What We Know About Christian Nationalism with Robert P. Jones

REV. PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:

Dr. Robert. P. Jones is the founder and president of the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization based in Washington, DC, that focuses on the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy. Robby is also a bestselling author and a welcome guest on many, many outlets, including this one. He has a new book coming out soon called Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy. Always a cheery guest.

Robby, welcome back to the State of Belief.

DR. ROBBY JONES:, GUEST:

Thanks, Paul. I'm glad to be back with you.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Listen, I say that, I make fun, because you are actually relentlessly - not, I wouldn't say positive, but pragmatic and realistic. And what you offer to so many of us is kind of the proof that we're not crazy, that we actually are seeing what we're seeing. And I think in a moment when there's so many people who are trying to tell us that what we're seeing is not what we're seeing and what we're hearing is not what we're hearing, for you to go deep into the research - and specifically, the data on what is real in our country right now in a time when, in some ways, lies are the currency in which many, many, too many are dealing with. So thank you for that. And thank you for that presence you have in our American religion landscape.

ROBBY JONES:

Well, thanks Paul. Yeah, having a few facts can help at times like these.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Let's spend a minute on that, because that's actually a really important point. Brandeis, one of my great-grandfathers, was just like, you need the facts that surround the case. Otherwise, you can't decide a case. That's what he brought to jurisprudence in America, that facts actually matter. And it helps us understand how we should move forward as we build a democracy that actually works for everyone.

One of the things that you all do offer is something called the American Values Atlas, which is an enormous undertaking. This is not a snap poll. This is something that you really work on. Can you tell us what that is? And then we can get into what the latest American Values Atlas really showed us.

ROBBY JONES: 

Thanks for that. It is a heavy lift. The PRRI American Values Atlas is a project we've been doing for a number of years now. And what we decided would be important would be to get state-level data. A lot of political polls will give you: here's what all Americans think. And depending on the size, you can get different subgroups. But very rarely do you get states, where you can compare apples to apples; every state in the country, Texas to Oklahoma to Maine. But that's what we provide with this survey.

Now, the way we do that – and the reason why I said it's a heavy lift - is because it requires a lot of interviews. In fact, it requires over 22,000 interviews. We conduct these interviews quarterly over the course of the year, and then we combine them all into one big, massive data set at the end of the year, crunch all that data. And then in the first quarter of 2026, we're releasing the data for 2025 that we've collected that entire year.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

22,000 interviews. Am I right in remembering that this actually goes even to the county level? I know you do some work like that. I don't know if it's included in this survey.

ROBBY JONES: 

Every year we do the state level data, and about every three years we're able to combine even that and get even further down, all the way down to the county level. So every year we get state level, about every three years we get county level.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

And this is available on your website, right? I mean, this is something you can find on PRRI…

ROBBY JONES:

It is, it's all available for free. Prri.org, right there.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

And to go into your own county can be a revelation, because there's stuff that you realize, like, my county is actually much more religiously diverse than I would have thought. You've talked about that, coming from Mississippi, is that right? And it's actually really fascinating and helpful for us to realize like, this isn't elsewhere, this is America, and learn, truly, what your neighbors feel, believe, understand.

But with this one, you really did state by state, which is really important. And one of the things that we kind of assume about certain parts of the country, that certain parts of the country are going to think this way or that way. And this survey actually really reveals that it's not so simple. You can't just say, okay, this part of the country is where we're going to get into Christian Nationalism, of course, because that's part of the revealing of this survey. But it's not all just like, okay, that's in Mississippi, maybe Alabama, and then there's the rest of the country.

What were some of the top line revelations that, when you looked at, you were like, huh, that is notable and needs to be understood better by policymakers, but also just the American public.

ROBBY JONES: 

Well, I don't know. You want the good news or the bad news first?

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Gosh, why don't we do it kind of mixed in, so we get an overall tepid view.

ROBBY JONES:

Sure. All right. Something warm and comfy. So we're measuring Christian Nationalism in this study. It does mean that we we have asked over 22,000 Americans a whole set of questions. And here we're building this measure from, actually, a set of five underlying questions. I won't read them all, but they are things like: The US should declare itself a Christian nation. US laws should be based on Christian values; if we get away from our Christian foundations, we won't have a country anymore. There are those kinds of questions. We combine them all into one big composite measure on a continuous scale. And we're able to measure the strength of commitment to this idea of Christian Nationalism, which is essentially, in lay terms, the idea that, yes, this is a Christian country and everybody else is here as kind of second class citizens, that it is of, by and for Christians in the U.S.

At an overall level, what we find is about three in ten Americans are sympathetic to that worldview. That's maybe the bad news, because this is - just to be clear, if it's not obvious from those questions, it is a worldview that's fundamentally opposed to a pluralistic democracy. It is a kind of Christian Dominionist way of thinking about the country. So that's the bad news: about three in ten.

The good news is that twice as many Americans oppose this worldview. It actually is opposed in the country by two to one. So we've got this committed core of about three in ten Americans who are sympathetic to this view, but they're outnumbered two to one by everybody else. And then I guess the thing to say about the state level: we have a heat map there. And what I think was remarkable to me is if you look at that heat map on our website and - we did not color it in the partisan colors of red and blue, but if we had, it would look remarkably similar to those election maps.

And so one thing, it may not be that surprising, but if you kind of know much about statistics and kind of single variable correlations, you know, are always noisy. If you're comparing just one variable to, say, vote for Trump or favorability of Trump, there's always some noise in it. There's remarkably little noise in that prediction. It's not true just at the state level, but at the national level. But at the state level, even for each state, a state's average score on the Christian Nationalism scale is highly, highly predictive of that state's vote for Trump in the last election. Just that single variable - not taking in partisanship, anything like that. It is nearly linear that you can sort the states by that single variable, and it will arrange them in pretty rough order to how they voted for Trump.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

It's not shocking to any of one of us. He essentially ran on that idea, and ran to rally a very, very dedicated group of voters who really believed what he said - which is, if you don't vote for me, if we don't win this election, there's no future for you. The idea that Christian existence would be erased completely if it wasn't for Trump. And so they leaned very heavily into that rhetoric and strategy, I think.

I do think it's interesting that if you saw a poll today, for instance, about favorability rating or any other thing and you saw 66 % or something around that, and you don't view that as the worldview, you'd be like, wow, that is a pretty overwhelming majority of people. That would be an impressive number. And I think it's that I'm willing to spend a little time on the good news - and I experienced this out in the world. And I generally talk to favorable audiences; but when you explain what actual religious pluralism is, there's no way in that that you're saying anything against Christians. You're just saying no one actually has the preferred status in America. That's the way I like to frame this for people.

I will say to audiences that I think are more broadly mixed, I am serious when I say I want conservative Christians in the future of America. I have no interest in erasing, I want you to be able to express your views. I want you to be able to pray like you want to pray. I want you to be able to be part of the public. My goal here is not the erasure of anyone. It's just to make sure that you don't get to decide for the rest of us how we are expected to exist.

This isn't the first time you've tested for this. Do you have a sense of trend line here? This went up to 2025. So let's start there. Do you have a sense of trend line? Because I don't know how long you've been actually asking questions about Christian Nationalism, but you've certainly been asking questions about religious pluralism for quite some time.

ROBBY JONES: 

We've been asking these specific sets of questions that we can trace very clearly back to 2022. That was the first year that we asked these questions. And what I could say is that they've been remarkably steady over these years. There's neither growth nor shrinkage in these numbers. And the way they've sorted themselves along party lines have been also fairly steady for Republicans, independents and Democrats.

I do want to say one thing about that. There's a word that is in our political debates now that I'm actually on a little bit of a mission to excise from our political conversation. That's the word “polarization.” Now, we hear a lot about polarization, and there is a kernel of truth to it. We are divided in the country. Nobody could live here in the country and not understand that we're divided. But that word polarization just... It makes us imagine a world in a distorted way. It makes us envision, literally, that there are two poles, one over here, one over here, and they're pulling people equally in two directions. And that's the part that I think is misleading.

It's so much so that, actually, political scientists have added an adjective to the word polarization every time they use it to describe the American political reality. And they throw in this word “asymmetric” in front of it. So it's asymmetric polarization. And what they really mean by that is just that, again, these measures show it's like two thirds of the country on one side and one third of the country on the other side. So yes, we are technically polarized, but it's unevenly polarized - and I think that's super important, to remember the reality.

And so if we ask, well, why is it, then, that Christian Nationalism has so much power? Well, it's because it has become the majority view of one of our two political parties. It has become the majority view of self-identified Republicans in the country. But again, Republicans are only about a third of the country. So it is this kind of majority view of a minority of the country. But that country does have its hands on the levers of power. And that's the reason why. So it's amplified through the presidency, both Houses of Congress, the Supreme Court. They have their hands on all of that right now. And so it just serves as a megaphone, and it presents as if half the country is there.

But one of the great things about having some facts is that you really do see: actually, no, that's only about a third of the country. They just happen to have their hands on the levers of power.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

That is so important. It's something that we need to recognize, that actually, well, I'll say this as a hopeful statement. I would say Christian Nationalism is at a zenith of their power right now. If you really think about what they control, they have the Speaker of the House, they have someone at the head of Department of Defense. Pam Bondi at DOJ. Certainly ICE and the way DHS is operating. You have, in the vice presidency, somehow JD Vance has become a Christian Nationalist, although he's married to a Hindu woman. Donald Trump is completely...

I don't judge people on their faith. I don't think he has any faith. I think his faith is in power and what works. But in all of those places, Christian Nationalism is an operating principle. It's not abstract. That's so important.

ROBBY JONES: 

And it's not abstract. You can give concrete examples to every one of those people you named. It's not just a weird assertion. Like Mike Johnson: he is literally flying a Christian Nationalist flag outside his office. That appeal to heaven flag. Pete Hegseth has Christian Nationalist tattoos right on his body.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

In addition to everything else, you are a scholar of religion. I want to get into the mindset of a true Christian Nationalist right now, with the war in the Middle East and what is happening there. This is a fever dream, in some ways, of a worldview that many who are not in it really don't understand. But if you're immersed in it and are a true believer in a certain kind of worldview that is really looking towards endtimes, is really looking towards the role that different groups are supposed to play in the endtimes, this looks - it's not the first time it's happened, but it's the most recent example of how this worldview can really impact our American policy.

How do you understand  the war and everything that's happening in the Middle East in light of the Christian Nationalist influence in Washington?

ROBBY JONES: 

I'll say a couple of things. There is a story bouncing around, going viral right now, about military leaders reportedly saying, literally saying, this is our Armageddon and we are the forces of Christ and all that. I do want to say, we're still looking; so far, that's a single-source story. And I'm still waiting a little bit to see if we get confirmation about how sturdy that reporting is, and we're still waiting to get more than a single source on that. Nonetheless, regardless of where that sits, you really do have the players in place. Mike Huckabee, for example, ambassador to Israel, who just reads modern geopolitics literally through the dispensationalist theology of evangelicalism, where Jews play a kind of bit role in bringing back the second coming of Jesus and the end of the world. And so he really is literally reading modern geopolitics through that lens. I mean, there could be nothing more dangerous than that, right?

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Right. And of course, Jews are like, whatever, man, I don't care about your theology. If you're going to give us all this support, fine.

ROBBY JONES: 

I do think it's fairly short-sighted, because if you really understand, that story does not end well for Jewish people. The second coming of Jesus, it still is about Jews bowing the knee to Jesus at the end of that story, or they go to hell. Right. You know, if I'm Jewish, there may be some short term political gains here for the state of Israel, but at the end of the day, that's not what Christian Nationalists are looking to achieve. That's a means to a very Christian end in this kind of Armageddon story.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

I have whatever is the opposite of trust in Pete Hegseth, that's what I have. I just feel like he's both out of his depth and unaware that he's out of his depth. It is extremely reckless, but his worldview is one that we should all be very aware of, which is rooted in this end times scenario. And how he and all across Washington are having these prayer services that are explicitly Christian and very right-wing Christian. And I think you know we sued the Religious Liberty Commission because it was all Christian. All Christians of a certain ilk, and then one Orthodox Jew.

And then the Anti-Christian Bias Task Force, which is in all of these places, if you have a certain worldview and someone says, I don't like what you're saying about gay people or women or whatever, and you can say, well, that's against my Christian belief. Christian Nationalism is everywhere in Washington under this administration.

ROBBY JONES: 

I just want to jump in on this because I think you're right to pull up the Anti-Christian Task Force. And I'm going to say, as someone who counts myself Christian, that Anti-Christian Bias Task Force really worries me. And not because I don't think there is anything such as anti-Christian bias - there certainly is in some quarters. But it is not the primary problem we have in the US. And it is absolutely going to be weaponized in ways that go after the wrong kinds of Christians.

I want to make this point, specifically, because back in September, Trump issued a kind of weird national security memorandum that was trying to define this category of domestic terrorism. And he includes in there a kind of definition that I'm guessing a lot of your listeners are going to find themselves qualifying to be a domestic terrorist by this definition. So it includes things like anti-Christianity; being anti-Christian.

Now, if you're Christian, that sounds like, okay, maybe I'm safe. But then if you keep reading. What you hear is things like: holding extreme views on immigration, race, and gender; opposing traditional American views on the family, on religion, and on morality. These are things that, according to that definition, you could be classified as a domestic terrorist.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

And this is where this gets into the Christian Nationalist Project, defining religion and defining what counts as religion. And you and I don't count. And I think that that's what I lead with, my faith and my tradition. You and I come from a tradition. I come from a long line of religious leaders. And you can't discount my tradition just because it's inconvenient to your political goals. And I think that that's the definition of Christian Nationalism. If our listeners are trying to get their handle on it, it's a quest for power that uses religion as one lever of getting power, specifically in the name of one slice of one of the faith traditions in America. And so it's very dangerous.

It gets me into wondering if you, in your survey, got a little bit more granular with Catholic views or the Latino evangelical view, going down into that. Were there any places that were notable as far as within Christianity around Christian Nationalists, or was that not an area that you were able to dig into?

ROBBY JONES:

Absolutely. And here, I think it's just really notable that the kind of Christianity that becomes normative in those definitions of domestic terrorism or those definitions of what counts as anti-Christian, it is always a White conservative Christian. So you’ve got to kind of get a racial lens on it and you’ve got to get an ideological lens on it to understand what's really being protected and what's not being protected. Aand not only not being protected, but being defined as anti-American.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Would you add Protestant to that or has that kind of gone away a little bit? Because at one point, certainly, it was Protestant. There was a very strong anti-Catholic understanding throughout our 250 year history, but I think now it's like almost politics has superseded that. But I would say in the last year with everything that's going on, I think the Catholic Church has actually shown up in amazing ways - and maybe in disappointing ways to the Christian Nationalists who were kind of assuming that they would be part of their agenda.

ROBBY JONES:

Well, essentially, before 1990, I would say absolutely. I would just use “Protestant” there. But there has been this effort on the Christian right to kind of say, OK, look, we've had these historic tensions between Catholics and Protestants. We're going to kind of put them aside for a political purpose. And there's been some success with that. You hear people like Newt Gingrich, JD Vance, both converts to Catholicism, but nonetheless, marshaling that conservative wing of Catholicism. And then these kind of interesting things where JD Vance goes and starts trying to talk about Catholic theology and gets corrected by the Pope.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

By both popes, it's not just one pope. Both Pope Leo and Pope Francis had to kind of say, thank you, we do not need you to tell us what Catholicism is. He's literally more Catholic than the Pope.

ROBBY JONES:

What's remarkable, if you look at Christian Nationalism and you say, okay, well, in the big, diverse religious landscape that is America, who's really down for this worldview? And the answer is, there's really only one group that's really strongly anchored here, and it is White evangelical Protestants and that group. Two thirds of them qualify as either Christian Nationalism adherents or sympathizers. So they are by far the standout group. There's one other group that's in majority: it's Latino Protestants - but that group is also evangelical, born again, Pentecostal. So they're theological cousins to White evangelical Protestants. And I think it kind of comes in through that theology as well.

But everybody else is not a majority. And so you're not talking about the non-Christian groups, but you're talking about White mainline, even White Catholics, Latino Catholics, African-American Protestants, the whole other kind of Christians of color are not majority in that view. And just to remind everybody again, every time I give this number in a public talk, I see eyes bulge. Just a reminder, White evangelical Protestants today only make up 13 % of the public – one-three, right? And now they're so big and outsized in the media that they make up 13 % of the public, that's it. And that's down from a quarter of the public 20 years ago. So they've shrunk by half. And I actually think that shrinking is one reason for… As they've shrunk, they've gotten older and more extreme and more desperate, I would just say. So I think that's kind of what we're seeing is this desperate last-ditch, any-means-necessary to hold on to power.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Yes, that white knuckling. And I do think it will be interesting next year to see what the evangelical Latino community, if they have a shift. They may still feel Christian Nationalists in the sense of, of course we need to be a Christian nation. Whether they identify as closely with the political aims of Christian nationalism, and because part of the aims of Christian Nationalism is to kick out people who don't fit the idea. That's the reason ICE is a Christian Nationalist organization. I mean, they're using Bible verses on their videos and their recruitment.

And just a reminder, before Trump sent in Operation Surge, Metro Surge into Minneapolis, he went on a tirade in a public cabinet hearing calling Somali Muslims trash and saying they contribute nothing, they need to go back where they came from next week. In goes ICE. And so this is a Christian Nationalist project. I think one of the things that I think a lot of, you know, we've seen this in Texas, the support for the president cratering among Latino voters. And I think that includes evangelicals in part because people don't want to go to church anymore. They're afraid to go to church. So you can't simultaneously want to support Christian worship and Christian expression, and make it too terrifying for people to go to actual worship. Those are contradicting stated goals.

ROBBY JONES: 

And one might call that an anti-Christian policy, right? And it's worth noting, too, that one of the first things Trump did was repeal a policy that had been a longstanding policy at ICE about what has been known as sensitive locations. And Republican and Democratic presidents for three decades have realized it's inhumane, it's anti-religious, anti-Christian to allow ICE to hang out in church and synagogue and mosque parking lots and arrest people. Or even to burst into those places of worship and arrest people. And so they actually had a policy that along with schools and hospitals, churches, synagogues, mosques, places of worship were seen to be sensitive locations and ICE should not be conducting operations. And Trump repealed that right out of the gate.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

It was within the first week or two. The language I repeatedly use is that this is the most hostile to religion - aside from that one narrow slice, this is the most hostile to religion administration that we've seen in generations. And the Catholic Church has seen that in the way that they were attacked around their immigration work. And there were 30 religious organizations that were sent letters from the oversight committee and from Congress meant to intimidate them by doing the work that they feel called to do by their faith. There's example after example. We just have to keep naming this and we have to keep naming that this doesn't represent a true supportive stance towards religion flourishing in America. It does not help towards that. It's meant towards, really, one particular tradition that is boosting a political party. And the other thing is that it goes against the best idea that we had in our founding, which was the non-establishment of religion and the free exercise.

And these are the number one amendment, First Amendment, this is what we got most right, of anything, is that we are not a Christian nation. And that was a phrase that many of our founders used: we are in no ways founded on the Christian religion. That's something that many of our founders in the Treaty of Tripoli, these are things that are really important to have in our American psyche, to recognize why this is dangerous, not only for religion, but also for American democracy. It goes against some basic principles.

ROBBY JONES: 

I'll throw out one more from history. We did have a constitution in the United States that did invoke God and Christianity. It was the Confederacy. And they took great pains to do that and took great pride in saying, unlike that godless federal constitution, our constitution is going to be based on God and and Christian beliefs. There's sermons preached about it and seen as superior. And in many ways, it shared so much of this kind of hierarchical view of White Christian people over everybody else, and ultimately millions of people died to snuff out that insurrection and that attempt to undermine these principles you've been talking about.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Plus the millions more enslaved people who were kept enslaved because of that theology. I just think you've been so helpful in naming this. That is a great point. And literally when you said that, I was racking my brain. I was like, my God, another constitution. My God, my history is so bad. And then when you said that, I was like, of course.

I remember, I think it was Harry Stout, Yale religion professor, who said, the pastors of the South were the backbone of the Confederacy. And so that's the reason it's just so important that we have to recognize that religion can be wonderful, and it can be really, really bad. Our job - my job, not all of ours - is to, like, let's elevate what is actually beliefs that support the thriving of everyone and people of all faiths and people who adhere to no particular religious tradition. It's just so important.

All of this leads me to, I want you to kind of give us a preview of Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith in a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy. This is coming out in September 2026, which seems like an opportune time. It's connected with, whether by accident or intentionally, it's right before our midterms. And that will be a major referendum on not only the political, but also on the religious future that we want for our democracy. It's major. Talk about Backslide. This feels like each of your books builds on the next. so talk about why you felt like you had to write that book now.

ROBBY JONES: 

Well, thank you for putting that front and center. It's funny when you said each of my books build - I think that's true. It also feels a little bit more like a journey, that I sort of take the next step in front of me. I don't really have it planned out. And this felt like the next book to write - and it is, in some ways, of course, building on the previous books. But this one, I think, is really a more of a wake-up call kind of book. I think all of my books have been like, okay, let me just kind of get clear about things. We need to kind of clear the ground, unmuddy the water, make the facts plain. But I think this book is both doing that, but it is also about saying, okay, we've got enough evidence in front of us.

Back to our beginning of our conversation, that we're not crazy with what we're seeing is in fact what we're seeing. We are seeing the dismantling of democracy in front of our eyes. And we're seeing it done with the power of a certain kind of Christianity legitimizing the entire project. So I've got a chapter up at the beginning on democratic backsliding. And thinking about that word, I grew up with that word. I'm not sure if you grew up with that word too much, but in Southern Baptist life, that word “backslide” got a lot of play. And it was mostly a religious word that was about losing your salvation. If you had professed Christ and then you were living a life that wasn't consistent, depending on your theology, you didn't mean it when you first committed your life to Christ and so you weren't saved in the first place, or if you had a different kind of theology, maybe you were falling by the wayside and were going to lose your salvation. Either way was kind of terrifying. But now political scientists are using that word to talk about the United States, along with other democracies in the world that are moving away from its historic commitments.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Either way, it involved dancing.

ROBBY JONES: 

And then the second chapter is a word I don't really use that often, but I just found myself drawn to it as a way of explaining the theological moment. So the second chapter is on apostasy, and how can we think about that theological word along with the word backsliding to kind of explain where we are.

But overall, it is really an appeal to say, look, it really is kind of what you were saying for every generation: what kind of a country do we want to hand off to our children, what kind of a religion do we want to hand off to our children? This is the moment where that's going to be decided. And if we do nothing, we kind of know where it's going to go. And so it really is the moment to step up and reclaim the best of our faith traditions, because as you said, there are some absolutely ugly parts of them. We claim the beautiful, the best of our traditions, and make sure that's the part of our tradition that lives into the future; and reclaim the best of our democracy, which has also been flawed in the past.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

So I'm trying something out with you as a religion scholar, because having been in Minnesota and having just seen, there's this big Christian Nationalist thing that's happening that is very tight, very fervent. But on the other side, there is a broad movement of people who are showing up in a really beautiful way right now. And I'm describing it as a next great awakening, using that pretty deliberately, because I just feel like what we're witnessing, everywhere I go, people are showing up and they're like, what can I do? How can I love right now? How can I love my neighbor?

The witness that happened in Minneapolis is happening everywhere, in some ways. It was just so concentrated there. But I'm seeing it all around the country. And you know, the other great awakenings have been kind of Protestant Christian movements. It's not that. But religion has a role to play with it, and the spirituality has a role to play with it. And we even saw it with Bad Bunny, with the love is greater than hate. There is a movement out there that we have to begin to also recognize almost in concert with the Christian Nationalism that we're seeing, because I am overwhelmed with the kind of oversubscribedness… Whenever we ask people to show up, it's oversubscribed.

And I think that, even going out to Minneapolis, people have heard this story on the podcast before, but they thought maybe 250 people would come. A thousand people wanted to come within two days. People are feeling the call, and it doesn't mean it's going to be really messy - but everything's always messy. You know, there was no great awakening that wasn't messy. I just think that right now people are like, okay, that's not it. What we're seeing with ICE, what we're seeing with this administration is not it. And I just know I have to show up somehow. And it's rooted in a spiritual desire to love our neighbor. And I would say a certain kind of sense that what is the past can't be the future.

And so how does that land with you? Do you see anything like that in your own travels?

ROBBY JONES: 

Some of that I can echo. I was just down in Texas, in Austin, and there encountered a group of local pastors and rabbis that had prevented ICE from setting up a concentration camp outside of Dallas.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Right. Yeah, just saying like, no, we're not going to do it. We're not going to let you do that.

ROBBY JONES:

Yes. They got wind of it early. They showed up at the council meeting, and they succeeded in thwarting it, at the end of the day. And that's the power that I'm seeing. People are recognizing, if we don't show up now, we can never show up. Let's show up now. I just encourage us also to be thinking - because you and I, we can go deep into Christian Nationalism and the power of that group, but I would say, actually, right now, there's no one on that side that is actually inspiring anyone.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

my god, is anybody else hearing that? Sorry. You can hear it. it's on the floor. Jeez. OK, sorry. Let me turn this off. Let me go back and just say, what was I just talking about? Because I did want your reaction to it. I think the invitation is out there for people to show up. We've seen No Kings grow and grow. We've seen people showing up to, know - in New York City, this is my hometown, so I'm kind of like, let's create singing events about songs of resistance. They're overflowing. People are so eager to show up. We're doing one at Riverside. We're doing one at St. John the Divine. People want to show up. I just think I offer that as a little bit of a balm or maybe a cleanser as we kind of move from the idea of the prevalence of Christian Nationalism to the two thirds of us who actually view another way forward with our democracy.

Any words from you about, how do you imagine people showing up right now? What's the best thing that, when people say to you - because they always say to any of us who are in front speaking, what can I do? And I'm just like, there's so much you can do. But what advice do you offer?

ROBBY JONES:

Well, you know, I'm primarily a sociologist and a researcher. I'm not an organizer, so it's not my specialty in my lane, but I’ve got a few ideas. The first thing I could say is that there are few things more important to the future of our country than the midterm elections. And and I don't just mean turning out to vote, because that is obviously very important for everybody to turn out and vote. Elections that are close are elections that are subject to all kinds of shenanigans and meddling. Elections that are not close, it's much harder to pull things like that off.

But I'm also saying a lot of places are short poll workers. So volunteering early to do that, supporting places like the Brennan Center, the Carter Center, that are doing election protection. Interfaith Alliance doing work along those lines, as well. So anything that's going to protect the integrity of the midterm elections, I think, has got to be really high on the agenda. Because Trump is just saying out loud that it's going to be like eight different ways they're going to try to thwart the integrity of the elections.

So I think just stepping up and trying to kind of make those as sturdy as we can. I mean, historically, they have been very, very reliable; very, very few problems. But when you've got someone intentionally trying to directly interfere with those elections in any number of ways, anything we can do to make them more sturdy, harder to manipulate. People watching, people paying attention, and people volunteering to kind of be there as either poll watchers or our poll volunteers. All that is incredibly important.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: 

Dr. Robert P. Jones is founder and president of the Public Religion Research Institute. He is a bestselling author, and you can read his Substack at redeemingdemocracy.net. Just look for him. He's everywhere. You really can't avoid him, even if you try.

Robby, thank you, as always, for making time for The State of Belief.

ROBBY JONES: 

Thanks, Paul. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for all you're doing.

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