HELD OVER FROM LAST WEEK...

The Rise of White Christian Nationalism

DR. SAMUEL PERRY

Award-Winning Scholar, Sociology Professor, Author, Contributor to the Report to the January 6th Select Committee

DR. SAMUEL L. PERRY

An award-winning scholar and teacher, Dr. Samuel L. Perry is among the nation’s leading experts on conservative Christianity and American politics, race, sexuality and families.

Along with numerous articles published in leading academic journals, Dr. Perry has also authored or co-authored four books, including GROWING GOD'S FAMILY: The Global Orphan Care Movement and the Limits of Evangelical Activism (NYU, 2017), ADDICTED TO LUST: Pornography in the Lives of Conservative Protestants (Oxford, 2019), TAKING AMERICA BACK FOR GOD:  Christian Nationalism in the United States (Oxford, 2020; co-authored with Andrew Whitehead) and the forthcoming THE FLAG + THE CROSS: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy (Oxford, 2022; co-authored with Philip Gorski).

Dr. Perry is currently working on a book about how the scientific study of religion benefits all of society and another book about how culture wars and consumer markets shape English bibles.

Dr. Perry is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma.

A bracing examination of a force that imperils American democracy

Most Americans were shocked by the violence they witnessed at the nation's Capitol Building on January 6th. And many were bewildered by the images displayed by the insurrectionists: a wooden cross and wooden gallows; "Jesus saves" and "Don't Tread on Me;" Christian flags and Confederate Flags; even a prayer in Jesus' name after storming the Senate chamber. Where some saw a confusing jumble, Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry saw a familiar ideology: white Christian nationalism.

White Christian nationalism motivates the anti-democratic, authoritarian and violent impulses on display in our current political moment. The future of American democracy, Gorski and Perry argue, will depend on whether a broad spectrum of Americans — stretching from democratic socialists to classical liberals — can unite in a popular front to combat the threat to liberal democracy posed by white Christian nationalism.