"Patriot Church" is one of those religious brands that just oozes contempt for the rest of us in our Not-Patriot Churches.

And in "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead"-level news, I have Some Thoughts About This.

Buckle up, my buttercups, lets go on a journey. /1 https://twitter.com/spulliam/status/1320739716984197121

There are a lot of serious misconceptions in (mostly white, mostly Protestant) US Christian belief about the US's Founding Fathers and their religiosity (or lack thereof). Those misconceptions fuel a significant amount of Christian nationalism.

But lets jump ahead a century. /2

The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a Christian socialist--Francis Bellamy--in 1892, as part of the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus's "discovery" (air quotes v. much intentional) of North America.

So exceptionalism is the original context of the pledge. /3

And Bellamy's own politics aside, the late 1800s were an era of rampant xenophobia and racism in US politics. This was the era of the end of Reconstruction, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Dawes Act that added another layer of injustice done to indigenous tribes, and much more. /4

That context matters, because Bellamy wanted to include French Republic-esque vocabulary about liberty, fraternity, and equality in the pledge, but didn't because he thought it'd get his pledge vetoed. And he was probably correct--this was the era of Plessy after all. /5

What was notably absent in Bellamy's version of the pledge, though, was "under God." He very much wanted to cultivate patriotism, but the pledge then was not a religious exercise.

That came later, during the Red Scare of the 1950s when we wanted to show we weren't godless. /6

In between then--the 1890s and the 1950s--came two world wars, and a lot of Americans were (and are) of German descent. To try to avoid their loyalty to the States from being questioned, the flag to which everyone had begun pledging allegiance entered into church sanctuaries. /7

So, over the course of sixty or so years, a pledge that was meant to be overtly patriotic, was watered down to avoid offending bigots, and written in a time of racism and exceptionalism, is to a flag that was now heavily featured in Christian worships across the country. /8

The 1950s was also not just the Red Scare, it was the time of the first backlash to school integration under Brown v. Board, and public transit integration sparked by the Montgomery bus boycott.

I don't think that's an accident. Christian nationalism + prejudice fit together. /9

They fit together because that is the context of the nationalism of the 1890s, and it became fused with the Christianity of the 20th century that was a backlash to all manner of attempts at forward progress, from racial justice or academic Biblical interpretation. /10

And *that* is why this Patriot Church thing is really a smack in the face at everyone else who I guess is less patriotic--because in order for their identity to work, the rest of us have to be less patriotic. They have to be a reactive backlash to a caricature of who we are. /11

This is how US Christian fundamentalism has functioned for decades, but now it's with decades of blending of US nationalism with the Christian fundamentalism.

Note how I haven't even brought Scripture up yet. Because that's not what it's rooted in. The Bible is retconned in. /12

If you are wondering why it feels like you see the Bible applied so selectively and situationally in such contexts, you're not imagining it. You need scriptural tweezers for the Bible to fit in American Christian nationalism. The Bible is fundamentally not an American book. /13

So when these sermons about masks as "face diapers" and the evils of anyone to the left of Ronald Reagan are preached, this is the history and context they're based on (a big part of it, anyways). The Scripture functions as a veneer, a post hoc justification for nationalism. /14

That's my spiel for tonight. I hope you found it useful. There is of course more to this history, I really only just scratched the surface using two of the most obvious illustrations--the flag and the pledge we make to it.

Know what's happening when you see them weaponized. /end