Faithful America is organizing a sermon drive against Christian nationalism for next Sunday, June 11 — the week of Flag Day. We’re calling it “Preach and Pray to Confront Christian Nationalism.”

Preachers and worship leaders who sign up to participate will receive a free toolkit with sample prayers and sermon resources, including a quote from Shane about flags in church.

Unholy Christian nationalism is the biggest threat to both democracy and the church today — and we’re doing something about it.

Along with our allies at organizations like Vote Common Good and the Florida Council of Churches, Faithful America is launching a sermon and prayer drive against Christian nationalism. On Sunday, June 11 — the week of Flag Day — hundreds of Christian preachers across the country will take a stand against the hijacking of our faith.

Together, we will reject theocracy, hatred, and Christofascism — and in their place take a prophetic, Christ-like stance for peace, faith, hope, and love.

Take the pledge to preach or pray against Christian nationalism during your church’s services on June 11 below now, and Faithful America will send you helpful liturgical and lectionary resources to aid you in this work.

Learn More

For more in-depth background on this initiative, please visit Word&Way’s recent post on the initiative, Initiative Urges Pastors to Preach Against Christian Nationalism on June 11 – Word&Way (wordandway.org).

In an important panel discussion with the Christians Against Christian Nationalism initiative and Jim Wallis last week, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry underscored an important fact: Christian Nationalism* is not Christianity.

“If you look at the complex of white Christian Nationalism as an ideology,” Curry warned, “you lay it alongside Jesus of Nazareth and we’re not even talking about the same thing.”

Curry, like so many other prophetic Christian leaders, is right. Where Jesus taught love, peace, and truth, Christian Nationalism preaches division, violence, and disinformation. Yet with hundreds of right-wing political candidates using Christ’s name to deny election results, demonize their opponents, and spread discrimination – all with the blessing of far too many evangelical pastors and activists – Christian Nationalism is the single biggest threat to both democracy and the church today.

Christian Nationalism is defined by multiple academic researchers and sociologists as a theocratic political ideology that says America was founded to be a Christian nation, claims that the only true Americans are the country’s Christians, and frequently overlaps with white supremacy. It falsely teaches that there is no separation of church and state – and urges conservative Christians to seize and hold power by any means necessary.

This is the ideology that inspired the January 6 insurrection, organizes countless attacks on Americans’ equal rights, and could soon inspire a new wave of midterm political violence with rhetoric about “holy war” and the “armor of God” if the elections don’t go their way.

In his panel at Georgetown University, Presiding Bishop Curry urged Christians to speak out about this hijacking of our faith: “Silence is complicity… Lift up the text of the New Testament, specifically the four Gospels … and let Jesus talk. Anything that claims to be Christian, if it doesn’t match up, then we say, ‘Well, that’s not Christianity.’”

That’s precisely the goal of the newest campaign from the organization I run, Faithful America, called “False Prophets Don’t Speak for Me.” To help Christians recognize and respond to Christian Nationalism when they see it – in the public square as well as in our churches – we have identified a list of 20 leading Christian Nationalist leaders who, as Jesus warned, come to us in sheep’s clothing yet inwardly are ravenous wolves who devour the oppressed, the marginalized, and the least of these.

Our list includes three categories of False Prophets. The first category consists of political leaders who claim to speak for Jesus, using religious rhetoric and symbols to build their careers only to turn around and endanger the public with election denial, homophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, patriarchy, and other attacks on the common good.

This category includes Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert, who claims the separation of church and state doesn’t exist, Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who has built her campaign on Donald Trump’s Big Lie along with the slogan “God, guns, and glory,” and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who led the charge to overturn the election within Congress on January 6, 2021.

The second category of False Prophets is made up of other political leaders who may not use as much overt religious rhetoric as their peers named above, but who nevertheless endorse the same theocratic political agenda, help build power for their fellow Christian Nationalists, and attack equal rights despite personally identifying as Christian. Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters and Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance both fit that description. This category reminds us that many leaders and teachers realize that the First Amendment is actually still pretty popular, and thus try to hide the theocratic nature of their agenda.

The final False Prophets category names some of the pastors, televangelists, and other movement leaders who build the long-term infrastructure that the religious right uses to thrive in church and society. These are the faith leaders who provide church cover to the lawmakers who twist Jesus’s name for power, and who manipulate their followers as a political base rather than as souls looking for spiritual education and pastoral care.

Some examples from this last category are Franklin Graham, who gets away with saying election denial and MAGA conspiracy theories are “what God says in the Bible” by hiding behind his dad’s legacy, Michael Flynn, who brings dozens of QAnon-spouting pastors to churches around the country on the ReAwaken America Tour, and David Barton, the evangelical pseudo-historian partially responsible for manipulating voters into believing that well-funded national attacks on school boards are grassroots “parents’ rights” movements.

That’s why it’s incumbent on those of us who identify as Red Letter Christians not to remain silent. We must recognize the harm that is being done in our name, and call out the blatant abuse of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A big piece of the False Prophets campaign is lifting up the prophetic voices of faith leaders around the country who are resisting Christian Nationalism in their communities. As one of our volunteers, Ohio Lutheran Pastor Beth Westphal, told us, “J.D. Vance’s embrace of Christian Nationalism inspires discrimination, division, and discord cloaked in the language of faith. As a clergy person, I cannot sit quietly while such harm is done in the name of Christianity.”

Here are three things we can all do right now to push back on Christian Nationalism: First, make a plan to vote your red-letter values, if you haven’t already. Are you still registered to vote? When will you vote, and how will you get to your polling place or dropbox? Are there voter ID requirements in your state? Learn the answer to these questions and more at Vote 411 from the League of Women Voters now.

Next, educate yourself about Christian Nationalism. One starting point is to watch the new webinar “The Threat of Christian Nationalism” from Faithful America featuring myself, historian Dr. Jemar Tisby, Rev. Jen Butler of Faith in Public Life, and Rev. Adam Russell Taylor of Sojourners. (Stick around for the Q&A – Professor Tisby’s list of three ways to talk to the Christian Nationalists in your life is particularly helpful!) Then share what you learn with friends, family, and church members, sign and share the “False Prophets Don’t Speak for Me” statement, and find a local organizing group where you can put your new knowledge to good use.

Finally, pray. Pray for justice, mercy, and humility. Pray for peace, hope, and courage. Pray for our Christian Nationalist siblings in Christ, pray for the country, and pray however the Spirit may lead you. We know from the “thoughts and prayers” discourse around guns that prayer alone is not enough, but as Christians we also know that when prayer is combined with action, it becomes a powerful tool for hope, connection, and a better tomorrow.

This article was originally published by Word&Way and is shared with permission.

By this Biblical standard, there is absolutely nothing loving, just, or Christian about the white nationalist content distributed by GiveSendGo, the country’s so-called “#1 free Christian crowdfunding site.”

GiveSendGo, hosted on the Amazon Web Service servers, might have once been considered a spiritual powerhouse. Founded in 2015 as “a place to fund hope,” the site helped Christians pay for mission trips, churches, nonprofits, and medical expenses.

But since then, the fruits of GiveSendGo’s spirit have gone sour. Its founders now allow their platform to be used in support of hateful lies, white nationalism, and even terrorism, including the attack on the U.S. Capitol. None of this is biblical, or comes even remotely close to God’s dream for the world.

The website has received particular notoriety in recent weeks for helping both Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, chairman of the Proud Boys, and Ali Alexander, organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rallies and the failed coup. The site also raised more than $500,000 last year for Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenaged vigilante who murdered two Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, WI.

GiveSendGo is certainly not the only Christian outlet to have helped incite the violent failed coup. Evangelist Franklin Graham worked hard to spread Trump’s election lies. Author Eric Metaxas emceed a “Stop the Steal” Jericho March in D.C., attended by Catholic bishops Joseph Strickland and Carlo Maria Viganò. The list goes on.

The results were evident during the infamous march and subsequent terrorism. There were signs that proclaimed, “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president,” crosses held high, and even a prayer giving thanks for the attack offered from the Senate floor.

As Christians, we have a great deal to atone for – especially white progressives like me. Unless the church in America is to be consigned to the ash heap of social history, we must identify actions that are hateful and unchristian, cast them out, and redouble our work for justice and repair.

Seeking accountability for GiveSendGo by calling on Amazon to drop the site from its cloud servers is a good place to start. While the Tarrio and Rittenhouse have received the most attention, the problems run much deeper. First Faithful America (the organization I direct) and then the Washington Post identified dozens more GiveSendGo fundraising campaigns with white nationalist ties. There are fundraisers to spread election conspiracy theories, campaigns to purchase armor and travel for far-right rallies, and pages aiding at least four members of the Proud Boys who were arrested storming the Capitol.

There are even fundraisers to amplify the messages of Melissa Carone, Rudy Giuliani’s “star” witness in the failed effort to overturn Michigan’s election results, and Sidney Powell, one of the attorneys for Trump’s 62 frivolous election lawsuits.

By undermining trust in the most secure election in American history, Powell and Carone not only spread countless lies but also helped prime the Capitol riot. In aiding their cause, GiveSendGo is bearing false witness – and not speaking truth in love.

READ: Where Do We Go from Here? 

Asked to defend these violent and misleading campaigns by the Washington Post, GiveSendGo co-founder Jacob Wells did not turn to Scripture. Instead, he offered a legalistic explanation, arguing, “If the law dictates that we can’t have things [on the website], we adhere to the law.”

It’s one thing to follow secular law, but as a Christian website, shouldn’t GiveSendGo also follow God’s law?

In August, facing criticism for hosting the Rittenhouse fundraiser, Wells told Religion News Service, “As a platform, everything we do and what our platform delivers is Christ-centered.” The astonishing claim that delivering white Christian nationalism, terrorism, and deadly election conspiracy theories is “Christ-centered” isn’t just racist and dishonest; it’s blasphemous.

Fed up with this harmful hijacking of the Gospel, more than 17,000 Faithful America members have called on Amazon to stop hosting GiveSendGo. Seven hundred of those petition signers also filed abuse reports directly with AWS by emailing abuse@amazonaws.com.

So far, Amazon has tried to pass the buck. Our members have received a canned reply that pretends all responsibility lies with GiveSendGo: “While the reported content is hosted on AWS’s infrastructure, it is our customer who controls the content.”

That cowardly response is reminiscent of Pontius Pilate, symbolically washing his hands to absolve himself of complicity in Christ’s death.

Amazon executives’ refusal to take responsibility for what they host is a question of “won’t,” not “can’t.” They have already proven their ability to act by removing the seditionist social-media site Parler from AWS and QAnon products from Amazon itself.

Those were important steps, but if it they were the only steps Amazon plans to take, they were nothing more than corporate whitewashing. Now that AWS CEO Andy Jassy is being promoted to run all of Amazon, it is even more important that we press him to take action.

We are left with two questions: Does Jassy want to prevent Amazon’s name from permanent association with white nationalism? And will white Christians do our part to prevent such injustice from being perpetuated in the name of our faith?

If the answer to the second question is yes, we can begin by increasing pressure on Amazon to remove GiveSendGo from its servers. If the answer to the first question is also yes, then that campaign will see fruits almost immediately.

Almost every year, Easter at church leaves me energized, excited, and engaged. Part of that is the crowd: The pews are full, the children are laughing at the egg hunt, and all my friends are at the celebratory post-worship lunch sharing in the good mood.

Another reason I find Easter so joyful is the music. The day brings with it some of the best hymns of the year, ringing out loudly thanks to large crowds and extra musicians: “Christ the Lord Is risen today,” “He is risen, He is risen,” “Now the green blade riseth,” and more. After two hours of soaring music and messages of new life and hope ringing in our ears, it is almost impossible to leave the sanctuary without a full heart.

This year, as churches painfully yet compassionately suspend services to stop the spread of COVID-19, there will be no in-person Easter gatherings. The pews will be empty rather than full, no children will laugh at church-provided Easter egg hunts, and there will be no trumpets or French horns to join the organ for Handel’s Messiah – at least not live.

But that does not mean we cannot still have joy at Easter. This year, watching services at home broadcast from nearly empty churches, we have the opportunity to experience the holiest day of the church calendar similarly to how Jesus’s original disciples might have experienced the very first Easter.

Upon rising from the grave, Christ’s first appearance was to a small group of women: Mary, Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Joanna. He then appeared to Peter, and to two men walking the road to Emmaus and discussing his death. Time and time again, Jesus appeared to groups of smaller than five, just as we gather now.

On at least four other occasions, Jesus appeared to a group only slightly larger: the eleven male disciples. I am especially struck that two of these appearances came while “they were sitting at the table,” hidden away from society in an upper room, scared of current events and uncertain of what would come next.

Paul also tells us that Jesus “appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time.” I do not think he means Jesus appeared at an event where 500 people were present. Such a visible gathering would have been extremely dangerous, not to mention logistically difficult, for the early, still unorganized church. Paul is instead telling us that Jesus appeared simultaneously to hundreds of different Christians in hundreds of different places – just as our churches will broadcast to thousands of laptops and phones on Easter morning this year.

We do not know who the 500 people that saw Jesus in that moment were. Perhaps some were sick, elderly, or disabled individuals living lonely lives of solitude. Just as Jesus appeared to them in isolation that first Easter, the churches of today can work to bring a joyful Easter to their homes and hospitals this year, as well.

If a small Easter was good enough for the Apostles, then surely it can be comforting and joyful for us today. Perhaps it can even be better, for we have a gift that the disciples did not: We already know what happened that third day. When Christ appeared, Mary and Peter failed to recognize him at first, and Thomas rejected what his senses told him. We have learned from their shock, and can now carry the hope of the resurrection with us at all times.

It is true that this year, we do not know when the promised resurrection will occur. We will certainly not begin to rebuild our lives or our society until well after April 12. What we do know is that whenever the day comes, we will, for the most part, be ready to rebuild. And we carry with us the assurance that Christ conquers death and will always show us new life.

READ: Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday with Red Letter Christians 

We also know that as we wait for our resurrection—as we suffer economic uncertainty, hunger, and poverty, and as we lose loved ones to COVID-19 without being able to sit with them or attend the funeral—Jesus is with us through it all.

Whatever pain we feel, we know that the incarnate God who wept at his friend Lazarus’ death, who begged to have the suffering removed from his heart in the Garden, and who was whipped and nailed to a cross before his mother has felt a similar pain and will be with us until our resurrection arrives. We cannot have Easter without first suffering Good Friday, but Easter always arrives, even if not on the Sunday our human calendars told to expect.

There is one more thing to remember about that first Easter season: The apostles’ work did not end with Christ’s resurrection. New life means new mission, as Christ instructed in Matthew 28:19-20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Make disciples by teaching people to obey everything that I have commanded you. And just what was it that Jesus had commanded us?

To love our neighbors, as well as our enemies.

To be peacemakers, merciful and pure in heart.

This is the charge of Easter, the mission that begins anew on Sunday even from within our quarantined homes: Give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty; comfort the sick; proclaim good news to the poor, release the captives, and let the oppressed go free.

Recognizing that the coronavirus pandemic impacts the poor and vulnerable the most, the mission of Easter means that Christians cannot accept racial inequality in health care and coronavirus deaths. Churches have a role to play in pushing Congress to lift up the poor, and to put people before profits in the next round of relief legislation. 

The mission of Easter means we need to call on our governors and mayors to reduce incarcerated populations, since anyone living or working in prison populations is virtually doomed to catch COVID-19.

And it means that we must protect the vulnerable by countering the deadly inaction and misinformation spread by religious charlatans like Jerry Falwell Jr., Jim Bakker, and Tony Spell.

Once society begins to rebuild a post-pandemic economy, Easter Christians can lead the way in working for a new, regenerative community that respects all human dignity. The resurrected Body of Christ can lead the way in setting aside racial disparities, anti-immigrant xenophobia, and fossil fuel dependence, building in their place a more loving, equitable future for all.

That is Easter’s promise of the resurrection: That when we emerge, we will have the opportunity not just for life, but for new life.

So let’s experience Easter as the Apostles did: in small groups at home, preparing to share God’s love with the poor and vulnerable. This is not the Easter we hoped for, but it is the Easter we have. And when we remember who celebrated this way before us, who it is that always walks the road with us, and what it can mean for our shared future, then it can still be a joyful holy day indeed.

Nevertheless, suspending in-person worship is absolutely the right decision. As followers of a savior who healed the sick, we have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect the vulnerable by slowing the spread of COVID-19.

Sadly, not enough pastors are taking the novel coronavirus seriously. I’ve been hearing from many religious leaders who say the crisis just isn’t bad enough where they live yet to warrant suspending services—but that simply isn’t true.

It does not matter how many confirmed cases of coronavirus exist in your town. Public health experts tell us that the sooner we all take drastic measures, the better a chance we have of “flattening the curve,” slowing the spread of this virus, and keeping our hospitals from getting overwhelmed.

That is why several thousand Christians have signed a petition from Faithful America, the Christian social-justice advocacy organization I work for, calling on all our pastors and priests to suspend services and other events.

The facts are the facts, so why haven’t all churches closed yet? Some pastors have been listening to the misinformation initially spread by figures like Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, who falsely compared the novel coronavirus to the flu on Fox News.

Other pastors may in fact understand the risk posed by the disease, but fear that their parishioners will rebel against any decisions to cancel services before the law absolutely requires it.

READ: Lessons From the Fog (And This Pandemic) 

As priests and pastors, our ultimate loyalty is to God. This means that it often falls on us as moral leaders to make unpopular decisions. If a governor or mayor has not yet locked down a city, it is still the pastor’s responsibility to care for their parishioners, and to do what is right for the larger community.

Still other pastors tell me their primary concern is not the virus itself, but the truly devastating impacts of social isolation for the elderly and depressed. There are certainly painful trade-offs when we suspend in-person worship – but those temporary tradeoffs are worth it to save millions of lives, plus everyday we are given new, creative ideas about how to practice community even while social distancing.

Take heart that when Jesus said he will be among any two or three who gather in his name, he did not say they have to gather in person. Just as we pray with Christians from across the centuries, we can pray with one another today from across town and across the nation.

There are abundant resources available online to help pastors learn how to run digital services. For a starting place, I recommend the Sojourners article, “Community Without Communing: Resources for Virtual Church.” The Christian Reformed Church in North America has also provided “9 Key Tips for Planning an Online Worship Service.”

If you have a high number of congregants without computers, you might consider something like FreeConferenceCall.com for a simple audio-only prayer service.

It’s okay if you don’t get the technology perfect; parishioners will appreciate any attempts at all. We won’t always get it right, but just as Jesus forgives over and over again, we can keep trying, over and over again.

It’s also okay to skip the online worship and put your time into phone-based pastoral care or online Bible studies. Churches are well positioned to organize food deliveries for the shut-in, provide video-based fellowship hours, spread the word about advocacy efforts that push the government and corporate employers to do more for the vulnerable, and create phone trees to give the isolated a daily dose of love.

To provide worship when your energy is elsewhere, simply refer parishioners to existing digital services, such as those from the Episcopal National Cathedral or the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago.

Ultimately, the church is not a building. The church is God’s people, wherever we are. If we have faith that God will show us the way, then we can take these next few weeks to pray, innovate, and find new ways to offer God’s scattered children the comfort, care, and community they need.