Journalist and author Tim Alberta speaks in Graham Chapel about the current state of Christianity in America (Scott Zarider | Staff Photographer)

Journalist and author Tim Alberta’s Graham Chapel lecture “The Crisis of American Christianity,” held on Feb. 5 by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, was one part sermon and one part analysis of Christianity’s relationship with American politics.

Alberta is the son of a pastor, writes for The Atlantic, and was formerly the chief political correspondent at Politico. He began his lecture by using Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as a pseudo-campaign speech to highlight how the American-Christian fixation on power is antithetical to the gospel. He then explained that the United States is not the holy nation or “new Israel” that some American Christians believe it to be.

“We are the empire, we are in so many ways not only a New Babylon, but [also] are failing the same test that Christians have failed for so many centuries before us,” Alberta said. 

Alberta focused much of his talk on the Apostle Peter’s transformation, from someone who wanted a savior from the Romans that would be “one part Chuck Norris and one part Billy Graham” into a devoted follower of Christ.

Alberta explained that, over time, Peter began preaching that believers should show mercy and love — even to their enemies and oppressors — embrace suffering as a path to closeness with Christ, and recognize their ultimate citizenship in a holy nation that is not of this world. 

Alberta emphasized that the evangelical communities’ obsession with America is preventing them from spreading the gospel. 

“Evangelical becomes a barrier to evangelizing. Christianity becomes a barrier to Christ, if the goal of the Church is truly to make disciples, to reach out to all the nations,” he said. ”How can you do that when everyone on the outside of your walls you view as an enemy?”

Alberta also said that many non-Christians view the evangelical community as “unbelievable” and that rather than responding with humility, evangelicals have doubled down in their pursuit of power. The lecture ended with Alberta stating the importance of picking up the cross and choosing to believe in gospel rather than the rhetoric of some evangelical leaders. 

“It’s almost as though, when Christians are in pursuit of the sword and become consumed with ruling the kingdoms of this world, that they abdicate their duties to their true kingdom,” he said.

Alberta believes that the move toward believing in the teaching of Jesus himself cannot exist in a power-obsessed community, and that the fixation with domination causes harm to the religious community itself. 

“The more we wave around the sword, the less anyone can see the cross.”

In response to an audience question on Christian nationalism, Alberta discussed how the embrace of Christian nationalism and pursuit of power and political influence by evangelicals is at direct odds with the teachings of Christ. 

“Christian nationalism is, in my own definition, the unholy alliance of bad history and bad theology,” Alberta said. “The Christian nationalist advance has nothing to do with Christ at all.” 

Hannah Fishburn, the wife of a pastor at Unity Baptist Church in Granite City, Illinois, said that she is embarrassed to sometimes admit that she is a Christian because of who some Christians ally themselves with. She had previously read some of Alberta’s articles and was excited to hear him speak at WashU.

“I’m really encouraged to see somebody who has been around a lot of powerful people and is not enchanted by them,” she said. “He’s very matter of fact, and yet he’s also not hateful, and you meet a lot of people who are so hateful, and that would be really easy…to slip into.”

Echoing Fishburn, senior Grace Lewis said that it sometimes can feel “really hopeless” to be a Christian because of the messaging from certain Christian leaders. 

“Most of the voices I hear I don’t agree with and I don’t want to be associated with,” she said.

Senior Mihret Asfaw said she had been thinking about her faith and the way it impacts politics. She came to the lecture hoping to hear about the gospel and what Jesus would say about current political events. 

“We lost the message of the Bible but [his lecture] was a reminder of what the gospel is supposed to be.”