Unmasking Southern White evangelicalism in U. S. history education: Racialized theopolitical discourses at work

Abstract

White evangelical churches and organizations play a significant role in mobilizing congregants as participants in the white Christian nationalist movement. This fusion of faith and politics has made white evangelicals “ambassadors” of white Christian nationalism (Miller, 2022). This paper interrogates the history, theology, and politics of white Christian nationalism to understand its influence in the U. S. educational system, specifically its implications for K-12 history curriculum in public schools. Beginning with current legislation around critical race theory, this paper traces the intersection of evangelical and conservative discourse in the Southern United States. This historical analysis shows how the white, Southern evangelical record on race and racism accommodates the theopolitical ideology of the white Christian nationalist movement. This paper argues the current white evangelical challenges to critical race theory and demands to teach “alternative histories” about America’s racial past not only limits discussions around race and power in classrooms but distorts the curriculum with white Christian nationalist tenets disguised as truth.

Keywords:

• White evangelicalism
• white Christian nationalism
• Southern United States
• history curriculum
• critical race theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The term “Judeo-Christian” is neither religiously nor politically neutral, and it is used intentionally throughout this article to point toward a theological tradition that suggests Christianity in some way completes Judaism. As Feldman (1997) points out, “The concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition flows from the theology of supersession, whereby the Christian covenant (or Testament) with God supersedes the Jewish one” (p. 18). This point supports white Christian nationalist beliefs of God’s special relationship with the United States and the notion that the United States is the “New Israel”: as a Judeo-Christian nation, the United States inherits the blessings God promised to Israel in the bible. Also see Brockman (2021).

2 Unless otherwise noted, I use Woodard’s (2012) framework to describe the South, but in this example, I use the states comprising the Confederate South for the sake of simplicity. The geographic areas that make up Woodard’s five nations of the South include whole states and portions of others; however, reporting from the AG includes whole states without county-by-county statistics. This example is sufficient to highlight the trend in AG churches, a trend I believe extends across the five nations of the South.

3 The biblical narrative of the Persian king Cyrus characterizes him as a savior anointed by God (Isaiah 45:1) to meet the demand of rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1-2). Comparing Donald Trump to King Cyrus imbues the former with the anointing of the latter. See Trangerud (2021) for an excellent discussion of Cyrus as an archetype of American presidents and world leaders.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Meghan Whitfield

Meghan Whitfield is a doctoral student in language, literacy and culture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is particularly interested in the ways educational activism shapes curriculum development and classroom discourses in public schools.