A Conservative Christian Case Against Christian Nationalism with D.G. Hart

In this episode of Faithful Politics, Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram talk with historian D.G. Hart about Christian nationalism, church-state separation, the American founding, and what can happen when Christianity becomes too closely tied to political power. Hart brings a distinctive perspective to this conversation. He is a conservative Presbyterian and a historian of American religion, but he is deeply skeptical of efforts to make Christianity dependent on government power.

Hart argues that one of the unusual features of the American experiment is that the United States broke from a long history of church-state entanglement. That separation was not just a legal technicality. It created space for religious pluralism and helped prevent Christianity from becoming coercive through the power of the state.

Book:
D.G. Hart, Protestants and Patriots: Presbyterians in the Age of Revolution: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9780268210823


Guest Bio
D.G. Hart is a historian of American religion and professor of history at Hillsdale College. His work focuses on Protestantism, American religious history, church life, and the relationship between Christianity and political authority. He is the author of several books, including Benjamin Franklin: Cultural Protestant and Protestants and Patriots: Presbyterians in the Age of Revolution. In this conversation, Hart brings a historically grounded and theologically conservative perspective to debates about Christian nationalism, church-state separation, and the American founding.

Support Sarah Stankorb’s work and preorder Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion, Releases September 15, 2026.  Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9798889837091

Website: https://www.sarahstankorb.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

I mean, I've heard Wilson interviewed recently a number of times, and and you know, he's modest and pragmatic about it, but I think he says, you know, maybe over 500 years, the United States could eventually be church-centered as well. For now you start with but Moscow, Idaho, or for now you start with Birmingham, Alabama, but then you work out from there. But so I mean, it's that idea of trying to make the faith embodied that I think it explains this.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Well, hey there, folks. Welcome to another episode of Faithful Politics. I am your host, one of your hosts rather, co-host, Josh Bertram. I'm the faithful host here. Of course, I'm joined by another co-host, Will, the political host. Will, it's good to see you. Yeah, it's good to be seeing. Thanks, Josh. Absolutely. And today we're super excited to do what we always do here on Faithful Politics, talk to really smart people about really difficult things and try to get make some sense out of the craziness that's religion and politics in America right now. And today we're super excited to explore the question that's really at the heart of a lot of what we talk about in faithful politics. And that's this what happens when Christianity gets too close to political power? And I think we're all watching it right now unfold in front of us. We get to have this special experience of watching this in our yay in our generation to watch everything that's happening. And so we're today, we're super excited to have. Oh, by the way, before I go on, like, subscribe, do that stuff. Come on, guys. We need some more subscribers. We need to get this good stuff out there. We're really trying to dig into things, not just put garbage out there. So please help us out, subscribe, share this with someone who cares. But today we're super excited to have DG Hart, Dr. DG Hart, Daryl Hart, he's on today. He has spent his career arguing something pretty provocative that the church actually functions best when it resists becoming political in the first place. And Daryl Dr. Hart is a renowned Amer historian of America. He's at Hillsdale College, and we're very excited to talk with him today. Dr. Hart, thank you so much. Daryl, can we call you Daryl? Sure, please do. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming to the show and spending some time. Absolutely. So let me ask you this as we get started, because I'm super excited to talk through your work and then especially one particular piece where you talked about why Christian nationalism right now, and we'll get into this, but what question has driven your work over the years? Or a couple questions, set of questions.

SPEAKER_04 2:43

Yeah. It's probably in some ways personal because I grew up in a very devout, some would say, fundamentalist family in the suburbs of Philadelphia. But I was going to public schools and you know, there was something something of a cultural clash between the two, not not terrible. I mean, I had pleasant times at both church and school, but trying to make sense of those two worlds and I guess trying to figure out ways to be a Christian without having to be a Christian the way my mother wanted to be me to be a Christian, I think that's s somewhat of a backdrop to way the way I've tried to think about Christianity in a liberal or secular environment. Liberal is a very shaky term these days. Yes, it is. And then my dissertation in grad school and my first book was on this guy, J. Grisop Machin, who was a biblical scholar at Princeton, and who was a Southerner but a Democrat, considered a fundamentalist, but he had a view on church and state, basically to try to keep the two spheres separate in a way. I mean, you can nuance that in certain ways. But so that also having to think through the way he was approaching those ideas made me also have to think about this material. So it's both personal and then somewhat professional.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

That's really cool. You know, our our show, we started this six years ago, and we we are pretty humble, or at least we we try to be candid and humble about just our own level of experience. Like we we don't try to feign that we're experts on on any of the subjects that we bring experts on to talk about. So we we named the show Faithful Politics because I tend to focus more on the political side of news and coverage and history. Josh tends to focus heavily on theology and religion and what have you. But when you combine the two together, something weird always happens. And uh and I'd love for you just to kind of help us better understand what what do you think are some of the fundamental misunderstandings of blending faith and politics? And I know you sort of alluded a little bit to it just now about the church-state separation thing, but I'd love to just get your thoughts.

SPEAKER_04 5:28

Well, I mean, I guess right now, currently, I would say the misunderstanding among Christians that I see is a sense and and I and again I think this is relatively recent, but anyway, a sense that Christians or Christianity are what made America great in some way, and that we need to return power to Christians because there are a lot of problems in American society and and Christians know how to fix it when in fact one Christians aren't the only ones living in the United States. I mean, I I i they they are the majority, but they, Christians, they're not just one block, there are many different kinds of Christians, and they don't necessarily agree, and and to try to get them all to agree in their majority status, I think would be really difficult. But I also don't necessarily think that Christians know how to fix everything. They I think they may have ideas, but I think they're also I I mean, I I'm friendly with people who aren't Christians, people in the Jewish world, uh people just regular scholars, academics that I respect greatly, who are very wise about these matters, and they're not Christians. And so why would I want to exclude them from the conversation in a way? So those are a couple of my thoughts about that.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And you know, obviously for us, we're trying to create this environment just even in this microcosm of the faithful politic universe, right? Universe. That's a that's a grand word for what, for what it is, right? The sphere of influence that we have. And we're trying to create a place where people can really engage in both faith and politics. And yet, again, we seem to have when there's this, when there's this love for power that any any group has, right? That love for power tends to tends to overshadow other considerations. Ethical considerations, considerations of policy, all sorts of different things, even considerations, I think, of faith and truth, sometimes get subordinated to the questions of power. And I would love to hear from you and your and your research over this over the years, if you could put maybe in simple terms for our audience, we've asked this question in a hundred different ways, but I'd love to hear your answer. What goes wrong when Christianity becomes political, or maybe what can go wrong when Christianity becomes politically entangled? Not involved, not influential, but entangled within the you know, in the halls of power. What what what can go wrong there? What do you see going wrong?

SPEAKER_02 8:37

I mean, before the American history, and you know, I teach Western heritage here, I I dabble in European history.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

But I think part of what makes the United States and uh y uh exceptional in a way is the United States broke with thirteen hundred years of church-state entanglement because it didn't work well. And I I and w you know, there's discussion about Christendom by somebody like, say, Doug Wilson or something, and there's a kind of romanticization of the the Middle Ages and I don't think it was the worst time ever to be alive, but there were serious problems that even in the British in British or English and Scottish history, 16th, 17th centuries that were the backdrop for American colonists in the 1770s saying, wait, let's let's let's try something different. And the different that they w different thing they were going to try was to separation of church and state at least the federal level. Yes, states still had established churches. And and even there, when you th look at what happened in places like Massachusetts, especially, which had the longest established church in the United States, people seemed to forget that it didn't go well. That's why they got rid of the established church. Because the Congregationalist churches became many became liberal, became Unitarian, and there were a there were two sides in towns oftentimes between the Trinitarian and the and the Unitarian churches. And eventually government and the people said, that's it, that's enough. We don't let's let's just get out of this altogether. And and so, I mean, a short answer to your question is the danger of of well, two answers. On the one side, the danger of Christianity becoming entangled is that you Christianity could become coercive if if the government is Christian. And I I I think, I mean, I don't know, maybe there are Christians who would defend coercion to spread the faith, but I think most people wouldn't. So that's one side. You wouldn't want Christianity to be doing things coercively. On the other side, though, when Christianity is entangled, the the church usually goes liberal in some way. It loses its integrity, its witness, because it has to speak well, I think to speak to areas that the church or Christians aren't really called to speak to because the Bible doesn't necessarily talk about those matters. So there it works on both sides. It compromises the church's witness, conceivably, or it makes the church or Christianity an agent of some kind of coercion, which is what government is. Ideally, government doesn't have to use power, but I mean, but it's in the business of using power. Even the Bible talks about the sword as being legitimate. So anyway.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

We cover Christian nationalism here quite a bit. Have spoken to, I don't know how many experts, but but a lot. And you know, my personal opinion on the whole, I think Christian nationalism is bad for the country and for people of faith like like myself. But I'd love to kind of just get your assessment of Christian nationalism. May maybe we can start first by just defining it, and then, you know, just just tell us kind of what you think about the prevalence of Christian nationalism kind of in today's era, maybe going from you know 2020 or 2016 to present.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

Well, uh so there are two strands of Christian nationalism in effect, but the one that is now much more prominent is the Protestant side. Maybe eight or so years ago, Roman Catholics were having their own sort of debate, and and the word that people were using was integralism. The idea of having church and state cooperate more, people like Patrick Denin, a political philosopher at Notre Dame, or Adrian Vermule, who teaches law at at Harvard, were proponents of that. And it's pretty high-end, high-level conversation, and they're smart guys, and I don't know how much traction it has received either among politicians or within the hierarchy of the church, but within the last four years or so, the Protestants have come on strong with people like Stephen Wolfe and his book, The Case for Christian Nationalism, or Doug Wilson's book on Christendom. I don't remember the full title of that. And then more recently, James Baird, who is a pastor in Florida, Presbyterian pastor. I think the title of the book is King of Kings or something like that. But and what what is striking about this view, to me at least, having followed some of these debates for as long as I've been receiving a paycheck, is that the Protestants want government to promote Christianity actively. It's not always clear what that would look like, but they do want government to do so. And generally speaking, they also think the government should be Christian so that legislatures, legislators or the prince or however they say it, those people should be Christian and should be promoting Christianity in the public realm. And oftentimes, though, they want the church, churches to stay out of it, which is something I've not really seen before. And I've tried to get some of them when I interact with them on Twitter, which isn't the best place to do it. And I'm a l I'm more of a jerk on Twitter, I get it. I'm trying to be playful, and people don't get my don't get my sense of humor. Right. But it is a str it is a striking thing that they want they don't want the church to get involved in politics, but they seem to be okay with the government getting involved in religion. And how you get involved in Christianity without somehow affecting the church or being involved with the church. It's yeah, I don't think they've really thought it through. I think they're thinking much more in terms of, for instance, Pastor Baird talks a lot about blue laws and reinstituting blue laws, which are laws to keep certain businesses closed on Sundays. And I personally am a strong conservative Presbyterian and I try to keep the Lord's Day holy and try to avoid all sorts of commercial activity on Sundays. And generally speaking, I I support that kind of Christian practice, but I don't necessarily think the state drafting laws and enforcing laws is the way to do it. And then there are other times too, when I think this is where it relates back to the other question of my earlier answer about living in America with people who aren't Christian. There's some talk sometimes of having kind of zoning regulations that would keep Muslims or Jews from having their mosque or synagogue in the downtown area of a town so that they would be more peripheral and that Christians would be in the center, which you know, I guess would would still kind of recognize a religious pluralism, but I I I I don't necessarily see what good that would do ultimately, and I could clearly see why Jews and Muslims would then feel like second-class citizens. And I mean I know the history of both those groups somewhat, but in the particular case of Jews, and I'm I'm very much a Philo Semite or whatever the word is, partly because I like I've just grown up watching too many Jewish American stand-up comedians, and I'm too big a fan of Seinfeld and Kerbier Enthusiasm or whatever, which which doesn't necessarily say good things about me, I guess, but I mean I don't want to be in America to feel like second-class citizens. I mean, and and I'm thinking, don't you guys know the history of Jews in Europe in the Middle Ages and beyond? And and the kind of aside from the 20th century, which which is not a big aside. I mean, it's a huge aside. You know, it's just like, what are you thinking? Is there are there other ways and I think there are what's what's troubling to me is that uh I think there are ways that Christians could work with non-Christians, both Jews and Muslims, and even non-believers, on a variety of matters that would help to make America a better place for r rearing children, all sorts of concerns that I share with many of these people, whether it's some of the trans stuff or gay marriage, although I don't really don't know how to go back to something. And I'm not sure even what the consequences of gay marriage have been. I mean, I don't necessarily see evidence of, oh, if we hadn't had had allowed gay marriage, then this wouldn't be happening. I I don't see that. I can I can see the trans stuff much more readily as most people can. But I I do think that those are two somewhat unrelated matters, even though the LBGT is supposed to bring them all together in one community. Anyway, I I do think there would be ways that Christians could cooperate in political and activist endeavors that wouldn't require you to be a Christian to do it, but that's not where we are right now.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

No, no, it's not where we are. And and and and it's very concerning, even seeing some of the things that the connection between Pete Hegseth and the CERC church, and I'm I always forget the name, the crack CERC, but it's basically Doug Wilson's uh I think it's communion of reformed and evangelical. Evangelical churches, yes.

SPEAKER_04 20:28

So the communion.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, so they have and they have one in D.C. they planted one specifically in DC, so Doug Wilson could, you know, basically assume the center, that's part of his language of coming in, assuming authority where there isn't any. I've been doing some some some looking into this and then trying to, you know, essentially, right, he he he's coming in as uh someone who's clearly fringe, but now has cre found a way to get into, right? Found a way. I mean, that's more it there, there's more detail of that, but he's now in this place of great influence, with of course Pete Hexeth attending a CREC church, and um, he's the department of, you know, the leader of the department of war, the secretary of the department of war, and he's praying for bombs to find their targets. He's praying for the bullets to find their targets, he's using very religious language, right, about this war in Iran. And I'm not talking about the complaints that were, we actually talked to the person from the organization that received all these complaints that were saying the Operation Epic Fury, the conflict in Iran was a you know, Armageddon kind of thing, trying to bring about Armageddon. We I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about things that's actually, you know, we can actually verify. That's already bad enough, right? That in my opinion, the what he's doing and and and and they believe in the repealing of the 19th Amendment, right? Women shouldn't be able to vote anymore. Doug Wilson has been very public about that. And And there's no reason to think that Pete Hexeth thinks any differently, to be honest with you. He's he's fired women from high places of high command for no real apparent reason. And we can make those lists, you know, for people if they wanted to see them. But we this is not good, in my opinion, what's happening, right? And I just love to hear what are your strongest critiques, even helping kind of our average listener understand what is this theology around Doug Wilson and this whole thing? Like, what is it and how is it? I I mean, I know like Rush Dooney, it's influenced by this guy, Rush Dooney, that was around, but what is this, and I don't know if you call it reconstructionism, Dominionism, but I would love for you to help, if you can, help our audience understand what is going on there, what is being like basically what's being proposed, and and if you would critique it for us from your, you know, from your personal knowledge and understanding, I I would appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Well, that sure that's a that's a big that's a big ask in a way.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

But I mean the when I was starting out in my career, and even before that in grad school, theonomy w was a phenomenon in in the kind of Presbyterian reform circles that where I was hanging my hat both in church and in seminary. And Greg Bonson and R was the the flavor of the time. His son, David Bonson, who's a leading kind of economic guru, you see him on a lot of conservative podcasts, has a recent book out that I think is very thoughtful about work and the meaning of work. And he's very much a defender of uh free markets and all that stuff, which is isn't necessarily the way I saw Theonomy going back then, which was basically trying to use Old Testament political laws for a modern nation in a way. And it didn't really get played out in certain ways. Rushdone, I've never really followed or read that material, but it kind of worked its way into this. But then also Wilson was part of a group movement called Federal Vision, which both my church, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church in America, wrote reports and basically condemned. Condemned sounds awfully strong, but we rejected it. Anyway, but and mainly over the issue of justification by faith alone. And part of what Federal Vision was trying to do was to have an understanding of justification and salvation so that it wasn't merely a personal matter of faith, something almost interior or spiritual. They wanted it to be embodied in certain ways, embodied in the practices of the faith, the sacraments and worship, but then even embodied in in space and time with politics and society. And so I think that's where Wilson, he didn't get his start, but he he linked up with those guys way back even in the 1990s. And and I he's continued to manifest that. I mean, Peter Lighthart is another figure who used to teach at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, who's now in Birmingham, Alabama, with his own what he calls the, and I don't know if your listeners are going to like, oh man, forget liking this show, but or subscribing. Forget this, but it's called the post ecclesiocentric post-liberalism. And in some ways, that does get at, in a way, I mean, Wilson hasn't signed on to this necessarily, but I think Wilson and Lightheart are are doing something similar that they're critical of liberalisms, hence the post-liberal stuff. And then they also want to do something ecclesiocentric, meaning church-centered, making the church the center of the community, as it were. Society, right?

SPEAKER_01 26:30

I mean, of basically, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:33

It could be local initially, and eventually, I mean, I've heard Wilson interviewed recently a number of times, and and you know, he's modest and pragmatic about it, but I think he says, you know, maybe over 500 years, the United States could eventually be church-centered as well. For now you start with butt Moscow, Idaho, or for now you start with Birmingham, Alabama, but then you work out from there. So I mean, it's that idea of trying to make the faith embodied that I think explains this. And I actually myself personally share some of that conviction, but I also tend to tend to think that Christians, unlike Old Testament Israel, Christians embody the faith now without a particular land or a particular government, that Christians are everywhere in the world. And yes, they have to figure out how they're going to relate to governments. It's not as if they can just set up shop wherever they want to go, and they don't have to worry about articles of incorporation or worried about laws governing marriage or all sorts of things. They they do, but it's still the case that I think the Christian teaching in the New Testament is one that we're no longer limited by the laws of Israel, worship sacrifices, etc., or even the rules surrounding the government, and now Christians are going to practice the faith without those things that Israel had. I mean, I think there's a frustration with that. There's a frustration that no, we need more than that. The church needs to be something more than that. And that's why if you look at the Bible, a lot of people then go, well, we'll look to the Old Testament because there believers had this plan. Believers had a government, believers had laws, believers had all sorts of things. And so I, you know, if you do want to do Christian politics based on the Bible, I think invariably you're going to wind up going to the Old Testament, which is where theonomy in some ways gets its its roots.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

You know, that's that that's pretty fascinating. Like I hadn't really thought about it that way. And and I'm and I'm and and I think it's it makes a great segue. To talk a little bit about America's founding. And before I before I ask the question, I just want to, you know, articulate kind of my own journey. There was a time in my life where I thought that America was founded as a Christian nation. This early in my Christian walk. And you know, it wasn't until probably, well, the start of this podcast that I stopped trying to find, you know, the support that America was found as a Christian nation in the Bible and started opening up a history book or history books. And what I what I came to find out is I think it's nuanced. And I also understand why people would think, you know, that, because America, America's relationship with religion was seemed seemed inseparable, like at the in the earlier days. And I'd love for you just to expand on that. Like help me better understand the nuance of America's founding and and religion.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

Well, I I mean I think it is fair to say that the American people such as they were in 1776 or 1786 was overwhelmingly Protestant. I mean, but there's some big excep exceptions to that. One of those is that I th I think I'm right in saying that forty percent of the American population was slave. And it's not clear that uh the evangeliz evangelization of slaves of black Americans had really started before the founding. So, I mean, slaves were probably attending church with masters, but still and then there was really small percentage of Roman Catholics and even smaller percentage of Jews. Anyway, so it's overwhelmingly a Protestant population, but they are coming from different Protestant backgrounds Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Quaker, and they all have well, I mean, I I my own reading of the founding is that this was not a religious endeavor. This was very much a political endeavor. It was about taxes and self-government. And y may there would be Christian rhetoric justifying some of these concerns, but the people weren't living necessarily in strictly regulated religious colonies. Massachusetts would have been in the 17th century. They lost their charter in the 1690s, and they became still Puritan inflected and dominant in many ways, but they didn't have the same momentum that they had in the 17th century. And by the 18th century, these colonies all have their own sort of economic and political endeavors. I mean, I don't think a lot of Americans necessarily recognize this, how how much, how independent the colonies were from each other. And it was a major effort to get people in South Carolina to care about Massachusetts. And once shots started being fired in Massachusetts, in Lexington and Concord, then maybe finally people could say, oh, that could maybe happen here as well. But even then they were reluctant, maybe the Massachusetts people can work it out on their own. Anyway, all of these people were Protestant of some kind, and again, they could read political independence, the dangers, the sin of tyranny and oppression through a Christian lens, but it still wasn't, I don't think, was the dominant motivation for what they were doing. And then when you add to that the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion and also has no religious establishment at the congressional or federal level, and then you see Roman Catholics and Jews really warming up to this place because this is a place that affords them opportunities that they hadn't had in other in Europe, it takes on a different different character. But again, because you have so many Christians who are the dominant voices doing this, and because they can oftentimes use the Bible or other kinds of Christian categories to talk about or leaven their writings with, it might sound much more Christian than I think it was in intent.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

And one one story I think I hear often when I hear about sort of the religiosity of the constitutional convention was Benjamin Franklin giving a prayer. And I I I thought, you know, who who better to ask than the person that's talking about about a biography about Benjamin Franklin. So go ahead. Tell us about this prayer.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

Well, he requested prayer during the Constitutional Convention. And I I only have this story from our other I didn't go deep into this story. And I as I recall, the convention basically didn't necessarily approve Franklin was in bad shape physically than was he a little cotton headed at that time. And and and Franklin himself was never the most pious of people, but I do think he did he did truly believe in God, not in Jesus, but in God. Interesting. And and I don't I don't think that he was necessarily doing this as a as a kind of LARPing or something. I think he really believed in God and thought that I mean that Constitutional Convention hit many difficult patches, and he probably really believed that a prayer could help the convention out, but it didn't really go anywhere. And you know, I I it's a nice story that Christians get to tell sometimes, but I I I really admire Franklin a lot. He's one of my he's probably my favorite founder. And so I don't want to be sounding as if I'm disparaging him, but he just wasn't a good Christian at all. And I still think I still admire him, even though he wasn't a good Christian. I I don't think he was a Christian really much at all. And that's sad, knowing what's at stake in that in a way, but I still have great admiration for him. And and I don't really like when Christians try to take stories like that and then twist it into a Christian story of the founding.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Yeah, which is which happens all the time. Right? Which happens all the time. And I would love to hear from you. So we're we we've had a lot of people come on. They've talked about a guy, David Barton, who has is a historian. I like the smirk. He's a well, a historian. I don't know. Should I put that in scare quotes? Um, he's a historian, he's been involved in curriculum, I think, in Oklahoma. What is it Will Texas? And then and then he's involved now in the two America 250. Yeah, so this is someone that they're, you know, that's being highlighted, and he's come under intense criticism for for his historical work from other historians. And I I I would just, and I'm not necessarily asking you about him, although you're welcome to talk about his work if you want, but it's more like for people listening, what is the methodology coming from someone who's a devout Christian yourself and has faith and yet is a historian, understands historical methodology and methods, and even saying, Look, yeah, yeah, he called a prayer meeting, but I've done work on him. He wasn't a Christian, so it wasn't necessarily a Christian prayer meeting. He wasn't really, but he probably had some belief there. But taking that and saying, hey, look, this is evidence that we're a Christian nation because there's a prayer meeting that had to happen so that the Constitution could be finished. And by the way, it's inspired by the Trinity. The three, that's what that's what David Barton says, the three houses or three tripartite division is Trinitarian in origin. Okay, so the sigh, what a sigh. I love that. So could you help us understand? But this is the kind of stuff, right, Daryl, that's out there that people are seeing and they're they're believing it, right? Because it sounds plausible in some way, right? Maybe because of a lack of background knowledge on it. So, what what are some of the methods and and I guess I would just love for you to address that as a historian? What what would you encourage people, a normal layperson, to go and look and check this stuff? How do they do it? What what what do they look for? How does a historian really figure this stuff out? And and I just I guess I'm trying to help equip people to their their radar to go off when something sounds too good to be true or sounds a little bit like it fits too much. I don't know if that makes sense. I'd just love to hear your thoughts on that, on how how we how we look at how a historian would look at this. So it can be.

SPEAKER_04 39:03

Well, I mean, one side of this is and the reason why I chuckled initially about Barton is because he used to be some of the evangelical historians that I follow online, he used to be the one that they mocked seven, eight years ago. And then he, you know, COVID hit Trump January 6th, Christian nationalism arose, and Barton hasn't necessarily been associated with that as directly. So everyone's kind of bullseyes went a different direction. I mean, maybe I I don't follow Barton the way maybe you guys do, but the historians that I follow just haven't been talking about him for a while because they now are worried about other things, and Barton almost seems kind of innocuous. But one answer to your question is there is a sense, and I'm not sure that I have figured this out, but I do observe it, that Americans really play up the founding. And the founding kind of settles it, whether it appeals to the Constitution, appeals to the Declaration, appeals to different founders. And we're always having debates about the founding in a way. That kind of justifies who we are. And the Christian version of that is to read Christianity into those materials. So that's one side of it. And and I don't think other nations do that because other nations in Europe at least don't have the kind of clean start that we have. You can't like when was England founded? Well, man, that's a hard question to answer. When was France founded?

SPEAKER_02 40:52

But when it comes to trying to figure out, say, what the claims are, I'm I mean it it there are good biographies of all of the founders.

SPEAKER_04 41:12

If they're written by professional historians, I mean I know we're at a time when elites are are people are skeptical of elites and people are skeptical of people in the academy. But there are still very good historians in American colleges, universities who write about these matters. So we're big fans of historians. Great. But try to avoid going to the internet first unless you're going to a library website catalog and get a book written by a historian who's published with a, you know, I think a reliable press, University Press, some of the trade presses. And then you don't have to read the whole biography. You can go to the index, and the index will say, you know, Ben Franklin and church or and religion, or Ben Franklin and the prayer at the convention. And you can at least get this historian's take on that. Okay, maybe that doesn't satisfy you. You'd like to get a different perspective, so get a different. All of these founders have multiple books about them. And usually the historians will treat religion in some way. The other trick, it seems to be, if you get that book, some of these books are available online as well. I mean, you can read them online, but you can look also at the footnotes or the endnotes for that particular part of the chapter and look at the other historians that they are using, or even some of the sources. And also, I mean, there's a great Founders Online website that has all of the primary sources from all of the founders that you can look at their letters and correspondence online. You can do searches in those letters and do some of your own investigation. But I would encourage people not to go right to the Christian apologists. And don't necessarily be suspicious of anything they say. But and again, I mean, I th I would want to recognize that I probably share concerns with David Barton about problems in our society right now. But again, same here. I don't think the going to the founding isn't going to solve our problem. The United States in in 1790 was 13 states with 3 million people. I mean, we're s we're 50 states now with 350 million people, and we have entanglements all over the world. You know, you can see that every day now with Iran or whatever. Going back to 1790, it would Be wonderful if you could, but that's like a time machine view of the founding, and there's just no going back. Granted, you don't want to abandon the wisdom of those figures, and the we still have the structures of the federal government that those founders established. And so figuring out how those structures work and look looking at how they've developed over time is also important. But man, I I love the founding. I think it's a great story. I'm I've become more patriotic in thinking about the founding more. And so there's I'm not taking anything away from that. In fact, I'm more eager to tell the history of 1770s, 1780s, and beyond. It's just an amazing story. But it doesn't solve America's problems right now.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Yeah, you know, I am I really agree with everything you just said. And I I have learned to appreciate the the founders as well. I mean, so I'm a progressive, right? And by if you follow any right-wing news, I'm supposed to hate America, but I'm a veteran, right? Served in the infantry, went to Iraq, got the t-shirt, and like some metal things in my back. But I love this country. And like, were the founders perfect? No. But I'm here today, you know, because of a document that they put together, you know, many, many years ago. And whether or not I was inspired by God or not, like the fact remains is, you know, I'm able to live in this country. And I and I think that's great. I think a lot of people, you know, sort of hold the founders and say, well, they're all slave owners and blah, blah, blah, which is no small thing, but it's like that can't be the only thing we define them by. They did other things. And I and I just think we just have to just appreciate that. Uh with that said, like there are, and you alluded a little bit to it, and David Barton's probably a big one, but there are a lot of myths out there about our founding and about sort of Christianity's role in in the founding. What what is sort of the biggest challenge for you as a historian? Whether that's you know, teaching or whether that's just having conversations with with friends. Like what do you think is the biggest challenge that is created by this sort of myth mythical, you know, founding narrative that that you often hear sometimes?

SPEAKER_02 46:28

I guess I mean in some ways it it's it's right there in the question you just asked.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

The biggest challenge is there are two, in effect, and I don't think Christians have necessarily helped with this. It's either you demonize the founders because of slavery, or you idolize the founders because they they did this gob-smacked, you know, kind of awesome God-inspired thing. And there's something in between. You do both and they were flawed figures who really rose to the occasion and did remarkable things, even though they were still flawed figures and they didn't figure it all out. And I mean, I guess the reason why I think maybe Christians have contributed to this problem, and again, at least in my circle of Christianity or Protestantism, I I think we tend to have a kind of view of piety and sin that uh makes it difficult for us to kind of admit to a struggle, or even to recognize, too, that there are parts of human existence, parts of human endeavor, that are not either sacred or profane. And they're just kind of in the middle, they're common, and you you limp along and you get through, and one day Jesus will return and make it everything better or right. But for now, you you you don't get heaven and and you're not in hell. It's just in between. And in between, this is I something I think Americans struggle with. I think Christians have struggled with it and maybe given Americans a dose of struggling with it as well. But yeah, I don't know. I and and I guess someone that comes to mind in thinking about this is is Ben Franklin, who I think actually recognized that that human existence was a struggle. That he had part of his autobiography was this plan for perfection. And he had even this like spreadsheet of the virtues and the days he would check off which days he kind of missed the mark, or maybe the days he got it right. And it's really kind of obsessive-compulsive. It's an odd thing that he has there. But at the end of it all, he says he could never conquer pride. And he's exactly right. I mean, I do think that's one of the greatest vices that Christians and non-Christians have. Franklin admits it. And, you know, and but it didn't keep him from going on and trying to do all sorts of things. So I guess that's one way of trying to answer that very difficult question. Yeah, but a good question, legitimate one.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Yeah, it is. And it's a really it is a difficult question. It's kind of bringing me to, and this is kind of the last question that I have for today. It we're in this, obviously, this very interesting moment as a country where we have leaders like in and I've really become I was very skeptical at the beginning about how much Christian nationalism really was an issue, how much it was affecting things, like even the degree to which like because you hear Christian nationalism, and you know, I'm a Christian and I'm a patriot, right? And I don't feel I feel patriotic, so it's like I don't feel like like those things are contradictory. I think that they can become contradictory if one is actually to do something right with the law of God versus the law of men, that kind of thing. In Acts 5, we must obey God rather than men. I guess Acts 4, we must obey God rather than men, or maybe it's Acts 3, anyway. But like in my own, I was just looking at so yeah, so it's like right in this, right in this area, right? They're obeying God rather men. And then it's like, okay, so clearly, right, God's law moves above this, right, in terms of this policy. If this policy is asking you to do something that would be a violation of your faith, violation of your conscience, the Christian is called to choose conscience, the Christian community is called to choose conscience over politics, right? I think though, right now, we're choosing power over conscience. It seems to me. We're very afraid. I think there's a lot of fear. I think there's a lot of a fear of um civilizational destruction and upheaval that Christi a lot of a lot of people on the right feel about the left, that they're destroying our culture and civilization. I'm sure the left, I know I know the left feels the same way, just differently. They're they're destroying it differently, right? Or they're heeding progress or whatever, or or or yeah, getting in the way of it. But I'm looking at this, and we are in a complicated moment. And more than I've ever had in my life, Christianity is coming out of the White House, coming out of leaders in a way that is feels very coercive to me. The more I've looked at it, the Christian nationalism feels like an enormous idolatry, number one, for any Christian to put any nation above God is idolatrous. And I think the second thing is that it's I also looking at some of the stuff from Rushdone, some of the stuff from guys like Doug Wilson, seeing how influential they are, is very concerning to me, especially with some of their views where there is kind of a view that democracy and Christianity cannot or won't ultimately, they can't ultimately live in harmony. I think that's kind of part of Rushdoney's thinking is that, you know, eventually, I mean, democracy and Christianity are going to be attention because the Christian has to follow the ultimate law, right? Not the law of pluralism, but the ultimate law. That's the kind of idea. And again, I could be wrong about any of that. That's my understanding of it at this point. I'm certainly incomplete on it. I would love to hear from you, like what your assessment is, and we've been talking about it this whole time, but just bringing it into crystallization in one question. What is your assessment of where we're at right now in Christianity in America? I know Christianity is abroad, so maybe we'll focus on the Christianity that's being pushed to gain power, the idea of the Christian nationalism. What is your ultimate assessment of that? And where do you see this going? I know historians hate to make predictions about the future. I know all of us, right, we're wrong, we're wrong, and we're probably going to be wrong. But I'd love to hear what what is your what is your assessment on on this and and what what do you think the average Christian, the normal Christian, just listen, they don't, they don't want to, they're not all Christian nationalism. They don't, they don't want their neighbor to be forced to go to church or or to have to, you know, be you know, everything that will come with that, but they love God and and they want to be involved politically and they're feeling a little confused. How how would you kind of help them today? How would you answer that question about what's going on and and how can we navigate this?

SPEAKER_04 53:48

I don't want to sound condescending, but I I do think that this is a just v flailing at the problems that the United States has been facing. Whether you want to date it from the beginning of the first Trump administration, which was kind of a violation of all sorts of norms, or you want to go to 2020 and January 6th and then pandemic and the protests over George Floyd. And I mean, we've been I I mean, I lived in the 60s. I s I was I was alive for the Vietnam War protests, I was alive for Kennedy's assassinations and King's. I I mean the country's been through difficult times before. Yes. I mean, now though, we have are aware of it because of social media, conceivably, if you're online, it's it's 24-7. I mean, this is even beyond cable news with what you can get on your phone. So, I mean, they're they're real we the country has suffered some real challenges of late. And but I I do think the Christian nationalists are flailing at something. They're frustrated, and they're bringing it out in this particular way of saying, no, we're gonna no, we gotta go back to the basics and recover Protestant teaching on government. And that is, and and I I think it's really a failure of imagination to think about, well, wait, how could we possibly navigate this situation in some other way? But so there's that, there's there's this pent-up frustration that I probably was not aware of. And I think I don't think it's a large group, but there are there is a group of people that find this attractive. I also think it's going to go nowhere because I think it's all books and ideas and online, and a lot of people aren't really interested in this, but there's no real plan for implementing it. I mean, whether we're gonna take over Hillsdale City government, boom, we're gonna get that one, and now then we're gonna move to Albion, Michigan, and we'll get that one. I mean, there's just no plan for this. So it's I think it's a lot of words. And actually some of the scholarship by some of the people i involved have brought to light Protestant teachings that I mean, even myself I was not necessarily always aware of. So there's been a maybe a value from a kind of curiosity standpoint. But I I j I just don't see this going where anywhere and I at least so far, I haven't seen a politician other than Hickseth, but he's an appointee by by you know, he I don't know if he would ever win any election, which is what you still have to do in the United States to gain office. You have to win elections. I I just don't see any elect any elected official running with any kind of Christian nationalist platform and getting beyond ten percent of the vote, depending on the the constituency. But you know, I think it it creates more problems though in churches as churches have to try to figure out what to do with this. And for instance, the Presbyterian Church in America, sister denomination to mine, they have a study report coming this coming General Assembly, which I hear early on is going to satisfy no one in the church, so it'll probably generate even another study report or something. But but still I I just don't and I could be right, I could be very wrong, but I just don't worry about it that much. It's just kind of annoyance online.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Yeah. Well, uh, Daryl, thank you so much for stopping by and this was a fantastic conversation. But before I let you go, tell us a little bit more about this book you're writing. When is it coming out? Which publisher did we talk to to get a free copy so we can bring it back on and talk to you about?

SPEAKER_04 58:04

Well, the the the if you're talking about the Franklin, uh that book is out. It's with Oxford University, Oxford University Press. I do have a book that's coming out on Wednesday with University of Notre Dame Press called Protestants and Patriots. Presbyterians in the Age of Revolution. And it's basically about British politics from the 16th century up until the 19th century, and I cover the American founding, etc. So that's just something else that it's called Protestants and Patriots that might be especially useful this this year.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 58:44

But thanks for asking.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 58:47

And I will make sure I pick it up because I think Yeah, we probably should get that book and then have you back on to talk about that book. Well, that'd be fine, but Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 58:55

That's capitalism, right? I think that's awesome. Well, thanks again, Darrell, for for your expertise, just your time. This has been been absolutely great. I really appreciate your feedback.

SPEAKER_04 59:07

Very pleasant to talk to you guys and get to know you a little bit in this format.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Yeah, definitely. And uh and to our audience, hey, thanks again for stopping by. Always glad to have you with us. Make sure you like and subscribe, do all that stuff, and also make sure you keep your conversations not right or left, but up. And we'll see you next time. Take care.