Jesus and Prophets like Jonah: A Message for Womanists and White Christian Nationalists

This essay explores the prophetic vocation vis-a-vis the challenge of contemporary Christian nationalism by reading the book of Jonah in the Hebrew Bible in conversation with what Jesus says about the sign of Jonah in Matthew 12. This essay puts two readings of Jonah into dialog—one for womanist prophets and one addressed to White Christian nationalists. These texts reveal God's relentless mercy for the outsider and God's unwavering love for the prophet of the oppressed. The essay considers what the sign of Jonah means for race relations and the troubling rise of White Christian nationalism in the United States today.