Not all Christians: the Danger of Pushing People to Extremes

I used to be afraid of Christians—until I became one.

And when I did, I startled more than a few friends. Some were sure I’d joined a cult. Others assumed I’d taken a nosedive in IQ. Don’t you know religion is the opiate of the masses? Duh.

But what I actually found wasn’t a sky daddy or a Stepford cult. I found stillness. Mystery. I found a spiritual lineage of people—Quakers—who believe in direct revelation and that there is that of God in everyone, alongside others who have guided me down a more metaphysical path, articulating beliefs I’ve always held but now wrapped in flesh. Love as flesh. Because only love—aka God—is real.

I don’t believe in hell, but I do believe we create hell on Earth when we forget to love God by loving each other. And yes, I think the Trinity is more poetry than physics. I’m not a literalist—I’m a unitarian in the mystical sense: I believe in One Spirit, of which we are all a part.

Still, because I now call myself a Christian, some people brand me as property of Sky Daddy anyway. They assume I’m on some authoritarian train to The Handmaid’s Tale (gender equality btw has been with Quakerism from the beginning. ) Never mind that my version of Christianity has more in common with Buddhism or A Course in Miracles than with Bronze Age tribalism. When people—my people—finally realize this, they often swipe their forehead in relief and say, “Thank God.”

Because I’ve experienced this misreading personally, I’ve also become more observant of how often we do it to others—especially evangelical Christians, a group I once thought was synonymous with Christian nationalism and all its baggage.

No, Christians are not all the same. Not even close. Evangelicals aren’t all the same, and neither are Christian Nationalists all the same.

That said, Christian Nationalism can be super dangerous and we must not push those who are standing on its edges into it, also, we need to provide a space for them when they walk away from it. Humanity seeks safety nets and we must provide the better ones.

Extreme Christian Nationalism attempts to fuse Christian identity with American exceptionalism, usually with a full syringe of juicy patriarchal authoritarianism and a flag-waving Jesus who looks suspiciously like a linebacker. They believe God wants hierarchies—specifically with a white Christian man at the helm. (Strangely, they dislike the Pope.) It distorts theology into ideology and replaces humility with conquest. It is loud, visible, and incredibly harmful.

But there’s also a quieter form of Christian Nationalism—one that believes America should be a Christian country, but doesn’t fully buy into the racism or exceptionalism. Sadly, though, it still embraces sexism and domestic hierarchies — obviously, they don’t want women like me to have a voice like THIS.

The reason I want to make it clear that Christians are not all Christian nationalists isn’t for my personal validation. It’s because if we insist they are—or if we display skepticism or doubt when they say they’re not—we actually strengthen the movement we claim to resist. We dehumanize them and strip away nuance, which their leaders are already doing. In doing so, we help that process along.

And as a side note: If we insist on being called by our preferred labels, we should also extend that same respect to others.

There are evangelicals—plenty—who are deeply uncomfortable with Christian nationalism. Some are speaking out. Others have quietly left. Still others stay in their communities and wrestle from the inside, often at great personal cost. These people matter. And they need room to breathe, not labels that suffocate.

We live in a time where the loudest, worst representatives of every group become the symbol for the whole. We flatten people into caricatures. And in doing so, we make it harder for nuance, transformation, or grace to survive. When we treat every white evangelical or churchgoer as a threat—when we assume everyone who doesn’t speak our language is on “the other side”—we don’t actually encourage change. We encourage radicalization.

We’ve seen this pattern before. In diet culture, people often ping-pong from strict veganism to carnivore diets, not because their taste buds changed, but because identity and shame got tangled. Once they felt judged or excluded, they ran in the opposite direction. People do this with politics. With spirituality. With everything. When someone feels pushed out of one group, they’ll often seek refuge in the extreme opposite—even if it doesn’t fully fit.

That’s why it matters how we talk about Christian nationalism. If we shame or bully Christians who are trying to distance themselves from it, we don’t inoculate them—we isolate them. And some, in their isolation, may find the simplicity and tribal comfort of Christian nationalism appealing.

We don’t fight extremism with more extremism. We don’t defeat fundamentalism by becoming fundamentalist in our opposition.

We do it by telling the truth and making room for people to change. That means being honest about harm—yes—but also being wise about strategy. It means recognizing who’s holding up toxic systems and who’s quietly trying to leave them. It means not becoming so reactive that we start replicating the exclusionary tactics we oppose.

Christian nationalism thrives on fear, resentment, and a sense of betrayal. If we mirror that energy, we’ll just drive more people into its arms.

But if we can hold space for people to be both challenged and seen—without perpetuating the bad ju-ju in our own language. If we can resist the urge to exile those who are still in process—we might offer something sturdier than a culture war. Not a tidy resolution, but a more honest kind of community. One where people can wrestle, change, and still belong. Where truth doesn’t demand cruelty, and diversity isn’t mistaken for weakness.