amanda tyler, executive director of the baptist joint committee and contributing author to the christian nationalism and the january 6th insurrection report. and kristen do may professor of history at calvin university and author of jesus and john wayne, how white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured and nations and provocative titles around here. it can be a thank you so much for joining me. i want to start with you 1st, but the term christian nationalism has cropped up at various times in the u. s. history. and some would argue it's had a consistent present since the countries founding awful connections to white supremacist groups like the k k k, to the more recent patriot front, a christian now them is by no means a new phenomenon. taking its history into account. how do you define christian nationalism as it is today? actually simply, i just defined it as people who believe that god created america for a purpose that america is special. in other words, when you are a christian nationalist, you believe that god created america as a christian nation. first of all, 2nd, that whi

>> joining me now is amanda tyler, executive director of the baptist joint committee for religious liberty, and donel harvard at the rand corporation and former chief of homeland security and intelligence for washington, d.c. thank you both for being here. amanda, i want to start with you because, you know, when we see clips of things like this reawaken america tour, you hear a lot of merging of christian identity and christian nationalism and violent characterizations of the left. and ideas that sound a lot like they would like to overthrow the government and install a sort of violent christian theocracy on us. but can you talk about why there does seem to be this merger of this christian identity talk and this violent rhetoric? >> well, the organizers of the reawaken america tour, mike flynn and clay clark, are definitely tapping into this very deep well of christian nationalism to sow doubt about the security of our election system and to cast doubt as well on the safety of covid-19 vaccines. they are infusing their political cause with religious fervor. and using language that is spiri