Christianity and Identity: Public Theology, Authoritarianism, and Democracy

This volume offers a public theology of democratic participation that confronts the temptation to autocracy to which much of the church has succumbed. Grounding a vision of democratic pluralism within the core of the Christian understanding of God, Christ, and the kingdom of God it argues that Christian identity creates a responsibility to stand against the rising authoritarianism of American society.



The question of identity is at the heart of Christian theology: Who are we? Who is God? Where do we belong? This volume offers an account of Christian identity in the context of the rise of Christian nationalism and the threat that this ideology poses to democratic society. It demonstrates how the very real threats posed by Donald Trump, Q-Anon, and the tech-right are rooted in the church’s failure to offer a compelling account of what it means to be and to belong as Christian, and how our identity is defined fundamentally by the life, death, and teaching of Jesus Christ.