00:00:00:16 - 00:00:30:00 Rev. Trudy I'm Reverend Trudy Robinson, and I am from the First United Methodist Church of San Diego, and I am very excited to begin conversations with this man who is sitting with me. I would like to introduce to you Dr. Karl Martin. He is a professor of American culture by vocation. He's retired from Point Loma Nazarene University of San Diego, and he has agreed to have a series of conversation with us. 00:00:30:02 - 00:00:59:22 Rev. Trudy And this is what we're calling it. It is: The Landscape of the White Church and the American Nation. And I'm so very glad to have somebody who has studied this for most of your career. Stumbled upon it, perhaps. But you've done some deep dives into this, and this is important information. I know that many people are very uncomfortable with politics in the church. 00:01:00:00 - 00:01:20:15 Rev. Trudy But the reality is, they are already here. Politics is already in the church, and we need to be able to recognize it, and to understand it, and to hear what it's saying about God and about ourselves and about the hopes of God. And so, that's what this is all about. Did I get that about right? Yeah. 00:01:20:15 - 00:01:22:09 Dr. Karl I'm happy. I'm happy with that. 00:01:22:11 - 00:01:23:23 Rev. Trudy Yeah. I'm really glad you're here. 00:01:24:00 - 00:01:26:03 Dr. Karl Thank you. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. 00:01:26:07 - 00:01:47:04 Rev. Trudy There will be a series of conversations. We'll be talking. You'll be talking with Rev. Dr. Hannah Ka and Rev. Dr. Brittany Juliette Hanlin, and I'm sure we're going to have a lot of fun, and it'll hurt our heart in some way. Yeah. I'm so glad you have joined us. Thank you. 00:01:48:18 - 00:02:20:13 Rev. Hannah Hi, I'm Reverend Hannah Ka and continuing our conversation here with Dr. Karl Martin. And thank you so much for helping us understand American exceptionalism and the ways that it can both shape our national story and also our faith communities. And I want to stay with that thread and take us a little deeper, because for many people, these ideas are not just theories in your brain, but they shape how faith is actually lived. 00:02:20:17 - 00:02:36:29 Rev. Hannah Yeah. And understood. So, to begin and building on the idea of this American exceptionalism and its influence on our faith, how would you define Christian nationalism? And why is it important for us to be paying attention to it right now? 00:02:37:07 - 00:03:08:11 Dr. Karl Yeah, I mean, scholars have kind of settled on a kind of a standard definition. Part of it is that America was founded by Christian men and women. Part of it encompasses the idea that our founding documents, especially the Constitution, contains Christian principles. And then the additional piece, which I think is so important, is that God has blessed America. 00:03:08:12 - 00:03:39:16 Dr. Karl The belief that God has blessed America and that God has special purposes for America, that the nation has a role to play in bringing in to fullness God's coming kingdom. That's the line for me that really moves the nation into the place that Christians have historically placed the church. And so, that's the line that makes the nation part of the sacred work of God in history. 00:03:39:18 - 00:04:00:16 Dr. Karl Rather than a secular entity that is a perhaps a very, very good thing, but something that is that is not part of God's sacred history. The other thing I would mention is that I remember reading a scholar one time who was dealing with this question of whether America was founded as a Christian nation. 00:04:00:18 - 00:04:33:07 Dr. Karl And one of the questions he asked was, well, where do you date the founding? Is it the Constitution that founded the nation? Is it the Declaration of Independence? For a lot of Christians, would move back 130 years earlier to the pilgrims, who in 1620, a group of fewer than 40 English separatists or the Puritans, large, much larger and influential group who start coming in the 1630s, even though there are other English colonies. 00:04:33:07 - 00:05:18:23 Dr. Karl There's a lot of Christians in America, I think, who would look at the founding of the nation as those Puritan origins in the 1630s rather than the national founding in 1776, and almost conflate the two as if as if nothing happened in those 130-140 years. That would that would definitely kind of change things. So, I think that notion of like, these were Christian men and women in some kind of covenant with God who founded this nation on Christian principles and that the nation is blessed and has a purpose to serve in that, I think, would be a kind of a standard definition of Christian nationalism. 00:05:18:23 - 00:05:21:18 Dr. Karl As it as it exists in the United States. 00:05:21:20 - 00:05:49:20 Rev. Hannah Yes. I've been hearing that founding of the nation dating back to the Puritans and pilgrims, even around the globe. That's how America itself presents our nation to other countries around the globe and how we shape the history. In that sense. So, where do you see this showing up more clearly, not just in politics, but in churches or in our own assumptions, everyday assumptions? 00:05:49:20 - 00:06:16:27 Dr. Karl Right. I think it has so much to do with our sense of an American identity. How we think of ourselves as Americans, is in many ways, formed by what we think of that founding. Because then it determines, like, do I think of these are the real Americans? And then we've let other people come and join that stream. 00:06:16:29 - 00:07:01:14 Dr. Karl Have they blended in well, or if they blended in poorly? Again, then, if for the Christians in America, then the tension is higher if the nation has a purpose to play in God's work in history, then keeping the identity what it should be, is an incredibly high priority. And then it's also then how do Christians in America who believe that the nation has these Christian roots, how do they think about their fellow citizens who do not identify themselves as Christian? 00:07:01:16 - 00:07:42:20 Dr. Karl How do they interact with those fellow citizens as citizens? How do they interact with them as the neighbor that Christ calls us to love? So, to me, it is so wrapped up in, how we think about ourselves as Americans in a sense, our national identity. And how open we are to a belief that national identity is open to anybody who wants to come and embrace being here, or whether you have to kind of shed something about your origins in order to make a place for yourself here. 00:07:42:21 - 00:07:46:13 Rev. Hannah The concept of melting pot, right, into that Christian national, right. 00:07:46:14 - 00:07:53:19 Dr. Karl And that metaphor has been challenged. And yet, we've looked around for other metaphors of a salad bowl or of a stew. 00:07:53:19 - 00:07:53:26 Rev. Hannah A lot. 00:07:54:07 - 00:08:00:28 Dr. Karl That kind of thing. But it's, I think it speaks to how we think of ourselves, has internalized. 00:08:01:00 - 00:08:01:20 Dr. Karl Yeah. 00:08:01:22 - 00:08:24:17 Rev. Hannah So often, it's not always easy for us to recognize that part of Christian nationalism, how it's embedded in our day-to-day culture in life. So, for those who may not recognize it right away, what are some of the signs that people can notice it in themselves or in their communities? 00:08:24:19 - 00:09:09:16 Dr. Karl Wow. I think it's what role we think the church plays in our lives. Whether that's the place where salvation is proclaimed and where salvation kind of comes into fullness, or whether it's in the nation that would be kind of a dividing line. It's whether or not we see our politics in a kind of apocalyptic sense. Like if we don't do this, if this candidate is not elected, if this party is not in power, then we're in big trouble. 00:09:09:18 - 00:09:34:23 Dr. Karl That's that heightened sense of national identity that would I think would be a sign, if we recognize that, like, the church can keep doing what the church does, proclaiming the gospel, calling us to love our neighbors regardless of who's in political power, we're taking a step away from Christian nationalism. 00:09:35:25 - 00:09:59:24 Dr. Karl If we think that we're in trouble if we don't have the right people elected, the church is in trouble. If we don't have the right people elected, the cause of the gospel is in trouble. If we don't have the right people elected. We're probably moving into that realm of Christian nationalism. And again, to be fair, in our current political moment, it's mostly Americans on the political right who are voicing this. 00:10:00:26 - 00:10:20:29 Dr. Karl But if you go back in our history, there have been plenty of time when it's been that progressive folks who have said, we're ushering in the kingdom. We're not just working for a five-day workweek. We're not just working for an eight-hour workday. We're ushering in the kingdom. And they felt that sense of divine purpose. 00:10:20:00 - 00:10:30:25 Dr. Karl Yeah. So, it again, if we take this long view of American history, this Christian nationalism can be seen across the political spectrum. 00:10:30:26 - 00:10:35:19 Rev. Hannah Wow. So that's really helpful for us to catch ourselves. 00:10:35:19 - 00:10:39:00 Dr. Karl And because we can sometimes so focus on our present moment. 00:10:39:07 - 00:11:07:27 Rev. Hannah Yes. Yeah. So, I see different generations have different ideas and different affiliation with religious mandates. And we know that younger people are less religious. And you've been teaching those younger people who are still religious and less religious than 30 years ago. So, I'm curious how this conversation has landed with your students and how have they responded to this? 00:11:07:29 - 00:11:33:13 Dr. Karl Yeah, I've, it really depends on the congregations they've come from. And, again, I taught at a Christian college with a very diverse student body in terms of their church, the congregations that they came from. So, it was hard to know exactly where they've come from. I also taught in a town with a very strong military presence. 00:11:33:15 - 00:12:03:19 Dr. Karl So, I think that for many of them have grown up with a strong sense of patriotism, a love of country, and of a willingness to serve your country, to make sacrifices for your country, if not in their own personal lives, in the lives of their family members. So, to hear, even to hear the question that the nation may not represent the will of God. 00:12:03:21 - 00:12:33:12 Dr. Karl Defenses would sometimes go up immediately. And so, for me, it was trying to gently ask questions. And to confess, finally let them know what my priorities were, that my priority was my discipleship to Jesus and His call on me to love my neighbor. And so, if I can make, if I can start from that confessional point of view, I think 00:12:33:14 - 00:12:46:23 Dr. Karl their defenses can come down a little bit, because they can feel as though, “I want to follow Jesus as well. I think this guy's nuts, but I want to follow Jesus, and I know he wants to follow Jesus. So maybe we can talk.” 00:12:47:25 - 00:13:14:00 Dr. Karl Right. Even if they have strong disagreements with what I'm suggesting to them, or questions, or whether the questions are troubling to them, if I've convinced them that my highest priority is my discipleship to Jesus, and they want their highest priority to be discipleship to Jesus, we can lower the temperature and talk to one another and maybe ask some difficult questions. 00:13:14:08 - 00:13:53:27 Rev. Hannah And I resonate with your experience that as I was teaching in a Korean nationalistic Christian churches, the confessional approach worked the best, and that's where we could find common ground. So, thinking about those moments of conversations with them and imagining you with those conversations with those students who may come from more of a conservative background, I was wondering if you have seen any moments when this kind of awareness actually opened the door to a deeper and more authentic faith for your own? 00:13:53:29 - 00:14:21:11 Dr. Karl Oh, my. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, especially college students, some of them are starting to read the Bible seriously for the first time. And they're not knowing how to kind of put all this together. Some of them are starting to think about a kind of a longer tradition of Christian faith, not just their own personal experience. 00:14:21:13 - 00:14:54:21 Dr. Karl So, to try to gently usher them into a position of like, well, you know, Christians don't agree about that issue. You know, that Christians, even in our own society and certainly across time, have not always thought that way. Kind of gives them the space to start asking that question. And again, if they're driven by a love of neighbor, then they might start asking the question, are the current actions of my government enhancing my love of, my capacity to love my neighbor? 00:14:54:23 - 00:15:19:29 Dr. Karl Or are they compromising my ability to love my neighbor? And it's those moments when I realized, when they start wrestling with what does it mean to love my neighbor? What does it mean to love my neighbor who's in a, you know, part of the world where my nation might be at war or where my nation's economic policies may be harming them? 00:15:20:00 - 00:15:25:21 Dr. Karl Yes. What does it mean to love my neighbor? Well, in that context, that's where you see the growth. 00:15:25:23 - 00:15:28:12 Rev. Hannah It sounds like you're connecting there with that. 00:15:28:14 - 00:15:44:08 Dr. Karl I hope so. That's always a part of education. I'm sure it's, that that's part of the work, right, with parishioners to try to help them connect the dots between what you're proclaiming in your sermons week by week and their lives as disciples. 00:15:44:10 - 00:15:59:11 Rev. Hannah Awesome. Awesome. So, with that, I have a follow up question: What has surprised you most about how younger generations are engaging with this topic? And I think that surprised you. 00:15:59:13 - 00:16:44:28 Dr. Karl Yeah, I'm not sure I'm really terribly well equipped, for this, but, I think I'm struck by how divided they are still. That we might think that the divisions are of an older generation and that they have not inherited those divisions, but they have. They've inherited those divisions. That some have absolutely landed on a social issue and felt as though if you don't have this position on this social issue, you're not really a Christian. 00:16:45:00 - 00:17:19:21 Dr. Karl Wow. Right. And that can be across the board. But it's, I think that's very real. And for some it's, you know, the abortion issue and right to life others. But others, it's whether you are embracing kind of buying fair trade products and you pay attention to where you buy your clothes and so forth. So, it's when they find a social issue that they connect with. 00:17:19:23 - 00:17:32:20 Dr. Karl Their first impulse, I think, is to connect it to their faith. And then wonder how in the world they can have other people who identify themselves as Christians who don't feel the same way they do. Yeah. About that. 00:17:32:22 - 00:17:37:07 Rev. Hannah Or find people of other faith traditions joining in the same cause. 00:17:37:07 - 00:17:52:28 Dr. Karl Right. I feel more attuned to people with whom I do not share a faith tradition than I do with people that do share a faith tradition. So, I see them. I've seen them wrestling with those questions over the last, you know, 20 years. 00:17:53:07 - 00:17:59:12 Rev. Hannah Certainly, that's surprising to hear and it's definitely cross-generational nature. 00:17:59:16 - 00:18:05:13 Dr. Karl Yeah. And it also may be I have a very small sample group. 00:18:05:15 - 00:18:17:13 Rev. Hannah You're being humble. Yeah. Large number of young people would give you some ideas. Yeah. Better than I can possibly have. So. 00:18:17:14 - 00:18:18:08 Dr. Karl Yeah. 00:18:18:10 - 00:18:47:10 Rev. Hannah And so, as you are teaching this divided mixture of young people, and you see a little bit of a little flavor of Christian nationalism and Christian faith, and so, all of those spectrums, how or not, what does Christian nationalism have in common with mainstream Christianity? That may be revealed in student life or … ? 00:18:47:12 - 00:19:17:25 Dr. Karl Wow. Yeah, I think again, depending on the congregations they've come from. What Robert Bellah in the 1960s called Civil Religion is a kind of a recognition that there is kind of a liturgical calendar that borrows the language of Christian faith but is distinct from Christian faith. There is a kind of a way of thinking about your place in the nation that kind of hallows the nation. 00:19:17:27 - 00:19:41:12 Dr. Karl And so, I, there's certainly some students I've encountered who have come from those kind of strong traditions of not feeling a tension between their citizenship and their discipleship. And when they start to feel that tension, then it's like, okay, “What do I do with this? What do I do with this?” So again, I don't, I'm not sure. 00:19:41:13 - 00:20:16:00 Dr. Karl I think I was more exposed to students who were from kind of megachurch traditions, from Catholic church traditions, than from mainstream kind of Protestant traditions. Those students didn't tend to kind of come to the college where I was teaching. So, it was a large part of this. I was kind of trying to figure out how they could make their discipleship to Jesus preeminent. 00:20:16:07 - 00:20:34:22 Dr. Karl And for some of them, it was, patriotism was the issue. For some, it was consumerism was the was the issue. And so, all of that kind of overlap, as they tried to determine how best to live out their discipleship. 00:20:34:24 - 00:20:59:27 Rev. Hannah So, yeah. [coughing] Have a sip of water. We've been talking. You've been talking a lot. So, what would be the best way to discern what's truly rooted in the gospel? Your love of neighbor and what might be shaped by something else. And would that be helpful in helping us discern the difference? 00:20:59:28 - 00:21:24:27 Dr. Karl Well, I know, and again, this probably comes from a long tradition of teaching American literature. Because I came to a point where I felt as though one of the aspects of loving my neighbor was, first of all, to love my neighbor in a way that my neighbor experienced his love. Not just that I intended this love, but they actually understood and accepted it as loving. 00:21:24:29 - 00:21:57:23 Dr. Karl And then the second, kind of related to that, was to become convinced, and I did become convinced, that listening to the stories of my neighbor was a way of expanding my capacity to love them. So, listening to their stories, the stories of the communities from which they've come, whether that was an ethnically or racially diverse community that was distinct from the one I came from. 00:21:57:25 - 00:22:30:18 Dr. Karl Listening to those stories and enhance my capacity to love them as my neighbor. So, for me, it becomes this sense of trying to listen like, what is it about Christian nationalism that resonates with you? Why do you care so much about the fate of the nation in which you're a citizen? What is it you're afraid you will lose if the nation changes? 00:22:30:20 - 00:23:01:09 Dr. Karl How do those commitments compare to your commitments to the gospel? What do you do when you encounter a neighbor? — I'm sorry — When you encounter a brother and sister in Christ who does not share your political commitments? Can you maintain fellowship with them? Through those two, through those divides? To me, that is the place of overlap. 00:23:01:12 - 00:23:33:18 Dr. Karl Because if we can acknowledge this, it seems like we should be able to, as Christians, to acknowledge the central command of Jesus, to love our neighbor. Then we should be able to make that a priority and to recognize when other actions we are interested in or involved in other causes, we might want to commit ourselves to fail that test of loving neighbor. 00:23:33:20 - 00:23:52:07 Rev. Hannah Wow. Thank you so much. If Christian nationalism reshapes faith in ways that can be harmful, what does it look like to reclaim a more faithful expression of Christ? Wow. What can we let go? Yeah. What can we reclaim? 00:23:52:09 - 00:24:01:24 Dr. Karl Well, I think we could start by reclaiming a vision of the kingdom that transcends national boundaries. 00:24:01:26 - 00:24:39:23 Dr. Karl And recognize, although this is really difficult, that I have, I should have more in common with my Christian brothers and sisters in other nations, in other parts of the world than I have even with my fellow citizens who do not necessarily share my faith commitment. That's a project to try to develop that global perspective, even not just in terms of like a missionary global perspective necessarily, but by sense of like, I've got brothers and sisters in Christ in those areas, in those places. 00:24:40:25 - 00:25:21:13 Dr. Karl And I need to be attentive to what the actions of my nation are doing. How the actions of my nations, my nation, are having an impact on their lives. That, to me, would be a remarkable step to start to wrestle with that acknowledgment would be a remarkable step in challenging a vision of Christian nationalism, which would say that if my nation is not, if my nation does not remain strong and prominent, and if Christians are not at the lead of my nation, then somehow all something has been compromised. 00:25:21:13 - 00:25:53:12 Dr. Karl Something has been lost. To make the kingdom the priority rather than I think I've shared this with you before, but that line from the Apostle Paul when he says our citizenship is in heaven. It has been one that's like working on me. Like how? What does it mean? I mean, Paul maintained his Roman citizenship, and it was important to him, but he also recognized that there was another call and there was a call to a participate in a different community. 00:25:53:14 - 00:25:56:11 Dr. Karl And that community is international. 00:25:56:13 - 00:25:57:09 Rev. Hannah Yeah. 00:25:57:11 - 00:26:31:23 Dr. Karl And I've got brothers and sisters around the globe who worship as I worship. And I should try to be attentive to if it happens. I'm not saying it has to be this way, but if it comes a point where I see tension between my nations, actions, and my capacity to love my neighbor either across the street or across the world, I should be willing to call into question the actions of my nation. 00:26:31:24 - 00:26:45:14 Rev. Hannah Yeah. Feels like I can take away from your wisdom that while the government, our government, our nation is policing the globe, we can be more attentive to people impacted. 00:26:45:15 - 00:26:45:26 Dr. Karl I hope we can. 00:26:45:26 - 00:26:47:22 Rev. Hannah Go around the globe. Yeah. 00:26:47:24 - 00:26:52:07 Dr. Karl Especially those who are of the family of faith. Right? 00:26:52:09 - 00:27:01:08 Rev. Hannah Yeah. Right. Right. Thank you. It wasn't just an intellectual connection. I feel like we were connected more at a confessional level. Dr. Karl Yeah, I hope so. 00:27:01:27 - 00:27:13:10 Rev. Hannah So, I am so blessed to be part of the church you're part of. And glad that we had this conversation and more to come. And I look forward to hearing what you have to share. 00:27:13:11 - 00:27:15:11 Dr. Karl Oh, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. 00:27:15:16 - 00:27:15:29 Rev. Hannah Thank you. 00:27:21:11 - 00:27:42:23 Rev. Trudy Thanks so much for listening and for being part of this study. And if you have any questions that linger in your mind around this topic, I know we've only just skimmed the surface, we would love to hear from you. So please send us an email. If you're a Patreon member, I encourage you to put your question in that chat box. 00:27:43:03 - 00:28:06:21 Rev. Trudy If you are not a member, I encourage you to go to our site and see what we have there. We have our regular podcast, Perspectives, is there. It is a way for us to have conversations with folks who might not be near us and cannot be in person. A private conversation. So, I invite you to consider joining Patreon as well. 00:28:06:23 - 00:28:18:09 Rev. Trudy We will continue this conversation and enjoy where it goes in trust and in faith. Yeah. 00:28:18:11 - 00:28:20:16 Dr. Karl Thanks. You're very welcome. Thank you. Yeah.