"I, Too, Am America"

On the Heretical Fusion of White + Christian + Nationalism and How It Separates All God's Children

Abstract

This article examines the “twoness” of American patriotism and Christianity, offering a personal narrative and an African American cultural history of military service not as intergenerational virtue of Christian discipleship but as a chance at upward mobility. Fighting to be seen as human versus fighting to reign supreme over humans, white Christian nationalism is the undermining source of equal citizenship and belonging as it seeks to align national identity with a specific, exclusive intersection of race (white) and religion (conservative Protestant Christianity). The analysis explores the American commitment to whiteness and its power dynamics to the detriment of its citizenry, concluding that the church in the United States should remove itself from its political calculations.