Representative Jared Huffman, Democrat of California, thought he was going to make himself a political pariah when he announced publicly that he did not believe in God.
Mr. Huffman, the only self-declared “humanist” in Congress, found that constituents in his mostly liberal Northern California district were unfazed.
Now Mr. Huffman has written a book in which he takes on how religion influences politics in America, in which he argues that extreme Christian nationalism, embraced and enabled by influential Republicans, is the country’s most dangerous political movement. He also accuses many of his own Democratic colleagues of being “incapable” of naming and confronting the threat.
In “No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy From Christian Nationalism,” which is to be published this month, Mr. Huffman, who grew up in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, an offshoot of Mormonism, argues that the rise of Christian nationalism in American politics is openly targeting democracy, church-state separation and pluralism.
Ahead of the book’s release, Mr. Huffman spoke to The New York Times about his colleagues, his atheism, his distrust of the pastors in the halls of the Capitol and his argument that Speaker Mike Johnson is a Christian nationalist who dangerously blurs the boundary between church and state. The speaker, who has placed his evangelical Christianity at the center of his political life and policy positions, did not respond to a request for comment about the book’s claims.
The interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
You write that you’re the only member of Congress “dumb enough to publicly admit I don’t believe in God,” but discovered that doing so did not cost you politically. Can you explain why?
All conventional wisdom would suggest it’s a dumb idea to admit it. Everyone I consulted with said it was a dumb idea. There’s an assumption that there’s a huge stigma against nonbelievers, and the polling backs that up.
But when I came out, the backlash never happened. I have a district that is progressive, well-educated and doesn’t much care about anyone’s religious label.
I tried to make it very clear that I’m not judging anyone else’s religion, I’m not suggesting mine is better than yours, or that I want everyone to be a humanist like me. I was just tired of ducking the question, and I wanted people to know what my personal moral framework is.
You write that former Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, deliberately erased references to Christian nationalism from the Jan. 6 committee report, even though it played a visible role in the mob attack on the Capitol. You argue that she didn’t want to be branded as “anti-Christian.” [Ms. Cheney did not respond to a request for comment about the claims.] What happened to that part of the report?
Former Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois [and a member of the Jan. 6 committee], was very cleareyed that Fox News would jump on this and try to use it to disparage the entire report. But he suggested that with enough of a disclaimer — and by explaining that telling this story is important, doing it in a way that’s clear you’re not trashing Christianity, you’re just being honest about the radicalization and mobilization and the ethos of this riot — there was a way to do that.
It’s deep-sixed. Drafts were not kept. That’s another mystery here. I don’t know if that was the chaos of rushing to finish this report or if there was a deliberate, “don’t leave incomplete work product” edict. Nobody had copies.
You write that after Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, joked about your “right to not worship God” during a caucus meeting, several “closeted nonbelievers” told you, “if only he knew how many of us there are.” How many of you are there?
In the country writ large, according to the latest polling, 30 percent are nonreligious. Not all of those are open atheists, but a lot of them are. I think the Democratic caucus is not far-off from that.
On the Republican side, you have a monolith of Christianity, with one or two very conservative or Orthodox Jews allowed to ride along. I have a hard time believing all of them are devout. I think there’s probably a lot of fakers and nonbelievers in those ranks, too. But that’s where there really would be a career-ending penalty if someone were to be honest about it.
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Democrat of Washington, has said she is the only Democrat who attends a Republican Bible study and she told me once, “I feel like my party is embarrassed I’m a Christian.” You write that you’re embarrassed that strategists in your party advise lawmakers to act more publicly religious to compete for the Christian vote. Who is right?
I would be embarrassed to go to that Bible study.
Ralph Drollinger, the founder of Capitol Ministries, used to lead weekly Bible studies for elected officials, and he is the most extreme of the extremes. He should be an absolute pariah, but he’s a total V.I.P. in Trump’s Washington. The fact that a very small number of Democrats play along with that, I find pretty disturbing. He’s against women’s rights and he has these Bible studies where he tells cabinet officials what God wants them to do with their power.
[Mr. Drollinger denied that he does not believe in women’s rights and described himself as a “historic evangelical expositor of scripture” who believes “in accurately stating the authorial intent of the Bible — not my own opinions.”]
Marie Perez was on a letter inviting people to one. It’s rabid right-wing stuff. I’m not suggesting that she believes the same stuff as Drollinger, but you’re lending bipartisan credence to a really dangerous extremist, and I don’t think that’s OK.
[Ms. Perez, who noted that Mr. Drollinger himself did not lead the study she attended or insert his personal views into it, responded: “As a Christian and a Democrat, I think it’s profoundly important to reject the idea that I can’t worship alongside people who have different political ideas than me. My faith doesn’t tell me to put up walls; it tells me to build a ladder.”]
How should Democrats compete for the Christian vote?
Democrats should learn to talk more about religious liberty instead of just religion. Democrats have somehow managed to make both religious people and nonbelievers feel unwelcome by their awkwardness in discussing the basic concept of religious liberty, which doesn’t exist without church-state separation.
I feel so good about James Talarico, [the Democrat running for Senate in Texas], and Senator Raphael Warnock, [Democrat of Georgia and senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta], as messengers on this. They talk about their faith authentically without trying to harness the coercive power of government to impose it on anyone.
You write about pastors lurking in the Capitol like lobbyists, intercepting members en route to votes and inviting them to Bible studies. I have not been aware of this.
They’re all over the place, handing out pocket cards to get you to their Bible study. Then they use their proximity to power both to influence members of Congress and staff and go back to their congregations and raise money.
I certainly feel uncomfortable with it, because I know that some of them are not just there to pray with members of Congress, they’re there to drive an agenda. They’re trying to push religious doctrine into our laws and policies and institutions. That’s crossing a line.
You write that Speaker Mike Johnson is dangerously promoting Christian nationalism. But he has had trouble getting things done. Is he effective or inept?
He has been hapless and ineffective at governing. But if you judge him by, “Has he advanced the cause of Christian nationalism?” he’s been wildly successful. He elevated the Congressional Prayer Breakfast into Statuary Hall; he instituted a new National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance where members go over to the Museum of the Bible and repent for national sins like abortion.
He allows a pastor he is close with to bring hundreds of pastors multiple times a year to hear a whitewashed version of American history that is rampant Christian nationalism. People need to understand that as incompetent as he is at governing, he has been powerful and very effective in advancing this Christian nationalist movement.
After Republicans passed the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” Johnson did an interview in the chapel and claimed he had been down on his knees praying every day. He said the passage of this bill was God’s will and God’s plan. There are so many of these things, each of them standing alone might feel like not much. But when you take it together, I feel that the wall of separation is in real trouble.
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