Last weekend, Rob Reiner’s new documentary, “God & Country,” debuted in theaters nationwide. The movie, which attempts to explain why Christian nationalism is a threat to democracy, uses a number of politically progressive self-identified Christians to attack politically conservative Christians. This line of attack — that Christian nationalism makes bad Christians — has been pushed by leftists and corporate media for years now, and there is perhaps no one better at pushing the popular (but dishonest) narrative than sociologist Andrew Whitehead.
Whitehead, a professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, is one of a cluster of aspiring public intellectuals and academics who cite a current or past affiliation with conservative evangelical Christianity to legitimize their arguments against that religion and subculture.
In his latest book, American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church, which was released toward the end of 2023, Whitehead takes aim at political and theological views he labels Christian nationalism. He confidently asserts that his beliefs “about the harmful nature of Christian nationalism [are grounded] in empirical, scholarly research” and that Christian nationalism makes its adherents bad Christians who struggle to serve Christians of different ethnicities and nationalities.
Whitehead is not a nobody; he is an influential academic. His earlier work boasts accolades in academia, and Whitehead is busy promoting his thesis in corporate media outlets such as Time magazine. His book boasts blurbs from progressive Christian influencers like Jemar Tisby and Beth Allison Barr. Whitehead is even getting favorable coverage
