LOCAL PASTOR DOESN’T SEE CHRIST IN CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

Before the November 2024 election, we interviewed local Lutheran pastor Paul Sannerud about Christian Nationalism, a belief espoused by many Trump followers and the guiding philosophy behind Project 2025.  Paul pointed out that Christian Nationalism is not Christian, nor is it good for the nation.  You can read the story here:  https://winonadfl.org/2024/06/26/christian-nationalism-not-christian-not-good-for-the-nation-says-winona-pastor/

      We recently stopped by to talk to the Reverend Danielle Bartz, minister of the First Congregational Church of Winona, United Church of Christ.  First Congregational is the oldest church in Winona, founded in 1854.  Congregationalists are the descendants of the Pilgrims–so they could lay claim to being the most American of Christian churches.  Following up on our interview with Paul Sannerud, we wondered what Reverend Bartz might say about the Christian Nationalist agenda of the current Trump regime. 

When we talked to Danielle, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” had just been passed.  Predictions were that the bill would, among many other things, deny 17 million people healthcare and make devastating cuts to food aid for children, while giving the richest Americans large tax cuts.  We asked Danielle how this bill, which the President touts as his great legislative achievement, might be considered from a Christian perspective.

“The President and his people like to use Christian language.  But nothing about this is Christian,” Danielle observed.  Jesus is pretty clear in his teachings what it means to follow him.  “Christianity helps you confront your selfishness and repent—to turn your selfish energy into helping your neighbor,” Danielle continued.  “Jesus said there were two commandments you really needed to focus on, and they are related: Love God and love your neighbor.  If you love God, you love God by loving your neighbor.”  That is hard to square with what the Trump administration is doing, she said. 

What about those in the Christian Nationalist camp who try to claim that Christians have to “toughen up” to face the many threats in the world, and who believe immigrants are not really our neighbors?  “Jesus would be deported if he appeared right now,” Danielle replied.  “A guy from the Middle East?  No passport?”  She added, “The whole point of Christianity, at its best, is to reach for something better, and to work toward that idea of betterness…which often means you give up the world’s idea of power for the power of community.”  

It is true that Christianity has struggled with its relationship to power, Danielle pointed out, especially after it became the official religion of the Roman Empire.  “But Jesus preached justice and equality.  The Empire tries to destroy that. Jesus said to love your neighbor in spite of imperialism, nationalism.  Whether you believe in the bodily resurrection or not, the message of Easter is that the Empire cannot destroy the hope Christianity represents. God is on the side of the Good News.” 

How did we get to this point, where people use the label “Christian” to condone so many cruelties that blatantly contradict the preachings of Jesus?  Danielle has a theory.

“Over the past 30 or 40 years, the Christian Church, across the denominations, has begun to worry more about keeping the institution alive than forming serious Christians,”  she said. “Churches end up playing to the least common denominator and doing whatever they can to entertain.”  She added that this was really exacerbated by COVID, when a lot of content went online:  “Churches found out that people will come to hear exactly what they want to hear, to have their prejudices affirmed.”

This becomes a successful economic model.  “When you tell people they are okay as they are and refuse to challenge them [with the Gospel], they donate more money; the preacher keeps his salary and the building gets bigger,”  Danielle observed.  But this has a price.  She meets with many local pastors on a weekly basis, and they tell her that they are becoming afraid to preach Jesus’s message—it is too unpopular.  “You wouldn’t believe how controversial the Beatitudes [Jesus’s list of blessings from the Sermon on the Mount] have become,” she said.  Nobody wants to hear “Blessed are the peacemakers” or “Blessed are the merciful,” she continued–it is easier to say hateful things on Facebook.

Her solution?  “I am trying to form as many serious Christians as I can, and constantly point out the hope that is the basis of the faith.”  She is bolstered by her own congregation, which is eager to take on the actual teachings of Jesus.  “We have a very serious Bible Study,” she said.  Ultimately, Danielle points out, there is no point in saving the institution if the way to save it is by perverting or diluting its message.

Will her approach work? 

“I’m a Christian,” Danielle concluded.  “I believe in hope.  I believe in God’s promise.”  She added, “We have a better story to tell, but we have to tell that story.”