Resisting the Confluence of Christian, Hindu, and Jewish Nationalism

Speech at "Scourge of Religious Nationalisms" Press Conference

Speaking at a press conference on "The Scourge of Religious Nationalisms" which was organized by a coalition of faith groups on 20 September 2024 at the United Nations Plaza in New York City.

Here in America — and I speak as a Christian — one of our most immediately pressing concerns is the rise of Christian nationalism. Thank God, it is only still “on the rise” and, currently, remains relatively far from achieving power.

Yet, should it come to the stage that our country falls to the Christian nationalist movement, we have many examples around the globe which reveal the horrifying reality of what that could look like.

We can look many places, but in considering what the United States of America might look like under a Christian nationalist regime, we should look particularly to Israel (the only democracy in the Middle East) and to India (the world’s largest democracy). In both of these countries, we see a religious nationalism which is not merely ascendant but is now predominant.

In Israel, we see a genocide of religious minorities underway. In India, we see a slow-brewing genocide of religious minorities swiftly spinning towards a major flashpoint. Meanwhile, as religious nationalists within in India and Israel inevitably shed the blood of the innocent, the US — as we will no doubt witness here at the UN General Assembly — maintains unconditional and ever more intimate partnerships with both the Hindu and the Jewish nationalist regimes.

Yet, outside the direct halls of power, there’s worse to consider here at home.

Speaking as an American who stands staunchly against Christian nationalism, what’s especially terrifying about the predominance of both Hindu nationalism and Jewish nationalism — aside from my general humanitarian concern about the ethno-nationalist violence those movements are spawning against the most innocent and vulnerable people within their own regions — is that they are now coming into league here, in the US, with the Christian nationalist movement.

Two months ago, in Washington, DC, three of the world’s leading strains of religious nationalism came together to unite around their common cause.

The conference, organized by a prominent Jewish nationalist, featured top Christian nationalist pastors from around America — as well as Senator JD Vance, who spoke there just one week before he was picked as Donald Trump’s running mate. The conference also featured top leaders from India’s Hindu nationalist movement, including one who has served for decades within the Hindu nationalist paramilitary, the RSS.

It was a confluence of Jewish, Christian, and Hindu nationalism that vividly illustrated how, as we witness a radical global rise in religious nationalist movements, we are also witnessing these movements forge flourishing alliances with each other.

No longer are these various movements merely targeting their own individually-despised “other.” Those who oppose Jewish nationalism, for instance, are now being attacked by those who support Hindu nationalism while those who stand against Christian nationalism are similarly now being attacked by those who support Hindu nationalism.

We have only to look to what’s happening under the regimes of some of America’s closest allies to understand what this country will look like if we allow religious nationalism to prevail.

We know about how the US turns a blind eye as it embraces the religious nationalist regimes in Israel and in India. We’ve touched on how Hindu, Jewish, and Christian nationalisms are all creating an alliance — most recently doing it, in fact, right here on American soil.

Whither goes humanity if we, as people of faith from these various religious backgrounds, fail to stand up against the sick twisting and weaponization of our religions? Whither, as Americans, goes our country if we neglect to recognize, call out, and oppose the alliance of the world’s leading strains of religious nationalism? What is our call?

Our call is to educate, to agitate, and to organize.

Those of us here are educated, but millions out there need to hear this message. What we’re doing right now is agitating, but this must be but the beginning. And we must organize, recognizing that opposing one form of religious nationalism requires opposing all forms and that our success is linked to our unity around the common cause of standing together to preserve our various religions from being infiltrated by power-hungry death-brokers who only want to abuse the idea of “faith” for their own political ends.

From Christian to Hindu to Jewish nationalism, all of these “isms” have abandoned the fundamental truth that real religion is based on love of our neighbors, care for the less fortunate, tolerance and forgiveness and they have exchanged it for the lie that religion means preaching dominance, strength, pride, exclusion, and rage. We reject that lie and pledge to not only preach that “this is not what our religion teaches,” but that we will root out from within our own folds anyone who spreads such devilish teachings.

To our heads of state, we call on them to not only speak out against religious nationalism but also take action against it.

We especially call those caught in the lie of religious nationalism to shed the delusion, which will only lead them into ugliness and ruin, and instead to embrace the beauty of true religion.

And we ourselves? We will lead by example. We will lead by example by being the first ones to begin beating our own swords into ploughshares as we stand up for peace as we reach out and say, not with pride but with joyful humility, “peace be with you!”