Can we please, please, PLEASE start having an actual conversations about Christian nationalism? It's been dangerous and virulent for years and it was a big part of the insurrection. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/how-white-evangelical-christians-fused-with-trump-extremism.html

The only reporter I know of who has actually paid close attention to Christian nationalism is @jackmjenkins, long my favorite religion reporter.

Many White evangelical Christians have believed since the 1990s that Democrats were trying to legalize pedophilia. Q-Anon builds on things that were already there.

In Dec. 2017, I urged American reporters to start calling out a lie that white evangelical Christians believe -- that American Christians face looming persecution. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2017/12/12/no-christians-do-not-face-looming-persecution-in-america/

Just as white nationalism is the belief that white people deserve to dominate America AND that they face looming extinction at the hands of non-whites, Christian nationalism is the belief that Christians deserve to dominate America AND that they face looming persecution

When more than 60% of the population identifies as Christian, along with basically every President since Jefferson and all but a handful of members of Congress, it's A LIE that Christians face looming persecution in America.

I wrote in 2017: "Why are we reluctant to challenge such claims? It’s the result of a tacit social contract, an uneasy truce after the 20th-century wars over science and the role of religion in the public sphere."

"According to this social contract, institutions outside the religious sphere will not use scientific methods to criticize religious beliefs, so long as those beliefs are not combined with sweeping political claims that extend far beyond the walls of the church."

"The reluctance to fact-check Christians claiming persecution is the social contract at work. We journalists inherently understand that we must suspend our usual judgment when writing about religion."

"When Christians make factually untrue claims that then go on to influence elections, law-making and the lives of people outside the church, that social contract has been violated. That means that journalists can no longer give a pass to Christians who claim persecution."

Let me now add armed insurrection to that list. When Christian nationalism helps cause armed insurrection, it's time to stop giving a pass to false claims of Christian persecution.

There's this kneejerk reaction in mainstream American newsrooms to ignore the religious aspects of the rise of Trump, and the insurrection we saw last week. We cannot ignore this any more. It's real. It's news.

It's far easier to ignore. I know! But we just can't anymore.

And like, to be extra super clear -- I'm not talking about Christianity at large. I'm talking about a very specific phenomenon that has overtaken a lot of white evangelical Christian circles, which is Christian nationalism.