Welcome to Talk Heathen, the show where we take your calls and explore belief with curiosity and courage.

I'm Christy Powell, and today I want to begin with something that's been weighing heavy on my mind.

Not just as a former believer, not just as a therapist, and not just as a Texan, but as a citizen of this complicated country we call home.

It's no secret that American identity and

Christianity have long been tangled together like roots in dry soil. You can't really dig

into one without pulling up clumps of the other. This nation was founded, at least in part,

on religious idealism, but let's be honest. it was also founded on stolen land, on the backs of

enslaved people, and with a version of Christian faith that comforted the powerful while quieting

the oppressed. And those histories aren't parallel. They're intertwined. We've all heard the phrase

Christian nation tossed out like a compliment, like a badge of honor.

But what does that really mean?

What kind of Christianity are we talking about?

The gentle, justice-driven Jesus of the Sermon of the Mount or the more militarized flag-draped

Messiah of Fox News and political rallies?

Because the Christianity that so often gets wrapped in red,

white, and blue isn't about loving your neighbor. It's about controlling them. It's about enforcing

hierarchy, patriarchal, racial, economic, through spiritual authority. It tells us that God

anointed this nation, that white forefathers were divinely guided, and that any challenge to this story is rebellion against the sacred.

That idea is not just nationalism. That is white Christian nationalism, a belief system that says America belongs to white Christians and must be ruled accordingly.

And it's not fringe.

It shows up in our laws, in our school boards, and our courtrooms.

It showed up in the chance and crosses carried on January 6th.

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