at Robertson School of Government, Regent University.

Rick Langer: Oh, okay. But he was at George Fox for a long time.

Tim Milosch: Yes.

Rick Langer: Correct? Okay, good. Same guy.

Tim Milosch: Yes.

Rick Langer: All right. I'm feeling better.

Tim Milosch: Same. Yeah, we're talking about the same guy.

Rick Langer: Well, and you guys had a wonderful conversation, and I just want to pick up on exactly that very issue of how good a job you did, I think, helping us understand what's really going on. So I want to just kind of give you an opportunity to give a little clarification and update about some of what you guys talked about, and then I'll ask you a couple of questions about that. But give us a quick overview kind of including what Christian nationalism is, why it's been important, and what some of the confusions around it are.

Tim Milosch: Yeah. Okay. So I would start by saying Mark's work is excellent because he's primarily a historian and is able to bring a historian's perspective to this rather new phenomena, this new, well, actually this new pejorative that's been used in political rhetoric in the United States in the last few years. And he recently published a book, it just came out this year called Who's Afraid of Christian Nationalism? And in it, he actually does a really good job unpacking where the phrase came from, where it kind of emerged, how it developed. And what his book outlines quite well is that the phrase Christian nationalism really didn't emerge in the academic space to describe a very particular group within the Christian Church in America. Rather, it seems like, and he was only able to trace the phrase back to I think 2006, but it seems like it really emerged from the media and the advocacy space. And more recent work in academic scholarship has been kind of trying to catch up to that and trying to give it a more concise definition.

So in his book, he outlines kind of the main groups that write about and talk about Christian nationalism. So he looks at like a group that he refers to as the polemicists, the ones who really just use it as a verbal hand grenade. It's just the thing they use to just dispose of any opposition by accusing people of being Christian nationalists. It's what they use to just scare people about the impending doom of a Christian theocracy or something like that.

But he pivots to say, "No, there's some serious academics who are trying to work on this too and trying to understand it." And he looks at their scholarship as well and breaks it down. And then, on top of that, he then when draws from that literature and from that writing, he then moves to talk about how it's being misapplied or how the measures being used to try to define Christian nationalism are unhelpful. Because even among the academic literature on Christian nationalism, what little there is, the bulk of the writing is outside academia, in media, in journalism, and in advocacy groups.

But even within the academic writing that Hall cites, he's saying they reach really high numbers where some of the scholars are talking like 50% of American Christians are Christian nationalists. And when I hear numbers like that, and this was kind of like Mark's response to that number too, is we both stop and pause and say, "What Christians are they talking about? Because those aren't the Christians I'm going to church with if you look at the typical definition, the popular definition of Christian nationalist."

So he reframed it, revised it, tried to create a more comprehensive or precise definition. And by Hall's definition of Christian nationalism, he would say that at best we could probably get down to more like 20% of Christians in America ascribe to some version of Christian nationalism. But certainly, it's even fewer who ascribe, much less self-identify, as Christian nationalists in some kind of militant theocratic way. And so, there's kind of like this boogeyman Christian nationalism that the media and many on the political left are afraid of and are talking about all the time. But then, there's this kind of garden variety Christian nationalism that is not that. And then, there's just the bulk of everyday Christians going to church on Sunday trying to figure out, "How do I live a Christian in an American democracy?"

Tim Muehlhoff: So can we get a little taste of both? Can we get the boogeyman version? Can we get the moderate version, and then one that might surprise listeners definition.

Tim Milosch: Yeah. So let's start with the one that surprises people. When we look at some of the through lines in the academic literature, the journalism writing on it, the advocacy writing on Christian nationalism, what we see are things like just supporting freedom of religion, basic First Amendments religious liberty type stuff is now being called, that's a dog whistle of Christian nationalism or something like that. So we're talking about how broad this definition is going. It's just like this is just something that's in the Constitution.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Tim Milosch: This is not some secretive cabal trying to create something in America that hasn't heretofor existed.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Tim Milosch: So that's kind of like the problem of the broadness. And so, that'd be the surprise. We're talking if you want to be a Christian who is pro-life positions is another one, that makes you a Christian nationalist. So if you're a pro-life Christian who believes in religious liberty, you are a Christian nationalist. And I think for most Christians, they would just sit there and go, "What?"

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Tim Milosch: "When did that happen?" So that's the very broad surprise one. But the real kind of boogeyman version of Christian nationalism, that's my highly academic phrase, that's not Mark's. I don't want disparage his work here. So boogeyman Christian nationalism is going to be kind of like the dystopian version of some of these dystopian literature of the last few years like a Handmaid's Tale where you have a powerful militaristic cabal of Christian theocrats who want to just make America into this Christian fortress of... And the version of Christianity is very like Christian fundamentalist, like the Bible rules everything. It's kind like an application of Old Testament law in contemporary America and women are oppressed, minorities are oppressed. So it's kind of like this all the bad things, right? Racism, misogyny, sexism, anti-gay rights, just all of that just packed. In fact, there's a pretty through line between that version of Christian nationalism, if you go back, if you remember back to the 2016 election and Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables," it's kind of like a rebranding of the basket of deplorables. That's probably the simplest way to describe it.

Rick Langer: Now let me just read an example of what I think might fall into that category, though it's got a bit of an interestingly different flavor. I'd love to just talk about this.

Tim Milosch: Mm-hmm.

Rick Langer: So there's a quote from a book called The Changing the Garb: Biblical Principles for Political Action. So the part I'm reading is written by George Grant. It's in an edited volume from the late 1980s that was edited in conjunction with Gary North. And I don't know if you're familiar with Gary North, but I believe in your podcasts, Rushdoony came up.

Tim Milosch: Yep.

Rick Langer: And Gary North and Rushdoony were two key players in the Christian Reconstruction Movement that was a bit of a niche market, so this was not a hot bestseller, this wasn't a thing that everybody was reading. But let me just read this, and let's pause and think a little bit about how we feel about this as a Christian vision.

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ, to have dominion in civil structures just as in every other aspect of godliness. But it is dominion that we are after, not just a voice. It is dominion we are after, not just influence. It is dominion we are after, not just equal time. It is dominion that we are after, world conquest. That is what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. And we must win the world with the power of the gospel. We must never settle for anything less. Thus, Christian politics has its primary intent the conquest of the land of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, governments for the kingdom of Christ."

So this is what we might call a robust view of Christian activism. And the one thing I'd point out about that, it is not centered on the negative in this case, it's centered on what, at least for me, is a disturbing overstatement of the positive; that we do want to influence. Jesus is Lord of all. But I worry about a few things in there regarding the way we execute that kind of on behalf of Jesus rather than through the presence of Jesus. This is partly because the people in this who are writing in Rushdoony's world and Gary North and George Grant presumably are people who are post-millennial, so they believe, "We will bring in the kingdom ourselves." 51ÂÜÀò and many other evangelicals who are Premillennial who believe, "We will do our best. But the bottom line is this kingdom isn't going to come until Jesus comes as King." So I don't know. I just wanted to drop that out there. What are your thoughts about that kind of a quote and how it does or doesn't reflect Christian nationalism and the worries that people seem to have?

Tim Milosch: So I've got three immediate responses to that. And the first response is something you just said right there at the end, Rick, which is something that Mark picked up on in his writing too, and he unpacks it in his book. And that is that thinkers like Rushdoony who have this very strong kind of Christian dominionism view about Christians and politics are Postmillenialists, and this is a great example of where eschatology matters. And I think eschatology is one of those things that can be, it's tricky, it's difficult, there's lots of debate. And I think sometimes Christians just want to throw up their hands and say, "Postmillennial, Premillennial, whatever."

But this is an example of where that actually matters, because if your view is that it's on you to usher in the kingdom of Christ, the Second Coming of Christ, that things have to happen that we have to do in order for Jesus to show back up, then I see this as a logical extension of that. I don't see why this would be considered inconsistent with that eschatology.

But if your eschatology is Premillennial, that our job is to carry forward the Great Commission. Our job is to love God and love neighbor and to endure until Christ returns, and that's what we're about, then the need to control the commanding heights of politics and culture falls way down the priority list. It's not an issue of control, it's an issue of presence, of influence, of witness, etc. So just the whole posture changes. So I think the first point is eschatology matters.

The second point is, this is something Hall picks up in his book as well, is thinkers like Rushdoony are hardly known among most Christians. And so, and you pointed that out, Rick, that this is kind of like a niche view of Christians and politics. And I think that that's really important to note. Because on the one hand, the boogeyman Christian nationalism I outlined earlier, those journalists and activists who draw on that and write about that and kind of whip that frenzy up on social media and everything, they are citing people like Rushdoony. So it's not to say that they're making up a fiction, but they misrepresent it as a mainstream Christian perspective and position. Right? So that's a really significant piece to note, is that the perspective and the quote you just read, Rick, is not representative of the vast majority of Christians in America, but it's being presented as the normative position of Christians in politics by people who are opposed to Christians in politics. And that's something to be mindful of.

The third thing I would say, and this is where I would respond directly to a quote that, is I think there's a conflation going on between what the Christian witness in the public square and politics is, versus the effects of that witness, you might say. So it's like saying, "Because living faithfully as Christians is going to have political consequences or political effects, we should just throw that aside and say, 'Well, if it's going to have political consequences and effects, we may as well just control the politics.'" Right?

So I'm not really making a very clear point here, I don't think. But what I'm trying to say is that, yes, living faithfully as Christians in society is going to have political consequences, because we're living in communities, we're living in societies. And I would hope that, and I think the data backs this up, is that when Christians live faithfully and uprightly as citizens in a land, they are a blessing in those political communities. That's the political effect of them. Does that necessarily mean then that more is better? We should just control everything? That's more debatable, because at the same time, we also have a history of Christianity where when Christianity has been conflated with political power or has been married too closely to political power, it creates problems. This is kind of what got the Reformation going. Right? So there's those kinds of things we have to work through, and so I think we need to be mindful of that.

Rick Langer: Yeah. One thing I would just jump on board with that is this whole vision of the weapons of our warfare Paul identifies as spiritual weapons. And it's interesting to listen to the list of weapons that are used there. Our courts, our bureaucracy, our institutions, our government, these are very temporal sorts of tools that are the vision of how you'll get there. And I do think that there's, as you mentioned, you pick up books like by Rodney Stark about The Rise of Christianity, Tom Holland's Dominion. There's a lot of these books that have been written that talk about the amazing influence of Christianity, but usually that's been most effective exactly when we haven't had the control.

And I worry that we forget about... You may know this better than I, Tim, but one of our things that our Founding Fathers almost universally agreed upon was the fallenness of human beings. Even ones who had rather shaky orthodoxy, all agreed that we're sinful, we have these problems. So they were all over checks and balances, and they weren't running on this idea that said, "Man, if we just gave it to the Christians, they'd use it really well." I think they were pretty sympathetic to arguments like power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there's no reason to say just because a person's a Christian, there won't be any problem from their fallenness if they're given power.

Tim Milosch: Correct. Yeah. The only thing I would add to that would just be to comment is I think I would caution Christians who are kind of wrestling through political engagement and how to think about their faith in terms of politics is I think there is a tendency to say, "Hey, the church grows." There's things like, I would probably refer to it as the persecution fallacy. "The church grows when it's persecuted or the church does its best when it's not in positions of political power, etc." And that becomes an excuse to kind of withdraw, to just throw up your hands and say, "Well, it doesn't really matter. The church does better when, I don't know, it's underground" or something like that. I don't think that's how Christians who've had to live through those circumstances would describe that. I really don't. I think-

Tim Muehlhoff: The good old days. Yeah.

Tim Milosch: Yeah. I think that is incredibly insensitive and just a very cheap shot, or it's oversimplified, let's just put it that way. It's oversimplified thinking, and I think it's better to recognize that. Because here's the thing is I think also Christians who might be tempted to think that way, read the New Testament, read the letters of Paul, and they're like, "Well, just look at the early church. There's nobody in positions of power and influence." It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Paul cites that the gospel is going around in the Praetorian guard and people of Caesar's household. There's numerous local political leaders who are Christians in the early New Testament. So we don't need to go off, even as we recognize that the salutary effects of Christians in politics are secondary to the gospel work that Christians are doing. We don't want to overcorrect and swing to the other extreme and say, "Then we shouldn't care about that. It's just going to come with all the other things. It's something that it'll just take care of itself." No, and no. There's the need to actually be engaged.

Tim Muehlhoff: Tim, as I'm listening to you, it kind of reminded me when I was at UN UNC Chapel Hill as a grad student, and students would start to pick up a little bit on my religious convictions. And a student would say in front of everybody, raise their hand, "Hey, are you a Christian?" And I would say to in front of the class, "I don't know, it depends. What do you mean by Christian?"

Tim Milosch: You almost have to say that.

Tim Muehlhoff: Yeah, you almost have to say that. And they would come up with the wildest things, and I would literally, "It means you can't do these things. You must do these things." And I was like, "Okay, if that's what you mean by Christian, then I'm not a Christian. If that's what you mean." So I think when it comes to Christian nationalism, I remember what this one comm theorist said, "All words are riddles that have to be unpacked," so especially this word.

Tim Milosch: Very much so.

Tim Muehlhoff: Like when a person says, "Wait. Are you subscribing to Christian nationalism?" I'd be like, "Okay, let's define the term." Because he might give the boogeyman version, and I would say, "No." The other version you mentioned about religious freedom, I'd say, "Well, yes, certain parts of that absolutely." So I think this has been really helpful to say, we probably need to figure out what our family members believe about this, what news sources are informing their opinion, to do some background research to find out how they're defining that word.

Tim Milosch: Yeah. I think that's completely valid. That's a good idea. And I think it's safe at this moment to say that the vast majority of people understand Christian nationalism in the boogeyman version, because that's the one that has the most playtime, the most airtime, and so they're very unsupportive of it. And so, to someone who might have a little more nuanced perspective of that and say, "Well, religious liberty," and you say, "Yeah, you could count me as a Christian national." At that point, I would probably add the caveat of, "But I wouldn't call myself that because of this."

Rick Langer: Right. Right.

Tim Milosch: Even if there was a positive connotation with it, it's so small it's hardly worth accepting the label at that point.

Rick Langer: So this has been a great conversation, Tim, and I think there's a lot of things actually left to unpack about that. But we probably can't do this all in one podcast, so how about if we have you back on to pick up some more of these kinds of themes and dive into this a little bit deeper? Because I don't think this issue's going away.

Tim Milosch: Oh, no. It's not.

Rick Langer: So it'd be great to get all of our readers up to speed on what all is involved in that.

Tim Milosch: Awesome. That'd be great.

Rick Langer: So do you have anything to add there, Tim?

Tim Muehlhoff: No. I was just going to say, man, thank you for listening. That phrase is used, but when you listen to the political debate between the two candidates, boy, it was used a lot and negatively. And you could even see President Trump react to that by wanting to distance himself pretty quickly from it. So boy, words matter. Life and death is in the power of the tongue, and the way we frame issues scares people, especially in today's cancel culture. Well, listen, let's continue this conversation sometime in the future, Tim. We'd love to have you back, especially since you're a colleague. You're right here.

Tim Milosch: Absolutely.

Tim Muehlhoff: We'd love to have you back. Hey, you've been listening to The Winsome Conviction Podcast. Thank you so much for doing that. Please recommend this to your friends. Give us a like. You can get our quarterly newsletter if you go to winsomeconviction.com, just sign up for the quarterly newsletter. And leave us a comment. We'd love to hear what you're thinking. But thank you so much for joining us. Rick, anything you would add from Colorado?

Rick Langer: No, but I think you should cheer for the Buffalos just to kind of balance out your rather polarized football orientation. That's all I have to say to that.

Tim Muehlhoff: Do you cringe every time a field goal is attempted? Oh, I'm sorry. That's probably below the belt. Okay. Hey, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us. We really do not take you for granted listening and supporting our podcast. Thank you.