Rep. Jared Huffman on Christian Nationalism and Church-State Separation in America

Christian nationalism is becoming a central force in American politics and public debate. In this episode, Congressman Jared Huffman joins Faithful Politics to discuss Christian nationalism in the United States, how it is defined, and how it is influencing government, policy, and political rhetoric in 2026. This conversation explores what people mean when they use the term Christian nationalism and why it has become a major topic in discussions about democracy, religious liberty, and the role of faith in public life.

Huffman explains how lawmakers and policy experts identify Christian nationalism in legislation and government action, and how it differs from personal religious belief or individual expressions of faith. The discussion looks at church-state separation, the First Amendment, and how Christian nationalism is showing up in debates over education, federal agencies, public funding, and political messaging. The episode also covers the Congressional Free Thought Caucus, the Religious Liberty Commission, the Anti-Christian Bias Task Force, and the ongoing relevance of the Johnson Amendment.

The conversation examines how Christian nationalism is framed by supporters and critics, why the term is contested, and how it connects to broader questions about pluralism, religious diversity, and democratic norms. Huffman outlines how members of Congress evaluate whether policies cross into religious favoritism and what tools exist to respond when concerns about church-state boundaries arise. The episode also addresses how political movements, media narratives, and demographic shifts are shaping the current conversation around Christian nationalism in America.

Learn more about the Freethought Caucus: https://freethoughtcaucus-huffman.house.gov

Guest bio
Jared Huffman represents California’s 2nd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is co-chair of the Congressional Free Thought Caucus, a group focused on church-state separation, religious liberty, and the role of religion in public policy. Huffman has led congressional briefings and initiatives examining Christian nationalism, pluralism, and the influence of religion in American politics.

Transcript

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Hey, welcome back, faithful politics listeners and watchers. If you are watching us on YouTube or listening to us in your car, your jog or your, don't know what it is people do. Yeah, like we're really glad to have you and I'm your political host, Will Wright, joined as always by my faithful host, Pastor Josh Bertram. What's up, Josh? And today we have returning with us Congressman Jared Huffman, who represents California's mighty second congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is co-chair of the Congressional Free Thought Caucus, where he focuses on defending church-state separation, protecting religious liberty, and examining the political influence of Christian nationalism. He's also led congressional briefings and initiatives on the role of religion in public policy, and brought up questions about democracy and pluralism. And we are glad to have him back join us to answer all of our questions about Christian nationalism in America under Trump 2.0. So welcome back to the show, Congressman. It's great to be back with you guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so let's just jump right into it. So uh I guess for those that might not know what the Free Thought Caucus is and kind of its role and what it does, let's just start there. Like, what is the Free Thought Caucus? Thanks for asking. So the Free Thought Caucus was this uh kind of upstart thing that Jamie Raskin and I started back in 2018. to create a working coalition within Congress to defend church-state separation, but also to defend public policy based on facts and reason and science and what we believe is true religious freedom as our founders intended against kind of the endless onslaught of Christian nationalism and theocracy. that's how it began in 2018. It was unique. Congress had never had anything like that. And I'm happy to say that as of right now, we're up to 33 members, which is kind of amazing. Not yet, but I would love to get some Republicans. I know. There was a time. Yeah, there was a time they did. But what's cool about that number is it makes us bigger than the House Freedom Caucus. Ooh, come on somebody. I like that a lot, dude. A little congressional competition. That's a good thing, right? I mean, you know, I think that's good. So I really love the free caucus and the idea of it. You know, I would love for you to help people who hear and maybe they are Republicans or listening, right? And they're like, hey, this is you know, that's just liberal woke nonsense or whatever, you know, whatever they might say. And I know that's a caricature, but um what if they're thinking like, uh you know, it just sounds like that's atheism under another, you know, just just trying to be atheists and say atheists are better and smarter and they more critically think, think better critically than than religious people. um And that caucus, that just sounds for atheists and secular people that don't have any religion. um Break that myth if that is indeed not true, which I've read about it and it's not true. So yeah, go ahead. I get that caricature all the time. And, you know, look, we're living in the age of cartoonish caricatures. It feels like a South Park episode all the time around here. uh So, yeah, people sometimes think, oh, you have to be an atheist to be in the Free Thought Caucus. Maybe because they associate it with me and I'm the only one dumb enough in the entire Congress to admit that I don't believe in God. uh Other people are way smarter than me. And so what I would say to them is this, that the Free Thought Caucus actually represents the religious diversity of America. Unlike the broader kind of snapshot of Congress, when you look at the country at large, We're a big, uh diverse place with all of these different. Christian sects and non-Christians, you've got the nuns coming along, the fastest growing religious demographic in America, clocking in at around 30 % of Americans now who are non-religious. um Denominational Christians are fading, non-denominational are showing growth. So it's a very changing religious landscape. And then you've got Congress, which is like it was frozen in amber sometime in like the 1950s. ah Look at the Republicans. I mean, they are 99 % Christian. And most of those fundamentalist Christians, they allow one or two Orthodox Jews. But that's it. ah That is a monolith. And the Free Thought Caucus is very different than that. We have uh Muslim, Hindu, uh Jewish. Christian, infidel, you know, in my case, and, uh you know, a couple of agnostics. It's pretty cool. And that, think, gives us a unique space in this whole conversation of pluralism and religious liberty. I agree. Yeah, so one of the things in Trump's second term that I think is really pronounced, especially if you are swimming in the waters of faith and politics, of which we do, um is this rise of Christian nationalism. um But... Not just that, but I think people's understanding of what Christian nationalism is, because it's one of those, if you say, that's Christian nationalist, people kind of look at you sort of funny, like, I don't get it. You all don't have definitions for Christian nationalism. So how can you say that's Christian nationalism? And I know that's an area of focus for your caucus. You've had a lot of experts that we've had on the show um testify in front of you all. So like, could you help us better understand like when people talk, when your committee talks and looks at Christian nationalism, what are you actually looking at? What is Christian nationalism kind of broadly defined? Yeah, if you want to really uh simplify it and have it make sense for people, just look at the January 6th insurrection. That was Christian nationalism. When you saw those folks with all of their crosses stood up like battle standards outside the Capitol, storming the Capitol when you saw the folks holding Bibles aloft and blowing shofars, having a Jericho march around the Capitol, uh believing that uh that was a patriotic and Christian moment fused into that one violent attempted coup, that was a very ugly expression of Christianity. It's um not the only expression, but it certainly was a very glaring one that kind of opened a lot of people's eyes to what it was. And it really wasn't until after that insurrection that you started seeing a lot more polling and, you know, commentary and analysis about what is this thing called Christian nationalism? Because it's been with us forever. But I think it took something like that for people to start really digging in and having hard conversations about what was going on. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And that's really helpful, I think, as an example. We have all these things uh going on, right? uh In turn, talking about religious symbolism being put out, not just in the public square, but in the political square. mean, public square and should be in the political square, I think. But it's being promoted by, for instance, Department of Homeland Security. puts out a I mean, I follow all of the departments in their social media, and I'm seeing blessed are the peacemakers. A quote from the Sermon on Mount for Jesus and I see people with guns and all the most advanced equipment and ice and they're going and arresting people and so I think and I said to my church, it's a terrible, I don't care what you think about Republican, Democrat, whatever, it's a terrible interpretation of that verse. And, and we should reject that. the use of that and I'm seeing that all over the place. We're actually going to have someone to come on and talk about specifically that. And I'm sure that you've seen it in Congress. I mean, I got to, I'm just wondering, like, this isn't actually my question, but are you the Democrats in Congress? Like just sitting here, like what is going on? Like, what is wrong with you Republicans? I thought you were like, is that what's like, is it more anger than normal or is it basically business as usual? It's not business as usual, I can promise you that. No, we are in just as much disbelief and disgust and despair as you and everyone else out there who looks at this and just can't believe some of the stuff we're hearing and seeing. uh know, this Congress right now is like a Russian Duma. You know, there is no independence, no uh meaningful oversight. They will do whatever Donald Trump tells them to do. And that's just the moment that we're in. It is and it's unfortunate and part of me feels like that's kind of unfortunately part of politics and I think we need to bring back that sense like I'm a huge fan of whistleblowers and I'm a huge fan of anyone like Thomas Massey, Rand Paul and those are the two guys that come to mind just people that are willing to step up and confront the power in their own like party that makes so much sense to me. I have so much respect for people. No one is bold when they get out there and say everything their party already wants them to say. That's not boldness, right? That's just doing whatever they're asking you to do. That's cool. And I just really love that. But I want to kind of focus in, right? You're very concerned. We're very concerned. I understand about Christian nationalism. And I appreciate the definition. What would you say, what's the minimum threshold when you're looking and you're saying this is now crossed into state favoritism? This is not just, we're mentioning this, where, you know, I'm uh a congressman that has a religion, and so I'm thanking God because of my personal whatever, right? This is moved into inappropriate, unconstitutional territory. What is that for you? Well, this has always been a difficult thing. We've had church-state separation, you know, since we... ratified the First Amendment. Actually, I would argue even before then because before the First Amendment, you had Article 6 saying there should be no religious test. I mean, that is a wall of separation between religion and government. The First Amendment was additive to that. So all of these standards and secular firewalls have been in place from the beginning, but we've never defined them very well. Honestly, we've always had such a Christian monolith. this country historically that, um you know, it really was rarely invoked. But things have changed, and, you know, a lot of it started with some Supreme Court rulings in the middle of the last century, uh where we started putting some sideboards on the encroachment of religion into the public square. But those side boards were not meant to say you can't be religious or you've got to hide your Bible as contraband or something and just worship quietly in your basement. That's nonsense. We do sometimes hear, particularly the right wing Christians, suggest that that's what secularism has done to the public square. We've created the so-called naked public square and driven Christians into hiding and shame them and they can't say Mary Christmas and it's all such a bunch of malarkey. Christians continue to dominate all aspects of this country. I told you the numbers for the Congress, right? I mean this is still even in the year 2026 a largely Christian monolith. Look at the Supreme Court, look at the Trump administration, look at the new Commission on Religious Liberty that the president created. 12 conservative Christians and one Orthodox Jew. That's I guess religious liberty and Diversity in this country in this day and age so the notion that you know there's been some persecution or some Scouring of religion from the public square is so preposterous uh But you know we do need to kind of wrestle with you know what what are the lines? And I think sometimes we over complicate it you know Church-state separation does not mean that you can't express your faith or bring your values or your strong beliefs into public discourse and the public square. It just means the government has to stay neutral. That's it. It's as simple as that. You know, since you brought up the Religious Liberty Commission, oh there was two kind committees that were formed right around that same time. It was like the Religious Liberty Commission and then the Anti-Christian Bias Task Force. I remember when it got launched, I watched their, whatever, their maiden voyage on the DOJ website. It just seemed really strange that this Anti-Christian Task Force is one attached to the DOJ, but then also it's producing these reports. So like I started following their work really closely once they started forming and I actually created a sub stack I have, called Weight-Ruthy Oppressed Ones. It's basically kind of a ironic but historical look at why Christians feel they're persecuted. And in the report that they put out, it was like a couple months ago, was like the first of like the three reports they have to put out. you they list sort of like by department of instances where there was like alleged anti-Christian bias. And I didn't fact check all of them, but I did fact check a lot of them. And you would read those sort of like summaries and you're like... That's that's gonna be a stretch for me, you know, like having somebody not be able to I don't know Like I can't even think of it and like like like the transgender day thing that fell on Easter I think that was in there, you know, like we don't control the calendar, you know Like if we say it's on the fourth Thursday of every month, like sometime that fourth Thursday will also have like Thanksgiving, you know uh So I love just kind of get your thoughts on like on that task force um Tell us what you know about it um You know, and what's the caucus doing? um You know, to either combat it or at least just be a response. Yeah, well, we're certainly calling it out and you know, we are on record with letters and. you know things that we can do we're in the minority so we don't have the kind of tools I wish we had. But uh it is a lot like this religious liberty commission it's sort of all uh emanates from a false premise the premise in this case being that Christians in the federal workforce are subject to systemic uh harassment and persecution which is just false. And you know the examples you're absolutely right well that they give it's pretty thin gruel if you know some rainbow flag offended a fundamentalist Christian once upon a time. Big frickin' deal. You know, we have lots of religious perspectives and diversity in the federal workforce. We gotta learn to just sort of coexist. And I guess that's threatening to some fundamentalists. It shouldn't be. But that's what this is all about. The notion of systemic persecution, harassment of Christians is farcical. And yet they are using this task force now to really go on offense. This is not about protecting. anyone. This is about transforming the federal workforce. mean, you've seen what they've done with Doge and the firings and everything else. They're trying to repopulate it now with folks that have gone through the Heritage Institute's sort of Project 2025 Academy. And they have these new rules that want to make the workplace a place of proselytizing, a place where Christians can go on offense. So, you know, that is, I think, the far greater threat. since they're tinkering with the federal workforce, but no, don't think systemic persecution and discrimination and harassment against Christians is even a real thing. Yeah, I can appreciate that. I know that a lot of people that hear this would be offended, right, to say, well, what do you mean? I'm, you know, and they would think about now again, you're talking about people specifically within employed by the US government, right? They would talk about, know, well, what about the Baker? What about the, you know, the adoption agencies? What about, you know, they would say things like that, right? Now, I'm not saying that that's the right argument. I'm saying I'm trying to acknowledge, keep trying to acknowledge even when I feel like, yeah, that makes sense that other people don't feel that way and that they are upset about it and not just, and not just like dismiss them because I don't like where they're coming from. Although a lot of times I feel like the reasoning is very flawed. That's why I'm a big fan of the free thought caucus because I think critical thinking is important all around. Why is that a religious thing? Why is that? I critical thinking is uh just really, really important no matter who you are. And I think, yeah, mean, amen indeed. And yeah, go ahead, please. me, but I would say this, um if there is a genuine uh anti-Christian discrimination and harassment, I want to know about it. I'll take that very seriously. uh Yeah. you. I believe you and I think you would take it as seriously as discrimination against a Muslim, discrimination against a Jew, which is how it should be taken in the United States of America. This is the United States. We get to worship the God we want to worship. We get to not worship any God if we don't want to worship any God. We get to build mosques and temples and churches. This is the United States of freaking America. And I don't know why what we forgot. about that and it drives me crazy. And I want to get the real specific about something and you can respond to anything I've said. But my question is that uh if you're like you're thinking about uh let's say you're looking at a law, what's like a test that you either do or that you would want people to do looking at these laws that show if they're favoring a religion. Like how do we know if something's favoring a religion? or not? Does that make sense? Like, how do we figure that out on the on the legislative level and congressional? Yeah, so I mean the standard that the Supreme Court, I think it was Ingalls versus Vitale in the 60s put in place was there has to be a secular purpose. So you can have laws that uh touch upon religious values and things like that, but they need to advance a secular purpose and not just be. the coercive power of government advancing a religious belief. That's where we run into trouble. uh So I sort of would apply that to each of these situations. Now, my Republican uh colleagues and some conservative Christians despise that Supreme Court case. And they believe that was the beginning of the fall of American culture and that all manner of awful things has ensued from that. But I think it's a pretty sensible standard. I actually think it's a pretty sensible standard too. How does this apply? Like how does the Congress, like how do you look at a bill in terms of funding? And like let's say there's a funding and it's going to like, let's say there's a Christian organization within it, right? There's certain Christian organizations that might get funding because they have a purpose that the government is whatever it is. How does that work with funding? Because I think that's where people get, not only, obviously if a government favors something with laws or. restrictions or whatever, know, the executive orders of Trump and things like that. I understand why that crosses lines. But where's the funding? How do you guys determine that? Well, speaking for myself, I try to do it in much the same way. I certainly would not want uh religious charities and others who may be something. We see a lot of this globally, where they're doing humanitarian work. As long as the federal funding is not going to proselytizing and not going to the religious part of their uh operation, I'm fine with them feeding people and providing medicine to people and with them partnering with the United States government to do these things. That's not a problem to me. Where we run into trouble is when you start getting into addiction treatment and things like that, where the religion is baked in and inseparable from the service. Yeah. Yeah, alcoholics anonymous and things like that. You know, we had Amanda Tyler on, I don't know, last year sometime to talk about that Texas case that dealt with a couple churches that was protesting the Johnson Amendment. And it was, I remember her just saying it was really weird because like the DOJ was essentially saying, meh, not a big deal, you know, and was hoping that they would get some relief on the Johnson Amendment. I don't know if there was a decision on that yet, but... um But it was was unique in the sense that number one, it got Johnson Amendment on the radar. I saw a lot of really terrible ads from a lot of conservative newspapers saying Johnson Amendment's been, you know, blown out of the water or something like that. But it was only just for like that small little locality. So I'd love for you just to talk to us about like, number one, what is the Johnson Amendment? And then two, like, uh what would be the consequence of the Johnson Amendment being weakened or, I don't know, like? actually overturned oh in America. Well, it's an interesting subject. In practice, the Johnson Amendment has sort of ceased to mean much because we have an IRS that's been completely emasculated by a right-wing pressure campaign. uh They no longer ask any hard questions of these fake churches like the Family Research Council. uh And you have the patriot churches out there and others who are so deeply into partisan politics. mean, it's almost hard to call them a church, I believe. So we have stopped meaningfully enforcing the Johnson Amendment a long time ago. And I think that's really unfortunate, but look, here's the irony. And you guys know this stuff better than me. All the polling I've seen says that the number one reason, or close to the number one reason why people are leaving churches is because there's too much politics. Yep. hate it, especially young people. They hate politicizing from the pulpit. And these guys just want to do more and more and more of it. So they certainly want to make it legal uh and they want to subsidize it with our tax dollars. But I think they may be digging their own grave in terms of the demise of churches over the long term. And they want to have, like, just think about the nightmare of having churches able to take political money. Like, it ever, like, I don't know if it's there and I'm just ignorant of it, but if that happens, it's such a horrifying idea to me. Because at that point, it's just like, there's no, it's, the church is over. I it's just the run by the government at that point. Because if it's just about money and like, it's just whoever has the money. They're the ones who are going to make it and make the rules. And it's absolutely horrifying. And it brings me to my question of the theocracy tracker, right? And I would love for you to talk about the theocracy tracker that you guys have, maybe help our audience define theocracy. What's the tracker? What it measures? Why is it important right now? Why should people check it out? Yeah, so thank you. This is one of the things that the Free Thought Caucus has developed. uh There is so much going on here in Congress uh all the time. Sometimes it's ceremonies and rituals and things like the Congressional Prayer Breakfast that's coming up. Sometimes it's legislation or executive branch policies, but uh there is this constant effort. to just chip away, chip away, chip away at church-state separation. And, you know, I'm not just being paranoid here uh as a secularist. think Amanda Tyler and, you know, David French probably and a bunch of good Christians would probably back me up on this. This is a concerted effort to chip away and to habituate people to inject uh particularly uh conservative fundamentalist Christianity into institutions and policy. So, you know, this is about basically saying we see you. We see what you're up to, and we're going to expose it and call it out. We have to do that. You know, um probably one of the hardest questions I have to ask people, especially when we talk about Christian nationalism, um is, you know, like, is the other side doing it? as well, because nobody wants to look like a fool, right? So we want to be able to say, that's Christian nationalism, that's bad, and not have anybody say, yeah, but what about this, you know, like on your side? So most of the examples we've used so far have dealt with these right-wing conservative Christian organizations or people. Are there any other examples that you could cite? like from the other side, know, either Democrat or hack, even Libertarian, not trying to leave you guys out, you know? Like, is there examples where you've seen, you know, people in your party, my party, our party, you know, sort of like use religion in a way that wasn't necessarily, you know, in the best intention for the religion or the country. You know, it's a good question, and I certainly think that, you know, black churches have been very engaged politically for a long time. Now, I think they've tried to do that. uh in a very aspirational and patriotic way. think it's a very different kind. You could call it Christian nationalism, but it's very, very different than what we might think of as white Christian nationalism and the January 6th stuff because it's very consistent with democracy and pluralism and nobody's trying to uh impose one religion on everyone else or use the coercive power of government to theocratize anything. But certainly conservatives over the years have pointed to the souls to the polls and the black churches and things like that as an example of why they need to be able to blow up the Johnson Amendment and do whatever the heck they want. I think there's differences, but that's certainly something that they would argue. Do Democrats sometimes uh demagogue religion and use it in unfortunate ways? Sure. uh Some of my colleagues ... play footsie with this uh national prayer breakfast group, with the Fellowship Foundation and the family. They live in the C Street house down the street here and all kinds of, you know, very, I think... political shenanigans that most people would not approve of happen under the roof of that C Street house and with this whole fiasco of the National Prayer Breakfast and the influence peddling and everything else that it devolved into. And they're still doing it. yeah, occasionally some Democrats will lend their name and participate in these things. I can't speculate as to their motives. think maybe, given them the benefit of the doubt, they just want to find the common ground of their common religiosity with their Republicans. We don't have enough common ground these days, but they're really enabling something that is doing terrible things, in my opinion, and an agenda that is not benign. Interesting. So I'm fascinated by the National Prayer Breakfast and the negative view of it. I mean, I know that there's the family, you know, the documentary. I actually didn't watch it. We did interview um one of the guys who was in the family. One of the... What is his name again, dude? them. Well, we talked to Doug, Doug Burgum and Jack Jenkins. Yeah, so we've talked to people that are involved in it. And I always grew up, you know, of course, I grew up evangelical Christian, so I grew up in like the National Prayer Breakfast, like this amazing, awesome thing. Thank God we have a National Prayer Breakfast. At least our government hasn't completely gone to hell, you know, we still have a National Prayer Breakfast. And so that's how I kind of grew up thinking about it. But I'm hearing it, and it's like, well, yeah, I mean, it feels a little bit naive and ignorant and more naive than ignorant. to that a bunch of politicking isn't happening and all of these things. But just describe that. Why is it a problem for people that hear that? like, what? National Prayer Breakfast? They're getting together and praying and then breakfast. What's wrong with that? motherhood and apple pie, right? Billy Graham in the 1950s and they got it all started and presidents of both parties have appeared for low these many years. mean, all of that is true, okay? And it always used to happen at the Washington Hilton. ah But over the years, I mean, if you... read the Jeff Charlotte book or watch the documentary called The Family, which I think you can still get on Netflix or somewhere, it's worth a look to just see the hidden agenda. It was not Jesus and nothing more, which is what Doug Coe and the family always said. There was a lot more than just Democrats and Republicans praying for the nation. I mean, who's gonna object to that, right? um I mean, there was a uh trip that just happened where a bunch of these folks from the family went down to El Salvador and joined with members of Congress in propping up this dictator, Bukele, for his own El Salvadoran national prayer breakfast where he's trying to pander to right-wing Christians, know, while the guy's doing this torture prison and basically doing all of these horrible things and these human rights abuses. funny. It's just funny how we do this. Anyway, sorry. It's not funny that's happened. providing God cover to all of these awful dictators. They've done it in Africa, to the guy in Uganda who, I guess, is uh an evangelical Christian, but he wants to kill gay people. He wants to have the death penalty for homosexuality. So it is not benign. There's a lot of politics and a lot of dark politics tied into this stuff, and I just wish more people would kind of call it out and be done with it. uh I'm fine with anyone who wants to go pray. don't think it should be in the US Capitol. I don't think it should be in Statuary Hall. I had a beef with their venue choice for the last couple years. But if they want to do it at a church, there's hundreds of churches in Washington. If they want to do it, yeah, go for it. Go for it. Yeah, you know, I I want to just just make a correction. I said Doug Burgum earlier that was wrong. Yeah, Doug Burlay Yeah, it's the name. Yeah, Doug Burlay Yeah, yeah, and I mean nice guy, know actually he gave us an invitation to the National Prayer Breakfast Which I mean if we can get a free meal trust me in this economy. I'm gonna I'm gonna take it uh but but you know like with with the with the the prayer breakfast though, I mean it's oh It's one of those things where from the outside looking in, you've got all these world leaders, you've got all these people that are in a room under the guise of Christianity, maybe, I don't know if that's the predominant religion there, but you would think that some good would take place, right? Like is it... Is it all backroom deals, smoke-filled rooms kind of thing? Or has the National Prayer Breakfast, I guess, ever, in your opinion or understanding of it, ever produced anything where you're like, that's a good idea? Well, it's probably helped to build some, you know, collegial relationships, you know, and one could argue that... Any kind of uh bipartisan collegiality and goodwill has value. Gets people talking to each other, trusting each other. mean, there's there's good stuff in all of that. Where I think it goes off the rails is, uh you know, when it starts advancing a theocratic agenda, when it starts doing all of this nefarious stuff in third world countries with dictators who have terrible human rights records. And that's just where it inevitably goes with this group, with the Fellowship Foundation. Sorry about that. I want to switch gears here for just a little bit and talk about Mike Johnson, if we can. um Rumor has it he has an appeal to Heaven flag um hanging up outside of his door. um What is the appeal to Heaven flag? like, what have you seen? um that you feel comfortable talking about, that would implicate Mike Johnson in any way in sort of like Christian nationalism, because I know that he gets a lot of flak. And I'm not a defender of Mike Johnson, but as a person who's up on the Hill that would know, I'm just curious on your thoughts. So what is the appeal to Heaven flag? And then let's talk about Mike Johnson. We could fill an entire podcast, like three podcasts. uh On the question that you just asked, because you brought up Mike Johnson, appeal to heaven, know, how it all ties into Christian nationalism. So I'll do my best. uh First of all, Mike Johnson is not the only one with an appeal to heaven flag outside their office here in the Capitol. I had an intern run around the halls and count them. uh There are at least 20 Republican members of Congress that have appeal to heaven flags outside their office. There is one, I'm pointing here. off screen now. There's one 20 feet from my office right now. I open the front door of my office. The guy across the hall has an appeal to heaven flag. I don't know if he's just trying to trigger me or not, but you know. it inspire you to pray, Jared? What it should inspire you to do is think about John Locke and the Enlightenment, but they've sort of hijacked and reinterpreted. So there's a lot going on here. uh Let me just say that part of this is very inherent to the Christian Nationalist movement. They want to rewrite history. They want to kind of curate this narrative that our country was founded not as a secular democracy, but as a biblical republic. That from the beginning, this was a Christian nation and they kind of cherry pick history and all these different things. so uh back in, I don't know, the mid. 2010s uh a Christian nationalist by the name of Dutch Sheets who you may know about. He's an apostle of the new apostolic Reformation sort of adopted this appeal to heaven flag as a banner for Seven Mountains Dominion and you know the Christian nationalist movement began promoting it very extensively wrote a book about it called an appeal to heaven. You can go to the Dutch Sheets website and you you got all this merch that's appeal to heaven. and merch, you know, this is a big deal. It's a big part of their messaging and oh the things that he says, he said it was the first flag of our nation, it was not. They say it was flown by George Washington, it was not. All of these things are part of this sort of David Barton school of fake history designed to curate and build up this Christian nation myth and the appeal to heaven flag has become one of the most aggressive and visible aspects of it. Just real fast, can you talk about who's David Barton and what he's... I'm trying to think about the person listening to this is like, that's a random name, I don't know. sorry about that. Yeah, David Barton's a big deal. uh He is a, he's kind of built a career as a fake historian. He's got a bachelor's degree from, I think it was uh Oral Roberts University in religion, but he has spent many years holding himself out as a historian. He writes books where he kind of tries to uh retrofit our founders into like proto evangelicals, uh even though we know that many of them like Jefferson and Madison and Franklin were deists. uh who were not at all uh believers in uh an active, intercessory God or anything like that. But uh that's it. It's this cottage industry that they've created around fake history. There's an entire book that was written by real historians called Getting Jefferson Right just to rebut this guy David Barton and all of his lies. He had a Christian uh publisher that pulled his book from publication because it was so riddled with lies, but he continues to sell it. And of course, uh Mike Johnson is close, very close to David Barton. Yeah, for those that don't know and have never been to the wall builders website, uh the frequently asked questions is a pretty good read. You can learn how the Trinity was the inspiration for three branches of government. It's crazy. mean, there's just so much complete malarkey that these guys uh propound. you know, David Barton, of course, also was a founder of Project Blitz. which is this effort, know, Josh was asking me a little bit about, when do things become theocratic? When do they trip the wire of secular guardrails? Well, Project Blitz, they do this all the time at the state and local level. And the problem is they leaked their playbook a few years ago. And if you read it, they admit what they're doing. They're trying to like pass these laws that sound really innocuous, like, let's have states have in God we trust license plates. Who could object to that if you want a personalized vanity plate that says in God we trust and then let's have a know day of prayer and all these other things. Their playbook goes from that sort of entry level tier of theocracy light into more advanced types of theocracy and they they spell it all out in their blueprint. We're going to eventually you know get folks deeper and deeper on this slippery slope to theocracy and then you know Christianity will be the default. religion in our government. So it's not a secret, it's not a conspiracy, they've admitted it in their own playbook and this David Barton guy has been behind an awful lot of it. He's super close to Speaker Mike Johnson, who you also asked me about, Yeah, the whole thing is like it. So like the day with David Barton, like I don't understand why Christians want to go and. I mean, we're obsessed with finding in America a way to make this a Christian nation. em And I understand that the Christian majority has been in the nation for a long time. Right. And obviously. Each section of history, uh Christian majority, that actually means something specific, right? Terms of behaviors, beliefs, what's going on. And it's like we flatten it and we think they're the 17th century, their concerns were our concerns, and they're like us, which they're humans like us, but they didn't have the same basic concerns, right? But it's the way in which those concerns were actually like materialized and how they talked about it. And it's just different than us. They didn't have what we have. And we keep trying to make it a Christian nation when actually one of the most striking things to me is that the Constitution is explicitly a non-Christian, non-religious document with no mention, with explicitly, right? I'm saying there's no religious test, like you said. in the First Amendment, those things should have made it clear, right? uh Like, it would have been very normal for them to put in the Constitution like they had in the Articles of Confederation, uh God language, right? That would have been very normal, but they didn't do that. So we should start asking, why didn't they do that when everyone else did? and it has been proposed over the years. You guys may know this, but the longest continuously running religious lobbying effort, which goes back over 150 years, is the so-called Christian Amendment Movement. where folks uh have at various times proposed an amendment that would revise the preamble to the Constitution. And instead of the sort of secular we the people uh in order to create a more perfect union, would inject uh this government is founded in the name of God and Jesus Christ as our savior. And it has been rejected time and again over the years. It was first proposed I think uh right after the Civil War when a whole bunch of I think they gathered over 30,000 signatures on a petition to Congress to add this amendment because some fundamentalist preachers blamed uh America's failure to put God into the Constitution for all of the conflict and bloodshed of the Civil War. So yeah, you know, that little thing, right? That small thing that we had to hunt 500,000 people had to die for. a long time. It's never gone anywhere, that Christian amendment movement, it's always been rejected. But what I think has changed, because I think you have an interesting question, Josh, why are they so militant about it right now to try to harness the coercive power of government in service of this Christian nation thing? I think historically they largely didn't have to. We were such a Christian nation by default, know, 90 % Christian right up until the 1990s. Everybody was a Christian. Nobody questioned it. But I think a lot of demographic change. has happened, a lot of diversity, and uh this whole Seven Mountains Dominion thing popped up in the mid-90s. All of it kind of coincides with the demographic shifts and other things that began in the 1990s, and I think it's all kind of connected. think people feel a loss of Christian privilege. I think there's a desperation to the secularization and diversification that we're seeing in this country, and I think it's feeding into this push for Christian nationalism. You know, given that... Christian nationalism is like a framework that just has like all these different components um that seeks to make America a Christian nation um via history, education, government, know, I mean, heck, the seven mountains, essentially. Like, you can look at the news, you could just look at today and just see like its manifestations, right? I mean, with Department of Education, you know, trying to get gutted, because that's a long sort of like Christian nationalism. like goals because they want school choice everybody. uh You know, when you look at sort of the hardened uh military imagery with Bible verses, like that's very Christian nationalist because you know, I'm sure like Christian nationalist stuff today remind me of the people that would have wanted to free Barabbas like in the Bible, right? So yeah, Jesus and Barabbas like I want that guy because he's a fighter. uh So like years from now, our country is going to look a lot different even if the Democrats win in the midterms, which I don't see any reason why they shouldn't. uh So even with a Democrat controlled Congress, Trump's still in the White House. How do you push back against Christian nationalism without also ostracizing Christians? I feel like that it is. It's like that thing in Indiana Jones with the skull in the sandbag. How do you do that? Yeah it's tough because you know the Christian nationalists have this hyperactive immune system where anyone calls them out and criticize them they attack them as anti-Christian. Right and everybody backs down and the media backs down. So let me just say that I've got a tremendous amount of respect for guys like you and your podcast who are people of faith but are willing to tackle this from a faith perspective. It's a little harder for them to call you anti-Christian. They can say it about me but it's harder for them to say that about you. and Amanda Tyler and David French and all of these others. so, hats off to all of you for being willing to do that. um we've got to get back to the place where uh we talk about religion kind of like we talk about anything else. That there's no sort of special immunity from. critical commentary. If something is wrapping itself in religion and proposing something harmful, we got to be able to scrutinize that and to criticize that. And they don't want us to do that. You have to be able to criticize that. mean, it's so silly to me that someone could even imagine that you could say, oh this person, oh, these people are Christian. These Congress people are Christian. These people in the government are Christian, therefore I can trust them. It's like there's... Sorry to laugh reflexively. You know what I think of when you say that? I think of, uh know, one of the worst spies in American history was this Robert Hanson guy at the FBI who was an Opus Dei Catholic. And everybody at the FBI, you they're all a bunch of Catholics. They see each other on Sundays at Opus Dei Church or whatever they do. But everybody thought this guy is so religious. He goes to mass every single day. I mean, he must just have this moral rectitude beyond reproach. And he was selling thousands of sensitive documents to the Soviets. I mean, it was crazy, but it was a perfect cover. Yeah, and if we're such a Christian nation, how can we have so many hundreds of thousands of, you know, I mean, just just child pornography. It's awful in our in this nation. We lead it. The Christian nation, we lead it. Pornography, child pornography. And I'm like, I mean, this is it's embarrassing. Please don't call this a Christian nation. Just call it a nation. Let's get let's get Let's get let's get going and let's freaking fix this and it makes me think about like what are the tools that democrats have? um and and republicans and people that are like are in any like-minded individuals That don't like what's happening. I'm thinking for like in in in congress. What are the tools that congress has? to um Work through this and what's realistic when you have a divided government? boy. Well, I think there's plenty of tools to uh tackle all of these issues. What there's not is a political will to do it in good faith because religion has just been weaponized. And I'm going to be a partisan here. Sorry about this, but it's by one party. uh I really, you my party is not perfect, right? I'm never going to suggest that the Democratic party has got everything figured out, does everything right. But uh We are a party that embraces pluralism and religious tolerance and diversity. And the Republican Party has just made this Faustian deal where they're going to be the party of fundamentalist right-wing Christianity full stop. And they'll allow a few, you know, Orthodox Jews as sort of instruments to, you know, get themselves to their prophetic destiny and, you know, the end times or whatever. But uh they're a right-wing Christian. monolith, and that's a new place. I mean, that's even further than, you know, Reagan or Bush ever were willing to go. I mean, they certainly tested the boundaries of church-state separation, but my gosh, Trump has just shredded them. You know, uh mean, he grew up, know, what was he born Lutheran? mean, I get, you know, Christian, but come on, dude. I know, I know, it's so wild. even tell you my favorite parts of the Bible, Josh. It's true, You're a better Christian than Donald Trump. I know, I know. So I was an atheist most of my life. I didn't believe in God until 2008. And with this podcast, I always tell people, it's like, I would probably make a way better atheist today than I would have back then, because I know so much. Like, like it is. say? You know, I love you, Christ, but I don't like you Christians. exactly. So, you know, this is my last question for you. ah And it goes back to Christian nationalism again, because again, it's Christian nationalism is one of those things that is all around us and I think affects people in ways that they may not yet fully understand. ah And I'm guessing here, but it's like if you are a person that doesn't go to church or is, you know, is an atheist, agnostic, what have you, you hear the term Christian nationalist, you're like, just don't put Bibles in my classroom. And then like, that's kind of like where it stops, right? The very obvious signs of Christian nationalism. It's like, I see God where I didn't see God before, or I see Bible where I didn't see Bible before. uh Can you make sort of the threat of Christian nationalism real for somebody listening to this? uh Or doesn't really quite understand, like, like... I hear this term, the right is talking about, you know, Christian nationalism as just a ploy by the left to make it look bad. You know, you got other people that are like, I don't really even think that's a real thing. You got some Republican senators, congresspeople, I'm a proud Christian nationalist. You know, so like, help make Christian nationalism real for the average person listening to this. Yeah so it is something that all of us need to be concerned about and to understand as a threat to democracy and that's the part that I want to emphasize. So there's a spectrum. Christian nationalism as it's defined by the sociologists and the experts you know they will say it's a fusion of Christian identity with national identity. Okay. um But. I think you've got at one end of that spectrum, your Aunt Mabel, right, who's just a conservative Christian that is patriotic and, you know, votes for Christian candidates because she thinks that they probably share her values but would never attack democracy or, you know, put on tactical gear and storm the Capitol or anything like that, right? Then you have the folks that very much do want to do that. and are just steeped in this, know, God is a martial God, uh you know, forget about the beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount and focus on the, you know, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violence take it by the violent take it by force and other cherry-picked provisions and they have sort of uh woven together this very uh menacing theology that I believe is on a collision course with American democracy. uh It absolutely rejects pluralism. The Seven Mountains Dominion is the sort of ultimate expression of it where Christians are told that they have to conquer government and culture and all of these different spheres of society. This is not about going out and trying to persuade other people of your beliefs. This is conquest. And that's what you saw on January 6th. And that's what you see in this Trump administration with Pete Hegseth sort of forcing all these Pentagon employees to sit and listen to his preacher from Tennessee, uh you know, give them a very sectarian, completely disrespectful Christian prayer service in the Pentagon auditorium and so many other things. We've talked, we've scratched the surface in this conversation, but even in the past hour, we've talked about the anti-Christian bias task force, the religious liberty commission. This is all rolling forward kind of under that same banner of harnessing the coercive power of government to impose a certain type of Christianity on everyone else. And it ought to be very threatening I think to most Americans including most Christians of goodwill. Yeah, I definitely agree. Congressman Mann, it's been such a pleasure to have you on. How would you encourage people listening right now? How can they follow you? How can they check out what you're doing? what is your encouragement to them? Right now we've got midterms coming up. um do you, you know, kind of this is your time to sell what's going on in the message and encourage them to get involved. Oh, thank you. This is a moment to stand up for democracy, in my opinion. think democracy is under siege right now. you know, it is everything from what you see in the streets of Minnesota, that is un-American, that is unthinkable. It's definitely not democracy. uh To the shenanigans at the Department of Justice and what we saw down in Georgia with the raid on the voter files. you know, this is a moment for us to really understand that democracy does not sustain itself. It requires all of us uh to defend it in moments like this. This election is probably going to be a real crucible for American democracy. And it will be, in many ways, I think, a choice between a pluralistic democracy and a Christian nationalist authoritarian other thing that, to me, would just be unthinkable and un-American. Yeah, I gotta say I agree with you. I gotta say I agree with you. I think we're not in a good, we're not going in a good direction right now. And we're on a collision course. I do think that that theology is on a collision course. I think that's what we're experiencing right now, the collision. It's the collision of that theology and American society, culture, and pluralism. And it is, and pluralism is hard. It's hard for Christians. It's hard for everybody. That's the reality. It's not just hard for Christians, it's hard for everybody. Everyone thinks they're right. That's why we wouldn't think it if we didn't think we're right. Right? So it's like, we're, we're, and we have to learn to live with each other. And I just appreciate what you're doing so much. uh Congressman, thank you for coming on. Thank you for continuing to uh try to be a champion for democracy. We, we need that. I appreciate it. Thank you both for having me. It's a pleasure. I hope you have me back. we absolutely well and to our viewers guys make sure that you're checking out the free thought caucus Go look at the links in the description get involved. Um, I know you have different views on all the stuff We get that but do what you can do take the steps get understanding if you don't agree with us fine look it up, but just try to make sure that you're Getting both sides and not just loving your own biases anyway, guys, please keep doing that and get involved and Until next time guys, keep your conversations not right or left, but up. Thank you.