It's great to welcome back to the program today. Andrew Sidell, who's a civil rights
and constitutional attorney with the freedom yeah.
From Religion Foundation where he serves as the director of strategic response works to
keep state and church separate. His new book is the founding myth why Christian nationalism
is UNAMERICAN. Andrew, so great to have you back on. Thank you for having me on. It really
is a pleasure. I appreciate it, David. So we recently did a story which was called something
like the founding fathers were progressive and you should be too. And with, without getting
into the sort of politics of it, there is this idea of which was part of that story,
uh, that uh, we did our best to debunk, which is the idea that because all of the founding
fathers were Christian, that there is either some explicit or implicit reasoning behind
saying the United States is fundamentally a Christian nation. Now before we get to part
two of that, the first question we have to ask is we're the founding fathers, actually
Christian. What we've found is that while they were mostly deists, they were not actually
mostly Christian as is often described. But my question to you is, does that even really
matter in figuring out whether the United States should have this sort of a motto or
umbrella term of being a Christian nation? Is the, is the religion of the founding fathers
even relevant to that? My contention is
that it is not, and this is the argument that I tried to make in the founding myth. It's
a really interesting conversation and it's fascinating to delve into the beliefs of the
founders. But when you're talking about, well, is this actually a Christian nation? It doesn't
matter. Uh, so if it, let's say, let's just agree for a second, for the sake of argument
that all the founders were these bible believing Jesus rose from the dead Christians, you would
still then have to connect those beliefs to the founding of the United States. And just
because somebody is religious, their religion doesn't claim ownership over every other idea
that their mind generates. A, you know, for instance, blue jeans were invented by two
Jewish guys, but we don't go around calling them Jewish blue jeans. They're just blue
jeans. Will you Shan
the Youtube comments I get before you say nobody's doing that. But yeah, I don't think
we shouldn't be doing that.
Yeah. And we can, I don't think we can judge everything by the youtube comments. Cause
they do. Yeah. It's a generates quick down there. Sorry everybody. Um, but the larger
point I think is you would still have to connect it to the founding and you can't do that.
And when you look at what the founders talked about and believed and actually wrote into
the founding documents, they really did believe in the separation of state and church. They
were trying to keep religion out of government and government out of religion. And those
were kind of, that was kind of one of the big ideas that was unique to America. It was
the first time that that had been put into practice. And it was a, I mean, it's the,
it's the American invention then probably our biggest contribution to political science.
And we ought to be proud of that fact as Americans proud of the separation of state and church
ended proud of its progressive leanings I think as well.
So, uh, if, if indeed the original founders did not have this belief of, of sort of Christian
nationalism as the basis for the United States of America, and now there is a wing of the
American political sphere that does have that belief, at some point, something made that
belief start among a certain wing of the American political sphere. Where did that start? Where
did it come from? Where, where did this idea, this talking point that became a very prevalent
in certain political, uh, circles start from if not with the actual founders.
All right. That, and that's a fascinating question. So Christian National Christian
nationalism is really this idea that the United States not only was founded as a Jew, as a
Christian nation, but it was founded on Judeo Christian principles. Yeah. And empathy. The
coda to that is that it needs to return to those principles. So really, and that is the
best, the driving, motivating force for Christian nationalists. They're trying to get this return,
this and its golden age thinking really except that the problem for them is that we never
were founded as a Christian nation. So you saw it really ry, the rise of Christian nationalism
began with sort of the rise of the moral majority and it wouldn't, it didn't really get that
name Christian nationalism until the mid two thousands and it was always sort of this impotent
little sideshow, a on the fringes of conservative politics on the fringes of conservative religion.
Uh, but that all changed with the 2016 election because Donald Trump rode a wave of Christian
nationalism into the highest office in the land. I mean he is not president in spite
of his Christian nationalist leanings and rhetoric, but because of that Christian nationalist
rhetoric.
Yeah. And that gets us to making this distinction, which is an important one between someone
a bit between Christianity, so to speak, and Christian nationalism. Because I think as
many have obviously pointed out, if you compare Donald Trump's philosophy and the way he's
lived his life to the, the sort of Christian Bible, you see a lot of contradictions there.
You see a lot of problems. But ultimately, most evangelical Christians did vote for Donald
Trump. And it seems to me, Andrew, and correct me if I'm drawing a wrong, that underlying
it, is that even though Donald Trump may not have personally lived his life as a Christian,
the nationalistic undertones of Donald Trump's campaign are in line with this broader idea
of Christian nationalism. That seems to be kind of separate from one identifying as a
baptist or, or, or as an evangelical for example.
No, that's absolutely right. And it's really important that people understand that the
number one predictor of whether or not somebody would vote for Donald Trump and the 2016 election
was not political party and it was not their religion. Uh, I wasn't even whether or not
they were racists, socioeconomic status, none of that. The number one predictor was whether
or not somebody believed that the United States was a Christian nation. So Christian nationalism
was the best indicator of whether or not somebody was, would have been a Donald Trump voter
in the 2016 election. That that is pretty iron clad. Now, Andrew Whitehead out of the
University of Clemson, uh, has done a number of studies on this. It's, it's very clear.
So Trump wasn't tapping into even the Republican party or even into the Evangelical Movement.
There's just happens to be a huge overlap between those two and Christian nationalism.
That was really what he was tapping into to win this election.
What about this? A little more, um, amorphous idea of the, you, you alluded to it already,
Judeo Christian values, which is we can, we can slice and dice the exact religions of
the founders. We can talk about separation of church and state in some kind of formal
or legal sense, but it's undeniable. Some will say that the sort of fundamental moral
infrastructure of the United States was based on the Judeo Christian. And really to that
means Christian because there were almost no Jews who were part of this group. Mostly
Christian people. Uh, Christian Christian. In terms of the values, again, not in terms
of necessarily identifying as Baptist or whatever the case may be, who said, we want to leave
England and settle the new world in order to have full religious freedom. How do we
take on that argument, which is a little bit more nebulous and blurry?
And that's exactly what I tried to do in the founding myth. And it is more nebulous and
blurry and that's why it's the fallback position if you can push back on, were not founded
as a Christian nation. The next argument you always get is, well, I really meant we were
founded on Judeo Christian principles and that's really what the founding myth pushes
back on. And so what I did was I actually compared the Judeo Christian principles from
the Bible. I looked at every one of the 10 commandments and then I compare those to the
founding principles of the United States to those elements of political science and political
philosophy that the founders used to actually build this country. And I, I, what I discovered
was not just that Judeo Christian principles didn't influence the founding, but that they're
fundamentally opposed to the founding of the United States. To give like a one or two examples
of that if you can.
I mean, the best example would be let's just focus on the first, first commandment. The
first commandment is I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me. It
runs completely counter to one of our founding principles. Religious Liberty. You can worship,
no god, you can worship a hundred. God's, uh, you get to have free religious liberty
in this, in this country. And if you were to follow the 10 commandments, you only get
to worship that biblical God. And that's it. So there's this fundamental conflict. So it's
not only that we weren't founded on Judeo Christian values or principles, but it's a
good thing we weren't otherwise, we wouldn't have the values and the freedoms that we so
cherished today.
So if we decided to cherry pick only the areas in which maybe there does seem to be significant
overlap between the sort of founding values in Christianity, just as a thought experiment
for a second, um, we then get to the problem of sort of correlation and causation. And
I've actually heard a number of, of, uh, of thinkers point out that, um, just because,
uh, most of the individuals who made big advancements in, for example, stone tools, a metal tools
maybe is a better example, were adherents to a certain religion. That doesn't really
give us any causal case for the religion being a factor. It may just be that at the time
there was a sort of default to a particular religious belief, so to speak. A lot of the
values that do seem to overlap between the founders of the u s and Christianity are values
that existed much more than 5,000 years ago in human societies. Anyway. So then the question
is, are they really even Christian values?
And, and that's a really excellent point. And it is one that I do make in the founding
myth in a couple of different places. Uh, one thing that we often hear is, well the
United States was founded on the golden rule and I think that's a hard argument to make
actually, but I just assume for the sake of argument in the book that that is true. But
then the next question is, well, is the golden rule really a Christian principle in my argument
is that it's not, this is a universal human principle that every successful society we
know of has developed on its own. I mean, a two, three, four year old child can understand
the idea of reciprocal morality. It's really not a difficult concept. And to allow Christian
Christianity or even Christian nationalism to claim it as its own is, is to me a form
of arrogance that, that, uh, I don't think we should allow to stand.
Can you talk a little bit about slogans? Like in God, we trust on money or one nation under
God or the addition of a, of a reference to God in the pledge of allegiance and the role
that those slogans have in perpetuating these ideas of the United States as a Christian
nation.
I mean, they have a huge role in perpetuating that myth and the role is deliberate. Uh,
so you know, one thing that I think maybe our side is pretty good at when it comes to
pushing back on those, those mottoes is pointing out that none of those are from the founding
generation. But then we tend to leave it at that. And in the founding myth, I really wanted
to go beyond that. I, so I explore how these phrases entered our vernacular and it turns
out that they were deliberately put there during times of national fear and strife when
you had a few, a very few, a handful in each case, Christians, Christian nationalists,
we would call them today trying to use their public office to promote their personal religion.
Uh, so, you know, you have this happening during the height of the civil war when the
country's literally tearing itself apart and people aren't paying attention to what's being
inscribed on the coinage.
And yet basically three guys responsible for getting it all in there at that point. Uh,
the same thing was happening in the 1950s where we ended up with the national day of
prayer and under God in the pledge that it was this time of national fear. And so it's
not just that they're taking advantage of a country that's scared and fearful, but they're
also wiping out unifying sentiments with religion, which tends to be really divisive, you know.
And so our original defacto motto was e Pluribus Unum from one people, uh, or from one from
many people, one nation from many states, one country. And they wiped that out with,
in God we trust. And the same thing happened with the pledge of allegiance. It used to
read one nation individual, indivisible, which is this beautiful sentiment. And then they're
literally dividing the indivisible with God. Uh, so it's not just, they're taking advantage
of times of fear and strife. And then they're wiping out unifying sentiments to promote
their personal religion.
This is Shay seems way bigger to me than partisan politics in the sense that, okay, I mean there
are candidates whose philosophy is, uh, more of a departure from the sort of thinking that
gets you to Christian nationalism. So, so there are differences. I'm not pretending
that Trump and Biden and Bernie are all sort of like the same on this, but, but in a sense,
this is a much bigger cultural thing. This relates to the courts and the supreme court
in ways that that kind of transcend many decades. So how does something like this change in
a country when who we elect is only like a small piece of it?
And you're, you're absolutely right. And right now it's infecting all kinds of policy policy.
We saw it in the Muslim ban education policy. Betsy devoss is essentially trying to dismantle
public education. Uh, all of those are on the back of Christian nationalism, our foreign
policy. We're seeing and you are right that courts judges and not just Trump judges are
deciding cases based on some of the myths and the lies that I try to expose in my book.
But you're also right to say that it's bigger because at its most basic level, what this
is is an attempt to redefine what it is to be an American. They are trying to say that
to be an American, you have to be a Christian and to be a Christian is to be an American.
And once they've redefined the American identity like that, they're going to redefine all of
our laws accordingly. And to me, that is one of the central reasons why I say that Christian
nationalism is an American. It's not just that those Judeo Christian principles often
are directly opposed to our founding values. It's that this entire movement is meant to
redefine what it is to be an American in an American way.
We've been talking a lot about the content of Andrew Seidel's new book, the founding
myth, why Christian nationalism is UNAMERICAN,
but there's much more a great stuff in it. Andrew always great to talk to you and I really
appreciate your time, David. Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure.