Another scholarly smear

Here’s how you write a hit piece in 2025. Step 1: Conjure a phantom threat. Step 2: Paint dissenters with it. Step 3: Style yourself the cultural chemist, mixing the antidote for a poison you brewed.

The Bible According to Christian Nationalists (Chalice Press, 128 pp.) follows this playbook perfectly. The author presents an “exposé” of dangerous religious extremists. In reality, it’s a prosecutorial brief against ordinary Christians who take the Bible seriously.

The contempt drips off every sentence from the first page. Conservative Christians aren’t just wrong. They’re dangerous conspirators plotting America’s demise.

The book’s central claim sounds alarming: “Christian nationalists” weaponize Scripture for authoritarianism. They promote racism and oppression through Biblical interpretation. America faces a theocratic takeover.

The author, Brian Kaylor, a Baptist minister with a doctorate in political communications, plays a cheap trick. He never defines “Christian nationalist” clearly, which lets him lump violent extremists in with your Methodist neighbor who happens to vote Republican. Confederate apologists get mixed with soccer moms who support school prayer. The vague label becomes a weapon against anyone holding traditional Christian views.

This deliberate confusion serves a purpose. Why engage specific theological arguments when you can paint opponents as feral fascists?

The book’s approach to dissent reveals its true nature. Pro-life advocacy becomes “white supremacist theology.” Supporting religious liberty signals “dominionist plotting.” Questioning open-borders immigration proves your extremist credentials.

These sweeping generalizations insult millions of faithful Christians. Far from seeking domination, most simply want to live Biblically. They raise families, serve communities, and vote their consciences. But in this author’s world, they’re crypto-authoritarians. Christians who affirm Biblical definitions of marriage and gender get painted as fear-driven bigots.

Kaylor dismisses theological conscience as political manipulation, ignoring the reality that many believers hold these convictions at personal cost. They lose jobs, face lawsuits, and endure social ostracism. Their “bigotry” often costs them dearly. But acknowledging good faith would complicate the narrative. Better to assume the worst about your opponents.

The book’s history lesson follows similar patterns. It cherry-picks episodes where Christians behaved badly. Slavery apologetics and segregation theology get heavy coverage. These sins were real and shameful.

But where’s the context? Where’s the balance? Christians also led the abolitionist cause. They built the Underground Railroad with their own hands. They marched in Selma and stood on the front lines of civil rights. For centuries, evangelical revivals sparked movements for social reform, literacy, education, and even the fight against poverty. Erasing that legacy is a pernicious form of propaganda.

This one-sided account borders on historical malpractice. The sins of some get used to indict the faith of all. Complex history becomes a simple morality tale. Theologically, the engagement stays shallow and polemical. The author treats Scripture like political ammunition rather than God’s Word, and passages get interpreted through modern identity politics.

Christians who believe in Biblical authority become selectively literalist. But the same charge applies to the author’s interpretive choices. Everyone reads Scripture through some lens. The question is which lens serves truth.

The book reserves special contempt for patriotism mixed with faith. In Kaylor’s telling, lift the American flag and you’re really waving a red one. Christians who cherish their country while seeking Biblical improvement get branded as dangerous.

This creates an impossible standard. The only “good” Christians are those who echo hyper-progressive politics. Everyone else joins the theocratic conspiracy. Such moral absolutism mirrors the very extremism the book claims to oppose. This argument alienates not just conservative Christians but moderates who value both faith and civic engagement. It paints millions of Americans as enemies of democracy for the crime of taking Scripture seriously.

Yes, some people abuse Scripture for political gain, and America needs honest conversation about faith and politics. We need wisdom about Christianity’s public role. Instead, this book gives us tribal warfare dressed up in footnotes. We get demonization masquerading as analysis. We get division when unity serves everyone’s interests. Pastors who preach Biblical morality become suspects. Ministries that engage civic issues face scrutiny. Church members who vote their values get labeled threats. According to this book, the only safe Christian is a silent one.