ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
At Charlie Kirk's memorial last month, religious belief and conservative politics were both on display. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was one speaker.
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PETE HEGSETH: Charlie Kirk, a warrior for country, a warrior for Christ. He ran the race. He finished the fight. Now, it's our turn.
FLORIDO: Closely aligning Kirk's politics with what it means to be Christian troubles some members of the faith. They say it harms both Christianity and American democracy. NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose reports.
SUSAN RUSSELL: All right. Good morning, friends in the room and out in the interwebs (ph).
JASON DEROSE, BYLINE: On a recent Sunday, Reverend Susan Russell began the education hour at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California.
RUSSELL: We're grateful you're here this morning at All Saints Church as we continue our faith information series.
DEROSE: The series is focused on faith and politics.
RUSSELL: All Saints has a long history of striving to live out our Gospel values. And we're very clear there's a difference between exercising politics as partisan politics and advocating for Gospel values that have political implications.
DEROSE: Two decades ago, the IRS investigated All Saints because of an anti-war sermon that someone felt crossed a line and reported it. That inquiry found the church had done nothing wrong. Religion in politics is still a live topic here. Today, the deep concern, says Russell, is Christian nationalism - an ideology that conflates American identity with Christian identity and rejects the separation of church and state.
RUSSELL: Christian nationalism is nothing short of a weapon of mass destruction against core values of the Gospel.
DEROSE: Gospel values such as caring for the poor and welcoming the stranger. And, Russell argues, Christian nationalism undermines American values.
RUSSELL: To respect the dignity of every human being and to hold liberty and justice for all are core values that are antithetical to what Christian nationalism proposes.
DEROSE: But many evangelical Christians reject that description and push back against what they call the overuse of the label Christian nationalist.
JEFFREY KEUSS: Certainly it's a term that's been used to malign. It's been used to caricature.
DEROSE: Jeffrey Keuss is the dean of the School of Mission and Theology at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena.
KEUSS: It's a bit like saying, don't think about a hippopotamus, and that's the first thing that comes to mind. Whenever we're trying to battle a particular way of thinking by constantly thinking about that thing, it's pretty hard to escape the vortex.
DEROSE: He worries the Christian nationalist moniker is often used to describe any politics and religiosity that people don't agree with.
KEUSS: We all live in our own countries. We all have to operate in these systems. And so it makes sense that for Americans, there'd be a way that they're trying to make sense of their American citizenship in relation to whatever faith tradition they have.
DEROSE: And he points to biblical teaching from the Gospels.
KEUSS: Particularly for Christians, Jesus was very clear that we should participate with the government that we have. The render unto Caesar what is Caesar's is an important part of Jesus' ministry.
DEROSE: Still, there are moments during the Charlie Kirk memorial that some argue went beyond simply rendering unto Caesar. For instance, this moment in Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's remarks.
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HEGSETH: This is not a political war. It's not even a cultural war. It's a spiritual war.
AMANDA TYLER: The use of Christian language in such absolutist terms suggests that there's no separation between Christianity and the political platform that Charlie Kirk and the elected and appointed people eulogizing him stood for.
DEROSE: Amanda Tyler is executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and author of the book "How To End Christian Nationalism."
TYLER: That complete merger between Christianity and their political cause has the impact of making it seem like there is a national religion.
DEROSE: But there isn't. Tyler points to the First Amendment and the U.S. Constitution itself.
TYLER: In fact, the only reference to religion is in Article 6 and a prohibition against religious tests for public office. So the Founders, if indeed they were setting up a Christian nation, they did it in the most ineffective way they possibly could by barring religious tests from the beginning.
DEROSE: Tyler says many Christians in America are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Christian nationalist rhetoric, and they're doing more than labeling it. They're taking action.
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MARA RICHARDS BIM: Hi, this is Mara Richards Bim. I am the justice and advocacy fellow at Royal Lane Baptist Church.
DEROSE: In this TikTok video, Bim and members of her Dallas congregation are marching with signs, protesting increased immigration enforcement actions.
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BIM: I think it's important to point out all of us here in front of the ICE building here in Dallas, we are here every week, giving witness because we are taught to love our neighbors as ourselves. And our neighbors include our immigrant neighbors.
DEROSE: Bim says her faith also compels her to work against a new Texas law that could require Bible study and prayer in schools - something she says is clearly Christian nationalism.
BIM: Even with Christianity, we have a diversity of traditions, and we don't want state-imposed prayer.
DEROSE: This is not about, Bim says, being anti-religious. She's a minister herself, after all. She says countering Christian nationalism is about protecting religious liberty for all Americans.
Jason DeRose, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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