Confronting Religious Nationalism

In this episode of "It's Kairos Time," the hosts discuss the role of religious nationalism in relation to militarism and the war on the poor. Rev. West McNeill, explains that religious nationalism is a tool used by actors to manipulate society, often promoting a fear of scarcity and justifying exclusionary beliefs. The conversation highlights how this ideology influences U.S. foreign policy and police behavior, and how it scapegoats marginalized groups. The hosts emphasize the importance of truth-telling, organizing, and movement building to combat these forces and promote a vision of abundance and justice.

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Music, welcome. Welcome to Kairos time. It's Kairos time. Welcome everybody to it's Kairos time. Kairos time. Kairos time. You music, hello and welcome to it's Kairos times stopped the war and the poor, a podcast series dedicated to lifting up the calls for demilitarization and a permanent ceasefire now in his beyond Vietnam, a time to break silent speech delivered at the Riverside Church in New York City, Dr King called War a cruel manipulation of the poor and warned that We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing oriented society to a person oriented society, where machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. In this episode, we are exploring the role of religious nationalism and white Christian nationalism and its relation to militarism and the war and the poor. Right now, we are joined by Reverend Wes McNeil, our honored guest today, who has spent their life doing the work of justice and building an analysis around justice for the poor here in the United States, they are ordained in the United Church of Christ and have over a decade of experience organizing with communities, faith and labor organizations. They are a graduate of the union leadership institute of the NYS AFL CIO and Cornell, and hold a Masters of divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where they were a fellow with the Cairo center for religions rights and social justice. Prior to joining labor religion coalition, West served as a parish minister in Tacoma, Washington. They have a bachelor's in journalism from Ithaca College, and they use theythem pronouns. Welcome to it's Kairos time, Reverend West. Thank you so much for joining us in this conversation around the role of religious nationalism and white Christian nationalism, and to start, I actually thought it would be great to define religious nationalism together. Is it fair to say that religious nationalism is a highly exclusionary and regressive form of any religion that believes it's the only true and valid religion which gets extended into enforcing a belief that a particular country has been ordained by God to exert power over other countries, ie, manifest destiny for religious nationalism. Is there anything that you would like to add to this definition? Yeah, well, first, it's really great to be part of this conversation. So thanks for having me. And yeah, I think that, I think that is a really good overview and description of what it is. And I think I might just add to it that it is a tool that is used by the state, but by also by other actors that are trying to direct the attention of society in a particular way to help serve their interests, and so that it's it's also a tool that's used by actors like outside of religion altogether, I think, or that that don't really care about the religious aspect of it, but know that it's a tool to direct people's attention or to manipulate people. I think that dovetails perfectly into this next question. One, I think it's really important to think of it as a tool, like a weaponized tool, that that people are utilizing. And then, you know, what's this connection? Like, what's this relationship between, like, religious nationalism, and specifically here in the United States, white Christian nationalism, what's that relationship? And then, what's that relationship when it comes to the use of force, a militarized state force to implement that world view. Yeah, I mean, white Christian nationalism is really the dominant expression of religious nationalism in the US context. And I think it's it relates to the use of force in in different ways right now, I think that some of it is kind of informal in a way that I think it's been clear over the last decade or so that a lot of the police forces in the US are you. Are attracting folks who are more and more aligned with a white Christian nationalist worldview, and so that's showing up in how police are relating to communities. And not that that element wasn't all already there, but I do think there's some clear, good documentation that that's increasing. And so sometimes it's not even the like official policy of the police departments, but it's who is part of them and how they're being influenced by the broader like, what's going on in broader society that is showing up just in how police are behaving and responding to different communities. And of course, there's this element of religious nationalism that is part of how the US operates in the world. And I think that gets a little tricky, because, you know, I wouldn't say that white Christian national forces are in charge of our state totally at the moment, and like it's not just that force that is influencing how our military behaves and how our Foreign Policy operates, but there is, when you look at this overall idea of kind of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny, and the whole like way that the US thinks of its role in the world, it is certainly a nationalism, and there is a religious undertone to it, as much as you know secular forces are already are like often driving or upholding that too. So I think the idea that the US has a particular moral role to enforce some kind of understanding of how, like human rights operate, or, you know, just the way that that nations should be in the world, is a religious nationalist understanding that, I think is just like normalized and accepted, like across party lines, across religious lines. But it's a really powerful and dangerous idea that we have this as the United States, this like special role, which then very quickly moves into this idea that the ends justify the means, and because we have a special role and a special authority, we can do what we want. We can have military bases all over the world in a way that nobody else, no other country, does, that we can kind of, you know, define what is acceptable and not in a way that other, no other country, has ability to do, and that no there is no force that will hold us accountable, or, you know, challenge what we have said is good or bad or whatever. I'm reminded by this quote by Dubois that talks about the importance of telling the truth about now. We can't just make peace in the present moment by lying about the past. We actually have to talk about the truth of the past to set, you know, human rights policy in the future, but we're constantly being under the leadership of those who would compromise the truth to make peace in this present and how that sets policy in the future. So what you were sharing about, to me, resonated with truth telling. And so something that you said during a truth commission on poverty, hunger and housing, both labor, religion coalition that I had the honor of working on a few years ago was we have to learn to tell the truth, knowing that our culture is steeped in so many lies that deny or justify systemic racism, that blame the poor for poverty, or that claim there isn't enough for all of us to have what we need. And so this religion, religious nationalism, as you framed it, has, you know, has been used, has been weaponized, to kind of dominate and create division. As an example here in the United States, one of the wealthiest nations in the world, 800 people a day die to poverty. And yet, white Christian nationalism identifies poverty as a consequence of individual sin and individual failure, rather than as a policy failure. You know, when you have 1/3 of your electorate, one emergency away from economic ruin, I can't imagine how that's not a policy failure, that that's deemed as an individual failure. And so my question I want to pose to you not a. Good question, what is the role of this economy of scarcity and the mental terrain of nationalism? Yeah, that's a great question. And I think scarcity is actually a really helpful frame to understand religious nationalism, because it really is so much about scarcity, and even on a theological, theological level, religious nationalism says there's like this one path to God for this one kind of people, or in even in this one particular place on earth, and that is this kind of scarcity model for God even, and it's very closely linked to a message about material scarcity. And part of how people are won over to this kind of exclusionary or supremacist worldview in the first place is through this fear that there is a scarcity of the things that we need to survive, whether that's a scarcity of money or food or housing, or even a scarcity of the things that we need For our like social and emotional and spiritual well being, religious nationalism, can kind of feed into that fear that there isn't going to be enough, and then responds to it in different ways. So one of the ways that it responds to it is by scapegoating the groups of people that it's otherized, and blaming them for either causing this scarcity or for taking what is rightfully you know belongs to the dominant group or whatever, and and then religious nationalism can also offer this comfort to people in the face of scarcity by saying if You follow these particular rules, or if you stay aligned with this group, then you're going to be okay. Your well being is going to be secured, whether that's like in this lifetime or in in an afterlife or whatnot. So I think that religious nationalism really like relies on having people feel that there is a scarcity, and having them be afraid of it, and then giving kind of some explanations and room for why that is, Which is interesting, because I feel like all of the world religions, and I can speak most particularly from Christianity, but actually, are about breaking us out of this fear of scarcity and having a generous approach and trust in God and in a community to provide for all of us, and that there actually is not scarcity isn't a thing that is even really real a lot of the time, and it's certainly not something that we need to be afraid of. Thank you for tuning into it's Kairos time stop the war on the poor. We're going to take a brief break from our conversation to hear about an upcoming policy summit on october 17. The Cairo center is bringing together experts on the economy, militarism, the rise of authoritarianism, and project 2025 alongside religious leaders and organizers to offer a concrete analysis of our current context and how our movements and organizations are responding. Join us as we discuss the challenges and opportunities of this kairos moment and how we can build on lessons from the pandemic era to build up powerful movements for the long haul. Visit us@www.cairocenter.org Welcome back to it's Cara's time stop the war on the poor. I love you. Lifting that element up. I often think of fruit. Each Apple has a bunch of seeds for all these more apple trees. And so nature itself works abundantly. And it's actually our economy of scarcity is what's actually creating the conditions of harm that's now harming the seeds that are naturally abundant now our seeds are being genetically modified to not be abundant anymore, and so you just see like, how insidious these these manufactured systems are when they go against the very thing that is nature. And for 1000s of years, all these different religions have spoken about to not be afraid and that the world is abundant. And so I so appreciate you bringing that in. And that kind of leads me to. This final question. You know, the social forces committed to power and control over the masses and utilizing, you know, militarized forces to kind of create this system of scarcity are growing bolder, and they're increasingly able to win mainstream support for you, like, what is the role of organizing and movement building and combating it? Yeah, I mean, I think the organizing and movement building are the way to combat it, and I think that's the first kind of message that I think we have to spread. I think that we really have to take seriously how deeply religious nationalism is rooted in our society and in our history, and that it really is moving in some pretty insidious ways. And I worry a little bit that people will see sort of this election as the answer. And if you know, obviously we do like it's important to try to keep religious nationalists, white Christian nationalists, who claim that that badge out of state power, like that is certainly important, but that's not going that's not the deeper task of out organizing This force. And I think we have to understand the real conditions that people are, that are that are pushing people into white Christian nationalism, that that fear of scarcity is real and the experience of scarcity is real for people, and we have to be responding by offering an alternative, and both like validating how hard things are out there and helping to point people towards an alternative, and our vision that actually there is enough, and it's very demonstrably true that there is like enough that we have enough resources to be able to be providing people with the basics of what they need. But also, I think these like social and spiritual needs that people have to make sense of their experience of of scarcity and seeing people they love hurt by not having what they need. And I think that's what organizing is about at its best, is really meeting people where they are and building communities that are trying to solve these problems together. And communities based in the fundamental values that everybody is inherently worthy of belonging and having what they need and like as the poor people's campaign says that everybody has the right to live. And those, I think, are values that like are broadly resonant with people, if we can invite them into that. So I think that's we have to, we have to take seriously the power of this white Christian nationalist narrative and organizing and that we can't just, you know, hope that it goes away. And we have to engage really deeply with this narrative that we have, in a message that we have that I think if we really reach people, is going to be resonant with most people. The truth, usually is, makes me think about we say poverty no more. We want justice for the poor. Reverend West, thank you so much for joining us, for its charism. You were on our first season, first episode of it's Kairos time and I are on our second season stop the war and the poor. Thank you so much for bringing hope and knowledge and your genius to this as you do to all spaces. And in closing, I'd just like to thank all of our listeners, and we want you to know that please know that you are not alone, and that it's only together that we can engage in the work that breaks the silence and the chains of injustice, it is Kairos time. Thank you so much. You.