Editor’s Note: Amanda Tyler is the executive director of BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty) and the lead organizer of the Christians Against Christian Nationalism campaign. Follow her on Twitter. The views expressed here are her own. View more opinion on CNN.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene explicitly labeled herself a Christian nationalist on Saturday. This shocking statement by a sitting member of Congress should serve as a wake-up call to everyone, and particularly, I believe, to Christians.
“We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists,” Greene said in an interview while attending the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida on Saturday. Her self-avowal of Christian nationalism follows her claim last month that Christian nationalism is “nothing to be afraid of,” and that the “movement” will solve school shootings and “sexual immorality” in America.
For years, I have been closely tracking Christian nationalism and sounding the alarm about it. Greene’s recent comments mark an alarming shift in the public conversation about Christian nationalism.
Until recently, the public figures who most embrace Christian nationalism in their rhetoric and policies have either denied its existence or claimed that those of us who are calling it out are engaging in name-calling. But Greene is evidently reading from a different script now – explicitly embracing the identity as her own and urging others to join her.