On a Sunday morning in fall 2023, Margie Pfeil sat in an adult formation class at Kern Road Mennonite Church in South Bend, Ind., as Drew Strait presented on the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States. A devout Catholic, Pfeil attends Kern Road with her husband, Biff Weidman, who is a member.

Pfeil has written extensively on violence and nonviolence as a moral theologian who teaches at the University of Notre Dame. But, to Pfeil, the Christian nationalism Strait was discussing presented a unique form of violence that requires new collaborative thinking and action by Christians to confront it nonviolently.

As Strait shared, Christian nationalism not only endorses violence against people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized communities; it goes further by providing theological and biblical justification for doing so. Confronting it nonviolently therefore requires specifically Christian theological and biblical responses, in addition to political ones.

For Strait, Anabaptists are uniquely positioned to contribute to this work.

Inspired by Strait’s call to action, Pfeil decided to devote an international conference to analyzing and addressing Christian nationalism. As a teaching professor at Notre Dame’s Institute for Social Concerns, she was already beginning to plan for the 2025 Catholic Social Tradition Conference to commemorate the 60th anniversary of two key texts from Vatican II, Gaudium et spes and Dignitatis humanae, which both address the relationship of church and state in society. (Vatican II was a council that updated Catholic practices.)

What better way to commemorate these documents than a conference on Christian nationalism? she thought.

Together with her Notre Dame theology colleague David Clairmont, Pfeil approached Strait and Janna Hunter-Bowman — who both teach at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary — about an ecumenical collaboration. Strait and Hunter-Bowman agreed, and the four began an 18-month journey to plan the conference.

What resulted was a March 20-22 ecumenical and interfaith gathering of over 250 people from across the U.S. and around the globe, at which Anabaptist contributions shone brightly.

Strait’s keynote address set the tone by describing the biblical justifications for Christian nationalism before proposing steps for Christians to confront it, drawing from his 2024 book, Strange Worship: Six Steps for Challenging Christian Nationalism. He called biblical scholars, in particular, to undertake “more public-facing biblical interpretation.”

Kristin Kobes du Mez, Calvin University historian and author of Jesus and John Wayne, responded that Strait’s “admirable agenda will be incredibly difficult to accomplish.” Matthew D. Taylor, author of The Violent Take It by Force, proposed creating a network of churches focused on reading the Gospel of Mark with an anti-imperial lens.

Catholic theologian Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America at the Vatican, spoke on the role of ideology. Hunter-Bowman offered an Anabaptist response.

“We’ve lived through situations of violence before, and we will again,” she said. “And we have resources to draw on to discern together and to decide how we’re going to live.”

She said the planners designed the conference to call to attention “those resources that we have within our traditions in order to become who we believe we need to be.”

Mennonite historian Felipe Hinojosa, the John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America at Baylor University, reflected on the importance of solidarity.

“The people that I write about have always come together, forming multiethnic, multiracial coalitions around this idea that we have to protect each other, and we have to look out for each other,” he said. “We might not always see the world in quite the same way. But when we understand ourselves as human beings and as people that are in a struggle, we can look after each other.”

Pfeil said Hunter-Bowman and Strait played key roles in spreading the word about the conference in ecumenical circles.

“Without a doubt, this was the most ecumenical Catholic Social Tradition Conference the institute has held, and we were all pleased that it included an interfaith dimension as well,” Pfeil said. “These qualities are essential in generating creative, nonviolent responses to religious nationalism, and the conference offered a safe space for exchanging intellectual and practical ideas about addressing religious nationalism with a view toward fostering the common good of society.”

Sean Swanson, pastor at Kern Road, came to support his congregants.

“It was a joy to watch a collaboration that started with a Sunday school class blossom into an international conference,” he said. “Margie, Janna and Drew bring a wealth of intellectual gifts to our congregation and the wider church. But, even more so, they bring a passion to see the church witness to God’s way of peace and justice in the world.”

Numerous AMBS students and faculty made the 15-mile drive to Notre Dame each day or joined online.

“During lunch, I found myself seated next to colleagues from AMBS,” said student Hasset Shimeles Hailu of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “We engaged in a debate about how Christian nationalism takes shape differently across our regions while still adhering to similar patterns of exclusion and domination.”

Student Julie Allyn of Boise, Idaho, said: “I came away from the conference with these words in mind: empathy, common ground, resistance, resilience, community and coalition-building. Regardless of what’s going on in the world around us, the church has been and can continue to be a place of sanctuary and provision for our communities in the toughest times.”

In addition to the keynotes, Mennonites were represented in the con­current sessions. Lisa Schirch, the Richard G. Starmann Sr. Professor of the Practice of Peace Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute, drew from four of her books to explore the intersection of violent extremism, religious nationalism and how people find community online.

Schirch said that, contrary to stereo­types, Mennonites have done much discernment around beneficial as well as harmful uses of technology. Whereas social media is designed to amplify and accelerate the spread of religious nationalism and extremist ideologies, she argued that religious nationalism can be overcome through “healing that addresses loneliness, mental health, pluralism and social cohesion.”

University of Montana historian Tobin Miller Shearer and Goshen College peace, justice and conflict studies scholar Regina Shands Stoltzfus, co-founders of the Damascus Road Anti-Racism Process and co-authors of Been in the Struggle, presented what they’ve learned doing antiracist work together for 30 years.

Shearer said Anabaptists at the conference “brought peacemaking theology to bear on one of the most pressing issues of our day.”

“The Mennonite theologians and activists could speak so precisely and with such depth of wisdom because of our community’s history of having spoken from the margins to the powers that be,” he said.

“Those from outside the Anabaptist community brought other valuable gifts, but Mennonites could speak from the mistakes and successes of 500 years of faithful risk taking, and that stood out clearly.”

David C. Cramer is communications assistant program director at the Institute for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame and is ordained by Central District Conference of Mennonite Church USA.