How a bucolic Tennessee suburb became a hotbed of 'Christian Nashville-ism'

Williamson County is Tennessee’s wealthiest community and has the best schools in the state, some of the biggest churches, a host of Christian nonprofits and a whole bunch of country music stars who call it home.

It’s not the place you expect to find neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Yet there they were last month, showing up at a forum to back then-mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson, a local Realtor and alderman in Franklin, Tennessee, a bucolic suburb 20 miles south of Nashville best known for its Civil War-era mansions, historical downtown and annual Pumpkinfest and "Dickens of a Christmas" festivals.

On election day (Oct. 24), posters from the Patriot Front — which claims real Americans are only those “born to this nation of our European race” — appeared in downtown Franklin while the Williamson Herald, a local newspaper, reported its building had been vandalized and its reporters threatened by neo-Nazis.

Religion & Politics

In Opinion

And finally, Young people define 'sacred moments' broadly: From God to nature to relationships

A majority of young Americans from a variety of faiths and no faith say they have experienced a sacred moment, according to a new survey, but their definitions of what is sacred may not line up with those of their parents or grandparents.

Springtide Research Institute’s "The State of Religion & Young People 2023: Exploring the Sacred" pushes back on the notion that Gen Z exhibits a simple disinterest in matters of the divine or the spiritual. Some 55% of the more than 4,500 people ages 13 to 25 who were surveyed told Springtide’s researchers that they have discovered what Springtide called “experiences that evoked a sense of wonder, awe, gratitude, deep truth, and/or interconnectedness in your life.”

Of those who had, 69% said they had experienced a sacred moment more than once in nature, 68% said they’d done so in the privacy of their home, and 55% said at a place of worship. (Respondents could select more than one option.)

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