Jemar Tisby is an author, educator, historian, and faith leader. He graduated from Notre Dame, joined TFA, taught in Mississippi, became involved in religious work, and has written several books about religion and race.
As I researched his writing, I was impressed by a post called “Now We Call It White Christian Nationalism. It Used to Just Be Called the KKK.”
He writes here about his work with colleagues to a stop religious book publisher from issuing the “God Bless the USA” Bible in 2021.
He writes:
During Holy Week, Donald Trump posted a video promoting sales for the “God Bless the USA” Bible.
The name is borrowed from a 1984 song of the same name by country singer, Lee Greenwood.
Trump’s shameless peddling of God’s word for profit garnered intense backlash and commentary online, but the saga of the “God Bless the USA” Bible goes back further than the former president’s ad.
Three years ago I was part of a group of Christian authors who successfully lobbied our publisher Zondervan, a division of Harper Collins publishing, to refrain from entering into an agreement to print the “God Bless the USA” Bible.
HarperCollins Christian Publishing division, which includes Zondervan Publishing, owns the licensing rights to the New International Version (NIV) translation—the most popular modern English translation of the Bible.
The company, Elite Source Pro, petitioned Zondervan for a quote but never entered into an agreement. Nevertheless, marketing for the “God Bless the USA” Bible advertised it as the NIV translation.
Hugh Kirkpatrick heads up Elite Source Pro and spearheaded the effort to produce the “God Bless the USA” Bible.
In an article at Religion Unplugged, where this story first broke in May 2021, Kirkpatrick explained the origins of this custom edition of the Bible.
The idea began brewing in fall 2020 when Kirkpatrick and friends in the entertainment industry heard homeschool parents complain that public schools were not teaching American history anymore— not having students read and understand the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
“We noticed the divide in the public where some people started seeing pro-American images like the flag, the bald eagle, the statue of liberty as weaponized tools of the Republican party, and we didn’t understand that,” Kirkpatrick said.
Then in the height of Black Lives Matter protests, activists began tearing down or destroying statues and monuments they connected to racial injustice.
“In past civilizations, libraries have been burned. Documents torn down. We started seeing statutes coming down and we started seeing history for good or bad trying to be erased,” Kirkpatrick said. “That’s when we started thinking, okay how far does this erasing of history go? Love it or hate it, it’s history. But how far does it go…? Part of having these statues … is so that we don’t repeat those same mistakes.”
A custom Bible inspired by reactionary sentiment opposing Black Lives Matter protests is concerning on its own.
Kirkpatrick apparently failed to understand why Black people and many others would want to remove public homages to slaveholders and the violent rebellion they led against the United States.
Nor did Kirkpatrick manage to spot the irony of printing a Bible that honors the United States while defending statues of Confederate leaders who attacked the Union.
Once the news that Zondervan was in talks to print this Bible came out, several Christian authors who had published with them approached me about publicly opposing the deal.
All of my books, so far, have been published through Zondervan, including my forthcoming book The Spirit of Justice: Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance.
I was eager to join in the protest….
The multi-year crusade to produce the “God Bless the USA” Bible demonstrates that white Christian nationalism is not going away, and its advocates have the will and the means to secure their desired ends.
As we hurtle closer to the 2024 presidential election—likely a rematch between Biden and Trump—Christians must loudly and consistently oppose any movement to make Christianity synonymous with the political power structure.
We must oppose the “God Bless the USA” Bible as white Christian nationalist propaganda because Jesus said, “I will build my church,” not “I will build this nation.”
Please open the link to finish reading this interesting story.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Trump, ofc, has read none of this material.
According to Noel Casler, who worked on the set of The Apprentice for many seasons (six, I think), the guy who is currently leading in the polls for the presidential race, the career criminal, traitor to his country, sexual predator, and utter moron Donald J. Trump,
–regularly snorts the amphetamine Adderall,
–routinely invited teenaged beauty pageant contestants up to his hotel room and walked in on them in their changing room,
–literally shits his pants every time he gets excited, requiring him to wear adult diapers (which explains the common report that he typically smells really bad), and
–would become extremely agitated when he had to read cue cards because “He can barely read.”
If you invented a character this extreme for a film or a novel, the character would be deemed too over the top, too extreme, too unrealistic.
LikeLike
As usual, much ado about nothing. I was given an American Patriot Bible 10 years ago, it is still available at Christian Bookstores. Quit trying to make “fetch” happen. I know in your bone you wa t “Christian Nationalism” to be a thing, a bogeyman, but your demonic party has made this a largely atheistic country, congratulations.
I can tell that most of the commenters don’tknow Christ in the way that they speak of sin and sinners. It is apropos that you would post this on Easter of all days, because he is risen!! We are all sinners, but by grace we are saved! Hallelujah
LikeLike
Jackie, I know him very well:
Jesus and I (for James Tate) | Bob Shepherd | Bob Shepherd | Praxis (wordpress.com)
LikeLike
He and I are buds: Jesus and I (for James Tate) | Bob Shepherd | Bob Shepherd | Praxis (wordpress.com)
LikeLike
Jesus and I (for James Tate) | Bob Shepherd | Bob Shepherd | Praxis (wordpress.com)
LikeLike
So, I am not sure what you are saying, Jacqui, but perhaps it is this:
Christianity is about forgiveness of sin, so Trump, being a massive sinner, is most needful of forgiveness? Because he exemplifies in the extreme each of the following:
pride, check
greed, check
wrath, check
envy, check
lust, check
gluttony, check
sloth, check
And he routinely violates all of the Ten Commandments except, perhaps, the honor thy father and mother ones.
LikeLike
Jackie, didn’t Jesus say (according to Matthew) to feed the hungry, clothe the needy, welcome the stranger? Meanwhile Trump calls himself the New Messiah and wants to take away Medicare, Obamacare, Social Security, while cutting taxes for the rich. Doesn’t sound Christlike to me.
Kindness and compassion are not qualities that I associate with Trump.
Violence, vulgarity, rudeness and cruelty are.
LikeLike
Guessing here about what Trump’s favorite part of the Bible is. Lot sleeping with his daughters?
Gross Things Donald Trump Has Said About His Daughters (youtube.com)
LikeLike
Jacquilenhardt: Perhaps you are thinking as a member of my family does (who shall go unnamed here). She and her own “clan” say pretty-much the same as you do:
“. . . you want ‘Christian Nationalism’ to be a thing, a bogeyman, but your demonic party has made this a largely atheistic country, congratulations.”
But my family member consistently confuses democratic secularity, freedom of religion, and the DISTINCTION between church and state, from a mandated LOSS of religion in one’s life and culture. Nothing could be more wrong-headed. It’s a true democracy when people are free to choose whether and how to worship and live a religious life.
The difference is most that I know, even in Catholicism, understand this distinction with a huge difference.
But freedom of religion includes the choice not to have one; but your oversimplification doesn’t seem to grasp that point. Under her and apparently your view, there goes one of our sacred freedoms. And there goes one’s choice to live in a culture where one can be free from the oppressive forces that, in history, need not, but HAVE in so many cases robbed people of those freedoms, even for those who worship differently from one particular kind . . .or as you seem to think, it’s either one’s brand of Christian Nationalism OR Atheism. That is so simple, it borders on stupid.
As Jefferson knew, the distinction between church and state is about keeping one formal religion from taking over in the political sphere and excepting all others. It’s not about erasing religion from the social/cultural sphere.
In my view, and having observed my family member for decades, perhaps there would be more people in the pews if “Christian National” looked more like the people who push it were actually aware of what Jesus taught and lived, as in the New Testament. (Read Bob Shepherd’s notes here.)
And I would ask, who is telling you that the USA is “largely atheistic?” And how much $$ have they asked you to contribute over Easter? CBK
LikeLike
Thank you, Catherine. I am a HUGE fan of our brother Yeshua, who made a claim for all of us, not for himself alone. Materialist, deterministic atheism seems to me just another religion–a matter of blind faith. It seems obvious enough to me that the most salient aspect of existence is conscious experience and that this is not something explicable by Lucretian/Laplacian materialism. The psyche, or mind/spirit, is a fundamental aspect of the universe and, if we are actually to be scientific, we must, as Thomas Henry Huxley said, “Sit down before fact like a little child, . . .be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, [and] follow humbly wherever . . . Nature leads.” There is this spiritual dimension to existence. It is attested by every waking and dreaming moment. The physicalist “explanations” seem to me utterly absurd, childish, like superstitious ancients filling the gaps in their knowledge with myths. As strange as it might seem to some, there is this spiritual aspect of nature. Daniel Dennett, who goes so far as to try to deny the existence of consciousness altogether (one needs advanced credentials in philosophy to do that, lol), disdainfully says that most people are “default dualists.” This should give him pause. Why is it that people feel that they INHABIT their bodies? Why is this idea of the soul ALMOST UNIVERSAL? I mean, there are freaking cultures that don’t have marriage, that don’t have a second-person pronoun, that have two words for colors. WHY DOES THE IDEA OF THE SOUL ARISE AMONG ALL–FREAKING ALL!!!!–OF THEM? Well, because this is in keeping with our actual experience of the universe. I suspect that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe. Call it God if you want to. I’m quite willing to do that. And that’s why I will throw my cap in with open-minded, spiritually inclined people and not with the atheists. As I told my local Humanist Society group, “Your skepticism isn’t skeptical enough.” So, I am not dismissive of default dualism, as Dennett is, though I am inclined to monism–to a panentheistic view of this strange and beautiful business of being aware.
LikeLike
Bob: Thanks. I am quite sure of it and even laughed when I saw Dawkins’ book title: “The Selfish Gene.” In my view, he was speaking from a low level of intellectual, moral, and spiritual development.
And as Einstein said, whose biography gives an account of it, “Don’t listen to what scientists say they do. Watch what they do.” CBK
LikeLike
An interesting and useful book, but yes, stunted, like a bonsai.
LikeLike
I am inclined to believe that our science represents an as-yet extremely primitive take on what’s happening. LOL. Note, for example, that we have particular cognitive and perceptual apparatuses that give us access to what they make of things and not to things as they are. Furthermore, our creation of tools to extend our cognitive and perceptual apparatuses–things like cloud chambers and spectrographs, as well as our comparative studies of the apparatuses of other animals demonstrate conclusively that we only experience parts–and particularly distorted parts–of the noumenon. Our operating system creates an interface to reality. We experience the interface, not reality. That’s clear. And then there are these mysteries that suggest what’s actually there. . . .
LikeLike
Bullsh*t. Those statues were not erected so we wouldn’t “repeat those same mistakes”. They were erected in homage to some pretty awful people. They didn’t mean to rebut the bigots. They meant to honor them.
Whenever anyone says we should maintain these obscenities to “learn” from them, it should induce vomiting.
A lie is a lie.
LikeLike
Agree
LikeLike
Christians warned us about the Antichrist for 2,000 years, and when he shows up, they are buying Bibles from him.
LikeLike
“God bless the USA” might be a good place to start, but the Bible says, “For God so loved the world…” NOT For God so loved the USA. The nearest literary character I can think of in comparison to Trump is Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry, but even that fictional con artist and womanizer is meek compared to Trump! Oh, woe is us if he is allowed back in the White House!
LikeLiked by 1 person