64. MAGA Pastors have the WORST arguments for Christian Nationalism

Summary

The Tim & April Show Episode 64 Summary:

"MAGA Pastors Have the WORST Arguments for Christian Nationalism"

Date: November 18, 2025
Hosts: Tim Whitaker & April A Joy (The New Evangelicals)

---

Episode Overview

In this energetic and critique-driven episode, Tim and April engage with a recent panel discussion featuring four MAGA-aligned megachurch pastors—Josh Howerton, Russell Johnson, Ryan Visconti, and Josh McPherson. The pastors gather to defend Christian nationalism, which Tim and April purposefully unravel, exposing faulty reasoning, historical revisionism, and manipulative rhetoric. The hosts respond in real-time, bringing in their own knowledge, research, and lived experience at the intersection of faith, justice, and inclusive politics.

---

Main Themes

• Defining Christian Nationalism
  The episode challenges both the pastors’ and the wider evangelical movement’s attempt to sanitize or blur what Christian nationalism actually is, calling attention to how the term is coopted, diluted, and weaponized.

• Faith, Power, and Public Policy
  A deep dive into how evangelical leaders merge American exceptionalism with a narrow, often exclusionary version of Christianity, using scripture and revisionist history to justify political dominance.

• Harm of MAGA Christianity
  The hosts highlight the real-world consequences for marginalized groups when nationalist faith is legislated—pointing out its selective morality and systemic harm.

• History, Hypocrisy, and Biblical Literalism
  Examination of white evangelicalism’s self-flattering reading of history, selective use of scripture, and hand-waving away of their complicity in injustice.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. Framing the Reaction (03:12–06:53)

• Meet the Pastors Under Review:
  The pastors’ denominations and backgrounds—often more charismatic/independent than their mainline labels suggest—place them at the center of the Christian nationalist movement. Notably, Howerton’s prior viral misogynistic comments are referenced for context (06:10–06:53).

II. False Definitions & Bad Faith Arguments (08:01–15:25)

• Misrepresentation of Christian Nationalism’s Critics:
  The pastors accuse others of seeing Christian nationalism as “idol worship” but straw-man the critique—ignoring systemic critiques and focusing only on literal bowing to statues.
• April’s Clarity:
  "It was never portrayed to me... that an idol is something you wake up in the morning and bow down to. So, the idea that they haven't made Trump or America an idol because they don't bow down to worship it is just so disingenuous and honestly, stupid." [14:18]
• Contradictory Defensiveness:
  Tim and April note the hypocrisy, referencing the real golden Trump statue at CPAC and megachurch worship that platformed Trump as God’s anointed (15:24).

III. Evangelical Historical Revisionism (17:26–23:46)

• Selective Memory:
  Russell Johnson frames Christianity as ending slavery and racism in America—ignoring white Christian support for slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation.
• Tim’s Sharp Retort:
  "It was not the white Christians who were fighting to end slavery. We had a literal civil war. The Southern Baptist Convention, the denomination that Josh Howerton is apparently part of, split over the right to own other people." [17:48]
• April’s Take on Whitewashing:
  “The rewriting of history... literally keeps people inside where you think Christians have only ever done good and have only ever been on the right side of history.” [18:22]
• Citing Real Opposition:
  Tim: “MLK fought white evangelicals tooth and nail. And even today, Charlie Kirk did a whole segment saying we shouldn't celebrate [him] anymore.” [23:04]

IV. The Real Tenets of Christian Nationalism (27:17–29:42)

• The Five-Point Test:
  Tim lays out the actual sociological markers of Christian nationalism, including support for America as a declared Christian nation, laws based in Christian values, “dominion” theology, and conflation of Christianity with “true Americanness” (27:17).
• April Observes:
  The version of “Christianity” the pastors mean is a narrow U.S. evangelicalism, focused on culture wars, not Jesus' teachings of inclusion and compassion.

V. The Patriotism/Nationalism Sleight of Hand (30:06–33:29)

• Equating Patriotism and Christian Nationalism:
  The pastors conflate love of country with nationalism to deflect critiques.
  • April: “They often conflate patriotism as nationalism... I also love my nation... and so I want it to be better for all people.”

VI. Dangerous Selective Morality (38:55–40:04)

• Focusing on Culture Wars, Ignoring Justice:
  Issues prioritized are abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigration, never economic justice, healthcare, or systemic poverty.
  • “Their life does not, is not affected at all by trans people having healthcare access. That's what we're talking about here.” [45:11]

VII. Exclusion, Superiority, and “Biblical Morality” (49:38–55:54)

• Limited Morality:
  Christian nationalism is presented as the only route to a “good” society, but April exposes the closed circle of who benefits (“heaven on earth for whom?”)—which is white, straight, conservative Christians.
• Tim’s Constitution Rebuttal:
  The Constitution is a secular document protecting all, not just Christians. “If the founders were as militant as these four men make it out to be, it would obviously be all over our Constitution.” [59:44]

VIII. Hypocrisy on Morals & Power (62:07–66:44)

• Ignoring Trump’s Contradictions:
  April: “Who have they made their freaking champion right now? A serial adulterer named Donald Trump... They are hypocrites. So even in their own moral framework, they don't follow it.” [62:57]
• Co-opting Civil Religion:
  Tim outlines how images like Moses/statues in Congress are late additions (1950s) during a surge of propagandistic “Judeo-Christian” rhetoric.

IX. Harm, Empathy, and Selective Justice (71:08–73:14)

• Empathy Is Demonized:
  April describes how empathy is seen as a threat because it undermines punitive, dogmatic policies: “Empathy is a dogma killer. And that's why they go hard against it.” [72:21]
• Real-World Pain:
  Tim and April show that policies—on abortion, immigration, healthcare—imposed by Christian nationalists cause active harm, particularly for marginalized groups.

X. Theonomy and Dominionism: How Literal? (81:32–85:08)

• Hosts Note: The difference between “theonomy” (Old Testament law as U.S. law) and the pastors’ version is semantic—they both want Christian power in government, just disagree on the details.
  • “If you open the door for them, you open the door for the theonomist. You open the door for the more extremists.” [85:39]

XI. Nationalism, Globalism, and False Choices (104:28–106:05)

• Binary Fallacies:
  Only three choices are presented: tribalism, nationalism, or globalism.
  April: “Those are not the only options. It's so stupid.” [106:10]

XII. American Exceptionalism & Systemic Problems (112:32–120:21)

• American Success: A Myth:
  Tim debunks notions of American superiority using health, welfare, and incarceration data (114:32).
  • “We have some of the highest gun mortality rates... our health care results are terrible... This is why I hate nationalism, because it's so ignorant.”
• On Immigration:
  April corrects false claims about “open borders” or dangerous immigrants, showing most are nonviolent and contribute to society.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• April on Idolatry:
  "The idea that they haven't made Trump or America an idol because they don't bow down to worship it is just so disingenuous and honestly, stupid." [14:18]
• Tim on History:
  “It was not the white Christians who were fighting to end slavery. The SBC... split over the right to own other people.” [17:48]
• April on Whitewashing:
  “The rewriting of history... is how you're able to believe this American exceptionalism idea that's tied in with Christianity.” [18:22]
• April on Christian Nationalism's Harm:
  “It is not about their morality... They want a person that will give them power so they can legislate it and take control to bring their quote, unquote 'heaven on earth' that only benefits them.” [64:13]
• Tim on the Constitution:
  "The Constitution is an intentionally secular document to protect the rights of all of its citizens, even ones who want to be free from the influence of the church." [59:44]
• April on Empathy:
  “Empathy is a dogma killer... because if you have an ounce of empathy for someone who is different than you, which I think we all should [as followers of Christ]... then you know these men are full of shit.” [72:21]
• Tim on Selective Outrage:
  "It's wild to see what they think is no big deal and what they think is a huge mountain... if trans people get gender affirming care and get accepted into society." [79:32]
• Tim on False Choices:
  “What a freaking false choice.” [106:05]
• April on Systemic Problems:
  “The vast majority of people who are undocumented in this country are not violent at all. In fact, a lot of them have been here for decades and are working and... helping our economy. Those people should have a path to citizenship.” [117:43]

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [06:53] – Panel context, prior controversies, and intro to pastors
• [14:18] – April responds to idolatry strawman
• [17:48]-[18:22] – White evangelical history and selective memory
• [27:17] – Tim explains sociological test for Christian nationalism
• [45:11] – Narrow policy focus: "Their life does not, is not affected at all by trans people having healthcare access..."
• [64:13] – April on how power, not morality, is the endgame
• [71:08]-[73:14] – Empathy, dogma, and supporting marginalized people
• [104:28] – Nationalism as “third way;” globalism vs. tribalism fallacy
• [114:32] – Data-driven critique of American healthcare and outcomes
• [117:43] – Immigration realities and disinformation

---

Tone & Language

• Direct, irreverent, and unsparing in challenging hypocrisy and misinformation
• Honest and passionate, at times angry, especially as the hosts highlight injustices or gaslighting
• Educational and accessible even for non-specialists; explainers break down history and law
• Laced with humor and sarcasm, especially when mocking poor arguments or "own goals"

---

Conclusion

This episode offers a thorough, no-holds-barred takedown of Christian nationalist rhetoric as perpetuated by MAGA pastors. Tim and April meticulously identify manipulative arguments, historical distortions, and the tangible harms created by merging faith with right-wing politics. They provide listeners not just with critique, but facts, context, and an alternative Christian vision rooted in justice, empathy, and inclusion—making this a standout resource for anyone confronting Christian nationalism in faith or public life.

Transcript

[April A Joy]

You're listening to a new Evangelicals production, Home to the Rachel Maddow Show, Morning Joe, the Briefing with Jen Psaki and more. Voices you know and trust. Ms. Now is your source for news, opinion and the world. Our name is new, but you'll find the same commitment to justice, progress and the truth that you've relied on for decades. We'll continue to cover the day's news, ask the tough questions, and explain how it impacts you. Ms. Now. Same mission, new name. Learn more at Ms. Now.

[Tim Whitaker]

Hello friends.

[April A Joy]

Guess who? That's right.

[Tim Whitaker]

It is I, the replacer. Once again, I've been called on so you can play the new Call of Duty Black Ops 7 with three expansive modes, 18 multiplayer maps, and the tastiest zombie gameplay you've ever freaking seen.

[April A Joy]

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 available now. Rated M for mature. This episode is brought to you by Netflix from the creator of Homeland. Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys star in the new Netflix series the Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences. The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt. You will not want to miss this. The Beast in Me is now playing only on Netflix. Shopping is hard. I can never find anything in my size.

[Tim Whitaker]

I don't even know my size.

[April A Joy]

I buy my clothes the same place I buy my groceries. There's a better way. Make it easy with Stitch Fix. Just share your size, style, budget and done. Your personal stylist sends pieces picked just for you. That was easy. Stitch Fix Online Personal styling for everyone. Free shipping and returns.

[Tim Whitaker]

No subscription required.

[April A Joy]

Get started today@stitch fix.com hey everyone, Melinda.

[Melinda Hale]

Hale here, the executive director of the New Evangelicals. I just want to take a moment to say thank you for listening to the Tim and April Show. This show and everything that we do at the New Evangelicals exists because of people like you. We can't do any of this without your support. Every conversation you hear, every resource we create, every piece of educational content that helps people rethink faith through the lens of love and justice is all made possible through our community. Now. If you believe in what we're building, a faith that unites instead of divides, I'd love to invite you to become a monthly supporter. Even just $5 a month helps us to continue to bring you shows like this one, expand our educational tools and create spaces for honest, hope filled conversations. You can join us by going to thenewevangelicals.com support and becoming a monthly donor thanks for being a part of this movement and for building a better path forward. Together.

[April A Joy]

The Tim and April show, where we unravel faith, politics and culture.

[Tim Whitaker]

All right, friends, welcome into the show. I'm Tim Whitaker.

[April A Joy]

And I am April A Joy. Don't mind me. I don't have heat in my house right now, so it's cold. I have a little space heater going, but it's like 20 degrees outside. There's literally snow on the ground.

[Tim Whitaker]

You're really roughing it over there. Your little house on the prairie.

[April A Joy]

But you know what? I will just say I'm feeling extra spicy today because I feel like, I guess maybe that's my natural instinct to be spicy on the inside to try to warm me up on the outside.

[Tim Whitaker]

Fair, fair.

[April A Joy]

But I know we're going to be reacting to some oh, my God, Christian nationalist pastors today, and I just. I don't have a lot of patience for it. So just fair warning, you're going to get a different, spicier April today.

[Tim Whitaker]

We. Yeah, there's no banter today, friends, because this is a conversation we're going to be responding to. I doubt, actually not doubt. I know we're not gonna be able to make it all the way through because this is a two plus hour long conversation that would make this like.

[April A Joy]

A Lord of the Ring movie.

[Tim Whitaker]

A hundred percent more than that. It'd be the extended edition, you know, so. So we'll. We'll do our best to get as far as we can through this, but if you've watched any of my response content on the New Evangelicals YouTube channel, I pause a lot. And now there are two of us. But the reason we're gonna be pausing so much is because there's so much to unpack in every single sentence that these say. Now, to be fair, April and I have not watched this. We're really going in mostly blind. I watched like the first minute. I was like.

[April A Joy]

And I said, okay, what is the title of this? The episode that they put out?

[Tim Whitaker]

I don't even know. Four mega church Pastors discuss Christian Nationalism Live Free with Josh Howerton. So, so here are the. Here are the four men that we're talking about. From, From. On the top left is Josh Howerton. He's a megachurch pastor. On the right is Russell Johnson, pastor out of somewhere in Washington State. Bottom left is Ryan Visconti, mega church pastor of Mercy Culture. And on the bottom right is Josh McFerson, another pastor out of. You know, it's one of these. Look, all four of these Dudes are Pentecostal, and they're definitely, I would say, deeply embedded in, like, the modern.

[April A Joy]

I thought Josh Howerton was Baptist for some reason.

[Tim Whitaker]

He's moving more Pentecostal, in my opinion.

[April A Joy]

Oh, let's see. I don't know what. What denomination are there churches?

[Tim Whitaker]

They're all. Not, like, they're all part of the independent charismatic world. You know, like, they broke off. I think some of them broke off from the Assemblies of God at some point. My point is, while April's researching that, is that these four men, I would argue, are pretty deeply entrenched in, like, the Christian nationalist system that a lot of that you and I critique a lot. April and I wanted to go through this video and just see what they had to say because they're discussing Christian nationalism. I'll be. I'll be really interested to hear how. How they break it down, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I'm pumped, I think.

[April A Joy]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's weird because I really thought he was Baptist. Hold on. I'm trying to figure out. I don't know how you find this out. Not that this matters, but also Josh Howerton's from the Dallas area. Dallas, Texas, which is where I'm from originally. And I've. I feel like I've seen all four of these men in various points end up on right wing watch, or like they've gone viral for terrible reasons before. Like, all. All of them in there, Josh Howerton especially, he. Do you remember it was like a year or two ago, he went like ultra viral because he said that the wedding day is for the wife, but the wedding night is for the man. And it was just like, being really gross anyway. Misogynistic.

[Tim Whitaker]

Look, the. And they're never gonna really apologize for anything. These. I have found that men like this, broadly speaking, feel like they can never back down from the assault on their character or on their, you know, perceived, you know, beliefs. Christian. Christian beliefs. And so they're never gonna admit, yeah, that was a mistake. They might do it privately, but they're never gonna publicly say, you know, guys, I rethought what I said about the wedding night being for the man. That was a bad take.

[April A Joy]

Yeah. So I think according. I found a thing that said Lake Point is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. Regardless, doesn't matter. Yeah, I think. I think they. I don't see that on their website. So they probably are a little more charismatic, like you said. Yeah, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. In the case of this sake of this. They're all Christian nationalist pastors. So our title should be Two Ex Christian Nationalists Respond to Four Mega Church Pastors Discuss Christian Nationalism.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, something like that.

[April A Joy]

I don't know.

[Tim Whitaker]

We'll figure it out.

[April A Joy]

All right. We probably just need to die.

[Tim Whitaker]

Here we go. Buckle up, friends. Here we go.

[Josh Howerton]

Thanks. For minutes, we're going to talk about what Christian nationalism is and is not. Is it something that Christians should be. And then as you guys have probably scene like, dude, once you start talking about this stuff, there's like seven ways that not just people, but pastors, like, just sometimes pretty heavy resistance. And we want to talk about all those things and respond to a couple, couple clips that have gone kind of viral lately. So, ladies and gentlemen, we're ready. What do we think?

[Ryan Visconti]

Let's do it.

[Josh Howerton]

Any opening comments here?

[Josh McPherson]

Let's go full S. All right. I'm working on finding a picture here. So you keep talking. I'm distracted now.

[Josh Howerton]

Stop, dude. Okay, let's. Let's begin right here because. So the question is, let's start here. I did a little debate team in high school, and one of the primary things is whoever controls the terms wins the debate. So. But we need to define what we're talking about when we say Christian nationalism first. A lot of misconceptions on this. So we need to first say what we're not saying. So we're going to toss up a clip here. Get ready for that. That, that with the Perry's, the Gibbony clip. And don't, don't toss up yet. And by the way, I just want to preface this. This is not a dunk on the clip because actually, what I want to point out is we agree with the stuff that you're going to hear from. This guy's name is Justin Gibney. We've interacted a little bit on X and had, like, good. I've had good interactions with Justin.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, he's. He's like a modern.

[Josh Howerton]

You're going to hear. Hear some definitions of Christian nationalism that we would, you know, probably. I'm going to let these guys respond. We kind of go like, oh, that's not. We're saying now. This is a quick clip from a podcast called with the Perrys. Okay, let's go ahead and roll that and then we'll talk about what we'll respond to here real quick. I'll tell you when to cut it.

[Tim Whitaker]

I think a lot of Christians can understand why some Christians have a problem with liberal point of view, but at the same time, they might not have a Ability to understand why. Christian nationalism is also, in some ways, one of the biggest problems with Christian nationalism is it binds Christianity with America as if they're hand in hand. If America is really God's promised land, then I can't really accept the negative things that America has done. So these, these are the people that will not accept negative stuff about American history. They'll get mad at objective facts about slavery, Jim Crow and all that because their idol can't live in the same location as the truth. Wow. And their idol can't live, so they have to throw out. If you wonder why somebody don't like to talk about history, it just denies it because their idol can't live there. Wow. And then once you make this God's country, when we go to war, we're in the right. So you can justify anything America does because we have that connection. And, you know, he brought us here, and now we're just doing kind of his work.

[Josh Howerton]

All right, you can cut it right.

[Tim Whitaker]

There, honestly, really quick. I mean, I just want to say that, that, that is not a bad, in my opinion, not a bad summarization summary of, of Christian nationalism. I mean, the war in Iraq was framed as like a war against good and evil, against Christianity versus radical Islam. Like, we've, we've done this before in America. This is not an un, this is not a foreign war.

[April A Joy]

Was against godless communism.

[Tim Whitaker]

So, yeah, yeah. So. So would you agree, April, then this is not, not a bad working, you know, working starting point.

[April A Joy]

Yeah. American exceptionalism is literally one of the tenets of Christian nationalism. I'm so curious what they're going to shake their hands.

[Tim Whitaker]

They're like, no.

[April A Joy]

Right. And I wrote the book on this.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, exactly.

[April A Joy]

Or a book on it. Like, I, I, oh, here we go. I'm about, I'm about to go. All right, what are they going to say?

[Josh Howerton]

Let's go ahead and start. Agree. Disagree. Additional comments first off, it's like, where.

[Ryan Visconti]

Did he get this understanding of Christian nationalism? Is what I, you know, think as a viewer. Like, I don't know about you guys, but I, I misplaced my idols. Like, I don't have a little idol set up with an American flag and a picture of Donald Trump that I bowed down before and, and burn incense before. And this idea that, you know, if you love your country, you can't admit or acknowledge anything your country's ever done wrong. I don't know anybody who struggles with that problem in real life. So, I mean, I, I think America was established by God's providence. And we'll probably talk more about that, but we don't. We don't claim it to be the promised land. And we don't conflate America with heaven, where everything will be perfect and sinless.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, we. We need to pause because that's not what he said. I'm not sure if Ryan. That was Ryan Visconti. That's not the original claim. No, he did not say that Christian nationalists think that America is. Is like heaven on earth or anything like that. What he did say was that essentially they conflate America and Christianity, which, April, I must say I did do. I did see this clip before. There's actually a clip right here from Ryan Visconti. He actually did an entire sermon on this. Is America a Christian nation? And in the. In the description for YouTube, it says, Some people will tell you, America is not a Christian nation. Look at how sinful it is. They will say the founding Fathers weren't Christian and most were deist. But is all that. Is that all true? The reality is that America wouldn't exist if Christians had stayed out of politics. In fact, everything that makes America great today is us living in the blessing of prosperity, birth, immorality from God.

[April A Joy]

Okay, so this, what they're doing is actually a textbook example of what a lot of evangelicals do to distance themselves from Christian nationalism, because generally speaking, they. They would associate a negative connotation with that, but they are actually Christian nationalists. Like what? Like, it's like saying. It would be like saying, you know what? I am not lactose intolerant, but dairy really messes up my system. Do you know what I mean? Like, yes, they're distancing themselves while literally saying what that guy's saying, right? Also, can I just say for a second, it frustrates me to no end, honestly. I'm gonna say it pisses me off. It pisses me off.

[Tim Whitaker]

Spicy April. Spicy April.

[April A Joy]

Like, growing up, I like, I would go into children's church and youth group or. Or even just services, right? They're like anything that you spend more time, you know, thinking about, talking about, putting more energy towards more than, like, your personal relationship with God and, like, living out the red letters. That is an idol. I've literally been told, like, hey, if you listen to secular music more than you listen to Christian music, that's an idol. If you think more about your boyfriend or your girlfriend more than you think about Jesus, that's an idol. It was never portrayed to me in the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of church services that I'VE lived through. Never once were they saying an idol is something that you wake up in the morning and you bow down to.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right. That's right.

[April A Joy]

So, like, the idea that they haven't made Trump or America an idol because they don't bow down to worship, it is just so disingenuous and honestly, stupid.

[Tim Whitaker]

But April. April.

[April A Joy]

Stupid.

[Tim Whitaker]

April. The thing is, though, is that while they're correct that they didn't. I'm grabbing the screen up real quick, so I got to pull this in real time. While it's true that, you know, they didn't, you know, or that Ryan doesn't bow down to a golden idol, we can't forget that. You know, in CPAC, I think 20, 23, they brought in a golden statue of Trump. Like, I'm not saying Ryan did this, but the, the person that Ryan endorses and the person that, that, that these men. And I've covered this on The New Evangelicals YouTube. I responded to a previous video from the, from, from, from three of these guys about Trump and how great Trump is. They literally baptized this man in a golden statue. And Ryan's like, we're not bowed down to it. Like, are you? Yes, you are. Like, everything this president does, you co. Sign as being, like, from God himself.

[April A Joy]

Right. And I don't, I mean, maybe they did. I don't recall them condemning that gold statue. I don't recall them in most evangelicals condemning when Donald Trump posted himself as a golden statue in his little Mar a Lago Gaza AI video. I never. Do you remember, too, at the inauguration ball, there was this lady who painted an image, an image of Donald Trump while worship music was playing.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes, I, I.

[April A Joy]

And like, that is a graven image. What that is talked about in Exodus as the, as the idol. Like, it's just.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, I know we're already long, but I got to share this story because it's, it's going to hammer home the point from Ryan. Then we'll keep. Brian Visconti is the guy in the bottom left. Okay. His church, I think it's called Generation Church. This is a true story. What I'm gonna tell you, April, is true. Two years ago, I was at Turning Point, USA's America Fest. I go every single year. And this was right before. This was the year before the election. So, you know, people like Nikki Haley and all other kinds of candidates were still in the mix. Steve Bannon gets on stage in the main room, says that Nikki Haley is as ambitious as Lucifer. Okay? The crowd cheers and Then he says, she also wants to run, maybe as vice president. Someone from the crowd yells, tucker, as in Tucker Carlson. But in the room, because it was so big. Steve Bannon, and I was in the room, too, and myself, I thought that this person yelled F her, like F Nikki Haley. The crowd starts chanting this. Steve Bannon's cheering them on, thinking that they're chanting F her. He even says, this crowd's not a PG crowd. Right? He does that. The next, very next thing was a worship band coming out to sing songs to Jesus. It was Ryan's worship team from his church. And then Ryan got up and preached a sermon. And I'm like, ryan, how do you not see this? Like, how do you not see this? You. It's wild. It's wild. All right, you want to keep going? We're six minutes in.

[April A Joy]

Yeah, let's do this. Yeah.

[Russell Johnson]

I think it's funny that when this dude is talking about Christian nationalism, he brings up things like slavery and the Jim Crow laws. It was the Christian influence on the nation that ended slavery. It was the Christian influence of a minister named Dr. Martin Luther King who advocated for civil rights laws, who.

[Tim Whitaker]

Charlie Kirk said, we shouldn't be celebrating, but. You gotta be kidding me. Okay, Russell, let me put it this way. It was not the white Christians who were fighting to end slavery. Okay? It was not. We had a literal civil war. The sbc, the denomination that Josh Howerton's apparently a part of, split. Split over the right to own other people. So I'm just saying, y', all, you're in the wrong stream of Christian thinking if you think that your particular stream was responsible for ending slavery.

[April A Joy]

But can I just say, this is. This is how people get roped into Christian nationalism while thinking it's true Christianity. Because the rewriting of history and the whitewashing of history literally keeps people inside where you think that Christians have only ever done good and have only ever been on the right side of history. That's how you're able to believe this American exceptionalism idea that's tied in with Christianity. Because you're like, yeah, no, we are the ones that, yeah, maybe some indigenous people died, which was unfortunate, but we. This land that we gave them when we saved their souls. And, yeah, you know, some bad people wanted to own people, but it was the good Christians who came in and abolished slavery. And. And same thing with, like, even the 1930s in Germany. It was, like, good Christians in America and Europe that fought big, bad Nazis. But we were never taught that the majority of the German church Supported Hitler. We were never taught that, like the. The. We basically committed genocide against the indigenous people. And we weren't taught that it was good old Christian boys in the south that used the Bible to justify owning people.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right.

[April A Joy]

To justify owning black people, to justify dehumanizing our black neighbors.

[Tim Whitaker]

By the way, in context of what Justin said in that original video, he's talking about how Christian nationalism can't face the reality of those things. And then here's Russell not facing the reality. And also, the administration that these four men love is literally trying to erase history from textbooks. We are. We're rebuilding Confederate monuments, and we're taking away, like, the. Like the fact that there were black pilots who fought, you know, in some of our early wars. Those stories are going away. DEI is, you know, apparently giving black people an unfair advantage. But hey, you know, when it comes to. When it comes to the things that we care about, like the Confederacy, apparently, thank God Pete Hegseth is rebuilding those monuments. Like, I don't understand. I mean, white Southern evangelicals historically were the biggest proponents in favor of segregation, period.

[April A Joy]

I do. I just want to point out this is a big problem of Christian nationalism, really. Evangelicalism in general, like fundamentalism, is that it's just very black and white. There's no room for nuance. So he's saying that it was crude, good Christians that did all the good things. Right. And he is right that there are. There were a lot of Christians that use the Bible to, you know, be abolitionists. Right. They used it to. For freedom. And I think that's kind of. Your nice point, is that historically there have been Christians on the right side of history. There have been Christians on the wrong side of history, and both sides have used the Bible.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly.

[April A Joy]

To justify their sides. Right. Which is part of the reason you and I are doing our work. Right. Because we think the biggest way, or I won't speak for you, but I think one of the best ways to fight Christian nationalism is to use the Bible, because there are. There's. There's verses to oppress and there's verses to liberate, and you can choose which ones you want to use. But, yeah, it's just like we can admit that Christians have been on the right side of history, like he's saying, but also it's disingenuous to completely discount a vast majority of times, a lot of times that Christians have been on the wrong side of history.

[Tim Whitaker]

And the tradition that these guys are swimming in, in many ways, was on the wrong side of this now they might, they might point out that in the Pentecostal tradition there actually were kind of integrationists, which is true. I think Billy Sunday is one of them there, There were others for sure. But as, as far as like the conservative fundamentalism that, that many of them draw from, that, that, that where they now justify why trans people are, you know, demonic or why queer people need to, need to go back in the closet or we can't, you know, we have to overturn Obergefell, things like that. It's the same waters that segregationists were swimming in to use the Bible to justify why black people needed to stay in their own lane, stay separate from us white people. Because that was the created order. They just can't see it. They just can't see it.

[April A Joy]

Yeah. So I don't know how we're going to get through this, but we'll just.

[Russell Johnson]

Through his death led a revolution and a reformation of the American legislative and legal framework, led it in a more equitable direction. And so it's like right now, hates mlj. It's such like a misguided, false attempt at interjecting a modicum of like, intelligence into the debate that it completely misses the point. And in doing so, he's bringing up the evidence for exactly why we need Christian influence in civic government. You know, the abolitionist movement was expressly Christian.

[Tim Whitaker]

The civil rights movement was expressly Christian against white Christians.

[Melinda Hale]

Russell.

[Tim Whitaker]

It wasn't against atheism or Islam. It was against a different form of Christianity. Mlk, MLK fought white evangelicals tooth and nail. And even today, Charlie Kirk did a whole segment on him a year and a half ago saying we shouldn't celebrate him anymore. Trying to, trying to diminish his legacy. Like, are you kidding me? It's wild.

[April A Joy]

Yeah. If you go back and look at the photos of Ruby Bridges going to school for the first day, if you look in the protesters in the back, you'll see lots of Christian sides protesting her being integrated into a white school.

[Tim Whitaker]

Bob Jones, founder of Bob Jones University, wrote a whole sermon on why God mandates segregation. And if you don't believe that, you're not a Bible believing Christian, you're a liberal. That's the thing is, like, they're out. They can't see how today they're on the wrong side of the conversation. They are not participating in MLK's Christianity. They're not participating in his democratic socialist Christianity that fought for equitable wages and for justice for all. They're fighting for an America that looks just like them. That Denigrates the marginalized and the oppressed. Right. The immigrant neighbor, their queer neighbor, their quote unquote, dei higher neighbor. Right. These are the people that in their world, they. They need to be focusing on and attacking all the time. It's the same tradition that brought us lynchings and Jim Crow. They just don't see it.

[Russell Johnson]

And so it's kind of like Christian nationalism for me, but not for you.

[Josh Howerton]

Yeah, I'll just say. So I may be a little more. Here's what I'd say. I just agree with everything you said. If that's what somebody's talking about when they say Christian nationalism, agree. So what we're not saying is, first of all, he said people who make Christianity in America go hand in hand. One thing I would say, and I think he would probably say it too, I think, don't we want Christianity in America to go hand in hand? Like that's kind of our thing is as a Christian, we want every.

[Tim Whitaker]

Wait, wait, hold on, hold on. Did he just say three seconds ago? No, I agree with everything he said. But wouldn't he also agree that we want Christianity in America to go hand in hand? Not. Not your version, at a minimum, job. That's what makes you a Christian nationalist. Look, I even have. So I love the data. Okay, so I pulled on my other screen that you can see. Pri. How do they measure Christian nationalism in their studies? They have respondents respond to five statements. And depending on how strongly they agree or disagree, that puts them on a scale of Christian nationalists. Either adherence, that's like your Charlie Kirks of the world, your sympathizers, that's like your. I agree with some of it. Your skeptics, I'm pretty skeptical of these five statements. And then you're flat out rejectors. Okay, here are the five statements. And don't forget we need to be clear. The word Christian here or Christian nation is doing a lot of heavy lifting. They do not mean black liberation Christianity, progressive Christianity, social justice Christianity. They mean white evangelical conservative fundamentalism. That's what they mean. Okay, so here are the five statements. The US Government should declare America a Christian nation. US Laws should be based on Christian values. And if the US Moves away from our Christian foundations, we will not have a country anymore. Being Christian is an important part of being truly American. God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society. These four men, at a minimum, I would say, would probably at least mostly agree, if not strongly agree with those five statements. That's how we think about Christian nationalism. And to be clear to Russell's point. I disagree with those five statements. We should not declare America a Christian nation. US Laws should not be inherently based on Christian values. We could certainly work with our other neighbors on that, but they shouldn't be explicitly that way. If the US Moves away from our Christian foundation, we won't have a country anymore. I don't think we were founded as a Christian nation, so I would disagree with that. Being Christian is an important part of being truly American. That's not true at all. And God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society. I disagree with that. So that's the difference, people. Why we're not Christian nationalists, even though we're Christians.

[April A Joy]

Right. But also what they would consider Christian is a very small percentage of the global church. Like, evangelicalism is kind of like. Just like the stepchild of Christianity. Like, it's newer. It's not. It's not. It doesn't have a long history. It's not rooted. Right. It's not rooted. It's. It's very fundamentalist. It's very black and white. And it's. It's mostly rooted in culture war. Because you're not gonna. When these people are promoting what they would say are Christian values, they're talking about culture issues, they're talking about abortion, they're talking about marriage equality, gay marriage, they're talking about trans people. That's pretty much it. They're. And they're talking about strong borders, which I think it's hard to make a biblical case for not welcoming immigrants if you are a follower of Jesus, which I'm not saying we, you know, open borders, whatever, which is what they would say. We are saying. But that is not what we're saying. But. But notice how it's never feeding the hungry. It's never, you know, welcoming the immigrant, it's never taking care of the poor and providing health care. Like, it's never these things that are the Beatitude or the Sermon on the Mount or the teachings of Jesus. It's very much rooted in this cultural identity that does not have a long history in Christianity.

[Tim Whitaker]

Here's a sleight of hand. They do. They will say, no, no, we care about the poor. That's the church's job and it's the government's job to institute these culture war issues in law. Right? So that's what they do. It's really interesting watching them take verses in the Bible that are given to either the Israelites or to the church and say, well, these verses reinforce our culture war of why gay People shouldn't be allowed to marry. So that should be a legal thing that's imposed on all Americans. But the verses that Jesus commands his followers, you know, to take care of the, the, the poor or to heal the sick or to feed the hungry or to welcome the immigrant, those are individual commands to the church, not to American government. So they're very selective and they're very picky and choosy with, like, what parts they think the government should enforce, AKA all the points that benefit them, and then the parts that really keep the status quo. Well, the church, to do that, the church should feed people, not the government. That's the sleight of hand that I think they pull often. That is so, in my opinion, very disingenuous.

[April A Joy]

Right. Because they will say Christian values, assert what they believe are Christian values, but completely dismiss the vat. A vast majority of other Christians that would disagree with their interpretations of certain.

[Tim Whitaker]

Like us, like you and I, we're woke. We're liberal or whatever. So it's a very specific strand of Christianity. It's the basement of the house of Christian thought. To put it another way.

[April A Joy]

Yeah.

[Russell Johnson]

Like, nobody has ever committed adultery because they love their wife too much. So, like, this idea of yada be scared to have patriotic or feelings of affinity towards the nation you're in because that is inevitably going to lead to idolatry is just a red herring. It's a, it's an argument that is built on a false precipice. And the reality is not just our nation, but in the history of nations, it has been objectively true that Christian influence, moral influence, leaning in the direction of righteousness has had a downstream major beneficial effect in the development of a.

[Tim Whitaker]

Nation or the people towards who, if you ask the black community about that in their history of American or version of American history, they're not going to have the same reaction. Because the particular strand of Christianity that gave people the justification to enslave black people did a lot of damage to black people. Right. Like, that's, that's what we're missing here. And the other thing I need to mention is that it's not called Christian patriotism, Russell. It's called Christian nationalism. There's a difference between patriotism and nationalism.

[April A Joy]

They, they often will conflate patriotism as nationalism as a way to like, oh, no, I'm just loving my nation. But that's, that's different. I also love my nation.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right.

[April A Joy]

And so I want it to be better for all people, and I want equality and equity for everybody. Okay, Can I propose something.

[Melinda Hale]

Sure.

[April A Joy]

I have a little notebook here. What if we keep it running longer and we take notes on all the things we want to respond to and then, you know, after a minute or two, we do it because otherwise this is going to take forever. Because I, I'm like, I'm bursting at the seat.

[Tim Whitaker]

I know, but I don't know.

[April A Joy]

I know you are too.

[Tim Whitaker]

Even on my own channel, these responses are like an hour and a half because there's just so much to respond to because they're so loaded.

[April A Joy]

I think, I think this should be a two parter maybe.

[Tim Whitaker]

At least we are. We're nine minutes in.

[April A Joy]

This is the rest of her year of pre recorded episodes.

[Tim Whitaker]

I just think it's really important for people to hear a different response as Christians to these perspectives. Right. And if it takes time to dismantle them, it does. But I'll, I'll try and go longer. I'll do my best, but I don't have a notebook. Maybe I need one. Okay, I'll grab a note. Here we go.

[Russell Johnson]

So to kind of create this strawman definition of what Christian nationalism is and then attack it because, you know, you've got all these like, you know, crazy conservative white people who are building miniature altars to Donald Trump and waving an American flag and that's their highest allegiance.

[Tim Whitaker]

And they're not really allegiant to Christ.

[Russell Johnson]

And they can't admit any of the wrongdoings. Nobody is doing that.

[Tim Whitaker]

Did he not see the insurrection? We had a Christian flag parading around the Senate chamber in the name of the election was stolen from Donald Trump. I don't know.

[April A Joy]

But also most, most scholars on Christian nationalism and former Christian nationalists who wrote a book on it don't define Christian nationalism the way he just defined it. It's much more nuanced. But again, you're dealing with people that don't live in a. And don't have nuance. So they're gonna, they're just gonna. It's all in bad faith. Which is why it's so.

[Tim Whitaker]

It is wild how he, he brought a clip from just Justin Gibney, who's a, who's a moderate person who runs the, and campaign and not an actual scholar who studies this stuff deeply. Like again, they're not even talking about it on, on, on, on the terms that has been studied and has data behind it. They're, they're pulling a random viral video from someone who doesn't even talk about this stuff a whole lot and they're going, oh, that's the definition. Let's dismantle it.

[April A Joy]

Right?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April A Joy]

It's interesting, too. Josh Howerton said the quiet part out loud at the very top where he was like, I was on debate. In order to win a debate, you got to define the terms. The winner defines the terms. So what? They're literally defining Christian nationalism in the way that they can actually defeat it. But that's not what we mean when we say Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is not waking up and bowing down to a Trump statue. I mean, that would be Christian nationalism if you are a Christian who does that. But that's not what we mean when we. When we say that.

[Russell Johnson]

You are criticizing something that only exists within the mindset of, like, MSNBC contributors. It doesn't make sense.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yes.

[Russell Johnson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Visconti]

You know, interesting, interesting little tidbit about the effects of Christianity on the abolition of slavery. I was thinking of the Christmas hymn oh Holy Night, which it sings, change shall he break for the slave is our brother. That song was translated into English in 1855, ten years before the abolition of slavery in America and spread across America in churches, singing this prophetic declaration of freedom for the captive.

[Tim Whitaker]

Why?

[Ryan Visconti]

Because of Christianity, bro.

[Tim Whitaker]

Because of liberative Christianity, bro.

[Melinda Hale]

Hey, everyone, Melinda Hale here, the executive director of New Evangelicals. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. If you're enjoying these conversations, we would love to invite you to get more involved in the TNE community. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay connected, but most importantly, check out TNE Connect, our app and online platform where you can find courses, resources, and a community of people just like you. Whether you're deconstructing, reconstructing, or simply asking the hard questions, you TNE Connect is a space for meaningful conversation, learning, and encouragement rooted in justice and compassion. You can access [e-mail] connect or by downloading the app. And if you believe in the work that we're doing and want to help us keep going, we'd be so grateful for your support. You can head to our website and make a donation. We can't do any of this without you. So thanks again for being on this journey with us.

[Tim Whitaker]

Hi, my name is Angie. I live in Southern New Hampshire, and I am a monthly donor to the New Evangelicals. I decided to donate because I've experienced the wonderfully supportive TNE Facebook community. I have been deconstructing and decolonizing my faith, and it's been a tremendously lonely journey because I don't have anyone else to talk to about this. When I joined the TNE Facebook group. I felt so welcomed and included and I have thought many times I have found my people and this just feels wonderful. We have all had different experiences with evangelicalism. We are all at different stages in examining our faith traditions. Everyone in the group doesn't share the same spirituality, but the thing that we do share is that we are of one mind and being supportive of each other. I believe in the work that TNE is doing. I want others to experience this too. Thanks so much. You're tuned into Auto Intelligence live from Autotrader where data, tools and your preferences sync to make your car shopping smooth. They're searching inventory. Oh yeah. They find what you need, they gonna find it.

[April A Joy]

You can make a budget for your.

[Tim Whitaker]

Wallet to help you succeed. Pricing is precise and true.

[Josh Howerton]

So true.

[Melinda Hale]

It's smarter car shopping, oh, just for you.

[Tim Whitaker]

Oh, it's just for you. Find your next [e-mail] powered by auto.

[April A Joy]

Intelligence this episode is brought to you by Blink. Why wait for Black Friday? Blink Friday starts now with up to 65% off Blink Smart security check on your pets all season long with new Blink Mini 2K cameras. See your gifts arrive in head to toe view with Blink Video doorbell. From pet parents to jet setters to busy families, Blink Friday deals have your holidays covered. Shop [e-mail] Blink.

[Tim Whitaker]

We all love a.

[April A Joy]

Legendary comeback and degree original cool rush is back and better than ever.

[Tim Whitaker]

Cool Rush isn't just a scent.

[April A Joy]

It's a movement, a fan favorite that delivers bold, fresh vibes and all day sweat protection.

[Tim Whitaker]

Whether you have a man that spends.

[April A Joy]

Hours in the gym, heads into the.

[Tim Whitaker]

Office early, or is just trying to.

[Russell Johnson]

Stay fresh on a long day, Cool.

[Tim Whitaker]

Rush has their back.

[April A Joy]

Head to your local Walmart or Target.

[Tim Whitaker]

And grab Degree Cool Rush, the fan favorite scent from the world's number one antiperspirant brand. The white southern slaveholders hated that stuff, bro. They fought a civil war over it, bro. In the name of God, bro. Like, that's why I don't understand, like, Ryan, you can't be this ignorant to the reality that Christianity, white American Christianity in particular, was responsible for mass enslavement of black people. They literally had a slave Bible. They made a slave Bible, okay? They had huge theological debates over, well, if the slave gets saved, is his body still in bondage even though his soul is free? That's not Muslim theology or, sorry, Islamic theology. That's not Hindu theology. That's Christian theology. That's all we're trying to say.

[April A Joy]

To your point earlier also this is also a great example of what a lot of evangelical churches, if a pastor gets caught in a scandal or there's some kind of, you know, terrible systemic problems that are happening with abuse or whatever, they always point to, like, but look at all the good. Like, they highlight the good things to cover up bad things. And that's like, that's something that we have seen historically. And that's what they do here when they fight Christian nationalism. It's like, but look at all the good Christians have done. It's like, no, no one's arguing that Christianity has not done good historically. I mean, I wouldn't be a Christian if I thought we had only ever done bad things because I believe in Jesus and I believe in the teachings of Jesus that are. Are net good, in my opinion. But to only point out those things, as we said before, is just disingenuous and is not honest.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly, Exactly. I mean, I would argue that we are doing that same thing as Christians. Right? We're fighting for more liberation, more equality for all of our neighbors. These folks tend to want to keep the status quo that benefits them at the expense of their most marginalized neighbors because in their mind, the Bible is clear.

[April A Joy]

Okay, yeah. If you're listening, though, not that this needs to be said, but all four of these men are white.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April A Joy]

Just saying.

[Ryan Visconti]

I'm sorry, I'm fired up.

[Josh Howerton]

Okay, you're fired up. Let me just. So let me say a few things we're not saying, because I'm going to go ahead and give away a few things and I don't know if these guys will agree. These guys are allowed to disagree with me. We're all big boys here. I'm going to say that correctly defined, every Christian should be a Christian nationalist. That's where I'm going to go here in just a second. Correctly defined. So let me say a few things that we're not saying. Okay, go. We are saying we want Christianity to permeate our nation. That's like part of the Great Commission. So we are saying that. We are not saying that America equals Christianity. Okay, so we're saying we want Christianity to permeate America. We're not saying America equals Christianity.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's not what Justin said. And a second ago, Josh Howerton just said that he wants. He thinks that Justin would agree with him that America and Christianity should go hand in hand. So we're just splitting hairs here, but okay, yeah, okay. Also these, all four, these men believe that we were built as a Christian nation. So obviously they believe that America Is, you know, and Christianity are completely intertwined.

[Josh Howerton]

In this case to the, you know, kind of the statement that he made about man. If you start to believe that America equals God's country, I don't think anybody here is saying that America is the, you know, is glory breaking in pre second coming. I don't think any of us are saying that. I don't think any of us are saying that, man. We believe that America and God are so interconnected that whenever we go into war or any action that we take as a country, we're automatically in the right. Is anybody saying that?

[Ryan Visconti]

No, nobody's saying that.

[Josh Howerton]

No, I didn't think any.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's really ignorant. Take on what happened after 9, 11. I mean, Josh Howerton's older than me. He had to have been aware of all of the patriotism and God in country and we have to defeat the evil over there. I mean, even when he says no.

[April A Joy]

One is saying that, is he talking about the four of them or is he talking about. No one is saying that.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right. Because I'm thinking about like even Mamdani's recent win in New York and all the Islamophobia that has come out from, from like white Christians of like, oh my God, it's a Muslim invasion. The Brotherhood is here. Sharia law is taking over. Like, they very much see us in wars all the time. I mean, these four men who are more charismatic leaning see the world in like the spirit as like a war. We're in a battle against, you know, the demonic principles. Everything is a war for these people. I don't. I guess what he's saying is that we don't think that America is always in the right whenever we go to war. But I can't think of one time that I've seen any four of these men decry a war that we either did or, for example. For example, right now, America is sniping Venezuelan boats out of the water with no due process. We've killed like 17 different boats claiming that they are drug cartels with no evidence. Now, maybe all four of these men have decried such violence, but I'm not sure if they have. Right? So like, I don't. I'm not sure, guys. I'm just not sure if you really believe that.

[April A Joy]

Yeah, and I think, yeah, again, just kind of splitting hairs because you don't have to come out and be like, God's on our side for every single war, but if you are supporting every single war as a Christian that believes America is a Christian nation, that's not very different.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly. I agree.

[Ryan Visconti]

Your citizenship in America, you do not automatically gain entrance into heaven. Like, you know, these are. These are two distinct things. And when we talk throughout this podcast about the concept of Christian nationalism and Christian influence on society, let me just add one thing. We do not believe. We do not believe that being an American or, you know, it equivocates with being a Christian in that we're not trying to legislate faith that saves through the government or the civic process. We know that you can't do that. Faith has to come from the heart.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right.

[Ryan Visconti]

And that's one of the big misconceptions, I think, around Christian nationalism. Like, people would say, well, you need change to come from within through the gospel, transforming the heart. And that's absolutely true when it comes to being saved from hell and entering into the kingdom of heaven. But we're talking about heaven coming to earth. And we'll get more into that, I think, in a minute.

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, that's a key distinction here. And this is. This is what they do this often. So what they'll say is they're separating, essentially, soteriology, how one is saved, Right. With their moral demands that they think has to be put over the country for God to bless the nation. Right. So it's actually kind of interesting because if you really believe that most people are going to hell and that they're going to burn forever and that you care about those people, wouldn't you pragmatically do whatever you could to get them saved? So if you know that your policies are not popular, wouldn't you not do that for the sake of getting them saved, to win them over to the gospel so they don't burn in hell forever? No.

[April A Joy]

Well, I've. I've heard the argument that, like, you legislate, you ban abortion, you ban gay marriage, because you take the option to sin away from people that would do that, they have a better chance of getting saved. Like, I've heard that argument also, but also, it's, again, it's just disingenuous. We're like, we can't legislate faith. No one's saying that. But you literally are legislating what you consider morality that actively takes rights away from people that causes a lot of harm.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's the key. We're not talking about fighting the billionaire class who's sucking up money from, from the middle class. They're not talking about things that are harming millions of Americans. They're talking about culture war issues. Trans people are 1%, maybe 2% of the population and they are laser focused on reducing their rights for no reason. Their life does not, is not affected at all by trans people having healthcare access. Right, so that's what we're talking about here, friends. Let's be clear. What they're not talking about is, you know, hey, did you know that like, a lot of people go into medical debt and then they go bankrupt because of it? That's an unethical system. We need affordable healthcare in the country. No, they're only advocating for the opposite kinds of policies. It's not about liberation here. It's about control. It's wild.

[Russell Johnson]

That's really, I think, at its, like, foundational definition, Christian nationalism is the conviction that the Christian faith should inform and shape the moral, cultural and political life of a nation. So when we're talking about the need for Christian influence in the framing of a country, that's what we're communicating. This isn't like the Mormon theology of Christ returning to Independence, Missouri and establishing the new Jerusalem. I've been to Independence, Missouri. I promise you Christ is not returning to Independence, Missouri. You know, we're talking about the influence of Christianity permeating every sphere of society, including the political sphere.

[Tim Whitaker]

Thank you. Thank you, Russell. That is exactly right. And by the word Christian, again, doing a lot of heavy lifting. We're not talking about social justice Christianity. We're not talking about liberal Christianity, progressive Christianity, black liberation theology. We're not talking about that. We're talking about a white Christian fundamentalism that is laser focused on particular culture wars and demands that all Americans, despite the First Amendment saying that they are free from religious persuasion, be persuaded by their particular set of values that animate their Christian theology. Right. That's what we're talking about here. That's why they feel the need to invade the government. That's why Sean Fort, who I know talks to at least a few of these people, will say, we want Christians controlling the government. The First Amendment specifically bars the notion of any one faith or Christian or religion, period, being imposed on the rights of other people. Meaning if. If as a Christian, if Mom Donnie said in New York City, I demand that all, all people pray five times a day towards Mecca. That would be unconstitutional. It doesn't matter what his value is. It doesn't matter how much he believes it to be true or how much he believes it will even help people flourish. It doesn't matter. We are free from that kind of persuasion. And the same thing goes for this kind of Christianity. Right? The First Amendment guarantees of freedom of and from religion. Meaning if my atheist neighbor should not be under any legal pressure to be persuaded or to be moved to embrace their kind of moral Christian theology. Because these guys believe that America is a quote unquote Christian nation and that we have to permeate Christian theology throughout our government. I don't care what they believe. The First Amendment bars them from doing that.

[April A Joy]

Well, yeah, a key difference too is fundamentally like theologically they believe that good morality can only come from who they believe God is. And so when you believe that, it does seem like a noble thing too. Yeah, we need Christian influence in America because that's all, that's only where good can come from. But it's very ignorant because there's a lot of good and a lot of different belief systems and a lot of people are good people that are not Christian. And, and it's just, it's not true that only morality can come from believing their God because also their God, which I don't bel. I don't believe in the same God as they do. I'm a Christian. I believe in the God of the Bible, I believe in Jesus. But from reading the book, I come away with a completely different image of who God is than they do. Their God is very vengeful. Their God is very power hungry and wants dominion of all and to the detriment of anybody of any person who does not believe exactly like they do, including you and me. Even though we are also Christians.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right, 100%.

[Russell Johnson]

One realm on earth that Christ is not king of or lord over, including the public policy or the political realm. And so when we talk about the need for Christians to engage in the public square of civic engagement and in doing so advocate for Christological values. You know, we're talking about the concept or the idea that righteousness exalts a.

[Tim Whitaker]

Nation, not defeating the poor values. Right?

[Josh Howerton]

Not the healing the sick, not, not.

[Tim Whitaker]

Funding, not funding snap, not, not welcoming the stranger. Like, again, these words, I want people to hear this. These words that they're using have a whole different set of values attached to them than the red letters of the Jesus they claim to follow. Right? If Russell believes that, that there's an, you know, like, imperative to, to, to make sure that the government reflects Christ, Christological values, the values of Christ, then you would think reading the red letters would inform that for him. You would think that he'd be all about SNAP benefits going out and that, you know, taxing the ultra rich because the rich often, almost every time exploit the working class to gain these riches who would be taxed higher to fund those programs. You would think that in the world's wealthiest country, affordable health care would be a priority for these four men because again, Jesus told us to heal the sick. Jesus declared he is here to liberate, to set the captive free. But that's not what they're talking about here. They don't want trans people to have healthcare access. They hate when gay people have representation in media. They think immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country. They think that MAGA is the way forward.

[Josh Howerton]

It's.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's wild. It's wild.

[April A Joy]

Yeah.

[Russell Johnson]

And that this nation is a better, more free nation for all people when we lean in that direction. This is not some sort of top down, militaristic, convertible hurt or die. We're going to outlaw freedom of religion. And everybody has to pass a theological test in order to be a citizen is advocating for that. So, you know, you have these people, you know, on the left, or at least who think in incorrect leftist ways about this framework, who set up this like scary straw man of what all these Christian nationalists are trying to do and then like pride themselves in tearing that down. And it's like, what are you talking about?

[April A Joy]

You're sorry, pause.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's all you.

[April A Joy]

Okay, so first of all, it is not true that no one is advocating for that. As you said. Stephen Wolf wrote a whole book on advocate for that, including punishing who he considers heretics. You and I also like these, these four, I would say are a good example of like the more. I don't know if moderate is the right turn, but like your more average Christian nationalist right, they think what they're doing is just being good Christians by wanting like, well, obviously we'd want Christians to be in control of the government because that's what a good Christian would want. Like, that's a little more. I think in some ways it's harder to have discussions with them because they, they don't have a full understanding of how bad Christian nationalism could be because they're pretending it doesn't really, that that version doesn't exist. But it's also like they're not in the Doug Wilson camp. But there are a huge growing influence of Christian nationalists that want to repeal the 19th Amendment and take the woman's right away to vote. So but they don't ever call those people out. So what they're doing is they are debating Christian nationalist terms. He. Well, what is this guy's name? Russell. Russell. Russell. So he's just now saying that the stuff that we are Fear mongering about, quote, unquote, isn't true. But Project 2025 is right there. That is a Christian nationalist playbook. So it's disingenuous to say that those people don't exist or that ideology doesn't exist, because it absolutely does. And these four give cover for that extremism because they don't ever call out those extremism. They call out the people that are like you and I, who are warning, hey, if we give an inch to this movement, that is where this leads. Because that is where this leads. Look at Tucker Carlson, who just entered. We just. We posted a video last week of him interviewing Nick Fuentes, who is a neo Nazi who has openly praised Hitler and Stalin. That is an. Yes, he's an extreme, but that is where this movement leads to.

[Tim Whitaker]

I would love to know. And I. I haven't seen content, so maybe, maybe they've already addressed it, but I would love to know if these four men support repealing the 19th amendment. I would love to know what they think about women's rights to vote and if they're gonna fight for those rights or if they think, no, I think in a Christian nation, it should be what's called the household vote. Also, maybe just some education here for the audience. So there's kind of like two factors of Christian nationalism. There is this more. It's called, like, reconstruction version. This is your Doug Wilson's. You're more like reformed leaning, kind of Christian nationalist. And then you have more charismatic type Christian nationalism, more what might be called the new episodic Reformation, this idea of, like, spiritual warfare. These four men, I think. I'm not. I don't think that they are part of the new apostolic Reformation, but they are more leaning in the charismatic direction. So they're gonna have a slightly different outlook on the same idea of, hey, as Christians, we should be the ones ultimately in charge, kind of setting the rules for everything else or everyone else, because our view of the world leads to the most amount of human flourishing. That's what they would say. And that's kind of how they get there.

[April A Joy]

And when they bring. When they say, like, their version of Christian nationalism is heaven on earth, like, that is actually a. It is a tenet, an ideology of Christian nationalism and dominionism. But heaven on earth for who, exactly? It's heaven on earth for white men who get to be in charge of everything, who have to have women be subordinates under them, who get to dictate all these laws, who get to punish homosexuality and punish women who want Reproductive rights.

[Tim Whitaker]

Like it's, it's hell on earth.

[April A Joy]

Heaven on earth for all.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's hell on earth for the kids in Gaza. All four of these men are very pro Israel. Right. Like to, I would say to a major fault. So it's not, it's not hell. It's not heaven on earth for the kids in Gaza right now. It's not heaven on earth for the people who relied on SNAP benefits. It's not heaven on earth for the people who can't afford healthcare. Right, yeah, it's a great point. Heaven on earth for whom?

[April A Joy]

Heaven on earth, like mass incarceration.

[Tim Whitaker]

We could be here all day. Exactly.

[Russell Johnson]

Fighting a boogeyman that doesn't exist. You know, the bare basic idea that Christians and Christianity should help frame in the moral governance and civic values of a nation is number one, not a new idea, number two, not a radical idea, and number three, clearly prescribed in the pages of scripture. And then one more thing I'll say is this, you know, I don't know.

[Tim Whitaker]

Where in the Bible he gets make sure you take over the government of the nation you're in and impose your version of like Christian fundamentalism. But okay, sorry. If that's true then the verse is about how the, the wealthy who oppress the poor should be taken care of. Would apply that. Right. Or the feed the hungry part would apply then. So again it's a huge contradiction. Like even by Russell's own standards, if the Bible is the, is the playbook here, there's a lot of things you guys are intentionally leaving out or just ignoring. Like the welcome to stranger part, like the woe to you rich rulers who exploit your labor for unfair wages. Judgment is coming for you. That part suddenly. Oh that, that's in the Bible. I had no idea.

[April A Joy]

I also just completely ignores the entire existence of the early church total that was never about taking over the government to make it Christian. It was, it was very like grassroots house churches. Like the idea, even the idea of a megachurch. I think there's nothing in the Bible that justifies the way that a modern evangelicals do.

[Tim Whitaker]

The megachurch structure is a modern evangelical idea built more out of capitalism than from the, the early church model to be clear. So okay, here we go.

[Russell Johnson]

Can't get born again because they don't have souls in the same sense that a human does. So it's like when somebody says, do you listen to Christian music? It's like, well I listen to music that is written by Christians that glorifies Christ. But no, a music label can't get born again. You know, we are talking about Christianity impacting a nation, just like we would talk about Christianity impacting anything else, from art to music to, you name it, there's Christian influence all around. And so this is not a radical or new idea. This is a tale literally as old as time. And when people allow like the talking points of the militant left to impact their epistemology, then they come out with like, like these like statements or podcast clips that might sound like revelatory in nature but are actually just like completely missing the point of what everybody else is talking about.

[Tim Whitaker]

Just a reminder.

[Josh Howerton]

Let me say a few things. Let me add a few things to what Russ just said that we're not saying Christian nationalism is. And then let's move on and define it and then let's start dealing with a lot of the attack vectors. We're also, I don't think any of us. Let me get a head nod on this. Yes or no? None of us are advocating for a state church so that. Hey man. There's a unification of state and church correctly defined. I think all of us strongly agree with the separation of church and state correctly defined. Yes or no?

[Tim Whitaker]

No.

[Josh McPherson]

Yes.

[Josh Howerton]

Okay. Yes. We're also not talking about. I've seen a little bit of this. We're not talking about overturning the United.

[Tim Whitaker]

Paula White literally has her own faith office in the White House. So yes, maybe it's not an official state sanctioned church, but regarding the amount of privilege these Christians are getting to major power is unprecedented compared to any other religious.

[April A Joy]

Well, and they only believe in the separation of church and state in one direction.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly.

[April A Joy]

They don't believe the government should be involved in church affairs. Right. But they don't feel the same way if about the church and the government.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right. In fact, they demand that the church influence the government to bring heaven on earth. Hence the Christian nationalist part.

[Josh Howerton]

It's Constitution. I think everything that we're talking about in the next few minutes are things that can be accomplished within a constitutional framework. And honestly, as you're going to see, the constitutional framework is an explicitly Christian, theologically informed structure. So we're all. We like the Constitution.

[Tim Whitaker]

Why is there a pause here? I mean, this is wild. Read the Constitution. There's to be. There's no religious test to hold office. There's no mention of Bible or God or Jesus. If these men were as Christian nationalists or as Christian fundamentalists as meaning the founders, if they were as militant as these four men make it out to be, it would obviously be all over our Constitution. We're a Christian nation. Jesus Christ is Lord. It would be all over the place. The Constitution is intentionally secular. And I point anyone over to my friend Andrew Seidel, who wrote many books on this. The Constitution is an intentionally secular document to protect the rights of all of its citizens, even ones who want to be free from the influence of the church. And these men have the audacity to say, no, it's an inherently Christian document. Okay, bro, okay, yes.

[Josh McPherson]

And this might get into it later, but you go to, if you go to where Congress gathers and where our speaker of the House sits and where our president stands to give the State of the Union, the State of the Union address every year. If you, when you walk into the, the seat of our legislative body that makes all of our laws and you ask yourself, where do they. Where did our founders think the best source for drawing morality from, to shape laws would come from? If you look in the back wall, I've actually sat in the speaker of the House seat. If you look on the back wall, do you know what it's sitting there? It's a statue of Moses holding two tablets looking down on the legislative body of the United States of America. And if you're going to ask yourself, where do we think the founders thought we should draw our ethics and morality from as a foundation for our laws of the land, there's an explicit answer in the capital and it's from the law of Moses. If you look at Jefferson, who was arguably one of the most, maybe fringe religious founders in terms of like, okay, probably the closest to an enlightened DS you could get. He also had four bookshelves of Bibles and Bible dictionaries and Bible commentaries. He read his own personal Bible in Greek, in Hebrew, in Latin and in English, and in his later days became increasingly fixated with the book of Leviticus.

[Josh Howerton]

That's right.

[Josh McPherson]

And so when we think about our nation as a Christian nation, are we saying the state should. It should be a state church telling people what to believe? No, no, no. What we're saying is the church, the word of God, the moral authority of the word of God, should have a ruling and reigning voice over the state and over the family and over the jurisdictions of society.

[Tim Whitaker]

And so that, that is Christian.

[April A Joy]

That is Christian nationalism. No one is. I, I, in all my definitions and in my book, I have never defined Christian nationalism as them wanting a state. Church never wants. It's always the church influencing the government through laws, legislating morality based on their narrow view of morality. Also I just want to point out one reason why these guys, as well as a vast majority of white evangelicals and evangelicals today, have lost all moral ground. Like it's. It is rich, them talking about, and I mentioned this earlier, they believe only good morality comes from their God. But it is rich that he just mentioned Moses and the Ten Commandments. Right? One of those Ten Commandments is thou shalt not commit adultery.

[Tim Whitaker]

Interesting.

[April A Joy]

Who have they made their freaking champion right now? A serial adulterer named Donald Trump.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right, right.

[April A Joy]

Like it is not. And like, even in. And this is one reason why I think if it was actually them enforcing laws like the Ten Commandments or enforcing, you know, laws about taking care of the hungry and like the Jesus, like the Jesus laws, like, we are Christians, Christ, little Christ, we follow Christ. That's not the Christian nationalism that they were talking about. They are hypocrites. So even in their own moral framework, they don't follow it because they will support a man like Donald Trump, who I believe is probably one of the most morally bankrupt human beings on this planet. He's about as opposite of Christ as you can get. And they have made defense after defense after defense for him because he gives them power because it is not about their morality and what they believe is morality because at the end of the day, they don't give two craps about that. They want a person that will give them power so they can legislate it and take control to bring their quote, unquote, heaven on earth. That only benefits them because they don't actually give a crap about the morals that they are pretending to give a crap about.

[Tim Whitaker]

Also, I need to point this out. I had to fact check this. There are actually 23 different images, relief portrait plaques of lawgivers in the House, and Moses is one of them. Now, Moses is the one in the center. But it should also be noted that this was made in 1950. This was the same decade where people like these folks started saying, we have to put in God if we trust on our money, we have to add under God to our Pledge of Allegiance. See this, this is the sleight of hand, right the way, the way Josh McPherson talks. You would think, oh, when since the founding of the country, we had Moses right behind the speaker of the House. No, no, no, that was added several hundred years later in 1950. Right. These, a lot of these ideas of in God we trust on our money, for example, all from the 50s, all from the 1950s, these are not historic ideas. There was no under God in the pledge of allegiance until, like, the 1950s.

[April A Joy]

I know. So I was shocked when I learned that.

[Melinda Hale]

Right.

[Tim Whitaker]

Because the way that these people talk, they make it seem like these good Christian evangelicals founded America on these juja Christian principles, which, by the way, even that phrase, Judeo Christian principles is a new phrase. It's not historic. It's just not. Oh, my God, again, it's just so disingenuous. Not only do they not hold or support people who hold to their ideal of the Ten Commandments, they intentionally tell people selective pieces of information to make it seem like the nation was built on these foundational principles, when in reality, they were added much later on as Christians. Like these folks decided America needs to look more Christian insufferable.

[April A Joy]

I think even white evangelicals are the narcissists of the global church because they think like, oh, we're the ones that have it right. We're the. We are the sole holders of truth, and everyone needs to do it like we do, or they're bound for hell. Or they're wild heretics.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's wild. Like, we often. We all have to bow down to their biblical interpretation. We all have to bow down to their idea of moral. Of moral laws. And we have to focus on the things that they say we have to focus on. Right. We can ignore the billionaire class. We can ignore the massive wealth transfer that these Republicans put into law under the big beautiful bill. The same president and administration that these four men voted for, that we don't have to talk about. That's no big deal. Oh, affordable Care.

[April A Joy]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Subsidies expiring. Oh, no big deal. But the trans people, abortion, the gays, the, the, the. The. The jihadists in New York City. This is what America should be focusing on. Give me a break. Give me a break.

[Josh McPherson]

When I hear clips like that. And again, I. I've waited to comment here because I just. I agree with what you guys are saying. I don't understand the pushback for wanting to have a nation influenced by Christian, explicit Christian doctrine. Blessed is the nation whose God is Lord. That's a Bible verse we have. And so I. Josh, honestly, I'm a little lost. Sometimes we're like, why are we arguing about whether or not it's a good thing for Christianity not only to influence, but shape the very center and core of the nation we call home? And I would agree with Russell. No nation, family or friendship gets better that you hate. We're called to love our family so they flourish. We're called to love our wife so she grows. We're called to love our nation so that in loving it it can flourish. I don't understand the problem with patriotism or nationalism unless it's defined in a way that I wouldn't even.

[Ryan Visconti]

Here's one reason.

[Tim Whitaker]

I'm sorry we have to call this bullshit out. Look at what your administration has done. And not even in a year into taking power. We're kidnapping immigrants. We don't know where thousands of them are. Their due process is totally erased. We're sniping boats in Venezuelan territory with no due process. The USAID has been totally gutted which has killed estimates put hundreds of thousands of people have died because of the food that was being pushed out by USAID to other parts of the world. Our. Our Commander in Chief is posting AI videos of himself taking shits on actual peaceful protesters. You're telling me that this is what human flourishing looks like? Grocery prices are higher than they were a year ago. The job market has tanked. Like look around.

[April A Joy]

Not to mention the big beautiful bill and the Republicans wanting to gut health care for millions of Americans.

[Tim Whitaker]

Republicans literally lied to the American people trying to make it seem like there was no funding for SNAP during a government shutdown when there indeed was. I can. RFK is pushing vaccine bullshit that is actually costing lives. There was a huge measles outbreak in Texas because of it. I want to know how they think we are currently flourishing under this regime that they think God is using to promote the human flourishing of America.

[April A Joy]

Also I. I want to point out the reason why, even just based on his bad faith definition right there, like why wouldn't anyone want, you know, a moral God to be in control of the government and laws or whatever it was. Like this is why. Because as we mentioned, I feel like we're repeating ourselves because they're just hypocrisy. They don't actually care about morals and they are so black and white that they would choose. I really believe that they have made their biblical interpretation of what they think the Bible is an idol because they will choose that book over a human person and a person in front of them who is suffering. Like abortion for instance. If a woman has a miscarriage and requires a DNC in a red state that has banned abortion, a doctor cannot give her life saving health care to give her that DNC because of the laws. And these men would not write that exception because they believe their Bible says thou shall not kill. And for whatever reason they're not going to look at something that should be nuanced because abortion is a very nuanced Topic. It is not black and white. But they will choose their book and their black and white ideology over the woman in front of them who will die unless they make an exception for her.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right.

[Russell Johnson]

Right.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's selective. Thou shalt not kill. Well, unless you're a kid in Gaza and we think that Israel needs to defend itself at all costs, I guess that's okay. Thou shalt not kill. Unless it's a boat in international territory. But abortion, oh well. Thou shalt not kill. So sorry you can't get that life saving health care access that you need. It's ridiculous. When you examine these claims and see how they're actually lived out, they're not only nonsensical, they're dangerous. They actually do the opposite of what they claim. They're actually hurting people. They are hurting people right now in America, which is why you and I are so opposed to it as Christians.

[Melinda Hale]

Right?

[Ryan Visconti]

Why there's a problem with it. It's because there are people who want the approval of godless people more than they want the approval of God. And so they hear this idea like, you're a Christian and you want your Christianity to influence America. Like, they hear this question from progressives and leftists and. And as a people please or someone seeking the approval of man, they go, oh, no, no, not me. Like, I don't want a version of Christian Christianity that messes with your sinful life in any way. I don't want a version of Christianity that in any way projects itself onto society. I want like a safe, non threatening, like politically correct Christianity that allows for all manner of debauchery. And that's what people, I think are overreacting. What causes the overreaction on some level.

[Tim Whitaker]

You want to say something to this to the men who simp for Donald Trump? Talk about people pleasers. I want to cuss, please cuss.

[April A Joy]

Not going to. My mom listens to us. But I just want to know. I want to drop an F bomb.

[Tim Whitaker]

So wild. It's wild again. Their version of debauchery.

[April A Joy]

Why though, they demonize empathy totally right there. Because, like, oh, we want a people, please. I'm like, no, like putting yourself in someone else's shoes, understanding that people are born with different orientations and different identities and empathizing with them and knowing, like, like, I know trans people, my spouse included, that if they were not able to live out who they are and present how they want to present and just be themselves, they would be six feet underground.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah.

[April A Joy]

It is life and death for so many People. And I'm not going to apologize that I chose to love my spouse and want them alive more than I wanted my dogma to exist. And these men will choose dogma over people every single day. And empathy is a dogma killer. And that's why they go hard against it. Because if someone has empathy, which I believe is something that we are instinctively born with as human beings, and it is something that they want you to squash, because if you have an ounce of empathy for someone who is different than you, which I think we all should, especially if you are professing Christ, who said to love thy neighbor, and there were no exceptions, and love thy neighbor. But if you have an ounce of empathy, then you know these men are full of shit.

[Tim Whitaker]

You cussed.

[April A Joy]

I didn't say the F word, but I said the S word. It's okay. I'm sorry, Mom.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. Cosign.

[Josh Howerton]

So we're gonna save it. Save it, because we're. We're gonna go through some of the kneecaps to this. And then I. I do want to talk because for a lot of the vast majority of our listeners, they're not pastors, but the four of us know there is massive pushback from a lot of pastors to this that I think honestly would surprise the average Christian. And I want us to talk about why that is real quick. So let me say one more thing that we're not saying, and then if there's anything else that's in you guys heads, like, hey, we're not saying this. You can. I'll give you a last word here, and then let's move on. We're also not. This is like a super theology nerd thing. So, like, four people who listen will even know what I'm talking about at least here. What this conversation is not doing is advocating for, like, a classically defined theonomy. Now, there are some guys. This is a niche theological conversation. There's some guys, a lot of theonomists are like, yay, Christian nationalism. That's fine. That's a different conversation. But that's not what this conversation is advocating for.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's fine. Josh Allerton, by the way, you're just advocating for. He's right. I mean, theatomy is a whole thing to unpack, but you're just advocating for a different form of it. You just don't like Doug Wilson. You don't agree with his theology, so you won't maybe cross paths with him. But you want the same idea. I mean, you. They just spent the past couple minutes talking about how, how, how their idea of Christ and Christianity and biblical values and whatever should be imposed on American government and the spheres of American society for the human flourishing of its neighbors. That's their claim. But the facts say that when people do that the way that they want, people actually die. People get hurt. People can't access life saving, gender affirming care that we know thanks to studies out there shows saves lives lowers the risk of suicidal ideation. Right? And the other thing I always wonder is why are they so obsessed with the actions of other people that have no bearing on their life at all? There is not one damn left wing, liberal, undercover Marxist transgender movement that is trying to ban churches in America. There is no one that is trying to sue Russell or Josh or the other Josh or Ryan for, for their right to exercise their free speech in their churches. If gay people have sex, it does not affect them at all, at all. Yet they are just laser focused on things that have nothing to do with them and the things that have something to do with them. I'm almost done. Like the election of Donald Trump, the election of this MAGA movement that is hurting so many people they completely ignore or they celebrate as a good thing. I do not get it.

[April A Joy]

The reason why is because of the American exceptionalism and the Christian nation myth that all these men believe that perpetuates Christian nationalism. Because you believe like that if God supernaturally has blessed America through all of our wars and that America was founded as a Christian nation. And one reason that we've been blessed is because we've been a Christian nation, which I believed. And it sounds like these men believe because that is a huge piece of being a Christian nationalist, whether you accept that label or not. It's that when bad things happen to America, like 9, 11 or Hurricane Katrina, it's this belief that the reason these bad things are happening is because we have become too secular, because we have allowed sin in our nation. Like abortion, like trans, like queer people, right? They, they blame everybody else. They, they would never look inward. Like maybe it's because we've allowed white supremacy to run unchecked for centuries. You know, like it's, it's never inward. They always look at someone else to blame and then they think, oh, well, the way we can get God to bless us again is to outlaw these things that we have deemed sin based on our narrow interpretation of scripture because it's easier to point the finger than to look in the mirror.

[Tim Whitaker]

Can I say something without trying to sound pretentious? Because I'm not Trying to come across this way, but maybe I will. I'm going to take a risk. It's such a primitive way of thinking that there is this God out there who is like causing hurricanes because the nation has sinned according to what they think sin is. Like, guys, I mean, I'm just saying, like, I'm not saying that people can't believe in supernatural things. I have my own beliefs set I think are supernatural. I'm not saying that. But like this, this notion that you're so confident in how you understand God, to think that like, natural calamity or disasters or, or, you know, acts of violence are God's warning signs against the nation. Like, you know, Jerry Falwell on 911 blamed the abortionists and the gays and the lesbians and the ACLU for 9 11. Like, what a, what a weird.

[April A Joy]

And John Hagee blamed the fact that New Orleans had a pride parade, right, for Hurricane Katie.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's just, it's like, what, like, how do you think that, that. It's just wild. Okay, we'll, we'll keep going here.

[Josh Howerton]

Anything else that, that you guys would like to go? Hey, one more thing that we're not saying before we.

[Russell Johnson]

Well, I think McFerson was saying that he sat. He's actually sat in the, the seat of the speaker of the House of Representatives. Wasn't that on January 6th? Josh, when you were part of the.

[Tim Whitaker]

Insurrection, you were the guy with the buffalo horns, right?

[Russell Johnson]

I knew I recognized you from somewhere.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah, I didn't want to talk specifics of days.

[Tim Whitaker]

Let me just say this is the.

[Josh Howerton]

Second time as the host of the podcast, I need to say that's not what we're saying.

[Tim Whitaker]

And it's kind of funny how they laugh at that, right? Like, literally there were thousands of people armed with Bibles, a Christian flag, a prayer to Jesus. Like they prayed to Jesus in the House chambers, thanking him for the opportunity to storm the Capitol building. That's like a joke to these guys. There were appeal to heaven flags everywhere, which is a flag used in, in charismatic spaces, especially new episodic reformation spaces. Like, there's been tons of scholarship showing the prayer networks that were mobilized on January 6th to fight in the spirit against the election certification process. But to them, this is a joke, right? Like, literally, Christians, because they like being so broad with the statements, so I'll be broad. Christians were responsible for the, for, for, for the non peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history a couple years ago. And to them, it's like a joke. Lol Isn't that hilarious? Right?

[April A Joy]

And that was very heavily fueled by Christian nationalism.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's wild to see, like, again, what they think is no big deal and what they think is like a huge mountain that, you know, America's going to just fall off the cliff if. If trans people get gender affirming care and get accepted into society. Like, it's just. It's really wild to see the difference here.

[April A Joy]

It's also just like, so honestly, honestly idiotic to somehow admit that there were insurrectionists. Right. Like, they just admitted that that was a thing and they're trying to distance themselves from that. But those people are in Christian, like, it was a Christian nationalist move. The Jesus flags that were in there, the prayer like you just mentioned. And this is a huge problem, I think, with just evangelicalism in general, like, taking Christian nationalism out of it, is that you can look at people within your own movement that do bad things and say, oh, they're just a few rotten apples. It's just a few rotten apples. I'm not like that. I would never do that. So you get. You give cover by saying things like that. You give cover for those rotten apples and you've never once looked at the tree that is actually rotten.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right.

[April A Joy]

So anyway, how far into this are we?

[Tim Whitaker]

I'm afraid to tell you, 22 minutes.

[April A Joy]

Oh, my God.

[Tim Whitaker]

Let's go a few more minutes.

[April A Joy]

Do we want to get through what he's not saying? And then we could stop it there and we could do a part two later because, I mean, how long have we been going?

[Tim Whitaker]

It's only been an hour and 15 minutes.

[April A Joy]

Oh, my gosh. I feel like I need to go watch something wholesome after this, like Vanderbilt.

[Tim Whitaker]

And then we can land the plane. Friends, if you want a part two, put it in the comments so we know that you're actually enjoying this because I like doing this. But if you don't care about it, it makes no sense to do it publicly. April and I could just do this privately and curse all the time, so.

[April A Joy]

Or no. Or we can just do it. It's our show, our name.

[Tim Whitaker]

You're right. It's our show. It's not your show, it's our show.

[April A Joy]

Just saying. I mean, we also will care about your input. Please, like us.

[Josh Howerton]

Okay, we're canceling out both NAR and Jan6 participation.

[Tim Whitaker]

Okay, so that's good. So you said NAR so he knows NAR. That's good to know.

[Josh Howerton]

Let me. Let me corral the troops here. Okay, let's go.

[Tim Whitaker]

This.

[Josh McPherson]

This might be sidetracked But.

[Josh Howerton]

But go ahead.

[Josh McPherson]

I'm not sure I agree. Disagree. What you just said. When you say theonomy, what are you meaning?

[Josh Howerton]

So it's kind of the thing of like, hey, not every rect. Not every square is a rectangle, but every. Or not every rectangle is a square. I can't remember which way it goes. Not every rectangle square, but every square is a rectangle. All the. All theonomists. This is a niche. This is a niche Reformed theology discussion. All the. What I tell you are Christian nationalists, but not all Christian nationalists are theonomists. So theonomy is obviously the belief that, hey, it's kind of the old. It's like og. This is like super niche og, Like Rushdoor, that actually all of the civil laws given in Deuteronomy, that we should be having those exact same civil laws translated into society today. Now, there are some guys who would agree with that. They would be like, yeah, and I'm a Christian nationalist, but I'm saying the Christian nationalism, we're defining it considerably broader than that. Does that make sense?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. So, by the way.

[April A Joy]

Well, that's. I agree with that. It is broader than that.

[Tim Whitaker]

But notice how I'm not sure if Rushdie wanted every single law in Deuteronomy in American civil law.

[April A Joy]

Yeah, I actually have never heard it defined.

[Tim Whitaker]

To be clear, they want the same thing. Right. You guys just heard over the past hour here of them saying the importance of essentially imposing Christology, certain Christian principles into our government. It's the same idea. They just disagree on how to do it. So RJ Rush, Juni wants biblical law as defined by, like, laws in Deuteronomy imposed. But Russell Johnson, Josh Allerton, ryan Visconti, Josh McPherson. Well, they wouldn't. They would disagree with the method, not with it.

[April A Joy]

Right. This is where. This is where. I think another reason why as a Christian, I push back on Christian nationalism is because the Bible, depending on who is holding it, can be a tool of freedom and liberation, or it can be a tool. It can be a weapon, it can be a tool of oppression. If you were to take the Bible literally, you can come away with justification for slavery, as we saw back in the Civil War. You can come away as a justification for men owning their wives. You can come away with a justification for polygamy. You can come away with a justification for stoning your rebellious kid.

[Tim Whitaker]

Exactly.

[April A Joy]

Come away with terrible justifications. You might, which is why. So these people would say, we believe in a Christian nation. Right. But they. They do the whole Prescriptive versus descriptive. Right? Like, oh, well, we don't follow that because that's just describing a law that we don't follow anymore. Prescribe. Prescriptive means we follow that because that's prescribing the law. But literally the Bible makes no distinction for that. So depending on who were to be in control, if you do get this Christian nation in this Christian nationalist heaven on earth, it could be very, very bad for their wives.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's the great irony for them if.

[April A Joy]

They want to stop wearing their mixed fabrics and stop eating shellfish.

[Tim Whitaker]

You know, April, we could argue that rj Rush Dooney and these theodomists are actually more biblical than your Josh Howerton's. Right? They're just, they're. Hey, it's in the Bible. It is in the Bible.

[April A Joy]

They're just more difficult of me that respects the people that are consistent and their fundamentalism. Right. Like, I, Although I completely disagree with it, but, like, at least you're committed to the bit. Like, and you're not cherry pick.

[Tim Whitaker]

Like, when Joshua Hayes, we responded to him, what, two weeks ago, right, when he talked about how. How actually the Bible doesn't. Doesn't condemn slavery. And him and I are like, yeah, we totally agree. Although we have very different reasons why we agree and also different outcomes.

[April A Joy]

Conclusions.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, conclusions.

[Josh Howerton]

Thank you.

[Tim Whitaker]

I'm like, where's the word I'm looking for? But, like, but I appreciate him being consistent because he's right. The Bible does not condemn slavery. It only regulates it at a minimum and endorses it. You know, So I actually appreciate that, Josh, that you're actually being honest about what's in the Bible, because it is funny watching these men be like, well, look, we're not theonomists. We. We don't want the. We don't want the Levitical law imposed on all society, but we just want our version of Christian principles imposed on society. So we're not as extreme.

[April A Joy]

Right.

[Tim Whitaker]

Pot, meat, kettle.

[April A Joy]

Right. But if you open the door for them, you know, then you open the door for the theonomist. You open the door for the more extremists. Because I don't. I don't hear them condemning them.

[Tim Whitaker]

No, I mean, I'm still waiting for them to hear or talk about, you know, how a women's right to vote should be fought for and not.

[April A Joy]

And maybe they won't. You know, to be fair, maybe we just haven't got there yet.

[Melinda Hale]

Hey, everyone, Melinda Hale here, executive director of the New Evangelicals. Thanks for listening to our podcast. I just wanted to take a minute to personally invite you to be a part of our community. At tne, we're creating space for people of faith who care about justice, compassion, and living out the teachings of Jesus in real, tangible ways. As a nonprofit organization, not only do we offer thought provoking podcasts, but on our new app and online platform, TNE Connect, we offer free educational resources, additional content and a space to connect with like minded people for meaningful conversations and encouragement. So if what we're doing has been helpful to you, if you've learned something, felt, seen or been challenged to grow, head over to thenewevangelicals.com to join TNE Connect or make a donation. Your support means the world to us. Thanks for being a part of the movement.

[April A Joy]

This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad, Ryan. Real United Airlines customers.

[Tim Whitaker]

We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he.

[Ryan Visconti]

Wanted to see the flight deck and.

[Tim Whitaker]

Meet Kath and Andrew.

[April A Joy]

I got to sit in the driver's seat.

[Tim Whitaker]

I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me.

[Josh Howerton]

Of myself when I was that age.

[April A Joy]

That's Andrew, a real United pilot.

[Tim Whitaker]

These small interactions can shape a kid's future.

[April A Joy]

It felt like I was the captain.

[Tim Whitaker]

Allowing my son to see the flight.

[Ryan Visconti]

Deck will stick with us forever.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's how good leads the way.

[April A Joy]

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, magic. There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca Cola for a pause that refreshes.

[Josh McPherson]

Yeah, yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I. I just. I think that that would be a fun conversation to go down down the hole up at some point. I don't think it's as niche as you think. And I do think Christian pastors specifically need to consider more carefully there's a difference between sin and violating the law. But for a large portion of our history as a nation, many things the Bible called sin were also illegal in our nation. Now, I don't think it should be illegal to covet your neighbor's stuff because who can know what's in the heart of a man? But it should be illegal to steal your neighbor's stuff.

[Ryan Visconti]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Which it is, of course.

[Josh McPherson]

You know, it shouldn't be illegal to have lustful thoughts because who can know the man, the mind of a man? But should it be legal to sleep another man's wife? Well, I mean, that's an interesting question, right? I mean, like, do we think that our country flourishes when men sleep Other.

[Ryan Visconti]

Men'S wife was illegal for multiple years.

[Josh McPherson]

It was illegal for a large portion. Sodomy, adultery, stealing. These things were fundamentally illegal in our nation for many, many years, drawing from the laws of Deuteronomy.

[Tim Whitaker]

Now McPherson's going. McPherson is going down the theonomist path. Okay. I'm gonna watch his journey long term. Oh boy. Okay.

[April A Joy]

So again, I will say I agree with him though that it's not as niche as Josh.

[Tim Whitaker]

Totally agree.

[April A Joy]

Yeah, I mean, look at Pete Hegg.

[Tim Whitaker]

Said, by the way, stealing is illegal unless you're a billionaire. Just want to point that out. You know, billionaires are allowed to steal tons of tax subsidies from the American people. They're able to use loopholes that people can. Can't use to steal all kinds of money from people. Yeah, but I, I digress.

[Josh McPherson]

I don't want to get too far, but it's an interesting conversation to have.

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, yeah, totally.

[Josh Howerton]

I'm not disagreeing that Russ.

[Russell Johnson]

And it actually is still illegal. Like for example, if you' the military and you commit adultery, it's something that you can, you know, essentially be court martialed or disbarred or lose rank for, you know, practicing, practicing immorality. And so like, I think the broader conversation here is, is how did our civic law appear? Well, our civic law appeared downstream from the founders understanding of moral law. And so, you know, certainly there is like a connection between those two. The way that our legal system is framed in America is not in some sort of like libertarian vacuum of secularist values where it's just like, oh, these are like common sense things. Well, it's actually not common sense. You know, human nature, unredeemed, human nature goes in the direction of destruction, goes in the direction of stealing, goes in the direction of adultery, goes in the direction of whipping people off.

[Tim Whitaker]

And so it can, but not always. I agree that we need a government to regulate those kinds of things, especially the sealing part. Isn't it interesting, April, how so far all the things that they're referencing are like what individual actions can do, like having affairs, which by the way, I would agree is a bad thing. But again, no talk about systemic issues. Like there's no talk about the massive problems most Americans are facing today. No talk about the unaffordability of healthcare, no talk about the fact that we can't find livable wages, that it's impossible to own a house, you know, affordably. Right now Trump proposed a 50 year mortgage. Like that's how bad things are. A 50 year mortgage. Right. No talk about that stuff.

[April A Joy]

Also I looked it up. Having an Affair is illegal for military members, but they said it's usually only prosecuted if it has shown to be to the prejudice of good order and discipline.

[Tim Whitaker]

That makes sense.

[April A Joy]

So basically, as long as. If it caused problems in the military, it would be prosecuted. Sounds like it's a.

[Tim Whitaker]

It is.

[April A Joy]

Look away most of the time like it is in the evangelical church, mind you.

[Tim Whitaker]

I wonder if these men want guns, gun control. You know, they seem really like, big on, like, making affairs illegal, which I'm not sure how that would stop an affair, frankly.

[April A Joy]

Like I will say, though, it's. It's refreshing to hear them be so strongly against adultery, because I agree. I think cheating on your spouse is not a good thing to do multiple times. Yeah, you can hurt a lot of people. So I'm expecting them to completely condemn Donald Trump.

[Tim Whitaker]

And I mean, you know, I, I do think that if you sleep with an adult film star while your wife is pregnant, it's probably one of the most egregious forms of adultery. I definitely.

[April A Joy]

And then try to pay off and lie about it that Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction with Eugene Carroll. I thought, my God. Yeah, I hate it. These. Why are these men not talking about that?

[Tim Whitaker]

I wonder.

[Russell Johnson]

Verse who kind of frame out the. The legal or the jurisprudence understanding for the American experiment are drawing expressly on moral law as they see it from the scriptures.

[Tim Whitaker]

It's from European Enlightenment law, mostly. Okay. I just need to say that for.

[Russell Johnson]

People who don't understand that, or they're just like, bad at history. That's why, like, they have a problem like synthesizing this argument for the here and now, because they actually fundamentally misunderstand history. And so, like, by the way, can.

[Tim Whitaker]

I just make an easy point to debunk this? If that was true, why does the Constitution allow freedom of religion? Why does it allow people to worship false gods? Why. Why does it. Why does it allow free speech? Free speech is not a biblical value at all. I mean, James 5, James 5, I think, or James 1 is very clear that, like, you know, bad speech is bad, that, that you should control what you say. So free speech and the Bible's definition of, Of. Of, you know, godly values are not, Are not cohesive here. You would think that for a Christian nation, you would have very strict laws on the books about speech, like what Stephen Wolf wants to do. He wants blasphemy laws imposed, by the way. Right? I would think you would want that, Russell. I would think that you would see that in the Constitution. Instead, you see the opposite. You see anti biblical values in the Constitution. When it comes to speech, I say.

[April A Joy]

Like one of my least favorite things about people like this, Christian nationalist men who are trying to pretend like they're some of the good guys. They're so condescending. They're like, how? Well, unless you're bad at history, only people who are bad at history, like y' all are the ones who are bad at history. You only look at history through a whitewashed lens.

[Tim Whitaker]

Ryan Visconci, in his sermon about why America as a Christian nation says that that his biggest inspiration for it was, was Bill Federer. He's like a pseudo historian who has an accounting degree and he tours Christian nationalist bases giving his revisionist history. And they take it as gospel. The guy has a degree in accounting, accounting in business, and they see him as like their true seller.

[April A Joy]

It's the same argument they made against critical race theory. Right. They talk about revisionist history, which is talking about the racism and white supremacy of American history, which is just true and valid. But they're calling that revisionist history when the real revisionist history is the one that we were taught that America was always the good guys and that, you know, maybe we did a few bad things, we just didn't know any better and the slaves were really treated well and we had exactly like. What? What?

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's do a few more minutes and we'll wrap up.

[Russell Johnson]

People find themselves on the opposing side of Christian influence in a nation. It's not just that they misunderstand the scriptures, they misunderstand history. What, what they are doing is they're taking like a five to seven year time span of like current postmodern Western culture and then framing their entire civic life based on that five to seven years. Instead of looking at the 250 year history of America going, we wouldn't even made it to where we are today without some semblance of connection to a moral law that informs civilization law.

[Josh Howerton]

Yeah, we're going to get to that here in a second. I think honestly, for a lot of people it's going to. It will absolutely stun them. How explicitly Christian. The founding of our nation. And the documents are like literally, I think will absolutely stun them. So we're going to get to that.

[Ryan Visconti]

Go back to defining Christian nationalism. Josh, lay that out.

[Josh Howerton]

Yeah, let me do, let me do this. Let's go ahead. And I actually think it's a. Let me jump off of a clip, this one kind of viral a few months ago. Go ahead and toss that. The clip from the newsroom up. Yep. Go ahead and toss that guy up.

[April A Joy]

One thing that unites all of them.

[Josh Howerton]

Because there's many different groups orbiting Trump.

[Melinda Hale]

But the thing that unites them as.

[April A Joy]

Christian nationalists, not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalist is very different, is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings don't come.

[Melinda Hale]

From any earthly authority.

[April A Joy]

They don't come from Congress. They don't come from the Supreme Court. They come from God.

[Josh Howerton]

Yeah. Okay.

[Tim Whitaker]

So, okay, this is. This is, like, embarrassing. I'm embarrassed for these four men that they picked up this clip as, like, the definition of Christian nationalism. I'm embarrassed for them because this clip, like, was even. It was even rejected by Christian nationalist scholars as, like, yeah, not really a great take. So, like, even the people who are writing the literature on Christian nationalism were like, yeah, this isn't good take. But for them, this is their, like, smoking gun, which, by the way. But like, I just want to say.

[April A Joy]

But again, like, Christian, there's no one definition for Christian. That is true because.

[Tim Whitaker]

Sorry, I cut you off. I apologize.

[April A Joy]

Oh, no, no, go ahead.

[Tim Whitaker]

I was gonna say that in the Declaration of Independence, it says, we the people, right, are here to form a more perfect union or government. That's where the rights come from in the Declaration. We the people. The people are the ones who form the government, who make the laws, who reason together. So I would even agree with that person's point that, you know, like, our. Our rights and stuff in America come from how the government is set up and how we reason these things together. Our Constitution. But that wouldn't be like, you know, an inherently distinctive piece about being a Christian nationalist, that you believe our rights come from God, necessarily. Does that make sense?

[April A Joy]

Yes. But I would say she kind of hit on a point that we mentioned earlier where they do believe that all morality and authority does come from God. And that's why they, again, would choose dogma over human beings. Like, it's a piece of it, but it is by no means the full definition.

[Tim Whitaker]

And to be clear, so far, they have not engaged any actual scholarship on the topic so far.

[Josh Howerton]

Let me, let me riff on this and let me give a definition of Christian nationalism we're going to work with, and then you guys can agree or disagree. So first of all, what we would like to point out is that our founding documents literally say that we are. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. So she's saying it's Christian nationalism to believe that your rights don't come from government, they come from God. That's literally in our founding documents. Like, let's, let's just say that. Number two, let's point this out.

[Russell Johnson]

MSNBC is not sending their best. Let's just get that. They're not sending their best.

[Josh Howerton]

Let me say a few things. Number one, what we have to understand is that if the government gives you rights, then the government can take them away.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right.

[Josh Howerton]

So this is what we really need to understand is that once you stop believing in any higher authority than the government, then the government becomes God. And if they give rights, then the government can take them away.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's interesting because they seem really hell bent on taking over, over the government. It's almost like they acknowledge that the government has the immense power to give or take away rights. But as long as they're in control of giving and taking away those rights, like the right for gay people to get married, that's fine because they represent God. This is, this is kind of like, like, like, like the mind bending part that we have to kind of call out. These people tend to see themselves as representatives of God, them himself. Right? So if they take over government, they become the authority because they represent the values of God. That's why it's okay for the right to abortion to be eradicated from our government. Right? Because, oh well, we are speaking on behalf of God. So they're fine, they're fine with the government giving and taking away rights as long as they're the ones who get to call the shots on what rights are given and taken away. That's the great irony about all of this.

[April A Joy]

But again, they're also doing that same thing we talked about earlier where they're focusing on things that prove their point. Right. Like, like I, like I would agree that there is Christian language in the Constitution and a lot of our founding fathers were Christian. That is true. That does not mean that we were founded as a Christian nation. Because again, like, there's also a lot of things in the Constitution about separation of church and state. You know, there should be no religious test. There should, you know, that we should have freedom of religion, meaning you are free to worship how you please or to not worship. Like it's the, it's just the picking and choosing of what is in the Constitution so that you can support your ideology where, you know, like, it's just so much more nuanced than they make it out to be.

[Tim Whitaker]

So this is Declaration of Independence of Transcription. I just want to read a little bit of it so we understand the context here. We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal. Okay, including the slaves. But again, these men didn't see it that way. Right? Think about that. That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that are among these. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. So the power of the government comes from the consent of the governed, not from God. Okay, that line. They are endowed by their Creator. A lot of people, and I tend to agree, take it as it's saying that whoever you see your creator to be you, those rights are given to you by whatever God you worship. Essentially. It doesn't say, right. It doesn't say that they are so many beliefs. It doesn't say they are endowed by Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew Bible and Jesus Christ, the God of the New Testament. It says their creator meaning whoever your creator is, these are the rights that our government believes are on are given to you and that they are unalienable. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Three things. And that the consent of the governed is where the government gets his power from. Yeah, a little more complicated than just oh, we're a Christian nation, ingenuous to.

[April A Joy]

Be like image and creator. That means Christian God, that means Christianism. That means me.

[Tim Whitaker]

Talk about reading into it, right? It's just like because they can't imagine a world where there's a different kind of creator other than their very fundamentalist evangelical God, which by the way, none of the founders even believed in. Even the Christian ones didn't believe in their version of Christianity. Biblical inerrancy, not really a thing for these men. For example, speaking in tongues, not a thing for these men. Just saying how. Where are we at for time? Okay, how about five more minutes?

[April A Joy]

Oh my gosh.

[Tim Whitaker]

You want to stop here?

[April A Joy]

No, I mean, I don't know. Well, I feel like. Is he like mid thought? Let's let him finish his thought and then we get two.

[Josh Howerton]

We have to understand, this is really important. Number two, we have to understand. But if you believe like we do that rights don't come from government, they come from God. Then here's the question, what's his name? Because different gods, quote unquote, gods are going to bestow different rights. Like they're in fundamentalist Islam with a straight reading of the Quran, Allah is going to bestow a right to take sex Slaves after a jihad.

[Melinda Hale]

Right?

[Josh Howerton]

Okay.

[Tim Whitaker]

And so does the God of the Hebrew Bible. You gotta be kidding me.

[Josh Howerton]

Parts of fundamentalist Hinduism. Those gods are gonna bestow a certain inalienable right on a community to burn a widow on her dead husband's mattress as an offering to the God. So once we say that, hey, rights don't come from government. They come from God. We have to ask the question, what's his name?

[Tim Whitaker]

Because. Great question, Josh. Let's see. Deuteronomy 10. Or, sorry, Deuteronomy 21. When the Lord, verse 10. When the Lord your God gives you victory in battle and you take prisoners, you may see among them a beautiful woman that you like and want to marry. Take her to your home where she will shave her head, cut her fingernails and change her clothes. She is to stay in your home and mourn for her parents for a month. After that, you may marry her later. If you no longer want her, you are free to let her go. Since you forced her to have intercourse with you, you cannot treat her as a slave and sell her. That's not the Koran, bro. That's the Bible. That's the Bible, Josh. That's the. This is why I get so enraged at these men. Because they. They. They ignore the uncomfortable parts of their own texts. And then they will then say, well, in the Quran, can you believe this, Josh? How about serving the freaking Hebrew Bible, which also allows you to take sex slaves. Because guess what? A woman who is taken from her home after battle and is forced to have intercourse with. That's a sex slave, bro. That's a freaking sex slave. And the God of the Bible, Yahweh, endorses that notion in Deuteronomy. Oh, but let me guess. That's descriptive, not prescriptive, right?

[April A Joy]

That's the mental gymnastics, they would say. Which there were progressive Muslims, too, that interpret their text totally very differently than fundamentalist Muslims.

[Tim Whitaker]

They're just so. I mean, one more. Suppose someone has a son who is stubborn and rebellious. A son who will not obey his parents even though they punish him. His parents are to take him before the leaders of the town where he lives and make him stand trial. They are to say to them, our son is stubborn and rebellious and refuses to obey us. He wastes money and is a drunkard. Then the men of the city are to stone him to death. And so you will get rid of this evil. Everyone in Israel will hear what has happened. To be afraid, also in the Bible, Josh. Okay, let's wrap up his thoughts.

[April A Joy]

Well, that's different.

[Josh Howerton]

God is the one that's going to be giving the rights and we gotta define him. Now let me just riff on this for a second and then you guys like add commentary. Agree, disagree. It's really helpful to just take the terms Christian nationalism. So when we talk about nationalism, we're not talking about idolatry, where we care about our nation more than we care about from God. Care about God. We're talking about span of governments. McPherson has alluded to this before. You have three choices. You have tribalism, nationalism, or globalism.

[Tim Whitaker]

No, you don't.

[Josh Howerton]

Tribalism is a bunch of warring little factions. It's chaos. Globalism is one world government. We would just point out that in the Bible the only attempts at globalism are in, I think it's Genesis 12 at Tower of Babel, when mankind unites the entire world in rebellion against God. And then at the end of Revelation, where most readings of Revelation are that the Antichrist attempts a one world government. So let's just point this out.

[Tim Whitaker]

10 times. You know, what's it called? John Nelson Darby? Dispensationalism. That was invented like 100 years ago. Readings of Revelation believe that.

[Josh Howerton]

But okay, God establishes nations, Satan does globalism. And then nationalism is the span of government. That is the Bible says that God has established nations and their boundaries. And there's a whole reason for that.

[Tim Whitaker]

So that was the same verse, by the way, that Bob Jones used to defend segregation, that nations have their boundaries. They should not assimilate or intermix with each other.

[April A Joy]

By the way, Tim, we don't talk about that part.

[Josh Howerton]

Talking about. Okay, so if you don't like the nationalism part, which one do you want to do? You want to do tribalism or you want to do globalism? Well, I think the four of us are like, well, those are really two bad ideas and one good idea. So then the question is those are.

[April A Joy]

Not the only options.

[Tim Whitaker]

I mean, what a freaking false choice. What a freaking false choice.

[April A Joy]

I've literally gotten comments from people more than once, mind you. So I think this is a, like a thing that, a talking point. But I'll, when I talk about Christian nationalism, people be always like, oh, well, if you don't want Christian nationalism, then you want Satanic nationalism. As if, like those are the only two options. It's again, black and white. So black and white ideal, ideological, so stupid.

[Josh Howerton]

Nationalism. Do you want to do, do you want to do Islamic nationalism? Do you want to do secular progressive nationalism? That's what we've been doing for the last 20 years. Or do you want to do Christian nationalism. So when we say that, we're saying what Russ said earlier. Christian nationalism is us saying that we treat true things as true. Christianity is true, There is a one true God, and that there's.

[Tim Whitaker]

How do you prove that, Josh? How do you prove it's true? And how do you prove that your faction is more true than Doug Wilson, RJ dress, Jr version of Christian National. How do you prove these claims? You can't. They feel one. One English Protestant Bible, thousands of denominations. But don't worry, guys, Josh is sitting on the true version of it all. And that true version has to be imposed on 300 million Americans who are multicultural, multiracial, multi religious. Right? They can't have the freedom. You know, Josh, the reason why secularism actually works quite well is because when it functions properly, it makes room and allows people to have the religious convictions without imposing on anyone else. Meaning. I'm not saying that Josh Howerton can't have his beliefs. I'm not saying he can't run his megachurch and say whatever he wants. What I am saying is that his right to swing his fist stops where my Muslim neighbor's face begins. And for Josh, he goes, nah, because that Muslim is worshiping a false God according to my definition of truth. And so sorry, his rights have to go down, my rights have to to go up because I represent God and they do not.

[April A Joy]

Also biblical truth or like the, like, we've talked about this before. That is a dog whistle for Christian national. Pastor gets up and says, like here we believe in biblical truth. It's probably a Christian nationalist truth because they're. His evidence is. Trust me, bro, exactly. There's a long history of men just being like, like, what makes America great.

[Tim Whitaker]

Is that we're multicultural. What makes America great is that we have these values in our Constitution about the freedom of speech, freedom of religion, et cetera. Right? The ability to pursue happiness, life and liberty together, to work among differences, to find common ground, to have shared values over shared beliefs. That's what makes America so great, right? What makes it great is that I can learn from different people who live life differently and learn values from them and vice versa. And we can pursue this American experiment right in democracy together. What doesn't make it great is when you have Christian nationalists like these four men who think that they are superior in every way, their theology is superior, their morality is superior, their understanding of the world is superior, and that they have to be embedded in government to write laws that benefit and privilege people like them while denigrating people who don't look like them or believe like them or act like them, or have the same identity or, you know, sexual identity as them. That's what makes America not great. That's what makes it tyrannical. But they can't see it. All right, let's finish up this guy's thought and we'll wrap.

[Josh Howerton]

Or that God's morality. Morality is the only thing that gets legislated. Let's legislate the morality that doesn't invite the judgment and the wrath of God.

[Tim Whitaker]

There it is.

[Josh Howerton]

Let's legislate and influence our nation based on a Christian perspective. So that's Christian nationalism. Agree. Disagree.

[Ryan Visconti]

Additional comments yeah, patriotism is a word that's very similar in definition to nationalism. And nobody treats the word patriotism like a scary label. So everyone's comfortable saying, I'm patriotic.

[Josh Howerton]

Sure.

[Ryan Visconti]

And when we say that, we tend to mean, I love my country. I'm proud of my country and my culture and our history. The only difference between the term patriotism and nationalism is a small difference. It's like one phrase. Nationalism also includes the idea that your nation is better than other nations in some ways. And that's something that I think some, some tender Christians get a little bit concerned about. Like, are we allowed to say that we're better than someone else? Are we. Are we allowed to be proud of our country, like, and believe it's better than other countries? And I would just go, like, to a personal level, right. Are you allowed as a man to think your wife is better than other wives? Are you allowed to think that your family is better than other families? It doesn't mean you hate other families. It doesn't mean you hate other men's wives. It just means you love yours. And I would argue that today, in this world today, it's easier than ever to think, man. America has a superior moral structure, a superior legal system, a superior business environment. Not just in third world countries where people are living in huts. You know, I'm talking about other first world countries. Like, look at Europe today, where you can get arrested for making an offensive social media post. Look at capitalist or socialist countries where they're essentially trying to equalize economic outcomes in society. What does that do to the health care system? What does it do to business opportunities? So is America.

[Tim Whitaker]

We're stopping here. We gotta stop here. We gotta wrap here.

[April A Joy]

We're gonna stop here. Oh, my God. Okay, so first of all, his definition, the distinction between nationalism and patriotism, that's not. That's not the distinction like nationalism is the elevation of one nation to the detriment of others.

[Tim Whitaker]

Right.

[April A Joy]

So, for example, like, you can be a nationalist, like fascism is a form of nationalism where you want to take over. Like Hitler, for example, taking over other countries because you believe your country is so much better, that you need to make all the other countries like you. Like that is to the detriment of other countries. Like it is even in what we're doing with Israel, like, and supporting them to the detriment of Gaza. Because you believe in this. Like that, like our, our ally. Anyway, that's, that's not the main difference between nationalism and patriotism. Also, nationalism is an elevation of one identity to the detriment of other identities, of all other identities and belief system within your country. So it's not just, I love my country, it's I love my country. As long as this country, this specific group is in control and has all of the power. And all these other groups need to conform.

[Tim Whitaker]

That's right.

[April A Joy]

Also, I cannot believe that he just gave an example of, in Europe how they arrest people for a social media post. Did you hear about the guy that was arrested for sharing a meme? Oh, my God, what was his name? He shared a meme of. It was related to Charlie Kirk. Hold on. Charlie Kirk meme or. No, it was Donald Trump. Okay. In Tennessee, there was a man who was arrested, Larry Bouchard, Bushart, whatever his name is, he shared, he shared a quote from Donald Trump that was, we have to get over it. And it, and it is a direct quote that Donald Trump said after Iowa's Perry High School had a mass shooting. Donald Trump said, we have to get over it. He shared that in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, you can, you could argue that's insensitive, but is it worthy of being arrested? This man was arrested and jailed for over a month for posting that. I'm not joking. No, I'm not joking. He was arrested because the police claimed that he lived in Perry county and it said Iowa. Like it was in reference to the Perry High School. And so he thought they were like, well, we took it as a threat that they were. That he was going to do a mass shooting to Perry County High School, which is different than I was Perry High School. And they literally interviewed the police, the policeman that made the arrest. And they asked him like, well, surely you knew that he was not talking about Perry County. He was like, yeah, but other people didn't know. He was arrested for something very like, you should not be arrested for that. So it is rich that we are literally living in that country that is arresting people for social media posts.

[Tim Whitaker]

Now this is the delusion. I mean, I also brought this up too. Let's talk about healthcare, Ryan. Cause Ryan mentions healthcare. We spend almost twice per capita the average of other wealthy countries. We spend almost $14,000 per capita in health care costs. And our health care results are terrible. Look at this. The United States has worse health care outcomes compared to other wealthy countries. Our life expectancy is low. Infant mortality is some of the worst. Safety during childbirth is some of the worst. Unmanaged asthma is medium. Unmanaged diabetes is some of the worst. Heart attack mortality, some of the worst. So, like, this is the myth of American exceptionalism. This is why I hate nationalism, because it's so ignorant. The reason why I critique America is because I like living here and I know that America could be better, right? It's kind of like when you have a music instructor. I was a professional drummer for a lot of years. When I took lessons, my teacher critiqued me. He critiqued my form. You know what he didn't tell me? Tim, you're exceptional. Tim, there's no one better than you. Tim, you're better than all my other students. No, he didn't blow smoke up my butt. He was honest. And when I did something good, he was like, hey man, you worked really hard on that. Congratulations, like job well done. And when my form was off, he would correct me when I couldn't sight read because I didn't practice. He would call me out on my bs, Right? We called this stuff out because America could solve these problems. We have some of the highest gun mortality rates in the world. We have horrible health care outcomes even though we spend more, more than almost any other country per capita, while our for profit health care system profits billions of dollars on the sick, right? We have things that are really wrong with the country that we could fix, we could fix, but the powers that be, for whatever reason, do not want to. We could fix our immigration system. We could fix it. So there was an easier but still safe way to welcome in immigrants, especially refugees, in countries that we destabilized. We forget that our government has destabilized other countries in the global south, which is part of the great migration, you know, problem that we have, right? We could find a way to welcome in refugees and asylum seekers, but we choose not to. That doesn't make America great. It makes us terrible. It makes us in need of some serious reform. We have to do better. We have to. And we Can. But for Ryan, this is. We're just, you know, we hate our country. Oh, we're. We just are so negative. Well, there's negative things to critique. Even the wealth gap between black people and white people. It's 10 to 1 still. It's 10 to 1. You can't tell me is just because black people don't want to work, that is racist and ridiculous. There are other systemic factors still at play.

[April A Joy]

Yeah.

[Tim Whitaker]

Impact these, these results.

[April A Joy]

Yeah. I had a thought. I forgot what it was. I wanted to give an update. They did drop the charges against the man that was arrested for the social media post, and I'm sure he's going to sue the crap out of them.

[Tim Whitaker]

Stupid man. It's so ridiculous.

[Melinda Hale]

Yeah.

[April A Joy]

Oh, I was also going to say, as far as immigration goes, their whole argument for what Donald Trump is doing is also disingenuous. They believe that Joe Biden wanted open borders and that all progressives just want open borders. That's not true. All of us agree that we should deport violent people who are here, you know, that are undocumented. Like if you're going to commit a violent crime and you're not supposed to be in this country, I think 99.9% of people would agree that they should get deported back to where they belong. What we're talking about is the vast majority of people who are undocumented in this country are not violent at all. In fact, a lot of them have been here for decades and are working and have work visas and are trying to do things the correct way and are providing for their family and are really helping our economy. Those people should have a path to citizenship. It's. But that's not what Donald Trump is doing. Donald Trump is doing a blanket deporting everyone. And the studies have showed that the vast majority of people that ICE is detaining and deporting now are not violent, have never committed 70 plus percent.

[Josh Howerton]

Right.

[April A Joy]

And being here undocumented is not a criminal offense. It's a civil offense. And so that, that already is a, is a misconception of the way that they portray undocumented people where they say, well, everyone's here as a criminal because they're here against the law. Like, no, no, no, it is not a criminal offense.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah. Look, the, the data says, according to Cato Institute, undocumented immigrants are half as likely to commit crimes as their native born counterparts. Okay. That's why we call this propaganda, because the whole war on immigration, it is just a way to keep America white. That's why Trump? The Trump administration. I'm not sure if I said this, April, to you. The Trump administration has reduced the amount of refugees allowed in 2026 from 125,000 to like 7,000. Almost all of those slots are going to white Africaners. Almost all of them are going to white Africaners. And because the Trump administration says falsely that they are under persecution in South Africa, which is blatantly bs, I just don't know how to make it any clearer. You know, like, you can talk about whatever you want, but the actions speak louder than your words. And so the actions of this administration are dehumanizing. They are built on lies. They are not truthful. They are trying to. They closed down our government because they didn't want health care subsidies being extended. How much more cruel can you get? I don't understand. These men can say whatever they want in theory land. The outcomes of what they voted for speak for themselves.

[April A Joy]

Yep. Okay, well, let us know if you want us to do a part two. If they're going to go through the constitution and stuff, it would be. Maybe should get on here.

[Tim Whitaker]

Yeah, let's see that.

[April A Joy]

To actually like debunk it from a constitutional attorney expert point of view.

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, this was a doozy. Two hours. Wow. Well, there you go, friends.

[April A Joy]

This has been two hours.

[Tim Whitaker]

You know, I thought about doing this solo on my. On my other on the new Vagelicals channel, but I'm like, you know what? Let's do a Tim in April because I thought it'd be cool to have misery.

[April A Joy]

Misery loves company. Let's. Let's freak out April too. Let's make our.

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, hey, I bet you're not cold anymore. I bet you're all fired up over there.

[April A Joy]

You know, my anger is fueling me, actually. It's keeping me warm.

[Tim Whitaker]

Well, friends, thanks so much for being here. Please make sure to give this video a like. Make sure you subscribe to the channel if you're listening on podcast. Thank you so much. Please make sure to give this show a follow. I'm Tim Whitaker.

[April A Joy]

I'm April.

[Tim Whitaker]

See you next time.

[April A Joy]

Woo.

[Tim Whitaker]

Woo. Okay, I gotta end this stream. Where's my end button? I can't even find it. Okay, there we go.

[April A Joy]

Get us out.