Resisting Christian nationalism

Review of Drew Strait, Strange Worship: Six Steps for Challenging Christian Nationalism (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade, 2024).

In the “Acknowledgments” section of his book Strange Worship, author Drew Strait indicates that structuring his book into seven chapters, one for each day of the week, is “intended to encourage finishing the book in one week since the moment is urgent” (xiii). My captivation with Strait’s powerful work was so absolute that I could not even let my reading take that long. I devoured this important book in a single afternoon.

Strange Worship is directed to parishioners, lay leaders, and pastors who are seeking practical ways to challenge the dangerous narratives of Christian nationalism. Though a serious scholar whose work is grounded in cutting-edge research on the topic, Strait makes even the most complex topics easily accessible for audiences at every level. Furthermore, Strait’s inclusion of questions for reflection at the end of each chapter invites careful individual and group study of the important topics that he explores.

Throughout Strange Worship, Strait shepherds his readers through several steps in resisting Christian nationalism: breaking silence; identifying white supremacist underpinnings of Christian nationalism; tracing the history of Christian nationalism’s development; identifying Christian nationalism as political idolatry; correcting Christian nationalist narratives with the whole message of Jesus; building capacity for resisting Christian nationalism; and taking practical steps to disrupt Christian nationalism.

While Strait unpacks several elements of Christian nationalism, he essentially defines this complex topic as “a movement where one’s God-given theological imagination is hijacked by political power” (30, emphasis original). Strait’s broad definition allows for the possibility that Christian nationalism need not be confined to the American context, even though his focus is on this particular 21st-century American moment. Strait’s definition of Christian nationalism comes most to life in Chapter 4, where he explores the concept of political idolatry whereby trust in God is replaced with trust in political systems or rulers. Here, Strait explores the contexts of ancient Israel, 1st-century Roman politics, and how these contexts might inform a clearer understanding of the contemporary American moment in relation to Christian nationalism.

In his exploration of Christian nationalism, Strait recognizes that individual connections to this ideology will vary. Strait helpfully draws on work from Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry to delineate several positions that individuals might hold vis-à-vis Christian nationalism: ambassadors, accommodators, neutrals, resisters, and rejecters (cf. 26-28, 54-56). Strait suggests that movement along this spectrum should not be seen as an all-or-nothing alternative but rather as an incremental journey from one position along the spectrum to the next position closer to outright rejection of Christian nationalism.

This delineation is helpful for considering the intended audience of the book. It is likely the case that the book will resonate well with those in the rejecters and resisters category; perhaps even those who find themselves in the “neutrals” camp will be sympathetic to much of Strait’s work. However, in reading, I found myself wondering how accommodators and ambassadors of Christian nationalism would react to the volume. Would it be likely to persuade them to challenge Christian nationalism? I suspect not.

Without being explicit, Strait makes certain assumptions that may not be shared by accommodators and/or ambassadors of Christian nationalism. For example, his assumption that the activities at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were primarily harmful is one that I suspect would be readily accepted by rejecters and resisters of Christian nationalism. However, this assumption may be one that would need greater explanation for audiences with different relationships to Christian nationalism.

This observation about the intended audience of the book is not a critique. In fact, as Strait himself says, “This is a moment where we need to normalize preaching to the choir; it’s okay to preach to the choir” (12, emphasis original). That is, Strait himself is clear about the intended audience for this book. Thus, this observation merely notes that Strange Worship may not be the one that moves ambassadors or accommodators closer to the side of resisting and rejecting Christian nationalism, and as Strait admits, that’s okay.

If Strait’s broadly intended readers are Christian resisters of Christian nationalism, a more narrow audience group would be specifically Anabaptist challengers of Christian nationalism. Indeed, Strait’s approach in this book is decidedly Anabaptist in all the best ways. For example, in his discussion of the place of the Bible in challenging Christian nationalism, Strait emphasizes the importance of applying a Christocentric hermeneutic to the reading of Scripture (89-92). Likewise, he points to the importance of reading the biblical text in community (84) and seeing communal congregations as part of the solution for challenging Christian nationalism (114). The centrality of Jesus and centrality of the community as the authoritative interpretive body resonate deeply with Anabaptist values. Furthermore, Strait’s insistence on nonviolent resistance to Christian nationalism (cf. 5-6, 102-106) highlights comparable Anabaptist commitments to peacemaking and reconciliation. Thus, while Strait is not overly explicit about the ways in which Anabaptist theology undergirds his work, the discerning Anabaptist reader will no doubt appreciate the ways in which these central distinctives of Anabaptism emerge in Strait’s theological reflections.

Although he does not have the space to develop a more robust comparison in the context of this short volume, Strait nonetheless hints at a very helpful analogy to addiction to describe relationships to Christian nationalism. Strait uses the language of “recovery and sobriety” (11, 53) to describe a movement away from adherence to Christian nationalist narratives. This comparison pairs well with Strait’s discussion of the importance of empathy in countering Christian nationalism (49-51). That is, for resisters and rejecters of Christian nationalism, seeing ambassadors and accommodators of Christian nationalism as victims of addiction rather than as political enemies to be vanquished leads to a more humanized view of those caught in the throes of Christian nationalist narratives. Strait’s empathetic and nuanced discussion here is an important one. In any future work that he might have planned for this area of study, I would be delighted to see how he might be able to develop this analogy in an even more robust way.

Strait’s book is an important one for several reasons, not least of which is for the pressing questions that it raises for our particular historical moment. Beyond tracing the uneasy relationship between Christian nationalism and the whole life and message of Jesus, Strait also comments at several points throughout the book about the “threat” that Christian nationalism poses to democracy (cf. 33, 45, 134). This observation raises intriguing questions. That is, from an American political perspective that privileges democratic governmental operations, a threat to the very system upon which the American government is built is undoubtedly problematic. Likewise, the concern that Strait expresses here is a worry that gets shared among secular rejecters of Christian nationalism as well. For such audiences, a threat to democracy in particular might serve as a clarion call to mobilize resistance against Christian nationalism.

However, the place of this observation in this book raises interesting questions for reflection for specifically Christian audiences. That is, insofar as Jesus preaches a gospel of the kingdom of God rather than a gospel of democracy, one might wonder about the extent to which a threat to democracy is problematic as opposed to a threat to the kingdom of God. This query is not to diminish Strait’s important observation about the threat to democracy, and indeed, I suspect that for non-Christian audiences, this threat presents the more pressing issue. Nonetheless, the presence of this observation might point to the ways in which resisters of Christian nationalism also need to take caution not to become what they are resisting by inadvertently conflating the message of the gospel and the message of democracy. In short, Strait’s book helpfully points to important questions, even beyond what the book itself can address.

Strait has given a great gift to the contemporary church. Simultaneously a careful theological treatise and an immediately practical handbook, Strange Worship is the book that today’s church needs. In the vein of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Strait has dared to speak truth to power. It is possible that his words, like the words of the prophets before him, will not always fall on receptive ears. Nonetheless, for those who do have ears to hear, let them hear the important word that Strait has to offer.

Melanie A. Howard, Ph.D.

Dr. Melanie Howard is associate provost and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Simpson University, Redding, Calif., and holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Princeton Theological Seminary.