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This is a test of the emergency long-article warning system. This test was brought to you by my wife. Thank her for the extensive headers and more pictures for when you inevitably have to look away to do something else. This concludes this test of the long article warning system.
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An Odyssey
When I think about Nationalism, Christianity, and faith today, I often feel caught up in the epic poem The Odyssey. I navigate the siren calls, Calliope and Calypso, and the strait of Messina where Scylla waits to clobber me, and Charybdis waits to suck me to the depths of depravity. But instead of avoiding the trials, I believe everything and everyone can be redeemed because my epic isn’t for me. It’s for my children. The story we tell shapes the ship of their odyssey, and I would rather reveal my struggles than hide them in a sinking ship.
One of the most frightening things to me today is Christian Nationalism. The second is just straight nationalism. Both conflate divine affiliation with human tribalism. Despite my fear, I sought to see why nationalism is necessary despite being covered with so much racial, ethnic, geographic, and linguistic hate. I chase the beauty of redemption and find this article as an anchoring point.
A brief family history
Now, I cannot tell the story of nationalism without telling my family story. I am a direct descendant of the signers of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence of the United States as representatives of South Carolina. I have two family members on the back of the $2 bill. As far as I can tell, it does not get more original American than that for White people. My family fought and bled in every war until the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars. That’s French and Indian all the war through Operation Desert Storm. Besides founding members of the country and South Carolina, we also played a prominent role in establishing Nashville, Mississippi, and Alabama.
We have been artists, statesmen (and women), authors, slavers, generals, commanders, farmers, merchants, and leaders. We have also been poor too. The Civil War didn’t end cheap for my family - perhaps some tiny, well-deserved payback. Today, I ride with a copy of the Constitution and the Declaration in my car because I like reading them. If you are more American, then you are likely Indigenous or Black.
This is my history.
And despite the terrible tragedies my family has been a part of, you cannot deny the triumphs either. This is my history. This is my children’s history. However, as a Christian, I have a hard time reconciling the account of human tribalism I have inherited with the divine affiliation I have also inherited because we are Southerners. Southerners still and hopefully always will hold on to Jesus and God (of the Bible) despite our sometimes gross misinterpretations.
The misinterpretations and conflations have led to about ⅓ of my church believing a former president is equal to Jesus. And they do so not out of divine affiliation but out of human tribalism. They may dress it up as a divine affiliation problem, but the survey data doesn’t bear that out (below). No Christian principle, such as giving to the poor or maintaining a ritual purity marked by death, supersedes issues of immigration and maintaining weaponry that consistently deals death, creating the very widows and orphans we are supposed to care for. Abortion, the great rallying cry for the unborn, is typically rated as the 4th most crucial issue for even the clergy of these Christians (it's further down for the average pew sitter).
Nationalism terrifies me because my family has historically suffered from poor human tribalism and divine affiliation maintenance. You can see that it isn’t divine issues that support voting habits.
So about the human tribalism…
Perhaps you might think of doing away with human tribalism, right? While that may be possible, I have received enough anecdotal evidence to dissuade me from pursuing that path. The stories and evidence led me to seek out the redemptive narratives in human tribalism. Interestingly, that evidence comes from those who let their divine affiliation falter in their home.
After the Conservative Takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, many clergy, Christian university faculty, and families were displaced, often onto the coasts, usually the west. Having listened to these intelligent theologians describe their children and their faith journey, I have noticed a common thread. They didn’t ground their children in any particular divine affiliation. So, their children lack the roots that lead to that type of experience. From the stories I have heard, most struggle to create a divine affiliation, even within a different religion. The parent theologians describe the emptiness in their children, and the regret is common. They were afraid of their children learning and being harmed in the same way they were by a specific brand of Christianity. As such, they never nurtured divine affiliation in their children, and the results seem worse to me than getting it wrong.
The Young Ones
On the flip side, I have listened to and spoken with several younger theologians who did get deeply entrenched in a particular tradition. The depth allows them to understand and appreciate other traditions. This has led me to suspect that divine affiliation and human tribalism function like muscles or talents: use or lose them.
When I deconstruct my story, I find the same truth. Only by being deeply entrenched in my family’s story and Americanism can I be terrified of the present version of Christian Nationalism around me. Only by being firmly grounded in my human tribalism can I be freed from the tragic aspects and live in the redeemed parts. So, what are the redeemed aspects?
Beauty Worth Redeeming?
The first is understanding history. None of us are a blank slate. Instead, we are born floating on a boat disembarked from port. We aren’t likely to find a port, but all the tools and materials we need to build a new ship are already aboard the boat we are already on. For the person who thinks of building a new vessel from nothing (we also aren’t blank slates), creating a new boat from scratch is too difficult for most and often involves the complete destruction of the one you are currently using. However, we can all study the ship we are in to make changes and improvements.
How can I begin to atone for centuries of slavery that members of my family died to maintain without knowing that my family was a part of it? How can I alter the ship of racism? I take out new ship materials by engaging thinkers like Ta Nehisi Coates and James Cone. Then I use my vote, money, and intellect not for selfishness but to live into the better vision of America my ancestors had (We hold these truths to be self-evident…) instead of the one they settled for (3/5th compromise).
And that vision of America, while utterly flawed in execution, is beautiful. Can I be thankful for something I don’t find beautiful in its truest best self?
Beauty in the Relationships
The second is relationships. I grew up American. My friends, co-workers, wife, children, family, and nearly everyone else I come across is American. And many who aren’t have or at some time wanted to be. Can I have a relationship with them if I hate or even discard such a fundamental part of them? Sure, I might meet the other disgruntled person out there, but let’s be honest. That isn’t how our world works. I have countless relationships with people who hold my human tribalism as sacred - a faith unto itself.
Humans are social creatures, and my divine affiliation presupposes a human tribalism component. The Jesus I follow cannot be followed without his Church.
Why we need relationships
Imagine you met someone (Jim) and hit it off great. You felt you could talk about anything and became fast friends. There is just one catch. Jim, he hates your wife. Jim makes degrading comments every single time she is around. Jim is even sometimes openly hostile to your wife. Some people think they need that friendship so much they are willing to make their spouse suffer. I think that’s foolish. More often, you are going to stop hanging out with Jim. And now Jim is alone. Do you think he will improve himself or win you over because of his disdain for your wife? No! And so it is when you disparage the human tribalism that we all swim in. Is any part of our faith perfect, divine, or human? No. We are already on the ship. But we can fix it up and guide our children on how to make their path better.
But imagine how isolating it is when you take on the human tribalism around you. It doesn’t just separate you. It isolates your clan. And that pain and bitterness run deep when it's a whole clan or sub-tribe.
Yay Elections!
For a broader example, look at the previous presidential elections. Hilary Clinton created unsustainable anxiety with her opponents by calling them deplorable. She tried to kick them out of her tribe, and well, she lost the election. Trump, by contrast, cuddled up with the conspiracy theorists and was a more palatable option for a country that thrives on unity. But at the behest of his most ardent supporters, Trump repeatedly committed the same mistake as Clinton for four years. And then he lost the election. It isn’t challenging to track what’s going on. The country craves someone who can unite both sides. But the radical ends of each spectrum create dividing lines. They try to claim we are separate tribes for their own reasons. It didn’t work the last time we tried to do that. I know I am a part of the we who tried to do that.
That’s why relationships are an essential redeemable part of human tribalism. What is the point of divine affiliation if we have no one to share it with?
Don’t Stop Seeking Beauty
Because of the history and the relationships, I don’t want my children to miss out on the beauty of human tribalism, for us, the American Dream. Is it part bullshit? Yeah. But it is also the water we are all swimming in. And it has its redemptive qualities. Because so often lost in that history are the ironclad agreements that our country attempted to be founded on the idea of human flourishing. And there was the attempt from the beginning to spread that flourishing to as many as possible rather than hold it for the few or elite. But this is America, where we do our best and sometimes worst to push wealth down. That idea, that push. That is something beautiful to hold onto for my tribe. I am proud to have my family fought and died for over the centuries of our country. It is something, medical issues not-withstanding, I would have been proud to do myself.
I hold on to the messy middle because of the wisdom of those who have lost their human tribalism or failed to be rooted in a divine affiliation. My faith is a cake that has at least these two layers. You have burnt, crunchy brownies without nuts or ice cream without those layers. Nobody wants to live that way. We have to walk in tension and understand the underpinnings of all our faiths. We have to realize what ship we are in so we can teach our children how to navigate the troubled waters of humanity. Charybdis waits to swallow us, while Scylla waits to strike us with divine judgment. Not everyone makes it through the strait. But we give ourselves the best shot by understanding the waters we sail and the ship we have built for ourselves.