American Atheists will convene Spokane conference to fight Christian nationalism and white supremacy
News Story by Aaron Hedge | FāVS News
Every now and again, the Pacific Northwest surfaces as a place where Christian and white supremacy can thrive. From the Aryan Nations to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation, some see this region as a haven for people to push violent ideologies on others.
In response to these concerns, a two-day conference titled “Unite Against Hate: Resisting White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism in the Pacific Northwest” has been organized. The event, set for Oct. 25 and 26 at the Central location of Spokane Public Library, aims to equip people who live in the Inland Northwest to fight such hate. Josiah Mannion, Idaho state director of American Atheists and a queer activist and photographer, is spearheading the initiative.
Perhaps the most prominent recent example of extremist activity was when, in 2022, 32 Patriot Front militants — some from Texas but others affiliated with local far-right churches — were arrested in Coeur d’Alene on their way to carry out a potentially violent act at a Pride rally. A tipster had seen young men piling into a U-Haul with shields and metal poles and told the Coeur d’Alene police, who stopped them on Northwest Boulevard, headed toward Pride in the Park.
But many who live here know Patriot Front’s failure that day “lends some strength of purpose to those of us that want to stand up a little bit louder,” said Mannion.
“There is not a monolithic culture here,” he said. “There are queer people here. There are Black people here. There are Latino people here. There are Indigenous people here.”
The upcoming event partners with local groups including the Inland Northwest Freethought Society, North Idaho Secular Society, Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Atheists and Inland Northwest Atheist Alliance, as well as national organizations Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Secular Coalition for America and the American Humanist Association.
‘Boots on the ground’
Mannion had initially wanted to host a conference that would address bigotry among some sectors of atheism as well as Christian nationalist communities that want to plant Christians and no one else at the helm of American government.
“There are absolutely atheist and secular factions of white nationalism,” he said.
But he lacked the resources for such an ambitious double objective, and Kate Bitz, a program organizer at the nonprofit Western States Center, convinced him Christian nationalism was an essential part of white nationalism, so why not do those topics?
Now, the goal of Unite Against Hate is to give people who want to fight it practical tools for doing so.
“We are about boots on the ground,” Mannion said.
The event will host a reproductive rights session by Kristin Beneski, a Washington assistant attorney general who filed amicus briefs against Idaho’s abortion ban; Jen Jackson Quintano, founder and executive director of Idaho’s Pro-Voice Project; and Sarah Tompkins, an attorney at Legal Voice. That session will give average Washingtonians practical ways to help Idahoans access reproductive health care, Mannion said.
There will also be a library for librarians to help queer children in Idaho access affirming literature, which is under assault in local school districts. Another session, given by the Gonzaga philosopher and activist Joan Braune, is titled, “Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements.” Bitz will give another on “Understanding and Countering White Christian Nationalism.” Yet another session will talk about breaking free from cults.
Keynote speakers will include two prominent critics of Christian nationalism, the California scholar and host of the podcast “Straight White American Jesus” Bradley Onishi and the constitutional lawyer Andrew L. Seidel, whose book “The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American” debunks the notion the United States was founded as a Christian nation.
The power archetype
Other sessions will discuss white supremacy and Christian nationalism as being inherently linked.
“It’s not just Christian nationalism,” Mannion said. “It is white nationalism, too, and there is a very strong religious structure to it.”
Christian nationalism — at least the aggressive, dominionist form of it that’s driving the MAGA movement and some local churches — creates a structure of deniability for white supremacists who don’t want to be labeled racist, Mannion said. But underneath that, he said, is an assumption that the white, straight man is the correct archetype of power. By that standard, anyone who is different must accept their role as someone who doesn’t embody that archetype.
“You can gain power and influence yourself through your proximity to power,” Mannion said, “but you have to accept your place in the hierarchy. You have to accept that there is a hierarchy of power, that you as a Black man will never be at the top of that hierarchy of power, and you have to accept that.”
The Christian nationalist movement, which seeks to place Christians atop the most influential social structures — government, media, family, education, religion, arts and commerce — has a veneer of diversity. It is home to Black, Vietnamese, Korean, Indigenous and young people, many of them women, who organize and lead its churches and movements.
The local dominionist Pastor Matt Shea, who says Christians should control other people, did a friendly interview on his podcast with Semi Bird, the Black Republican gubernatorial candidate who lost in the primary just after Bird had announced his candidacy. There are Black members and leaders of his church, On Fire Ministries, and Shea sometimes brags on his radio show that On Fire is one of the most racially-diverse churches in Washington.
You’re welcome, but you must conform
But this is nothing more than tokenism, said Onishi, a former self-identified white Christian nationalist.
“If you show up in Spokane, you show up in Moscow, Coeur d’Alene, Sandpoint, and you’re one Korean family, and you go to church, fly the American flag, sing the songs, read the Bible, eat the hot dogs on the Fourth of July, you’re probably gonna be OK,” said Onishi, who wrote the book “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism – and What Comes Next.”
But “as soon as it’s not a token family that’s in there assimilating but a bunch of us who are keeping our food and our tradition and our histories and our heritages, then it’s like ‘Not sure,’” he said. “Those Haitians in Springfield will ever be one of us. You can endorse a Black candidate. You can say, ‘Look, the Onishi family’s here at church today, come on in. But then we look behind me and there’s 50 more of me. Are you still gonna say it?”
The Inland Northwest as white paradise
Mannion said that when he moved here half a decade ago, it was hard to navigate the complex and often mythologized culture of the Inland Northwest.
“It took me forever to try and wrap my brain around what the politics of this region was,” he said. “I had to really intentionally dig into it and dive under it to try and figure it out. I did so much reading on it.”
But outsiders see it simplistically as a haven for bigotry. Onishi dedicated parts of his book to North Idaho because many people from his former hometown church moved there, seeing the region as an escape from multiculturalism.
“The Inland Northwest is really important because it is the imagined sanctuary of the Christian nationalist vision,” Onishi said, adding that Christian nationalists “see it as that place where [Moscow Pastor] Doug Wilson and Matt Shea and others have a chance to build the Christian society they want.”
In most other states, multicultural centers offer a bulwark against white Christian nationalism, but the Inland Northwest is a place where people who don’t want to deal with diversity think, “Those pesky others won’t stop you,” Onishi said.
What’s at stake in the fight against white supremacy and Christian nationalism
Constitutional lawyer Seidel said Inland Northwest figures like Shea, who once drafted notes saying a Constitution should “Sanctify Jesus Christ,” and Wilson, who extolls Christian nationalism on shows like “The Tucker Carlson Show,” rewrite American history because the U.S. Constitution is antithetical to a government dedicated to a specific religion.
The American Constitution “is emphatically a godless document,” Seidel said. “That was one of the things that actually made it great, made it unique. And that is why America will never be a Christian nation because the moment it becomes a Christian nation, it will cease to be America.”
Onishi said the forces of white supremacy and Christian nationalism don’t have a shot in the near term at creating anything close to a religious or white ethnostate as envisioned by the more strident fascistic elements of the project, Onishi said.
But they can make things worse for vulnerable populations — indeed, he said, that’s currently happening in the Inland Northwest, where the quality of health care is being eroded because of the restrictions on reproductive care.
“In Idaho you’ve already seen really restrictive reproductive rights laws,” Onishi said. “What that means is you have people who are losing their lives or undergoing severe pain because they can’t get care. People are devoid of choice and autonomy over their own bodies, and because of that, a lot of doctors and medical professionals are leaving Idaho.”
A spreading threat
That erosion is spreading around the country, and will get worse unless Christian and white nationalists are stopped, Onishi said. He pointed to Project 2025, a legislative agenda to remake the U.S. government drafted by far-right organizations trying to insinuate it into a second Trump administration.
“You will see queer identifiers erased from government language,” he said. “You will see family defined by the government as a cis man and a cis woman engaged in a marital relationship. You will see reproduction as an expectation, not a choice.”
It’s bigger, too, Onishi said, than social issues.
“Project 2025 proposes to erase all mention of climate change. … You will see the privatization of federal lands. We will lose state and national parks. Project 2025 also wants to do away with the Department of Education, so you will see the ongoing enlargement of voucher programs of funneling taxpayer dollars to religious schools, to the point that the public school system will collapse.
“That is the ultimate goal, and that’s what they’re working towards.”
