When Nicki Minaj sat on the Turning Point USA AmericaFest stage Sunday (Dec. 21) and declared that Christians are under attack, she wasn’t defending the persecuted — she was repeating the talking points of white Christian nationalism.
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White Christian nationalism is an ethnocultural ideology that uses Christianity as a permission structure for the acquisition of political power and social control.
It is characterized by beliefs such as a conviction that Christians have a mandate to exercise dominion over all segments of society, the notion that the United States was founded as an explicitly Christian nation, and the sense that they are under attack by anti-American and anti-Christian forces.
While being interviewed by Erica Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, Nicki denounced violence against Christians in Nigeria. “Hearing that people are being kidnapped and while they’re in church people are being kidnapped, people are being killed, brutalized–all because of their religion. That should spark outrage in the great America,” she said.
Then she sounded a note of defiance against what she perceives as Christian persecution happening in the United States.
“We’re not backing down anymore. We are not going to be silenced by the bullies anymore…We will speak up for Christians wherever they are in this world,” she said.While it is true that violence is widespread in parts of Nigeria, mostly from jihadist militants, experts say that the accusation of specifically Christian persecution is more complicated than the Trump administration has made it out to be.
Most of the violence takes place in the northern part of the nation which is majority Muslim. Often the motivation is money in the form of ransoms, regardless of religion. The violence in Nigeria is real, but the way American conservatives weaponize it is dishonest, selective, and politically convenient. Any interest from this administration in Christian persecution should be suspect.
In February of this year, the Trump administration issued an executive order named “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.” It alleges “the previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.”
The order also authorized the creation of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. The group is supposed to “review the activities of all executive departments and agencies…over the previous Administration and identify any unlawful anti-Christian policies, practices, or conduct by an agency contrary to the purpose and policy of this order.”
But the administration’s concern for “persecuted Christians” ends the moment those Christians are undocumented, queer, or protesting ICE abuses. They have been loud about defending far-right Christians who oppose LGBTQ civil rights and medical care. They have raised their voices to protect anti-abortion activists.
Yet the Trump administration has been conspicuously silent about the rights of other Christians. They have ignored that fact that most people brutalized, abducted, and incarcerated by ICE and CBP forces are Christians. They reversed longstanding policy that barred ICE from arresting people in churches. They have not spoken up about clergy being shot in the head with pepper balls or being slammed to the ground and arrested by ICE while peacefully protesting.
Nicki has fallen in with the false prophets of white Christian nationalism.
If she wants to protect Christians from persecution, whether abroad or in the United States, she should do what Jesus did: Stand with the prisoner. Stand with the oppressed. Stand with the marginalized.
By sharing the stage with Erica Kirk, Nicki legitimized a white Christian nationalist agenda where anti-Black racism is spoken plainly and never challenged. Kirk has not breathed a whisper of disagreement with her deceased husband’s words: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” Or, “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?”
Nicki who herself came as an undocumented immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago before obtaining legal citizenship, has thrown her allegiance to a crowd that is more concerned about gaining political power than following the Prince of Peace.
White Christian nationalism doesn’t protect Christians. It decides which ones deserve protection and which ones can be discarded.
Jemar Tisby serves as Research Faculty at the Pannell Center for Black Church Studies and Senior Democracy Fellow at the Public Religion Research Institute. He writes weekly at intersection of faith, history and justice at JemarTisby.Substack.com.
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