Religion and the Alt-Right - Damon Berry - ReligionWise

Episode Transcript
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Chip Gruen (00:04):
Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host Chip
Gruen. I'm super excited abouttoday's episode for a couple of
reasons. One is the contentitself is fascinating and
interestingly complex, and Ithink really timely. Our guest
is Dr. Damon Berry, who is theassociate professor of religious

(00:24):
studies and department chair atSt Lawrence University. And his
work focuses on, well, it's kindof hard to talk about because of
the diversity present within thegroup. We could call it the
alt-right. We could call itChristian nationalists. We could
call it American whitenationalism. As you listen to
the episode, you'll see why Ihave a little bit of problem

(00:46):
giving a single identifier orsingle category name for these
groups, because while they agreeon a lot ideologically, there is
also a lot that keeps themseparated from one another,
whether that be goals andmotivations, religious identity,
or just the theory of what therelationship is between the

(01:09):
United States, ethnicity and acommon history should be. Dr.
Berry has been prolific writingabout these groups, With three
monographs out including "Bloodand Faith-Christianity and
American White Nationalism,""Christianity and the
Alt-Right-Exploring theRelationship," and then just out
last year, "The New ApostolicReformation, Trump and

(01:32):
Evangelical Politics". He alsowanted me to mention that he is
the guest editor of a specialissue of Nova Religio that is
coming out very soon called"Dominion and Rebellion-The New
Apostolic Reformation and theJanuary 6 Insurrection". So I
think, given the way thathistory of those events is being

(01:54):
remembered and re remembered byvarious people in various places
on the political landscape, Ithink that that will be again, a
timely issue that will be dealtwith by a number of authors in
that collection. I'm also reallyexcited to have Dr. Berry on the
program, because his methods areones that I'm very sympathetic

(02:16):
to, the way that he works, theway that he writes, the way that
he does his research. He isreally interested in not making
the work about him and about hisfeelings and opinions about the
place of these groups inAmerican society. But instead,
he wants to help the readerunderstand these actors from

(02:39):
their own perspective, now thatshouldn't be imagined as giving
a pass or condoning the beliefsand practices of these groups.
In fact, you'll hear in theinterview that he talks about
how the underlying motivationfor his work is to help stop
violence help defuse the powerof these groups in the public

(03:02):
landscape of contemporary UnitedStates, but that that is not the
first job at hand. The first jobis to understand the context,
the motivations, the practicesof these groups. And I think
it's a very refreshing anduseful way of taking our first
steps as we increase ourliteracy about this, you know,

(03:23):
not insignificant group ofpeople in our country that are
affecting our politicallandscape and the religious
landscape for that matter. It isa method I share when I teach my
Christian Traditions class or myNew Religious Movements class,
right, understanding people whoare other than us, whose
worldviews might be differentfrom ours, but understanding
them by trying to cultivate asmuch as we can, a kind of

(03:46):
empathetic read to a differentkind of belief and practice a
different worldview. So beforewe start the conversation, I
just want to make a quick notethat this is the first episode
of season four of ReligionWise.
We're super excited to comeback. We've got a lot of good
guests lined up for the nextseveral months. And I would like
to encourage you, if you're afan of the show, if you have

(04:09):
subscribed or are a regularlistener, that we really would
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that that can really help ourprogram reach larger audiences
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(04:33):
episode, we will be happy tosupply you with a little
Institute for Religious andCultural Understanding swag, if
you provide your physicaladdress to us, so please
consider doing that. And withoutfurther ado, let's get to the
conversation with Dr. Berry.

(04:53):
Damon Berry, thanks for comingon ReligionWise.

Damon Berry (04:56):
Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you very much
for having me.

Chip Gruen (04:59):
So as we were talking, before we started
recording, I was I was saying toyou, I'm kind of becoming a big
fan. I've really enjoyed some ofyour work, and one of the
reasons I've been reallyinterested in reading your work
is actually not so much aboutthe content, but about the
methodology that you use. And Iwant to throw one of your book

(05:20):
blurbs back at you. This is fromyour book "Christianity and
Alt-Right" in the frontmaterial. George Hawley, who's a
professor of political scienceat the University of Alabama,
describes your work as having,"A gift for ideological
empathy." Can you talk a littlebit about how you approach the
subjects of your work and thechallenges that studying this

(05:41):
movement present for you?

Yes, excellent question, and thank you for your
very generous introductorycomments. So interestingly,
there was a whole section in myfirst book, which was developed
out of my dissertation aboutChristianity and American white
nationalism, where I explainthis tangle of empathy. And of

(06:05):
course, religious studies hasthis history of you know, most
people, I think it's a generallyaccepted thing that most people
study certain religioustraditions, because there's
something compelling about them,there's something interesting
about them, there's somethingthey may even like about them,
and I went as far in the otherdirection of that as I think

(06:25):
anyone can. And yet I alwaysfelt it was important to not
misrepresent, you know, eventhese views that I ardently
disagree with in the firstplace, because being a historian
of religions, in the BruceLincoln sort of way of thinking
about things. I don't reallythink the object of my study

(06:47):
should be my feelings aboutthese groups. Of course, I have
them. There were certaininterests and frustrations and,
you know, very difficult thingsthat I was dealing with as a
person, just that drew me tothis topic in the first place,
but I don't think anybody iswell served by yet another sort
of editorializing about how badthis all is. I think we're

(07:10):
better served by a betterunderstanding of material. So
that's sort of my scholarlyanswer. Is developing that
empathy for me was importantbecause I wanted to represent it
well. I didn't want tomischaracterize things and have
the study be about me, becausethat's not what the object of
study is. But on the other hand,I'm also, you know, deeply

(07:33):
invested in countering extremismand and countering terrorism,
and so some of the work that Itry to contribute on that end
were, in many cases,interviewing formers, people who
have committed acts of extremismor leaving extremist movements.
And if your goal is to reachthese folks where they are, to
maybe put them on a path toleaving these organizations, or

(07:55):
at least not committing violentoffenses, while maybe having
views that we don't agree withor or we find reprehensible,
then you you have to reach themat a point of of understanding,
where you're willing to listento what they have to say, and
meet them where they are.
Because ultimately, in thatwork, the goal is to save lives,
and if it costs me a bit oflet's say, you know, shoving my

(08:20):
personal feelings about theirideologies or the words they use
or the inclinations they have tohopefully reach them to prevent
them from committing an act ofviolence. Then, then that's what
I'll do. So that on thepragmatic side, when it comes to
doing this work in the inanother context, empathy is
essential, because most peopledon't respond well to being

(08:45):
attacked.

Chip Gruen (08:47):
Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine that. I mean, for
lack of a better word, yourinformants are going to respond
a lot better to you. You'regoing to open up doors, you
know, with with that approach,rather than being perceived as,
you know, the elitist...

Right.

Chip Gruen (09:02):
...right academic who's coming down from the ivory
tower to, you know, to, I don'tknow, to do whatever expose the
movement, or what have you.

Right. And if you, if you start there, just, I
mean, from an academicstandpoint, and from a pragmatic
counter extremism standpoint,you're not getting accurate
information. They're not gonna,they're not going to be honest
with you, because they don'ttrust you.

Chip Gruen (09:24):
So you don't have to read very far in the literature
about these movements before yousee that this is not a single
organized ideology or worldview,that nothing really unifies
these groups under a singlebanner. And in fact, if we look
at the infamous rally that tookplace in Charlottesville in 2017
it went under the rubric, orunder the title, Unite the

(09:45):
Right, which, in itself, seemsto signal kind of a self
consciousness about the varietyor disunity among these groups
that being said, can you talk alittle bit about that variety or
disunity, or about what mighthold these groups together? Even
if it's from, from yourscholarly viewpoint, what brings
them together as an object to bestudied, given that disunity?

Actually, for me, it is the disunity.That is my
that is my focus, because, Ithink, in many ways and and
sometimes for good reason. Imean, we create categories for
all sorts of reasons to youknow, make rational that which
is very difficult to understand,and depending on your audience,
those simplifying the categoriescan be helpful. But from an

(10:32):
academic standpoint, I am Iembrace the complexity because
that's precisely what interestsme. So then again, my
dissertation that became myfirst book, and then carried
over into the book you mentionedis about that disunity. So the
concept of whiteness. Of course,white racial protection is the

(10:52):
major thing that seemed to holdthe interest of every one of the
groups and individuals that Iwrote about my first book. But
by the time I get to my secondbook, and I look at European
ethno nationalists outside theUnited States, they often do not
embrace the concept of whitenessas articulated by American white

(11:13):
nationalists. They think ofethnicity in different ways. So
so depending on what groupyou're talking about and how
many other groups you include inthat conversation, there's
almost nothing that holds themtogether. Even in the context of
American white nationalism,where would the white homeland
be and and there's disagreementover that, historically

(11:33):
speaking. And then, of course,specifically, I talked about the
disunification around religion,something that persisted through
the alt-right and that the Unitethe Right rally and the debacle
that that became from theirperspective, many of their
perspectives, so you had thiswhite Mormon woman that I spent
some time talking about in inthat second book, she was

(11:54):
actually really quite put out bythe way that the Unite the Right
rally organizers handled thecriminal charges that were
pressed against people,especially the young man that
killed Heather Heyer with hisvehicle, injuring several
others. So there's almostnothing that holds them
together, almost nothing in it.
And after 2017 the movementturned on itself, precisely

(12:16):
because you have this longstanding history of these groups
just not really getting alongvery well.

Chip Gruen (12:23):
So part of that diversity that you talk about, I
think, owes to the ways thatthese ideas are shared and
spread, which is not typicallyin a physical community like a
church or a traditionalpolitical organizing unit, but
instead it's a proliferation ofonline communities, social media
sites and new media in general.
How much are those two thingsmirrored? Right? The ways in

(12:47):
which this is not a brick andmortar kind of movement, and the
diversity that you know, thatyou, that you described, you
have almost nothing holdingthese, these groups together.

Yeah, well, the online spaces, of course, you
know, with the advent of thealt-right, but you know, that
was the major point of theiractivity. If you follow some of
the documentarians that thatwent with people during the
Unite the Right rally, they youhear all these references to
meme warfare and psychologicalwarfare, and that's primarily

(13:22):
carried out through onlinespaces, but also many of the
people who are attracted tothese ideologies in their
majority of their life, they'renot going to let people know
they're attracted to this. Sothere's one part where not
having a solid, singularorganization probably inhibits

(13:43):
their ability to mobilize incertain ways. They're not like
the German American Bund orChristian Front of previous
generations or even clans,certainly nothing like the 1920s
clan that had a rather large andimpactful political presence in
the entirety of the UnitedStates, not just the South. This

(14:05):
is much more diffuse, andthere's a longer history to all
of this, of how theorganizations developed,
especially after the COINTELPRObecause there's, we're familiar
with COINTELPRO being, you know,targeting Vietnam War
protesters, the Civil RightsMovement, Black Nationalists,
but there's also a COINTELprogram against clans in

(14:25):
particular, but also variouskinds of white racist
extremists. And that becamepublic knowledge, and then you
had this development of aleaderless resistance, and Louis
Beam is most important for ofall these articulators of a
cellular resistance against thegovernment, which these white

(14:46):
racist activists started seeingthe government as their primary
target, not something to be coopted, but something to be ward
against. So in many ways, thecellular development of a
cellular structure, rather thana sort of pyramid structure of
leadership coincided with thischange of moving to online
platforms, beginning in the1990s with Stormfront. So you

(15:08):
have sort of what's on theground is this organizational
shift, but at the same time, theadvent of technologies that made
something like that much moreeffective. And then by the time
you get to somebody like DylannRoof, he's radicalized online by
just doing simple Googlesearches about Black crime, and
then before you know it, he'sprepared to take a handgun to a

(15:30):
Black church and kill ninepeople, precisely because he's
radicalized online, because youdon't need as a matter of fact,
it's less effective to have abrick and mortar organization if
you're going to commit acts ofrevolutionary violence.

Chip Gruen (15:45):
I'm thinking about, you know, the big red letter
events of these groups, right?
The Charlottesville, you know,January 6, like that there are
these things that happen. And Idon't know, I'm just weighing
the sort of the what looks like,the spontaneity of that, versus
these kinds of lone wolfattacks. I'm thinking about like

(16:06):
that this is a different kind ofthreat, right? Than what we
might be used to consideringwhen we think about paramilitary
groups or higher organization,I'm, you know, the question that
I had shared with you previouslywas about like, how big of a
threat is this? It just seemslike it's, it's a different kind
of threat than what we might beused to in previous generations.

Yes. And you know, when I speak with law
enforcement officials, this isthe one thing I try to
emphasize. So, you know, so howdo you prevent something like
this, and, and, and to behonest, prevention is extremely
difficult because you have FirstAmendment and Fourth Amendment
protections. So you know,somebody getting online, or like

(16:49):
Robert Bowers did before he wentto Tree of Life synagogue and
killed 11 people. You know, hejust simply posted on Twitter,
I'm sick of all the talk, orsomething to the effect of, I'm
sick of all the talk. Screw theoptics I'm going in. There's no,
there's no way to know what hemeant by that until after the
fact, and there's nowhere way toknow where exactly he's

(17:09):
targeting. And if you haveindividuals using VPN or secure
chat, so like a US soldier wasaffiliated with an atomwaffen
adjacent group, neo Naziorganization, and was
communicating over secure chatto get his unit ambushed in
Turkey by a jihadist group, onlyby breaking that chat and

(17:29):
because he's a service member,there's certain things you can
do under the Uniform Code ofMilitary Justice if you have
reasonable cause that you justcan't do for a 15 year old
scrolling in their basement. Andthen, of course, do we really
want the kinds of protectionsthat would be necessary to
ferret this out? But then, ifyou look at, you know again,

(17:51):
Dylann Roof, Robert Bowers, theyoung man who went into the
grocery store in Buffalo, NewYork, these are people who
primarily were apparentlyradicalized online, shared
information online, but none ofit was necessarily actionable
intelligence that would lead youto know exactly what their
target was going to be until itwas too late. And that's it is a

(18:14):
new kind of threat. It is a veryspecific one, and it's in my
view, and I don't think I'mspeaking out of turn for other
people who think about terrorismand extremist groups that is the
most significant threat, becauseit's very difficult to counter.

Chip Gruen (18:31):
Yeah, I'm kind of thinking of an analogy. It seems
like, you know, if you see aphysicist describing boiling
water, or you watch poppingpopcorn, like the temperature of
the whole system goes up, whichmakes it more likely for, you
know, the heat, for example, topop a pop piece of popcorn. But
you never know which one it'sgoing to be, right? And you
never know which one it's goingto be. And it seems to me that

(18:53):
analogy might work, because wedo get the temperature turned up
on the whole system of thesegroups, but you never know where
the lone wolf or where theaction is going to come from.

No. And that cellular organization, that kind
of cellular activity, ratherthan a hierarchical organization
which would be easilyinfiltrated, and you can apply
Rico and all this other stuff,it just doesn't exist. And by
design, that's exactly whatLouis Beam was articulating in
the 1990s So, but also in thecontext of, you know, some other

(19:24):
things that I've written about.
2023 report by PRI and BrookingsInstitute noted that support for
political violence has increasedsince 2021 and that nearly a
quarter of Americans 23% agreethat because things have gotten
so far off track. This is fromthe report itself, true American
patriots may have to resort toviolence in order to save their

(19:44):
country, and so I think it isapplicable to say that the heat
of the environment has gone upto such a degree that it's much
more likely to happen. So, yeah,this, this is the major concern,
and it is very difficult tocounter.

Chip Gruen (20:02):
So I want to move back. I mean, obviously this is
ReligionWise, and religion, it'sthe central discourse of what
we're interested in. But it'sinteresting to see that, you
know, political commentators,journalists of all stripes refer
to these groups. I mean, we'vetalked about the alt-right, but
Christian nationalist ends upbeing one of the buzzwords that

(20:23):
gets used in dominant media, andthat, of course, implies that
Christian identity should be acentral focus when we're
thinking about these groups andthinking about their
motivations. But the religiousidentities of these groups is
not so clear cut. Can you talkabout the multiple religious
identities that are presentwithin these groups?
Particularly with reference toones that we would consider
outside that Christian milieu,pagan and atheist identities.

Yeah, well, again, I mean, you know, when I when I
say the diversity is what drewmy attention is it's precisely
because of a person who was onmy committee, and I had been
very fortunate to learn from, isProfessor Michael Barkun
Professor Emeritus of PoliticalScience from Syracuse
University. And you know, hewrote a book a while ago called

(21:08):
"Religion and the Racist Right,"where he focused on Christian
identity groups, a very specifickind of Christian theology that
argues that the white race orAryans or white folks in general
are the chosen people of God,and Jews are pretenders, and
African Americans and otherpeople of color are not fully
human, so on and so forth. Veryparticular kind of theological

(21:29):
persuasion, which was, ofcourse, of note at the time,
especially, you know, inthinking about militia groups in
the 1990s and, you know, AryanNations and how prominent they
were. But there were a wholebunch of other groups, and had
been for a while, since the late60s and 70s, that were
specifically not Christian inorientation. And the first

(21:51):
person I talk about is ReviloOliver, who was actually a
professor of classics, veryeducated human being, who was
with the John Birch Society, andwrote about Christianity being
this sort of like tradition ofthe West, but that liberal
Christianity and MarxistChristianity was perverting all

(22:11):
that. Well has he leavesmainstream political discourse
behind, relatively mainstream.
Of course, John Birch might notbe considered mainstream to
most, but it was relativelymainstream. He was writing for
National Review when NationalReview just first got started,
so he was kind of in thatmilieu, very far to the right,
even for that ilk. Well, as he'smoving away from that, as the

(22:33):
Birchers are purged fromNational Review and the
conservative movement by Buckleyand others, he becomes
increasingly harsh in hiscriticism of Christianity, to
the point where near the end ofhis life, he's writing that all
religion, all religion period,is toxic to the survival
instincts of the white race andshould be abandoned altogether.

(22:54):
So you have that early atheistoption. You've got new religious
movements like the Church of theCreator, you've got pagan
movements like Odinism andvarious expressions of that, and
the list goes on so and thoseare the folks I spent a lot of
time talking about because thatbecame those options became more
popular than Christian identitydid for a younger wave of white

(23:17):
nationalists, and all the way tothe beginnings of the 21st
century, you have whitenationalists recognizing this
sticking point of religion andreligious diversity being an
inhibition to coordinating withother groups, so they advocate
for religious tolerance. And Iknow it's weird of us to think
of white nationalists as talkingabout tolerance, but that's

(23:39):
exactly what they were talkingabout. We just shelved the
religion thing for the politicalgoal of white nationalism.

Chip Gruen (23:48):
So I want to stick with the atheist thread, because
there was something that yourecounted from Richard Spencer
that really caught myimagination, and I think helps
me understand, you know, alittle bit more of this
worldview and where it's comingfrom. But the question is about
there's a description of him outthere as a proud atheist, and he

(24:08):
corrects it, and he says, No,I'm not a proud atheist. I'm a
tragic atheist. Can you explainwhat he means by that, and how
that can be a really animatingforce to this particular thread
in the movement?

Absolutely. I mean, well, I mean he, he basically
lays it out himself. He's atragic atheist because he
regrets that there is not someunifying religious principle
holding the West together. It'salmost a Durkheimian kind of
perspective, right? That forhim, religion serves this
important social function, andbeing an atheist, he feels like

(24:43):
that's something that's missing.
So I and as best as I canunderstand it, that's what he
means by being a tragic atheist,that he doesn't like the idea
that we don't have a unifyingracial religion that everybody
agrees with, because that wouldhelp the organization work
better. That would help themaccomplish their goals better,
but it would also give them amore meaningful life. And in

(25:03):
many ways, he's sort of like toplay on those words. He's like a
regretful Nietzschean right,like, yeah, he's he nea... He
wants this, at least at thetime, was talking a lot about
this need for a creative force,this, this, for lack of a better
word, spiritual sort of outletthat that's part of who the

(25:25):
white race is and always hasbeen. But Jewish Christianity is
not going to do it, and there'spaganism. Is it didn't work,
obviously, because it's goneright, mainly. So you we need
maybe something else, but he'snot sure exactly what that is.
So again, that's my at the time,the way he was articulating

(25:45):
this, that's, that's more orless what he was getting at.

Chip Gruen (25:50):
Yeah, you see Nietzsche. And, you know, I've
seen the argument that it's sortof not a great reading of
Nietzsche, but you see Nietzschebeing sort of called upon, you
know, it's sort of aphilosophical, you know,
inspiration for some of these,these groups as well.

Yeah, yeah, it is.
It's not a very good reading,because the the antisemitism
would be a big deal breaker,right? Despite Nietzsche's later
history of entanglements,primarily because of his sister
with the Nazi movement, theydidn't read him very carefully
either, because he is very hardon antisemites as the
quintessential person ofressentiment, right? This person

(26:29):
who cannot live without theiranger, that this target of hate
and blame, which he thinks issick. But, yeah, but I mean,
it's important to remember too,on that point that many of these
articulators of American whitenationalism, if you have the
idea that somehow they're illeducated, backward bumpkins,
that's not true. They're, manynyof them are very highly educated

(26:53):
and spent time in the universityas professors in some cases,
certainly is true for ReviloOliver. So they, many of them,
and I think this is part of justsome the vanity of that I find
in the movement so often is thatthey love, at least having the
veneer of intellectualism, thatthey want to present their

(27:17):
arguments as rational. They havethis real attachment to thinking
of things as rational, or atleast some of them do so they
have whole like magazinesdedicated, you know, sort of
academic, their version ofacademic journals dedicated to
these topics, in part becausesome of them come from the
academy, but also there's anappeal to that for them.

Chip Gruen (27:40):
So we shelved the Christian identities for a
minute, but I want to come backto that, because it again,
speaks to this main theme thatwe're coming back to is the
diversity of the movement. And Ithink that, you know, when we're
thinking about these groups, youknow, people will lay it at the
foot of, you know, contemporaryevangelical groups, for example,

(28:00):
although, of course, that's nota denomination itself, but a
kind of a shorthand. But youchronicle in your work also
other kinds of Christianidentity. I mean, you mentioned
Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints, Mormon identity.
There are some Catholic,fundamentalist Catholics
involved in this. Can you talkabout the diversity of
Christianity that is also sortof espoused or Christian

(28:22):
identities used within thesemovements as well?

Yeah, in that alt-right moment in the lead up
to the 2016 election through2017 you had alt-right being
used in so many different ways.
So critics of in the Mormoncontext, so people who are
critics of very hardline Mormonswho wanted to be extremely
exclusionary in theirinstitutions of gay and lesbian

(28:46):
transgender folks, they would beaccused of being alt-right. But
then you also had Mormonsthemselves identifying as Trad
or traditionalist. Of course,Wife With a Purpose is a perfect
example of someone who wasactually involved in the Unite
the Right rally she was supposedto speak before everything that
happened happened. So you hadMormons moving in and out of the

(29:10):
circles of the alt-right proper.
But, you know, primarily usingit as a branding mechanism, but
it was also used as a slur. Sothe word alt-right becomes
extremely complicated in amoment when Southern Baptists
are having this very contentiousvote in 2017 to condemn the
alt-right white supremacydoesn't exactly go very well. I

(29:33):
tell that story a little bit inthe book. I was able to talk to
some people that were involvedsort of on the inside of that
conversation to help explainwhat happened a little better,
at least from their point ofview. And then, of course, with
Church Militant and MichaelVoris, who has recently left
Church Militant, and I'm notsure of the reasons, there was

(29:53):
some "moral failing" that causedhim to move away from the
movement more recently, but atthe time he became sort of this
representative oftraditionalism, which is not the
same. It's not to be confusedwith people who think of
themselves as traditionalCatholics. So this is something
that in a in a hearing on thehill, that where these words got
confused by folks who justdidn't quite understand how

(30:17):
these terms are used. Buttraditionalism is is a broader
concept about returning to thisromantic period of, usually,
European purity and so forth,whereas being a traditional
Catholic can mean all sorts ofthings depending on your
context, but so But MichaelVoris was pulling this very, you
know, again, the name, it's inthe name Church Militant, this

(30:38):
very anti homosexual, very, veryaggressive sort of online radio
presence, and usually at warwith somebody in the Catholic
Church. Usually a church, somechurch leadership is trying to
make the church more appealingto people who are LGBTQ plus,
and trying to create thatbridge. Literally, Father

(30:59):
Martin, I think his name waswriting this book about how the
church can make a bridge topeople who are homosexual and
and make the church more of aplace where they feel
comfortable coming and this isearned the ire of the Catholic
"alt-right". So the term itselfis contentious, and that's part
of what the book is about, butalso that each sort of different

(31:23):
Christian denomination orexpression was sort of wrestling
with it in this time of what conwhat in what context are we
alt-right? At what point doesour inclusion mean, abandoning a
position of traditionalorthodoxy? And the alt-right
became a way of negotiating thatfor some of them.

Chip Gruen (31:42):
So you mentioned the discourse of warfare, and we've
talked a little bit about howthat is literally true, you
know, when you have theseattacks, but it seems also to be
a part of a larger narrativethat animates the theological
and political ideologies ofthese of these groups, and in
particular, the again, I'm kindof interested in the Christian

(32:03):
nationalist here, because itseems like there is a larger
story, a global historicalcontext, or a more cosmic
context, a connection to theKingdom of God that that warfare
is is calling on. Can you talk alittle bit about the story these
people tell themselves, aboutthemselves in that larger
narrative context?

Yeah, this is where the diversity presents an issue
when it comes to very clearlydelineating things, because it
becomes quite difficult. So justlike with white nationalism and
just like with the alt-right asterms, it's easy to assume that
somebody who may be identifiedor identifies as Christian
nationalists shares a lot ofthings in common with everybody

(32:46):
else who shares that label. ButI'll return to this report again
to sort of set the stage for howI answer this question. So the
report from 2023 from PRI andBrookings, Over three in 10
white evangelical Protestants,31% along with 25% of white
mainline, non evangelicalProtestants. And you know the

(33:08):
numbers go down as you go to nonChristians, Black Protestants,
unaffiliated Americans, SpanishCatholics agree that true
American patriots may have toresort to violence to save their
country. Among white Christians,there are no differences by
church attendance on thisquestion. So that it's something
non denominational, in a sensethat people who feel like

(33:32):
violence might be necessary tosave the country, that white
evangelicals lead that statisticas people who believe that idea.
Now that's not to say that everyone of them would commit an act
of violence, so agreeing thatviolence might be necessary is
not the same as threateningviolence. So let's just be clear
about that. But so there are forpeople for whom, and it doesn't

(33:52):
necessarily break down ondenominational lines, that they
think that, yeah, violence isabsolutely physically necessary.
It's not a metaphor foranything. It's absolutely we may
have to embrace strong mantactics. That's part of this
report too. The samedemographics sort of similarly
break down along the lines ofsupporting an authoritarian

(34:13):
leader who's willing to breakrules to save the country. So
there's something nondenominational that's going on
to consider, but also withinthat is the more deeply complex
reality that there are peoplewho are affiliating along these
lines of agreeing that somethingdrastic needs to happen to save
the country, who, theologically,don't have a lot in common. So

(34:36):
if you for example, you havePastor Robert Jeffress, who's a
Southern Baptist, praying withTrump, right alongside Paula
White, who is one a femalepastor, which is not something
Southern Baptists have embraced,but is also, you know,
affiliated with the prosperitygospel, which many Baptists are
very hard on. So but this goesback to 2012 too, when you had

(35:00):
white evangelicals voting for aMormon Mitt Romney and Jeffress
in that moment, was saying thatRomney was a member of a cult,
but that he was still going tovote for him. So the complexity
just gets exponentially moredifficult the more you look into
it, and then you find that folkswho are affiliated with it's not
a movement per se, but a networkcalled the New Apostolic

(35:23):
Reformation. They use therhetoric of war all the time,
all the time. So the notion thatthere we're at war with demonic
entities is something of course,they get from their Pentecostal
charismatic lineage, and in somecases when, for example, Lance
Wallnau, one of the big peoplein this movement, who prophesied

(35:43):
that Trump was going to bepresident in 2016 you know, he's
very clear when it comes to, forexample, the war on Gaza, or,
you know, dealing with certainprotesters here in the United
States, that force is absolutelynecessary. So...

Chip Gruen (36:00):
So I don't I respond to this criticism, you know, at
my own institution some where,we'll get people who study
political science who will saythings like, you know, if you're
you're looking at religion andyou're thinking about religious
motivations, you don't reallyhave your eye on the ball,
because this is about power,right? And religion might clothe

(36:20):
power in particular ways, butthis is really, you know,
religion is a red herring in,you know, these kinds of human
interactions, and I always pushback against that, right? I say
belief and practice is, youknow, among religious
communities is really important.
But this, you know, thishodgepodge of ideologies that
are sort of coming together inwhat seems to be a really

(36:41):
realpolitik kind of a moment ofjust getting things done, seems
to support that politicalscience point a little bit that
we need to think about this justas a as a route to power, rather
than anything that is, again,cosmologically significant or
really rooted in in religiousnarratives.

Yeah, I just think, Well, I think to think in
absolute terms of, one thing isreligion and another thing is
politics is assuming you candefine either in such a way as
they're mutually exclusivealways, rather than just
understanding that that's sortof our preference because of our
cultural background. And weassume these things to be true.
So then we look at the world,and by God don't, doesn't look

(37:22):
that way sometimes. But I wouldargue that, in the first case,
religion is often a site ofpolitical negotiation itself,
because even if some of thespokespersons or mouthpieces or
leaders are sort of jaded aboutall this, their followers
aren't, they're absolutelyconvinced, and you know, you can
say what you want about Trump,that he's a danger to democracy.

(37:44):
You know, it's he wouldn't beanything if he didn't have a
large number of people who feltvery strongly that he was sent
by God to save America. So whatdoes it matter if Trump doesn't
believe it? That's not even thepoint, but it is a site of
negotiation. And you see himnegotiating the abortion issue,

(38:06):
not knowing how to handle itbecause he had that vote coming
up in Florida where he had tovote on that ballot measure
whether or not it would be a sixweek waiting period. He said,
very clearly, it's a bad idea.
Now, obviously he's saying thisbecause he's dealing with trying
to appease his evangelical basebecause he terminated Roe v
Wade. That's what he brags aboutto them, but he doesn't want to
be seen in a national electionas the guy that terminated Roe v

(38:27):
Wade, so he's got to play bothsides. And he eventually caves
and says he's probably going tovote to support the ballot. But
here's the thing, we'll neverknow what he voted for.

Chip Gruen (38:38):
Right.

I mean, you can trust him if you want to, but
he's got a record of not beingvery honest about things. So, so
that's the first point, is thatreligion is the site of
political negotiation, and thatdefining religion in a way that
excludes politics altogether isprobably never going to happen.
And then I would argue that thatthere are people who are very

(39:00):
motivated in their politicalactivity who are legislators, I
can think of one person his, hisname eludes me, but he was on a
news program talking aboutabortion restrictions in
Missouri, and he says veryplainly that he supported this
legislation, helped push throughthis legislation because of his
religious conviction, but alsowhen it comes to sort of

(39:23):
fighting back againstrestrictions on reproductive
rights, you have religiouspeople filing Religious Freedom
Restoration Act petitions to getlegal access to reproductive
care that is otherwise outlawedbecause of their religious
beliefs. So it's not just thewhite evangelicals who are
conservative support Trump, thatare sort of engaging in

(39:45):
political activity because oftheir religion, or using
religion to engage in politicalactivity. For them, it's
connected, and connected so muchthat they're willing to take
this to the Indiana SupremeCourt, for example.

Chip Gruen (39:58):
So we've talked, started talking a little bit
about contemporary politics,right? And obviously we're
sitting here in the fall of 2024moving towards the 2024
election, and there is a sitehere around the vice presidents
that I think maybe is aninteresting way to explore the
shifting dynamics here that wego from Mike Pence, and that

(40:21):
obviously didn't end well forMike Pence, although we'll see
how he acts in the next fewmonths, to JD Vance, who both
seem recognizable in this kindof alt-right, Christian
nationalist world, but in reallydifferent ways. And I wonder if
you could explain sort of theconstituencies that they

(40:42):
represent that might help usunderstand sort of the shifting
landscape as well.

Yeah, boy, it's difficult, because on the one
hand, there's a way to approachthis, to assume that Trump's
current campaign has a strategyinvolved, and I think there's no
reason to believe that he hasembraced any strategy other than
just leaning in on the thingsthat he thinks worked for him in

(41:09):
2016 that's what he's got. JDVance, I think in hindsight,
many of his advisors areregretting that this happened.
It's sort of like another SarahPalin moment, because it turns
out he's not very good at thissort of thing, but I think Pence
was supposed to and I don'tthink I'm alone in this. I'm not
sure if I'm saying her namecorrectly, but Kristin Kobes Du

(41:31):
Mez, if, if I'm the author of"Jesus and John Wayne," and I'm
not sure I'm saying her namecorrectly. So if I get that
wrong, please forgive me outthere. But she says that in some
ways, that Mike Pence gave Trumpthis sort of veneer of
evangelical bona fides, which heobviously didn't have in his

(41:51):
person. But it's pretty clear bynow she argues, and I think
she's right about this, he neverneeded that, because virtue is
not a thing that's motivatinghis Christian base, and
certainly not the people that Iwrote about in my latest book.
They, I mean, Lance Wallnauagain, specifically points out
that Trump is this wrecking ballagainst political correctness,

(42:12):
that he's that's who he'ssupposed to be. He's supposed to
be this disruptive force, andGod's going to use him anyway.
So, so you know how this fits inthat larger mix. Again, I think
it's sort of a bit of celebrity,a bit of online memeing, a bit
sort of representative of ourdisjointed media cultures. And I

(42:36):
don't know if there's a wholelot of strategy beyond that. I
think people are just being whothey are. And in some cases, I
think Vance sees an opportunityto climb because he was, of
course, very hard on Trump. Saidthat the party should never
embrace him and that he would beAmerica's Hitler and all this
other stuff. Well, he's changedhis tune quite a bit. So there

(42:58):
might be certain people withcertain interests. But I don't
know if any of this is terriblycoordinated until you get to
something like Project 2025, andI think that's probably where
the real sort of organizeddanger might be, if we want to
put it in those terms, is thepeople that we don't know about,
the people that we're notwatching, the people that will
be on the ground making thingshappen.

Chip Gruen (43:19):
So let me put this another way, even if it is not
strategic, right? Because I'mwith you, right that this, I
don't think that this particularcandidate is, you know, cornered
the market on on strategicthinking. But does he appeal?
Does Vance appeal to a differentset of this group that you're...

Yeah

Chip Gruen (43:42):
...these groups that you're working with than Pence,
right, like, even if it's notdone intentionally, is there a
courting that is happening thatmaybe rings differently than
2016?

Well, certainly those people among the far right
who are traditionalists, right?
Not traditional, buttraditionalists. You know, the
language that he has aboutsingle people, unmarried women,
childless people, is languagethat resonates very, very
strongly. But I don't know thatVance at all has a very strong
following. I think a lot ofpeople think that he's actually

(44:15):
hindering the campaign.

Chip Gruen (44:18):
Yeah.

But you know, again, Trump is doing his fair
share of memeing. If you go onTruth Social, you see things on
there, like, there's a one thatgot a lot of attention, where
Trump was re-Truthed, a meme ofyou had this side cut of two
images. One is this, like, nicesuburban neighborhood. It's very

(44:39):
clean and nice, and the other isjust full of a bunch of swarms
of people of color. And it saysyour neighborhood under Trump,
under the white picket fence,and then if Kamala, that's his
word, right? So mispronouncesher name on purpose under her,
and it's this horde of people ofcolor coming into the country.

(45:00):
And it says, If you import theThird World, you become the
Third World. Well, that'ssomething directly out of
stormfront.org or any of theseracist sites. That's exactly the
kind of thing you see there. SoI think Trump is doing his own
thing that has attracted thatthat following to begin with, in
the 2015 campaign through 2020to some degree, and then Vance

(45:22):
is doing this other thing thatthis men's rights Trad sort of
milieu is, is going to beattracted to in some way. But I
just think Vance as a person, isjust not very good at it.

Chip Gruen (45:35):
Yeah. So I want to kind of finish up, sort of draw
towards the close of ourconversation by returning to
where we started, which was sortof methodological. And you seem,
you know, your work seems to bevery interested in maintaining
kind of a healthy methodologicaldistance, not that it doesn't
have implications for real worldactivity, right? Not that it

(45:57):
doesn't have applications forhow we react to the world, or
how we act in the world, but Iwanted to ask you about what
your experience has been likefrom both the left and the
right. I mean, it seems to melike you could draw both praise
and criticism from the right andyou could draw both praise and
criticism from the left. And howhas the, your, you know, your

(46:18):
really healthy publicationrecord been received on both
sides?

Well, I think some leftists were initially worried
that I was just simply becominga mouthpiece for some of this. I
spoke to a graduate class atStanford about the my first
book, and that was a concern,and I understand that point. You
know that we want to be carefulhow we represent things, but
given that it's a scholarlywork, I felt it was important to

(46:45):
represent accurately what I wasbeing told and what I found in
the source material. That's myfirst loyalty. I don't think
anybody's served by inaccuracyor half truths. But you know,
since then, people, I think,have grown appreciative of it,
of that approach of just tryingto be as clear, concise and
detailed as possible. And so Idon't, I don't really hear a lot

(47:06):
of that anymore. And I think itmight also be because, I mean,
they can't see me, but myappearances, I mean, I can walk
among these folks and never sendup a signal ever. So I, you
know, it might have been alittle bit of suspicion of
wondering, like, because I didget that in graduate school a
lot like, why are you interestedin this? So I understand that

(47:27):
part, but that's about it, andit doesn't really happen very
much anymore. I think, or atleast I hope, it's been helpful
to those on the left tounderstand these ideologies that
they find repugnant and scary,that you know, I've done at
least a halfway decent job ofpainting an accurate picture of
what I see, and on the right itvaries. There are some people

(47:48):
that absolutely hate my guts, soI don't get many death threats
anymore. But, you know, it's notover yet, so we'll see. But, but
then there were also some intomore of the intelligentsia of
global white nationalism thathave really been appreciative
that I didn't, you know, paint astrong man picture of them. They

(48:09):
felt that, or one person inparticular felt that he was
represented accurately.
Obviously, he knows I don'tagree with him, but when I
interviewed him, I told himexactly what I meant, that I was
going to be, you know,interested in only assessing
what he has to say. I'm notinterested in casting him in a
certain light, per se. But, youknow, in the same way, if I were

(48:30):
to study any person, group ormovement as a historian of
religion, it's my firstobligation to be accurate and to
shelve my feelings about theissue, because that's not what
the study is about. The study isabout this phenomenon, and if I
get in the way, then we justdon't learn about the phenomenon
very well.

Chip Gruen (48:51):
So one of the places I like to end up is, you know,
I'm try to always be aware of myown myopia. You know that I have
done a good faith effort ofunderstanding your work and
understanding what you see asimportant and how to get at this
topic. But I'm always aware thatI might be totally missing
something. So what are we nottalking about that you think we

(49:12):
really need to talk about, orsomething that needs to be
underscored so that our audiencereally understands sort of the
cash value or the implicationsof your work?

Yeah, so I'll just return to the thing that
motivates me the most anymore.
So the work that I focus on nowis mainly having to do with how
this work can be beneficial topreventing acts of violence,
especially racialized, motivatedforms of violence. But you know,
in general, like, how can weunderstand these groups, these
movements, better, so as to, youknow, lessen the casualties,

(49:45):
which is about as the loftiestgoal you can have in that kind
of work. And I think it's moreto do with, I hope that we're
thinking about these movementsnot as aliens, not as people
from some other planet or someother place, that they're
American people, in many cases,they're American children in

(50:06):
some cases. So what is it aboutsociety that makes these ideas
resonate with people? What'swrong with us? What are we doing
not right? That we createsocieties where somebody goes
online and after a few months ofsearching, they found enough
resources to motivate them tokill nine people. We can say
they're defective. That's fine,but in my experience, in

(50:29):
listening to what farmers haveto say, they're not defective,
there's other stuff going on.
Mental illness is no indicatorfor how people will behave
violently. We know that that'sthat's a that's a bad avenue to
go down, to assume, becausesomebody's mentally ill, that
they'll commit violence, andit's bad to assume, it's

(50:49):
inaccurate to assume that,because they committed violence,
they must be mentally ill. It'sa bad assumption. Shouldn't have
it. There's something else goingon, and for me, I want this work
to stand out as there'ssomething broader socially going
on, these people did not invateinvent the racial categories
they're working with. Theydidn't invent the racist
language they're using. Theydidn't invent the images that

(51:11):
come to their mind when theyimagine the racial other. They
did invent the religioustraditions in many cases that
they're using. And certainly,even if they do invent
something, they didn't do it outof whole cloth. There's
something social going on here.
There's something with Americanculture that needs to be
addressed if we want to stopthis kind of violence. And if we

(51:31):
just keep imagining that thesepeople are safely so distant
from us as human beings that wehave nothing in common with
them, nothing at all, then we'renot looking at probably the only
way to prevent these acts of,you know, what's been called
lone wolf violence, is to changethe social fabric in which we
raise people, in which wesocialize people. And to me,

(51:53):
that's, that's the big issuethat often goes under discussed.

Chip Gruen (51:59):
Right. Well. Damon Berry, thank you so much for
appearing today on ReligionWise.
It's not always a optimisticconversation, but I think one
that you know that we alllearned a lot.

Well thank you very much.

Chip Gruen (52:14):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. ReligionWiseis produced and directed by
Christine Flicker. For moreinformation about additional
programming or to make aninquiry about a speaking
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(52:35):
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Religion and the Alt-Right - Damon Berry