Friday, March 7th | The "TheoBros" and Christian Nationalism

You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You can find us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

That's right. You guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online with your friends and your family. Leave us a good five-star review on iTunes or Spotify, anywhere that you get your podcasting content from. Link is in the description below, and we're here with our host, Dr. Abbadon Shah, in the studio today. Dr. Shah's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show, Dr. Shah, welcome. Happy Friday.

I speak Hindi now, and I greet people in Hindi. That was the same thing. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. Happy Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. It's just a happy day. We're going to have to figure out another one.

How do you say, how do you say happy Friday in Hindi? I see why Linda gets so upset when she tries to- Exasperated with you. You're using parts of your mouth to say things and make sounds that you typically don't do, and so that's what makes it funny. Yeah, absolutely. I would rather that, because Dr. Shah at least will be like, hey, you're doing it.

You're learning a language. It's kind of funny. You've definitely got an American slant on it. Linda was like, they will beat you up in India. They will beat you up for that. I said, jeez.

I don't know about that. I don't think they'll beat you. They'll probably laugh at you. So I said, Bharat, trying to say India, Bharat, but I said Bharat. And she was like, no, this is no, that is, Bharat is a wedding processional.

They will beat you up for that. I said, if they violate India, man, they really are violent. Bharat. Bharat is India. India. Got it.

Got it. Amrika. Amrika is America. Amrika. Amrika. Amrika. Yeah. That's America. He would like to jump in, but let's continue with the show. David's trying to learn Hindi too.

Go ahead, David. Why is that India? She said they changed it. The prime minister changed it. No, I mean, which part is India?

What are you talking about? The name. Bharat. Bharat is the name of one of the characters of an epic. Mahabharata. Mahabharata.

So it's going back to that time period. So Ramayana Mahabharata, it's one of the characters in an epic. And so the name was taken from that. Just like Amrika is from Amerigo Vespucci. How does that have to do with America? So what does that Bharat have to do with India?

It is what it is, but that's the name that is stuck. I don't know why we got on this subject, but I hope our listeners learned something about India. And to you, Dr. Shamsi. It was not my purpose, but they decided to do that.

That's for free for you. And to you, I say, bahut dhan yavad. Let's hear the verse of the day.

Yes, which means, he said, very thankful. Let's hear the verse of the day. Verse of the day today is coming to us from Titus chapter 3, verse 7. They said, having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. I think it's important to understand. We've said that a lot on this show that justification happens by faith, right? It's our faith in God and our faith in the work on the cross that gives us that justification. And then the result is that peace with God.

You know what I'm saying? That we become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. That hope and that peace that comes with it.

Absolutely. And justification is also declarative, which means in that instant you are justified. It means your sins have been imputed on Christ and Christ's righteousness has been imputed on your account.

So that transfer has taken place. Now, some people have a tough time with that because they think, if you just declare to me to be righteous and good, then I have zero responsibility to live the Christian life. It means I can go out there and do whatever I want to because I'm already, you know, have been declared righteous. And that's misunderstanding the biblical, the whole gospel or the whole, I don't want to use the word order of salvation because I don't think the order is always correct.

It's kind of a reform thing. But I do want to make sure that we understand the distinction between justification and sanctification. Yes, and we did a whole series of episodes on that not very long ago.

Maybe we'll go ahead and link those in the description. Yeah, absolutely. So you are declared righteous, but live with a sense of obligation that now that God has done this for us through Christ, let's live a life that is holy and acceptable and a life that glorifies God. Amen. Amen. I love that.

Guys, don't go anywhere. We're going to take a quick break and be right back with more Clear View Today. Hey, Clear View Today family. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. We're having a great time so far. Listen, if this show has been a source of encouragement and insight for you, we want to take a second and just ask you to consider supporting us financially.

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You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com, or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Dr. Shaw, great, great topic for the day, and something to be mulling over on the weekend. I have the perfect name for our little group of radio boys here.

What is it? The Theobros. Have you ever heard of Theobros? The Theobros? The Theobros.

No, not until today. The Theobros. So I learned about this not very long ago. There was an article that came out on the Times that talked about J.D. Vance and his view for Christian conservative America, and they're calling him and his posse The Theobros. And I was like, all right, first and foremost, if you're going to insult someone, come up with a worse name than that, because Theobros sounds kind of dope. I like that. That's pretty good.

That is pretty good. The Theobros is kind of hot. Like, I kind of want to be in that. But it's this group of conservative Christian influencers and thinkers. And what they're doing is they're advocating for a society that is like rooted in Christian principles. And somehow that's a threat. That's a danger to us now.

Yeah, that's an old narrative that was very popular among some of the liberals and Democrats back in 2024 before the elections. And it got thrown in my face, not that designation The Theobros, but Christian nationalism. This is just Christian nationalism given a new name, a pet name. And it's derogatory.

It's derogatory, because somebody asked me that. So how is your book not a Christian nationalist book? When they say your book, do they mean the Bible? No, they're talking about 30 Days of Praying for America. Oh, for real? They thought 30 Days of Praying for America was a Christian nationalist book?

Yeah. And I was like, and I was being nice to this person because I didn't want to jump down on their throat. So I was like, well, it's not because let me tell you why it's not. And so but I want to say, you just prove your ignorance by calling me a Christian nationalist. Either you don't know what Christian nationalism is typically, you know, assigned to, the kind of people it's assigned to, or you are blind.

You cannot see me. I'm not white. Really? Oh, he's right. All these years I never knew. Our radio audience is like, wait a minute. You know, there's a lot of people because, you know, everybody's got their groups. You've got the squad over on Capitol Hill doing their thing.

And now everybody's trying to make, do the same thing on the right where they're saying these are all the Theobros. And I think it's more like, I don't know if it's more like political people or if it's more just like influencers. Like I'm thinking like, I know Stephen Wolf and Doug Wilson are sort of in that posse. I'm guessing that Charlie Kirk, Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, I'm not sure how religious he is. I think he is. I think he's more on the Catholic side of things. Oh, he's Catholic.

Okay. And then I know a lot of people ironically put Ben Shapiro in that even though he's not Christian at all. Like he's Jewish.

Right. So he's not Christian, but I think he gets put in that group of like young conservative Christian or I guess slash religious influencers. But yes, it's all this guys that Donald Trump is forming this posse of Christian nationalist leaders to take over America. And I just, I guess I don't know where this fear is coming from. Like what is so terrible about having Judeo-Christian principles, which are at the root of American society anyway, be more prevalent in American society.

And I don't even think that consciously most people are trying to push any kind of religion or any kind of system. What they are trying to advocate for or try to bring back is some kind of a normalcy in America. Like what is America based on, built upon? What is our foundation? And I wouldn't say for a moment that everything in our foundation was perfect. I mean, of course there were a lot of things that, like slavery, can't say that that was a perfect system.

Of course not. It's an evil, demonic, satanic. So I would never say that the past is perfect, but the foundation was Judeo-Christian. Hence they were able to fight against that system.

It's called civil war. People went and fought and when the war was over, many on both sides said that God has opened our eyes and we see things in a whole different light. Now, did everyone say that?

No, of course not. But many said that. That now we see people differently. Now we realize that yeah, we made a mistake. Now we realize that yes, we cannot be a nation, one nation under God, if one person is less than the other.

I mean, so of course. All that to say, when we say America is a Christian nation, it's not the same as what they are falsely labeling J.D. Vance or myself and others as Christian nationalists. For the sake of our listening audience, can you give us a brief summary of Christian nationalism? What does that mean and why does that not apply? What is the caricature that they're trying to paint?

Good question. So in a book titled America or Taking America Back for God, Christian nationalism in the United States, this book came out by authors Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry. They define Christian nationalism as an ideology that tries to superimpose a type of Christianity on America, which and I'm quoting them here, includes assumptions of nativism, which includes assumptions of nativism. What is nativism? Favoring native-born people over immigrants. So Christian nationalism says those who are born and raised here, we prefer them over those who are born overseas.

So it's easy for someone to take like, like let's take this. We just talked about this meeting with President Zelensky or Prime Minister Zelensky, I can't remember, but President Zelensky and Donald Trump, he's saying, we are going to help, but America's needs are going to come first. It's easy for them to take something like that and say, see, he's a Christian nationalist. He's going to put American-born people first and they will use something like that.

I don't think that's a very good example of that. I think a better example would've been, you know, here's a citizen and here's an immigrant. I'm sorry, here's a person who was born in America and here's an immigrant who came to America. Even if it's a legal immigrant.

Even if it's a legal immigrant, especially if it's an illegal immigrant, definitely there's a distinction. And I look at that caricature and I say, wait a minute, for one, that person accused me of being a Christian nationalist, I was like, I was not born here. Can you not tell my accent a little bit? I was not born and raised here.

For the first 17 years of my life, I lived overseas. So that is not Christian nationalism. But then according to these two authors, Whitehead and Perry, Christian nationalism includes assumptions of nativism, but also white supremacy.

That's also part of Christian nationalism, according to these people. Patriarchy means men have the majority of power and privilege. Patriarchy. Heteronormativity, right? Heteronormativity. Which means heterosexuality is the norm. Now see how interesting that they put this all under Christian nationalism.

Why is that? I can think of lots and lots and lots of societies where heteronormativity is the norm, but they're not Christian nationalists. For example, I think almost all over the Middle East or Asia, all over the Muslim country, in Muslim countries and in Asian countries. We would certainly not call that Christian nationalism, or would we by this definition? Not only is that the norm, that's like the law, isn't it? Even if it's not in the books, and many places it is in the books, it's in practice.

That's a great point. That should not be an indicator of white supremacist. Heteronormativity is considered to be one of the pillars of Christian nationalism in Asia. And then of course there's also, along with a divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism. Would you say that it is this idea that Christianity, and specifically like a more conservative traditional Christianity, we even say it should shape national identity, right? Like it should be who we are as a nation, even if it's not, how do they say, superimposed onto people?

Is that how you would say it? Because I don't think even us here on the show, we would never say, well, Christianity is optional. It's optional in the sense that you don't have to follow it, but this nation is built on that premise. On Christian values, Christian principles. That is a non-negotiable, because if you take those principles away, because with those principles, and I'll talk about that in a few moments, come certain assumptions about life, and liberty, and the human dignity, their freedom. I said liberty, so freedom goes under that.

But all these things come under the Judeo-Christian principles. Are you telling me that Hindus over there, Muslims over there, or Buddhists over there cannot have this? They can have them, but many times they have borrowed Western-style freedoms and privileges, and tried to adapt them to their system, or adopt them in their system. But really, truly, it doesn't work, because their system fundamentally does not believe in the equality of all people. You say American system doesn't either. No, in practice, sometimes people have not followed it, but in principle all men are created equal. Yeah, they said what they meant.

Well, let me tell you something. Back in those days, in the pre-colonial period, or I'm sorry, in the pre-revolutionary war period, they only meant white men. You need to go and do more study. Right. Thomas Jefferson did write something about taking slavery out in the Declaration originally, right, in his original draft.

Well, here's the point I'm trying to make here. When you really read and study them, here's what you find. They're discussing these things.

So it's easy to make a TikTok video or something quick on the YouTube or a post here and a meme there, and say these were all just white racist men out there who were trying to create their own version of a free world, but it was only free for white people. No, read their letters, read their interactions with other founding fathers. They were saying, should we bring it up or should we not? Well, I tell you what, let's put it this way, this way, and we will have to fight this battle later on.

How do I know that? Because I've read it, not in those precise words, but they were discussing this. But people of today expect the people of then to have this same, what's obvious to us now, they expect it to have been obvious to those people then, and so they should adhere to our standards of life, I guess. Well, they also, Dr. Shire, you've said this, that the founding fathers were crafting a nation. I mean, they were doing something that was unprecedented.

So they knew which battles to fight and which battles to table for later, which ones were the most pressing. But even then, they did not say, okay, right now, only white men, okay? Right. Only white men are created equal.

No. No, they said everyone, all men are created equal. They could have very easily specified.

You say, how do you know that? Because you read their other writings, and they are talking about the difference between European-born people and other people, Catholics versus Protestants, Jewish people. They're talking about all these different people. It's not like they were purposely vague in all their other letters.

They were extremely specific. Yes. So when they wrote the Declaration or the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, they are writing with the understanding that, yes, we are creating a nation here where everybody's going to be equal. It will be best if we don't fight on this issue right now.

But yes, we are for this. And all those principles are coming from scripture. So let me keep going here because our time is short, just to describe Christian nationalism.

That was your question, right? What is Christian? So it is as ethnic and political as it is religious.

That's what Whitehead and Perry say in their book. It is ethnic and political as it is religious. Understood in this light, Christian nationalism contends that America has been and should always be distinctively, quote unquote, Christian from top to bottom. It is self-identity, interpretations of its own history, sacred symbols, cherished values, and public policies. And it aims to keep it this way.

So all over society, in the structure, in the system, Christian nationalism seeks to infiltrate and pervade and saturate with all these things to maintain its control over society for white men. So how do we answer this? Well, I'm not the first one to answer this. Many have done a great job, one specifically, and his name is Mark David Hall. Mark David Hall is a professor at George Fox University. He has done a great job. And I want to summarize some of his points here, if that's okay with you. So one of the first things he says is that we should be patriotic as Americans, but we owe our ultimate allegiance to God. So if you ask me, are you proud to be an American? Yes. What is more important to you, being an American or being a Christian?

Absolutely. Without any hesitation, Christianity is the most important thing for me. Loving and serving the living true triune God is most important to me. As Christians, and again, we're going by Mark David Hall's summary against this whole idea, this accusation of Christian nationalism. He says, as Christians, we believe that every person should be treated with dignity and respect, whether we agree with them or not.

Yeah, I agree. So, you know, I say homosexuality is a sin, but I will never, ever, ever try to mistreat somebody who's a homosexual. And if that were to ever happen in my presence, I will do whatever I can to defend that person.

Defend the person who's been mistreated. Absolutely, because no, we're not going to do that. I mean, it goes against our identity as Christians. It's the backbone even of our church, that's a policy, is that there's no mistreatment of anybody, regardless of their sexual orientation. And that's not the same as saying, oh, it's not a sin, who am I to judge?

You know what, we need to just not focus on those negatives or those minor things. No, no, no, no, no. It is a sin. If the Bible preaches on it, talks about it, then I'm going to preach on it. I'm not going to back down from that conviction. But does that mean I'm going to mistreat a person in that lifestyle?

No, absolutely not. Another thing that Mark David Hall talks about is that to say that America was founded as a Christian nation is not the same as saying that America is for Christians only. That's a good point. Great point.

And I think that's a point that you've been making a lot on the show is that our nation is built on these values. It doesn't mean it's like you're forbidden to be anything else. Right. The foundation and what is legal are different things. Right, right. It's not that we're going to kick people out if they disagree with the foundation or if they, you know, because of the foundation, people have the freedom to say, hey, I'm not going to do this.

Hey, I want to I want to live this kind of lifestyle. Right. Biblically, we don't agree with you, but you have the freedom to do that because of the foundation of our nation. Even overseas, does it work like that? Like, I know India now is is run by Hindu nationalist government.

But but if you're non Hindu, are you in trouble for that? Oh, yeah. Oh, for real? Oh, yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah. Just recently, Christian churches were trashed and they walked in during a service and they threw down the pews and the pulpit and all those kind of things. Can you be Muslim? You can be, but it's it's a lot of persecution against Muslims as well.

Really? By the government? By the government. Wow. Against their jobs, against their food. You know, they like to eat beef.

So now it's it's against the law to eat beef in India. Wow. Yeah. Huh. So all these things have been have been done recently.

Gotcha. So it's a lot a lot a lot of bad things are happening. So when people when people accuse America of being Christian nationalists, they really have no clue what these nationalist governments are capable of.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. What they're saying is, I know some racist people. My mind says like, I know some racist people too. Racism comes in every every culture, every color.

Yeah. It's not right. It's never right.

I never will support that. But at the same time, to say everybody who stands for America or who who claims that America is a Christian nation is simply a racist is a Christian. That's not true.

True. Even President Washington wrote a letter to the Jewish congregation in Rhode Island promising them freedom of worship. And by the way, at the time when he made that promise, there were only two thousand only two thousand Jewish people in in America, in America.

Wow. Not Rhode Island. In all of America. All of America. And he was telling them, hey, listen, when when all this is done, you will have your freedom to worship according to the dictates of your conscience. Only two thousand people. And America was not a small little country.

Oh, no, that was that was. Yes, there are people who hold to views that are, you know, that may be considered as Christian nationalist. That's not really accurate. Like names like Rush Dooney or those who hold to dominion or reconstructionist theology. OK, there are people like that, but they hardly have a following. OK, they're hard. These are like would you consider these alt right, like far right influencers? I won't even say alt right. They're just loonies.

I got you loonies. OK. Some of their views include capital punishment for witchcraft. Anybody here want to kill a witch?

I'm good. Capital punishment against homosexuality. Wow. I think it's a sin. But I would never say we need to kill homosexual people.

No, no, no, never. Juvenile delinquency. Capital capital punishment for that. Yeah. Wow. You may feel like you want to do that to your lazy teenager.

Going after the teenagers too many? They believe that that this is not now, but in the post-millennial period. So even though dominionist or reconstructionist theology people support these wacko beliefs, they're not talking about now. They're not saying get all your rocks together because we're going to have a stoning today. They're talking about in the post-millennial period. Like to come.

When the world is now living in that perfect realm, the post-millennial world where it's like God is here with us and we're the ideal community. Good grief. Do you follow Rush Dooney? I don't even never heard of him. They have a small following thing is pretty accurate.

I've never heard of it in my life. Let me say it very quickly. Just because I say I vote biblical values does not make me a Christian nationalist. Just because I choose life for the unborn, a support traditional marriage or praying in school or protecting our children or hard work and freedom of religion does not make me a Christian nationalist. And by the way, those same questions about faith in America were asked to all people and about 65% of African Americans turned out to be Christian nationalists. Because they said yes. Funny how that works.

I am for this and I'm for this and I'm for prayer and I'm for I'm against. What was that number 65%? 65% of African Americans. And they said, well, let's see. Oh, wait, he's black? Yeah.

Wait a minute. They were not advocating for white privilege. They answered that way because they wanted more social justice in America from the Bible, from their Christian upbringing. And then finally, one big point that is made is how about Charlottesville? I don't know if y'all remember that. Oh, yeah.

August 2017. When the white supremacists or the alt-right showed up in that, you know, and then later on the January 2021, the thing. Were there Christian nationalists there? And yes, I wasn't there. But from what you see, you go, okay, maybe that person is a Christian nationalist. He's posing as one. I don't know for sure if that person was or not. Right. Nonetheless, that doesn't make any difference.

I need to still stand up for what I believe. That's right. That's right. And maybe even more so knowing that I'm being being lumped together with this odd group. So whoever is calling J.D.

Vance and others as theobros and all that stuff, they're pushing their vision for a Christian society. Hey, don't don't back down against people like this who call you names and put a label on you. That's unfair. That's right.

Don't let your enemies define you. That's right. Great point. So good. Guys, make sure you join us tomorrow. Same time, same station. We're gonna be diving into another great topic here on the Clear Read Today show.

Not tomorrow. We'll be diving into another topic on Monday. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes. If you want to re-listen, you can always support us financially at ClearReadTodayShow.com.

Jon, anything you want to plug as we close today? Absolutely. Dr. Sean Nicole's book, 30 Days of Praying for America is available on Amazon right now. You can grab that. These are daily devotions to heal our nations. This is book three of a three book series.

Book four is coming out very soon. You can also grab all our original music. That's Clear View Worship on Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, anywhere that digital music is streamed or sold. That's right. Find a place to jump in and worship this weekend and join us bright and early Monday morning. We love you guys. We'll see you Monday on Clear Read Today.