Author Meets Critic Panel: *Who Is a True Christian? Contesting Religious Identity in American Culture* (Cambridge University Press, 2024), by David W. Congdon

In his new book Who Is a True Christian? Contesting Religious Identity in American Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2024), David W. Congdon provides a panoramic intellectual history of the modern efforts to redefine the boundaries of Christianity from the Protestant Reformation to today’s “anti-woke” MAGA evangelicals. Hailed by David A. Hollinger as being “written in the grand tradition of Harvey Cox, Peter Berger, and Charles Taylor”—and endorsed by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Catherine Keller, Randall Balmer, and Hanna Reichel, among others—Congdon’s book argues that conservative defenders of so-called “historic Christianity” are just as modern as the mainline liberals whom they oppose. All of them are engaged in negotiating and reconstructing Christian identity in light of the challenges posed by modernity. Some negotiate this identity in a pluralistic and liberating direction, while others move in an authoritarian and fascistic direction. The challenge for Christianity today is not whether to be liberal but in what way.

The problem of orthodoxy itself is central to the book’s argument. Many scholars have argued that orthodoxy, referring to the idea that boundaries are defined by “right beliefs,” is neutral, and thus the question is what those beliefs are and how one interprets and practices the orthodox tradition. By contrast, Congdon argues that orthodoxy is an inherently violent and authoritarian form of religious identity—one that requires the arbitrary exercise of authority to set and police those boundaries. Orthodoxy is violent not only with respect to the present, but also in relation to the past. The concept of orthodoxy within Christianity relies on historical continuity with an original or normative form of Christian practice. Such continuity is not found but constructed, and this requires silencing the past (Michel-Rolph Trouillot) by reducing history to a pure principle or essence that remains untouched by historical complexities. Congdon calls this process the “normativization” of the past. The concept of the “essence of Christianity,” which emerged in the seventeenth century, is the modern liberal alternative to orthodox Christianity’s historic, creedal tradition. The difference is that liberal theology was transparent about the constructed nature of its essence.

In contrast to the long quest for a singular account of the Christian essence, Congdon proposes the idea of polydoxy. The concept of polydoxy comes from the Reform Jewish philosopher of religion Alvin Reines, who sought to provide a theory of religion that might accommodate communities that prioritize religious autonomy and self-determination. Reines proposes what he calls the Freedom Covenant that aims at maximizing the freedom of each person to define their own religious boundaries. Congdon connects this to Michael Louis Seidman’s theory of “constitutional disobedience,” according to which a political community has the right to disobey any constitution when those commitments no longer serve the good of the people. Congdon extends this political framework to religious organizations, arguing for a pluralistic account of Christianity that embraces transgression of past norms as integral to a healthy and peaceful Christian practice.

Who Is a True Christian? makes a contribution to multiple historical and theoretical literatures, especially in the fields of evangelical studies, religion and politics in the United States, history of Christianity, and systematic theology. On the way toward his constructive conclusion, Congdon discusses a number of important episodes, including: John Henry Newman’s theory of doctrinal development; the American reception of Karl Barth’s ideas by mainline Protestants (who were the Religious Right of their generation); the significance of C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity for US evangelicals; the role of postliberal theology in providing the theoretical framework for the right-wing culture wars; the formation of the Christian persecution complex and its transformation in the post-Trump era into the conservative identity of “canceled persons”; and the use of heresy rhetoric to cast transgender identity as a form of gnosticism that must be violently repelled by orthodox Christianity.

In this Author Meets Critics panel, four scholars across different fields of study will engage Who Is a True Christian? and reflect on its significance for understanding the history of Christianity and charting a constructive way forward in a time of rising fascism and religious violence: Jill Hicks-Keeton is associate professor of religion at the University of Southern California and has written extensively on the political agenda of evangelical biblical studies; Cambria Kaltwasser, associate professor of biblical and theological studies at Northwestern College, is an expert on Karl Barth and American evangelicalism; Evan Kuehn is assistant professor of information literacy at North Park University and a scholar of political and theological liberalism; and John J. Thatamanil, professor of theology and world religions at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, is an expert on religious pluralism and has written about the topic of polydoxy.