What is Christian nationalism? And how has it gone global?

The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol brought the Christian nationalist movement into sharp focus.

Christian symbols prominently displayed on banners and T-shirts as well as faith-filled messages that fueled the fire that day forced many to consider the role that white Christians’ religiously motivated rage plays in U.S. politics. 

But Christian nationalism exists beyond U.S. borders. It is a global phenomenon. 

In Europe and the Americas, far-right leaders are invoking a heady mix of racialized, religious rhetoric to rally support, upturn elections and threaten the democratic order. From Hungary to Italy, Brazil to Russia, Christian nationalism plays an increasingly critical role in the far right’s growing power and appeal.

The latest edition of ReligionLink provides background on what Christian nationalism is, stories that show how it is influencing politics worldwide and experts to help reporters and readers better understand its heady mix of ideological politics and national identity. 

Young evangelicals listen to their pastors. Do pastors listen to them?

“When students come back at semester breaks, that’s when the conversations really pick up,” said Jon-Michael Phillips, 35, a youth pastor at a nondenominational church in Jackson, Michigan, a city of about 31,000 between Ann Arbor and Lansing, the state’s two big college towns.

As students from the University of Michigan and Michigan State return home for the holidays, Phillips is less concerned about college football rivalries than about the political discussions he is bound to have. “Every year, students want to talk to me about things they are struggling with,” he said, “and one of the topics a few are sure to bring up is politics.” 

Phillips said students often share that when it comes to LGBT issues, the environment or the Republican Party, they increasingly feel at odds with the politics they often heard from the pulpit as they grew up or what was shared at home. 

As they become more politically aware and active, Phillips said, they start to question how their evangelical Christian parents and pastors have presented these issues and others. 

“The nice thing is they still want to talk and want to know what I think,” Phillips said. “The question is what I can do with these conversations.” 

After 1,700 years of complicated history, Germany's Jews look to the future

Just a few steps down from Erfurt’s famous Krämerbrücke and its boutique shops, bespoke ice cream, and local charm, you’ll a mikveh (bath used for ritual purification) that dates back to the 13th-century. It’s a testament to the rich, and long, history of Jews and Jewish life in the central German city.

As I was standing in Erfurt’s mikveh a few weeks ago, I took a silent moment to reflect on the immensity of 900 years of Jewish history in the city.

Staring at the steps, I imagined the women who would descend them to bathe in the Gera river’s waters and wondered what their lives were like, what stories they could tell, what histories were embedded in the dusty sandstone and murky water of the memorial right in the midst of Erfurt’s old town.

I was humbled by the immensity of that history, the honor of standing in such a space and being given the opportunity to share such stories.

Mühlhausen citizens Nancy Krug, Pastor Teja Begrich, and Dr. Antje Schloms, pictured here in the town’s 19th-century synagogue, are part of honoring the history of Jewish life in the city. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood.

Thankfully, there are plenty of opportunities to learn about Jewish history in Germany — from well-known museums and monuments in Frankfurt and Berlin to lesser-known, but equally valuable, synagogues in places like Mühlhausen and Berkach.

But for this piece, I wanted to learn about more than history. And so, I spoke to Jewish leaders, researchers, historians, and other experts to learn what their history can tell us today and what Jewish life looks like in Germany now and in the near future.

The result is my latest piece with Religion News Service: “Germany celebrates a historic milestone of Jewish culture — while looking forward.” 

*Many thanks go to the various people I spoke to for this piece. I am working on a couple of other articles related to this research, but for now I wanted to mention all the people who contributed background, provided coordination, or otherwise assisted with this piece: Kristin Luther with the city of Erfurt; Dr. Maria Stürzebecher, also with the city of Erfurt; Carolina von Stojentin with Thüringer Tourismus; Gundela Bach in the village of Berkach; Nancy Krug of the city of Mühlhausen; Pastor Teja Begrich of Mühlhausen; Dr. Antje Schloms of the Mühlhausen city archives, Prof. Dr. Annegret Schüle of Erinnerungsort Topf & Söhne; Prof. Dr. Carsten Schapkow of the University of Oklahoma; Alan Bern with Yiddish Summer Weimar; Helene Shani Braun in Berlin; Rabbi Alexander Nachama of the  Jüdische Landesgemeinde Thüringen; Manfred Levy, education director at Jüdischen Museum Frankfurt; Alexandra Husemeyer of the Tora ist Leben project; and Martin Kranz of the Achava Festspiele Thüringen.

For the House of One in Berlin, It's Complicated...

It sounds like a riddle: how do you fit the world’s religions into a single building?

For the team behind Berlin’s House of One, it’s not a riddle. It’s real life.

It’s also an immense challenge and a unique opportunity.

Dubbed “the world’s first churmosqagogue” by one Reddit user, the House of One — “the world’s first hybrid church-mosque-synagogue” — will break ground in Berlin on May 27, 2021.

By then, it will have been a project 12 years in the making, at an expected cost of at least 47.2 million euro ($57.2).

Its designers and leaders hope it will be used by Jewish, Christian and Muslim members as a place to pray, worship, gather and, perhaps above all, host a dialogue among their respective religions and with society at large.

Over the last few months, I had the distinct pleasure of getting to know the leaders behind the House of One and some of their partners around the globe.

I also got to speak with some practitioners of interreligious and intercultural dialogue here in Berlin, some of whom are skeptical about the concept and its eventual roll-out.

The result is my latest story with Religion News Service.

Death & Dying the Buddhist Way

Krista Liang sat relaxed, but reflexive, on a wicker chair in front of the white-and-gold, bell-shaped stupa tucked into a small courtyard at the Bodhicharya Buddhist Center in Berlin, Germany. Taking a moment’s pause from her meditation, she started talking about death — of all things — with those around her. 

For Liang, death isn’t a taboo topic. From her Buddhist perspective, it is like any other facet of life — birth, marriage, or taxes. 

“Death and dying are vitally important in Buddhism, there’s a constant reminder of it,” said Liang, “the Buddha says that anything that is born on earth, dies.”

That is part of what attracted Liang to Bodhicharya in the first place. 

Meditative art at the Bodhicharya center in Berlin, Germany. (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

Located in Berlin’s hip, alternative Friedrichshain neighborhood, Bodhicharya isn’t only known for its meditation, yoga, and tai chi classes, but its mobile hospice service — Hospizdienst Horizont. 

Hospizdienst Horizont aims to maintain the quality of life of the critically ill and dying with a Buddhist orientation toward death as transition. Michaela Dräger, staff-member at Horizont, said their trained “volunteer companions” provide compassionate care for their patients’ mental, emotional, and spiritual health until the very end. 

Hospizdienst Horizont is part of a broader trend in providing Buddhist spiritual accompaniment for the critically ill and dying in Europe and North America. 

From Berlin to California, diverse communities are calling for Buddhist and other, non Judeo-Christian spiritual perspectives to be integrated into existing palliative care, hospice service, and chaplaincy programs. This “Buddhist end-of-life movement” not only testifies to an aging generation of Buddhists in the West — both converts and immigrants — but to the felt need of non-Buddhist patients seeking spiritual accompaniment at the end of life. 

It is also confronting conventional Western views of life and death.

Amid Ramadan celebrations, Jordanians fear an uncertain future

Traveling in Jordan during Ramadan presents a buffet of both blessings and challenges.

On the one hand, it’s a joy to experience the alternate rhythm of a nation fasting from food, drink, and the pleasures of life from sunrise to sunset and to observe how that changes the daily schedule and provides margins of time and space for spiritual reflection and rejuvenation.

On the other hand, it can be hard to grab lunch at that café you heard about in Abdoun because almost nothing is open for business during the holy month of fasting.

On the whole, I truly enjoyed my time in Jordan and the opportunity to experience the fasting and the feasting with Jordanians who quickly became friends. During iftars — meals in the evening to break the daily fast — and in a couple of local mosques, I got the chance to talk to young Jordanians about the country’s present and its potential futures.

The result is my latest piece with Religion News Service, which explores the many reasons why young Jordanians are uncertain about their kingdom’s future.

Find out why and read more by clicking below:

Museums’ mislabeling can leave visitors with misconceptions of biblical -- or 'quranic' -- proportions

With its long and tangled history, biblical iconography is a minefield for misattribution and mislabeling, especially as even casual knowledge of the Bible and other sacred texts is on the decline.

Some museums and organizations have had to admit some pretty embarrassing faux pas in recent weeks, wrote Menachem Wecker for the Religion News Service (RNS).

In his excellently reported piece, I had the opportunity to build on the biblical blunders and share about how Islamic subjects are also vulnerable to error.

Read the entire piece to find out about the epic mislabeling about topics in the Bible and the Qur’an that can lead to major misconceptions among museum goers…

What's up with Westworld?

Westworld -- a sci-fi Western thriller on HBO -- has taken the television world by storm. It features a cast of characters navigating a theme park where guests can pay to indulge any adventure with the android population in the park, including sexual encounters or fights to the death. As you could imagine, things get weird. 

One of the weirdest things is that there is the question of whether or not these androids have souls. Or, if doing whatever humans want to these beings is ethical or sinful. 

To talk about these quandaries, Kimberly Winston of Religion News Service interviewed me for a piece entitled, "HBO'S Westworld: Robot Sex and the Nature of the Soul." 

She opens with:

...as unsettling as some of the scenes in “Westworld” are, the show raises theological questions about what it means to be human and what it costs us to sacrifice our humanity for momentary pleasure.

Continue reading to explore more about android souls and affect theory, robot sex and sin. 

At Ramadan, a call for a female voice to recite the Qur'an

To many non-Muslims, Ramadan is about fasting, and later, feasting. But Muslims know Ramadan as the month of the Quran, a time when the sacred scripture is recited, read and rehearsed.

Many Muslims attempt to listen to the Quran in its entirety during the month of fasting, either by attending evening prayers called “tarawih,” or more frequently by listening to CDs, podcasts, and online software programs such as QuranExplorer.com.

But searching for a recitation from a female “qariah” or reciter, Jerusha Lamptey, assistant professor of Islam and ministry at Union Theological Seminary, found none.

So she launched #AddAFemaleReciter campaign on Twitter, directing her efforts at the popular QuranExplorer.com site and other Quran recitation apps urging them to add women reciters. So far, her online petition has received more than175 signatures.

'Radical Muslim' Clothing Line Seeks to Shatter Stereotypes

Radical Muslims. The phrase elicits images of ISIS militants and terror in the desert, perhaps grainy YouTube videos, Kalashnikovs and raised fists.

What about a man in an ankle-length garment and cotton headscarf carving the air with his skateboard?

Is that a radical Muslim?

Along with shirts bearing the “Radical Muslims” image and a Nike-like swoosh saying “Just Dua It” (dua being nonobligatory Muslim prayer, or supplications), Boston-based Munir Hassan has created an entire line of stereotype-shattering clothing for American Muslims.

In an explicit attempt to flip the script on popular images of Muslims and Islamic symbols, Hassan’s own Sidikii Clothing Co. merges cultures in fashion-forward, Muslim inspired designs.

*Read the rest of the story at Religion News Service.

The next generation of religion journalists

In prepping this piece I took a quick look at CNN's, BBC's, and The Africa Reports' front pages. Here are the religious headlines that caught my eye:

• Did Pope perform miracle?
• 60 seconds in an "atheist church"
• Multiple news stories on al-Dawla al-Islamiyya (ISIS)
• War against Boko Haram nears its end
• Reports of rising anti-semitism in U.S., on college campuses

As part of my wider passion for religious literacy and dedication to helping religion journalists deliver religion news with relevance, fairness, and depth I was recently appointed as one of the newest Board Members serving the Religion Newswriters Association (RNA). 

The RNA is the world's only journalism association for people who write about religion in the news media. The RNA offers training and tools to help journalists cover religion with balance, accuracy and insight including a smashing annual conference (Philadelphia, PA - August 27-30, 2015) aimed at informing headlines and networking newswriters; the Reporting on Religion Primer; and Religion Link with fresh, free, story ideas and expertise. 

It is exciting times for RNA and the field of religion newswriting. While challenges are plenty with the general decline of print newspapers, there are also new opportunities to be found online and in new venues passionately dedicated to specializing on religion, not just carrying it as a sideshow. We are also finding that the "god beat" is now the regular romp of political columnists, economics experts, and other journalists. This means that the number of interdisciplinary "religion newswriters" is increasing, often finding themselves wearing multiple media hats and transcending print and digital boundaries. 

With all this said, sometimes journalists struggle to understand religion, know their resources for reporting on it, fail to apperceive its real-world effects, or appreciate the insiders' point-of-view. As Diane Winston -- the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at USC Annenberg -- recently said, "The next generation of reporters should understand the importance of religion in the daily lives of Americans and learn how ordinary people look for and find meaning, identity, and purpose." I couldn't agree more. 

RNA is here to help and I'm humbled, honored, and excited to contribute as a board member in the years to come!