Andrew Whitehead argues against Christian empire with data and his own personal conviction in American Idolatry

Andrew is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives (theARDA.com) at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Here’sAndrew’s Substack

His first book in 2020, Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, with Samuel Perry, was a data-heavy sociological book that was, in their words, "the first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian nationalism in the United States."

Andrew's new book, American Idolatry, is a more personal look at Christian nationalism. It's still written with the rigor of an academic, but it conveys Andrew's personal convictions about what the Christian faith teaches and asks of its adherents, and how Christian nationalism "betrays the gospel and threatens the church."

Andrew is a Christian who writes of his upbringing in small-town conservative America, going to church every week. And he says that when he learned the history of Emperor Constantine, he wondered "was it God's plan all along to win over the most powerful person in the world at that time to ... help Christianity flourish?" And he also wondered, "Why didn't Jesus use this same tactic and embrace imperial power?"

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