Christian nationalism’s opponents are getting organized

Faith groups are teaming up with liberal secular organizations to combat the ideology, which they say is a threat to democracy — and, for many, their religion.

Poor People’s Campaign co-chair the Rev. Liz Theoharis speaks during the announcement of a new resolution titled “Third Reconstruction: Fully Addressing Poverty and Low Wages From the Bottom Up,” May 20, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington. RNS photo by Jack Jenkins

August 11, 2023

By 

Jack Jenkins

(RNS) — On Jan. 6, 2021, Rahna Epting, the executive director of liberal advocacy group MoveOn, watched her television in horror. As supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the seat of U.S. democracy, Epting couldn’t help but notice the Christian symbols some waved as they surged past police barricades.

Appalled, she contacted the Rev. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian minister and head of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice. The pair had worked together in the past and quickly brainstormed their next project: combating the forms of Christian nationalism visibly evident Jan. 6.

“There is a tribalism and a very strong, religious-like element to this MAGA movement, which we name as white Christian nationalism,” Epting said. “As a progressive, secular organizer, I don’t think me and my comrades in our space are really fully evaluating what this threat is.”

In the years since Jan. 6, however, as proponents of Christian nationalism have grown louder, so, too, have their detractors: Epting and Theoharis’ partnership turned into a yearslong project to determine how best to curb the influence of the ideology, ultimately resulting in a 75-page report titled “All of US: Organizing to Counter White Christian Nationalism and Build a Pro-Democracy Society.”

Their study is but the latest in an intensifying effort to challenge Christian nationalism and its influence on U.S. politics. Denominations are condemning the ideology. Local faith leaders are launching awareness campaigns. Clergy and secular groups are teaming up to strategize ways to combat Christian nationalism ahead of the 2024 elections.

The Rev. Liz Theoharis, from left, Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Imam Saffet Catovic and Bishop Vashti McKenzie during the Poor People’s Campaign’s congressional briefing on Sept. 22, 2022, at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks

Epting, Theoharis and Stosh Cotler, the former head of Bend the Arc Jewish Action and the report’s chief author, collected examples of these efforts for their study. They interviewed dozens of activists and were advised by an array of leaders with ties to religious groups such as United Church of Christ or secular organizations such as the Working Families Party. The report’s preface notes those involved include a mix of Christians and non-Christians who are united by a “shared recognition that the rise of an authoritarian strain in our politics has been fueled and emboldened by a white Christian nationalist movement.”

As they mined their findings, authors slowly came to identify ways they believe activists can blunt Christian nationalism’s impact.

“White Christian nationalists are out-organizing us in spaces we have left uncontested for far too long,” Epting said, singling out rural areas that often go underserved by local governments.

Theoharis agreed, saying advocates should be “organizing people more holistically” in order to meet “people’s material, spiritual and emotional needs, as well as political needs and aspirations.” She stressed the need for cooperation between religious and secular groups, hoping they can strategize to “build the kind of society we need,” but also signaled a desire to alter public perception of Christians.

“When people are celebrating abortion bans, they’re articulated as Christian,” she said. “But when people are feeding migrants in the desert as part of their faith practice, they’re talked about as activists.”

Many mobilization campaigns against Christian nationalism, including some mentioned in the report, draw strength from projects that predate Jan. 6. The Poor People’s Campaign, launched in 2017 by Theoharis and the Rev. William Barber II, rebooted the last campaign of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who organized the original in 1968 as a way to resist what he described as three “evils” of society — racism, poverty and war. The campaign’s recent iteration added two more to that list: ecological devastation and the “distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism,” which includes Christian nationalism.

Amanda Tyler in 2022. Photo courtesy of Baptist Joint Committee

Meanwhile, the advocacy group Faithful America has organized clergy and other faith leaders to stage protests across the country criticizing events that feature Christian nationalists — particularly the ReAwaken America Tour, a right-wing traveling roadshow typically headlined by Christian nationalist influencer and former Trump adviser Michael Flynn.

Faithful America protesters are often joined by leaders associated with groups such as Interfaith Alliance, which convened a briefing on Christian nationalism on Capitol Hill in September, or Christians Against Christian Nationalism, an effort led by Amanda Tyler of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, who recently condemned Christian nationalism in a testimony before Congress.

“Christian nationalism strikes at the heart of the foundational ideas of what religious freedom means and how it’s protected in this country, and that is with the institution of separation of church and state,” Tyler told the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in December.

Tyler and others have also partnered with groups such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with the BJC and FFRF producing a joint report on the role Christian nationalism played in the Jan. 6 attack.

The idea that Christian nationalism functions as a key component of broader threats to U.S. democracy is shared among a growing number of faith leaders and activists. Pastors derided Christian nationalism while discussing voting rights at a recent Progressive National Baptist Convention gathering. Similarly, Katrina L. Rogers, media director of the faith-based advocacy group Faith in Public Life, said via email that FPL is organizing against Christian nationalism — also referred to as white Christian nationalism — because the group believes the ideology is “at the center of many of the attacks we are seeing across the country on our freedoms, including the freedom to vote and to access reproductive health care.”

According to the Rev. Jen Butler, FPL’s founder who now consults on various efforts to mobilize religious voices, the broad political impact of Christian nationalism naturally leads to team-ups between secular and faith groups.

“The religious community is pivoting directly to address white Christian nationalism, and secular funders are seeing the value that the religious community can bring to the table because of the way we have sounded the alarm on Christian nationalism — and begun to respond,” Butler told RNS this week in a phone interview.

The report, which was commissioned by the MoveOn Education Fund and the Kairos Center, proposed 11 strategies to fight the Christian nationalism. They included calling for organizations to prioritize the South, encourage Christians to mobilize their fellow faithful against Christian nationalism and “fully integrate faith communities and faith leaders into a pro-democracy movement.”

The report adds: “We agree that to effectively combat this movement, we must broaden our ranks, forge new alliances, and make changes in how we organize, both within our own communities and across them.”

Doug Pagitt takes a selfie in a crowd protesting the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, May 28, 2020. Photo by Doug Pagitt

Doug Pagitt, who is mentioned in the report and leads the liberal-leaning advocacy group Vote Common Good, said he’s attended multiple closed-door strategy sessions all over the country this year that dealt with Christian nationalism. The conversations, he said, often highlighted the influence of Christian nationalism on Republican-led efforts to restrict abortion rights or ban gender-affirming care for transgender people.

The work is growing ever more local: Pagitt said VCG has begun working with the Public School Defenders Hub, a project of the California-based Contemporary Policy Institute, to train school board candidates on Christian nationalism.

“We know that Christian nationalist groups are targeting those places,” Pagitt said, referring to school boards. “They feel that with a small amount of investment they can make a big impact.”

Indeed, a growing number of localized Christian nationalist organizations have focused their campaigns on local government entities this year, with activists sometimes delivering fiery, religion-themed speeches at public meetings. Pagitt said VCG wasn’t planning on working with school boards, but the surge in faith-fueled, right-wing activism has caught many education officials by surprise, leading the Public School Defenders Hub to seek out his group.

“Our goal here is to deepen understanding to respond more effectively in resistance,” Pagitt said. 

Doug Pagitt. Courtesy photo

Organized pushback against Christian nationalism is popping up in other spaces as well. Last week, around 100 faith leaders associated with Milwaukee Inner-City Congregations Allied for Hope, an interfaith coalition that goes by its acronym of MICAH, launched a new “We All Belong” campaign with the goal of protecting democracy and rejecting Christian nationalism.

And just a few days before, the Disciples of Christ denomination passed a resolution — sponsored by an array of local congregations — at its biennial General Assembly denouncing Christian nationalism as “a distortion of the Christian faith.” According to Word&Way, the gathering also featured multiple workshops focused on Christian nationalism, including a talk led by Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis who has written extensively on the topic.

Whitehead, who has a forthcoming book titled “American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church,” told RNS he has led talks about Christian nationalism with Episcopal bishops and Seventh-day Adventists in recent months.

“There’s a growing concern across not only American Christian groups and denominations, but also those who are not necessarily partisan or even religious, responding to what they see as the threats toward democracy in the U.S., toward the Christian faith, toward interfaith collaboration,” Whitehead said.

Whether that rising concern will be enough to fully curb Christian nationalism’s influence, Whitehead wasn’t sure. But looking toward the future, he said, coalitions like the one’s forged by Epting, Theoharis and others stand a chance of winnowing the ideology’s outsized influence on American politics — and, potentially, religion.

“Over the next few decades, I think it’ll be more difficult overall for this idea of the U.S. as a Christian nation — to reflect a particular Christian expression — to be taken for granted, or to even be the privileged position across American society,” he said.

(This story was was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.)

How Christian nationalism is driving American politics

February 29, 2020 By Paul Rosenberg, Salon

LONG READ

In early 2018, after a year of confusion over why Donald Trump had been elected, Clemson sociologist Andrew Whitehead and two colleagues provided compelling evidence — which I wrote about here — that “voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage.” That is, it represented “Christian nationalism,” even when controlling for other popular explanations such as “economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment.” The puzzle of why white evangelicals voted for Trump so overwhelmingly turned out to have a simple explanation: It wasn’t their religion that he championed — Trump is conspicuously not a person of faith — but rather its place in society.

Now, Whitehead and one of those colleagues, University of Oklahoma sociologist Samuel Perry, have a new book taking their research approach much further: “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States.” Donald Trump doesn’t figure as a central subject in the book, but then, he doesn’t have to. By exploring and explaining the power of Christian nationalism, Whitehead and Perry provide one of the best perspectives possible on the 2020 race, and the larger forces that will continue to polarize America for some time to come.

Significantly, the authors explore Christian nationalism’s influence on society as a whole — not just on those who embrace it, but on those across the whole spectrum, from adherents to opponents — while not forgetting how extreme its animating vision is. They cite Corey Robin’s “The Reactionary Mind” and Jason Stanley’s “How Fascism Works,” for example, in making the point that while “Christian nationalism seeks to preserve or reinstitute boundaries in the public sphere,” its believers are “most desperate” to influence “Americans’ private worlds,” as is true of “all reactionary movements.”
This is both an extremely timely book and one that’s likely to shape our self-understanding as a nation for generations to come. I recently interviewed Andrew Whitehead by phone. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Your book is about “Christian nationalism.” Let’s start with explaining what you mean by that.

When we talk about Christian nationalism, we identify it as a cultural framework that is all about trying to advocate for a fusion between Christianity, as they define it, and American civic life. This Christianity is something more than just orthodox Christian belief — it contains and overlaps with a number of other things. It operates like a signal to those that hear it, to a certain population, to say “people like us,” which is generally white, native-born, culturally Christian. So it intertwines not only with narratives about the Christian heritage of the United States, but also different traditions and symbols and value systems, and really is a fusion of these identities, put together to create what they see as the “ideal” America.

As you note in your introduction, there’s a large literature on Christian nationalism, including another book coming out next week, Katherine Stewart’s “The Power Worshippers.” What’s distinctive and different about your approach, both in terms of methodology and purpose?

What we’re doing that really hasn’t been done before is quantifying and empirically defining Christian nationalism. “The Power Worshippers” by Katherine Stewart is amazing, and really a great journalistic look at who’s pulling the levers, and who these power worshipers are. But what we do is we gather data from thousands of Americans through surveys, and then we interview them. What we’re trying to do is empirically show this ideology and cultural framework of Christian nationalism: How does it affect and influence the views of all Americans, their beliefs, their values, their behaviors? There really hasn’t been a sustained, empirical examination of this cultural framework and that’s what our book does.

In your introduction you lay out three main arguments. First, you argue that “understanding Christian nationalism, its content and its consequences, is essential for understanding much of the polarization in American popular discourse.” Your analysis doesn’t just look at supporters of Christian nationalism, but those with a broad range of perspectives, which you characterize in four broad groups. I’d like to ask about each of them, starting with those you call “Ambassadors.” What is distinctive or characteristic of them?

Ambassadors are those Americans who most strongly embrace Christian nationalism. We ask a series of questions of Americans and then we combine their responses across the six questions, and we are able to measure the strength with which they either embrace or reject Christian nationalism. Ambassadors are those who strongly agree with a series of questions like, “Do you believe that the United States or the federal government should advocate Christian values?” Or, “Should we allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces?” The more Americans agree with those, they score highly on our scale, and those Americans we call Ambassadors. So they are the ones that would want to see religious symbols in public spaces, they would want to see the government advocate for Christian values, declare the U.S. a Christian nation. They believe that the success of the United States is part of God’s plan, so they would be those who most strongly embrace this idea of the U.S. as a Christian nation and would want to see Christianity privileged in the public sphere.

On the other extreme are those you call “Rejecters.” What’s distinctive or characteristic of them?

Rejecters are those Americans who completely oppose and repudiate any notion of a close relationship between Christianity and American civil society. They’re in some ways a mirror image of Ambassadors, where for them to have a strong civil society, or pluralistic democracy, we should not be privileging any religion in the public sphere. They wouldn’t necessarily say that religion shouldn’t be a part of American life, but that in the halls of power one religion shouldn’t have an upper hand over another. So they wouldn’t want to see Christianity privileged in that sense.

One thing we want to make clear is that these aren’t just non-religious Americans. We show that there are evangelical Protestants who are Rejecters, and we interview them in the book. There are other Americans who are religious, who reject the desire to see Christianity privileged in the public sphere. Now, many Rejecters are pretty non-religious, but not all. So what we’re looking at isn’t just a religious/non-religious divide. It really is a divide about the role that they think Christianity should play in public life. Rejecters would say that while religion is fine to be part of people’s lives, we wouldn’t want to see Christianity privileged in some way.

In between these extremes there are two groups. Those called “Accommodators” are closer to the Ambassadors, but not the same. What’s distinctive or characteristic of them?

Accommodators lean towards accepting this idea of a U.S. civil society that embraces or in some ways might privilege Christianity. So their support is undeniable, but it’s not comprehensive. They would maybe be more equivocal about whether there should be certain religious symbols in public spaces. They might say that Christianity has been important to the history of the U.S., and that it generally is a good thing. But when you ask if other religious groups should be able to also integrate or be a part of it, they will be more open to that, whereas Ambassadors would say that this is a Christian nation, and if you don’t like it you should leave. Accommodators accommodate the “Christian nation” narrative and Christian nationalism, but they wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to other religious groups at least being able to live and operate here. So they are supportive of it, but it isn’t as comprehensive as Ambassadors.

The other in-between group, called “Resisters,” are closer to Rejecters but, again, not the same.

Resisters are more of a mirror image of Accommodators, where they are uncomfortable with the idea of a Christian nation, but not wholly opposed. So they lean towards opposition. They might say that Christianity played an important role in the founding of the United States, but they’re uncomfortable with any idea of trying to privilege Christianity in the public sphere. We find that there are a number of Resisters who are Christians, who think that Christianity can play a positive role in society, but it shouldn’t be held up over any other religious group — that Christians and other religious groups should be able to work alongside one another. So compared to Rejecters, who might say no one religion should have the upper hand, Resisters might still see a positive role that Christianity can play, but they wouldn’t want to see that formalized in any form by government.

You also make the point that these groups cut across all other demographics, although unevenly. One of the most notable findings is that the percentage of Rejecters rises with each succeeding generation, while the number of Ambassadors falls, pointing to a seeming waning of Christian nationalist influence. But there are contrary factors at work as well. Could you explain?

We do find, in other research, that Americans will respond to historical events, and might embrace Christianity as integral to American identity much more strongly. One example is when 9/11 happened. In the late ’90s, a certain number of Americans would say that being Christian was important to being truly American, but after 9/11, when asked that question, a much larger percentage of Americans said that to be truly American you need to be a Christian. So they were responding in some sense to the 9/11 attack on America, trying to identify “Who are we, and what are we all about?” A lot of the rhetoric surrounding that revolved around religion. But we found that 10 years after that event, those levels decreased, back actually below the 1996 levels.

Throughout history Christian nationalism has been a part of our cultural context, but it does wax and wane. Around the Cold War, trying again to identify who we are as Americans, Christianity was put on our coins — “In God we trust” — in this kind of push. Kevin Kruse shows in his book “One Nation Under God” how, in response to the New Deal and fears of creeping socialism, people pushed this idea that we’re a Christian nation. With Jerry Falwell and others, the Moral Majority were responding to the civil rights movement and the gender and sexuality movements of the ’60s and ’70s.

We see this current iteration of Christian nationalism responding to that. If there’s uneasiness or if we’re trying to define who we are, Christianity becomes kind of an easy go-to, to say, “This is what we’ve always been about.” With recent demographic shifts in U.S. society, that is another example, where Donald Trump and others would say that we’re a Christian nation and this is what we’re all about, and others would be willing to hear and embrace that. Even as there are fewer Ambassadors today, Christian nationalism is still a very powerful cultural framework and ideology that will help them define themselves against the outside. It still is a really strong explanatory tool to understand why people see and think the way they do about politics, their own lives and whatever is happening in the world today.

Your second main argument is that “to understand Christian nationalism, it must be examined on its own terms. Christian nationalism is necessarily part of a complex web of ideologies.” What are the main ideological connections that are most salient, politically and statistically?

People usually will try to say, “Is it racism or authoritarianism that really explains these effects?” What we find is that while Christian nationalism does overlap with these different ideologies, like racism or authoritarianism, it has an independent effect. While there are aspects of Christian nationalism where people do want to see a highly ordered society, it isn’t just that desire. There is something about wanting to see Christianity privileged in the public sphere that is an independent influence on how they see the world, or might view the criminal justice system or anything else. And the same with racism, where Christian nationalism is associated with generally prejudiced views towards nonwhite groups. It isn’t just that there’s racism. There’s something about this idea of seeing Christianity privileged in the public sphere that tells us something over and above the other ideologies. So while they’re related, they aren’t one and the same.

It seems like Christian nationalism is something broader than these ideologies it is connected to.

I think it is. I think it tells us something about the nature of this desire to see religion and especially Christianity privileged in the public sphere. It tells us something more about where that came from and why that’s important, and helps to explain why Americans might believe one way versus another.

Finally, your third argument is that “Christian nationalism is not ‘Christianity’ or even ‘religion’ properly speaking,” and indeed that “Christian nationalism often influences Americans’ opinions and behaviors in the exact opposite direction than traditional religious commitment does.” In fact, as one table in your book shows, in virtually all areas of social policy — everything except personal fidelity to religion — the influences are at odds.

It’s a recurring theme we see throughout our book. When we look at different hot-button political wedge issues in the U.S., or we look at views toward nonwhite groups or even non-Christian groups, we find that Christian nationalism encourages people generally to think and believe one way, while once we take that level of Christian nationalism into account, individual Americans who are more religious will actually be moving in the opposite direction.

One example is fear of Muslims. We ask a number of questions about, “Do you feel threatened by Muslims physically?” Or, “Do you think they hold moral values that are less than yours?” The way I explain it is that if you could take a carbon copy of me and the only thing you change — increase or decrease — is my Christian nationalism, then I will be more fearful of Muslims as you increase that. But if you took a carbon copy of me, and my level of Christian nationalism stayed the same level, and all you increased or decreased was my religious practice — as you increase my religious practice, I would actually feel less threatened by Muslims. So these things aren’t one and the same. While many Ambassadors and Accommodators are religious, it isn’t necessarily their religiosity that’s causing them to view immigrants or Muslims or nonwhite minorities this way. It’s their Christian nationalism.

The one topic where we find religious practice and increasing Christian nationalism work similarly is when we talk about gender, homosexuality or transgender rights. We do find that more religious people tend to be less willing to be open toward gay marriage, as an example, even when we account for Christian nationalism.

I’d like you to talk more about that. Why do those views translate from Christian nationalism to religious practice, whereas when it comes to attitudes towards Muslims or people of other races, the same is not true?

Christian nationalism is really focused on creating boundaries between “us” and “them.” This idea of true American identity is white, Protestant, culturally Christian, native-born. So that’s why we see religious practice and Christian nationalism work differently in that sense. But when we’re talking about sexuality, what we see is that for those that are religiously active they’re still seeing and believing that there should be some sort of ordering within gender and sexuality that is in line with what they see as traditional Christian beliefs. So Christian nationalism in the end works in the same direction with religious practice.

We see that same thing in our interviews. Those who were strongly Christian nationalist, who were Ambassadors, they would oppose same-sex marriage really along the lines of trying to protect this Christian nation. They would see it as a threat to America’s Christian nation. But when we talk to Americans who are very religious, but who reject or resist Christian nationalism, they might be opposed to gay marriage, but it isn’t that they want to see it outlawed at the federal level. They would think that it’s against the dictates of their Christian tradition.

I want to ask about two specific examples you discuss, which I think most observers don’t have a good handle on, but make perfect sense in your analysis. The first is a lack of sympathy for black victims of police violence, even in the face of video evidence. What are the reasons behind this lack of sympathy?

What it comes down to is that Christian nationalism is fundamentally about preserving or returning to a mythic society where there are traditional hierarchical relationships — between white and black, or even men and women. The authority structures that are in place are instituted by God, so any claims by minorities — in this case, racial minorities — that there are inequalities, to Christian nationalists and to Ambassadors, they would see that as disingenuous.

What we find is that when it comes to maintaining law and order, Christian nationalists are enthusiastic about that, so they’re basically biased toward seeing and defending fairness in that force that’s used against different people. They’re more likely to think that police treat blacks the same as whites, or that police officers shoot blacks more often because they are inherently more violent. They’re less likely to believe there are inequalities in policing, because to them that authority structure is put in place by God. So that is a little bit more about how Christian nationalism can uphold or encourage white supremacy, or specifically inequality in the criminal justice system.

The second example is attitudes towards guns, epitomized by the Florida legislature after the Parkland shooting, when they responded by overwhelmingly passing a bill requiring the prominent placement of “In God we trust” in all Florida schools. That bill is part of the Christian nationalist agenda pushed by Project Blitz. How does this make sense in terms of Christian nationalism? What’s the logic involved?

For Christian nationalism, for Ambassadors, they would say the real issue with our country when it comes to violence or anything else is that individuals are not Christian or not following the Christian God. So if we’re able, as a country, to encourage Christianity in the public sphere, that will heal a lot of the fracture in our nation, or these issues that make people want to inflict violence on others. They don’t see where larger structural changes like limiting access to guns might change it, because they say — and you hear this over and over — that if somebody couldn’t use a gun, they would use something else. But we can’t just outlaw evil, it is always going to be with us, violence is always going to be with us. So the only way to reduce violence is through encouraging Christianity overall.

Another reason they would oppose gun control is because they view the Constitution — and, by default, the Second Amendment — as ordained by the Christian God. So, to oppose the Second Amendment right to bear arms, they would say, is to oppose what God has instituted for this nation. The only way to heal our country is through encouraging Christianity, not limiting access to guns.

One thing that stood out for me was that Rejecters stand alone in seeing Christian nationalism as a threat — not spelled out as such, but in terms of those who support it. This seems problematic to me, if understandable. Could you talk about that?

We show that Rejecters are the only ones that are more likely to feel that threat or to be afraid of conservative Christians. The other groups are no different from one another. Even Resisters might see some room for Christianity to play a role in the public sphere. What is important to underscore is that Christian nationalism as a framework isn’t just equal to conservative Christians, or religious people, but is something different, and we find that it’s present across both the religious and non-religious groups and socio-demographic categories. So Americans in a lot of different places will embrace this, to different levels, and it can have profound impacts on how they might view policing of religious minorities or immigration or other issues.

Finally, what’s the most important question I didn’t ask? And what’s the answer?

A point I would want to make is that Christian nationalism has serious implications for two areas. One is American civil society, about upholding a pluralistic democracy. Christian nationalism, we find over and over again, doesn’t encourage an ability to compromise or to work together across differences or to find a common way that we can all agree on. For them it’s more and more about trying to defend a particular version of religion in the public sphere. So it’s really difficult to have a pluralistic democracy, which should be founded on compromise, when increasingly Christian nationalists desire their way or nothing. So that has deep implications for our democracy.

It also has serious implications for the American Christian church. With Christian nationalism in many ways subsuming common Christian traditions and symbols to its own ends, that really can go against the dictates of orthodox Christianity, like loving your enemy or your neighbors, or equality across all races and ethnicities. To the extent people are interested in or are trying to live out the dictates of the Christian scriptures, in many ways Christian nationalism is wholly opposed to them.

So for those who are interested in defending a pluralistic, democratic society, non-religious Americans can find common cause with those Christians who reject Christian nationalism, because they are focused on trying to ensure religious freedom for all or to live in harmony with their neighbors. One example is the Baptist Joint Committee [For Religious Liberty] or Christians Against Christian Nationalism. Non-religious or secular Americans who don’t want to see Christianity privileged in the public sphere can in some cases seek common cause with those who may be devoted to the Christian faith, but reject Christian nationalism.

Attitudes toward Christian nationalism don’t just boil down to views on race, religion and history

Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash

The Conversation

February 04, 2025

The concept of Christian nationalism has taken center stage in many Americans’ minds as either the greatest threat to democracy or its only savior.

Political scientist Eric McDaniel defines Christian nationalism as the belief that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation. “In this view,” according to McDaniel, “America can be governed only by Christians, and the country’s mission is directed by a divine hand.” Why does the idea resonate with some but alarm others?

Scholars often portray Christian nationalism as rooted in a deep-seated desire to exclude non-Christians and people of color from American society. Historians point to a persistent link between racism and Christian nationalism among white Americans throughout U.S. history.

White Christians, however, are not the only ones sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideas. Nearly 40% of Black Protestants and 55% of Hispanic Protestants agree with statements such as “being Christian is an important part of being truly American.” Interestingly, over one-third of Muslims agree that the U.S. government should promote Christian moral values but not make it the official religion.

Many who reject Christian nationalism do so because it seems to privilege those white Christian Americans who would like to make conservative Christianity the United States’ official religion. Conversely, supporters argue that the future of the U.S. depends upon loyalty to God and to staying true to the country’s Christian past. They contend that since the nation’s founding, a Christian influence in government and societal institutions such as education and health care has been and remains essential to sustaining religious, political and economic stability.

While racial, religious and political tribalism appear to influence who supports and who rejects Christian nationalism, our own research suggests there are other factors at play, specifically moral differences. We set out to understand the role that different moral values play in shaping support for and opposition to Christian nationalism.

Our study drew on the most influential social science approach to understanding moral values: moral foundations theory.

Moral differences

Moral foundations theory states that humans evolved to possess six primary moral intuitions that shape moral judgments – care for the vulnerable, fairness in how people are treated, loyalty to in-groups, respect for authority, reverence for the sacred, and the safeguarding of individual liberty.

A vast amount of research finds that liberals endorse the first two foundations, care and fairness, but score lower on the rest.

Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to score equally on all six foundations. This suggests their moral judgments often involve balancing a desire to be compassionate with a desire to safeguard the stability of the social order.

Moral foundations theory has been used extensively by social scientists to study hot-button issues such as crime control, policing, vaccine resistance, immigration, same-sex marriage, abortion and more.

For example, research finds that prioritizing care for the vulnerable, which is most pronounced among liberals, is linked to reduced acceptance of police use of force. Conservatives, who also value respect for authority, often favor “law and order” even when it involves use of force.

What our research found

Researchers found that support for Christian nationalism was strongly associated with the moral foundations of loyalty, sanctity and liberty. selimaksan/E+ via Getty images.

With moral foundations theory as our guide, we analyzed Christian nationalism using a 2021 national survey of 1,125 U.S. adults conducted by YouGov, a global opinion research organization. We measured respondents’ moral foundations with the moral foundations questionnaire, which has been used extensively by researchers across numerous academic disciplines.

To measure Christian nationalism, we asked respondents whether they agreed with six questions, such as whether the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation, advocate Christian values, allow prayer in public schools and allow religious symbols in public spaces, to list a few.

What we found surprised us.

Support for Christian nationalism was most strongly linked to the moral foundations of loyalty, sanctity and liberty, but not to the authority foundation. We expected Christian nationalism to appeal to individuals who are enamored of authority, providing a rationale to their support for authoritarian leaders. But in our study, respect for authority did not distinguish those who supported Christian nationalism from those who opposed it.

We also found that support for Christian nationalism was linked to having a weaker fairness foundation. But it was not related to the strength of one’s care foundation.

We conclude that differences over Christian nationalism emerge not because some people care about the harm Christian nationalism could bring to non-Christian Americans, while others don’t. Rather, our findings suggest that those who support Christian nationalism do so because they are more sensitive to violations of loyalty, sanctity and liberty, and less sensitive to violations of fairness.

Our findings also revealed that support for Christian nationalism isn’t merely about racism or being ultrareligious, as critics often suggest. We accounted for endorsements of anti-Black stereotypes and religiosity. Yet, moral foundations remained the best predictors of Christian nationalist beliefs, even after taking into account these critical variables.

2 moral approaches to Christianity in the US

The Christian nationalism scale we and others have used combines several different beliefs about Christianity’s role in society. So we also examined how each of the six items in our Christian nationalism scale related to each of the six moral foundations. We found two important patterns.

 

Researchers found different moral values playing a role in shaping support or opposition for Christian nationalism.

Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

First, we found that the Christian nationalist desire to bring church and state closer together was most prominent among those with strong loyalty and sanctity foundations and a weak fairness foundation. This means that people who advocate for a Christian state largely do so out of loyalty – specifically, loyalty to God – and out of a desire to adhere to God’s requirements for society, as they understand them.

In line with this, support is also linked to a desire to protect the sanctity of the nation’s Christian heritage. Those who oppose bringing church and state closer together do so out of a sense that such a union would be unfair.

Second, we found that the desire to allow prayer in schools and religious symbols in public spaces was strongest among those with pronounced liberty and sanctity moral foundations. This likely means that people who favor public religious expression, but not a union of church and state, do so because they see individual religious expression as a sacred national ideal.

All in all, our study shows that support for or opposition to Christian nationalism is not merely due to religious, political or racial identities and prejudices, as many believe, but is rather due to entrenched moral differences between the two camps.
Building solidarity through diverse moral concerns

Moral divides are not necessarily impassable. It’s possible that understanding these diverging moral concerns may help build bridges between those who are sympathetic to and those who are skeptical toward Christian nationalism.

America’s founders conceived of fairness and liberty as central to a democratic society. And these values have fueled loyalty to a robust national identity ever since.

Our research suggests that the controversy surrounding Christian nationalism is driven not by a lack of moral concern by sympathizers or critics but by their different moral priorities. We believe that understanding such differences as morally rooted can open the door for mutual understanding and productive debate.

Kerby Goff, Associate Director of Research at the Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance, Rice University; Eric Silver, Professor of Sociology & Criminology, Penn State, and John Iceland, Professor of Sociology and Demography, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

White Christian Nationalism, Out in the Open

Some on the right have grown comfortable being labeled “Christian nationalists.”

by ANNIKA BROCKSCHMIDT AND THOMAS LECAQUE

THE BULWARK
AUGUST 22, 2022 


There was a time, not very long ago, when far-right figures wanted to avoid being called “Christian nationalists”—denying or deflecting or pleading ignorance. Even now, some reject the label. “Reporters frequently ask me,” Robert Jeffress, the megachurch pastor, said last month, “‘Are you a Christian nationalist?’ . . . And I respond emphatically, ‘No, not in any way.’” In May, Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee in the race for Pennsylvania governor, wrote a reporter, “Is this a term you fabricated? What does it mean and where have I indicated that I am a Christian Nationalist?” Franklin Graham told the same reporter that “Christian nationalism doesn’t exist.”

Despite the protestations, the term Christian nationalism is well suited for much of the far right. Think of (defeated) Georgia gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor’s slogan “Jesus, Guns, Babies.” Or the extensive Christian symbolism in the crowd that attacked the Capitol on January 6th. Or the Republicans, such as Rep. Lauren Boebert and Doug Mastriano, who have pointedly said they believe in collapsing the separation of church and state.

We may be entering a new phase, however—one in which at least some people are claiming, proudly, to be Christian nationalists, and writing apologetics explicitly in defense of the label and its attendant ideology. Witness Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who openly proclaims herself a Christian nationalist on Twitter and in interviews and on t-shirts. Or the Federalist, which on August 11 published an article entitled “Christian Nationalism Is Biblical And America-First, But It’s Not White.” The author, Carina Benton, is a regular contributor to the Trump-loving right-wing outlet and not someone with apparent expertise in theology or political philosophy—but the article is a useful indicator of how the debate is shifting, and because similar arguments have popped up elsewhere, it is worth at least a quick dissection.

Benton asserts that the criticism of Christian nationalism relies on “straw man arguments that misrepresent both Christianity and nationalism, and phony attempts to depict the movement as white,” before going on to prove Godwin’s Law halfway through.

Perhaps the two most pernicious paragraphs in Benton’s article deal with the idea of what a Christian nation is. First, she says that the United States chose God, chose Christianity, within a very specific doctrinal image:

The United States isn’t special because it’s a nation chosen by God; it’s special because it’s a nation that chose God. The implications are entirely biblical. Holy Scripture invites individuals from every race, tribe, nation, and language to freely enter into a personal relationship with the Savior, to live by His commandments, and worship Him as King.

Everyone is invited to “freely enter into a personal relationship with the Savior,” fine, but the mechanism described here is neither free nor personal: It is a state-imposed Christendom over the nation and its inhabitants. Don’t take our word for it, Benton is very clear:

[Holy Scripture] also envisages, from Genesis to Isaiah, from the Gospels to the Book of Revelation, the conversion of whole nations or peoples, and warns of the inevitable harm of instead embracing a culture of idolatry, depravity, and deceit. Hence, we read in Proverbs that “a nation without God’s guidance is a nation without order.”

This is the model being advocated. It is very clearly Christian nationalism—a label Benton welcomes. And while she objects to calling it “white Christian nationalism,” she certainly seems to be advocating a cultural and religious conversion to a dominant strand of Christian thought in this country, one that has—justifiably, given the politics of those who have tended to espouse it—been called “white Christian nationalism.” (More on this in a moment.)

Benton’s article is not the first case of apologetics for Christian nationalism in the Federalist. In 2019, it published “We Need Christian Nationalism Because Religious Neutrality Has Failed,” which argues that religious neutrality should be rejected in favor of “a conviction that a Christian understanding of the world should predominate over other worldviews in American civic life.” And a 2021 article called “Stop Smearing Christians As ‘Christian Nationalists’ Just Because They Value Both Faith And Freedom” includes this line apparently intended as a defense of January 6th insurrectionists: “You think Big Tech and bureaucrats rigged an election that will result in your rights being infringed, so you fly to D.C. with your family and your flags? You’re a Christian nationalist.” We tend to agree with this sentence, if not the author’s analysis—she views the label “Christian nationalist” as an unjust smear on both the insurrectionists and on “Christian Trump supporters.”

“When I said that I’m a Christian nationalist, I have nothing to be ashamed of,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene remarked at CPAC earlier this month. “Because that’s what most Americans are.”

Is that true—are most Americans Christian nationalists? Let’s look at the numbers: Sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry, in their 2020 book Taking America Back for God, show that a little more than half of American adults, 51.9 percent, are either strongly supportive of (19.8 percent) or at least somewhat positively inclined toward (32.1 percent) Christian nationalism. Whitehead and Perry based their analysis on questions in the 2017 Baylor Religion Survey asking respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with six propositions about religion, government, and the United States:

From Taking America Back for God by Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry.

Greene seems to want to seize the moment, laundering Christian nationalism as something both harmless and patriotic: “We’re proud of our faith and we love our country,” she said at CPAC. “And that will make America great again. When we lean into biblical principles, you know, is there anything wrong with loving God and loving others? No.” And in an interview late last month, she argued that Christian nationalism should be a central tenet of the Republican party: “We need to be the party of nationalism. And I’m a Christian. I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”

Again, it’s not that Christian nationalism is new—it is not. Nor is it that Greene is an especially powerful national figure—she is not. Nor that the Federalist is a particularly influential publication beyond the far right—it is not. But Donald Trump’s own open nationalism and his cynical embrace of the Christian right have clearly led some Republicans to conclude that it’s time to talk more openly about Christian nationalism.

To understand why a more open embrace of Christian nationalism on the right today is so insidious, we have to understand what Christian nationalism is. It arises from a warped version of American history, one that holds that the United States was supposed to be an explicitly Christian country, founded by and for Christian people—often understood explicitly to mean white Christian people. This bad history has been disproved time and time again, but it is central to the self-appointed legitimacy of Christian nationalists.

The pseudo-history is one pillar of white Christian nationalism. A second pillar is that society and its laws should be dictated by white Christians, that there should be no separation of church and state. A third pillar: the belief that only Christians—white, conservative Christians—are “true” Americans.

Yale professor of sociology Philip Gorski refers to “freedom, order, and violence” as the “holy trinity” of white Christian nationalism:

Which means a kind of libertarian freedom for people like us—“us” being, above all, straight, white, native-born Christian men—order for everybody else, which means racial and gender order above all else, and that kind of righteous violence directed against anybody who violates that order.

While Benton, in her Federalist article, attempted to downplay the white-supremacy aspect of Christian nationalism, the data makes clear that the “white” part is integral to the violent Christian nationalism increasingly openly permeating today’s Republican party. Here’s how sociologist Sam Perry sums it up:

Just from an empirical standpoint, . . . [the] quantitative indicators of Christian-nationalist ideology seem to operate differently for white Americans than for, say, African Americans. When white Americans take our surveys and answer questions about whether the United States is a Christian nation or we don’t need a separation of church and state or we should advocate Christian values in the government, for them, it is powerfully associated with things like nostalgia and authoritarianism and a certain vision of America’s history as this kind of mythic story: that we have a special relationship with God and that there is this kind of place that we are going—this deep story.

Perry and Whitehead have compiled the evidence, from white Christian nationalists’ attitudes towards racial boundaries (e.g., when it comes to interracial marriage) to studies that show that “Christian nationalism was a significant and consistent predictor of anti-immigrant stereotypes, prejudice, dehumanization, and support for anti-immigrant policies.”

And what about the classic narrative that the more openly racist Christian nationalists are somehow “not real Christians”? Religion scholar Robert P. Johns, the founder and CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, rejects that notion:

Statistical models refute the assertion that attending church makes white Christians less racist. Among white evangelicals, in fact, the opposite is true: The relationship between holding racist views and white Christian identity is actually stronger among more frequent church attenders than among less frequent church attenders.

Attempts, like Benton’s, to obscure or gloss over the racist core of white Christian nationalism ignore the substantial data collected by sociologists, and show either open lying or blatant ignorance about the still highly segregated American church landscape. They also ignore the experiences of black Christians, like Jemar Tisby, who describe having to leave white evangelical churches, since they felt that they either had to conform to these white theological spaces or leave—there was no debate to be had. Benton’s Federalist article instead employs classic “colorblindness” rhetoric, obscuring the white supremacy that runs through the veins of white Christian nationalism.

Describing a June conference of Christian conservatives, reporter Katherine Stewart explained the three trends she saw that suggested Christian nationalism was on the rise:

First, the rhetoric of violence among movement leaders appeared to have increased significantly from the already alarming levels I had observed in previous years. Second, the theology of dominionism—that is, the belief that “right-thinking” Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society—is now explicitly embraced. And third, the movement’s key strategists were giddy about the legal arsenal that the Supreme Court had laid at their feet as they anticipated the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

White Christian nationalism knows no nuance—it advocates for a society in which minority rule by white, conservative Christians is enshrined, democracy be damned. And when you listen closely enough, sooner or later, its defenders will reveal their true colors, as Benton does in her Federalist article, when she writes “It’s this love of God, country, and freedom trifecta that has the enemy screeching like there’s no tomorrow” (emphasis added). “The enemy”—an odd way to talk about your political opponent in a democracy. But par for the course in white Christian nationalism, which yearns for a white, Christian, authoritarian state that puts everybody else where they belong—under the “biblical” rule of white, right-wing Christians.

Annika Brockschmidt (@ardenthistorian) is the author of Amerikas Gotteskrieger: Wie die Religiöse Rechte die Demokratie gefährdet (America’s Holy Warriors: How the Religious Right Endangers Democracy).

  Thomas Lecaque (@tlecaque) is an associate professor of history at Grand View University.

Christians against Christian nationalism say the ideology distorts both American and Christian values

Kelsey Vlamis
Sun, September 4, 2022 

Christian nationalism has been embraced by some of former 

President Donald Trump's supporters.

Michael Arellano/Associated Press

Some GOP lawmakers are embracing Christian nationalism and dismissing critics as the "godless left."

Christians Against Christian Nationalism represents 27,000 Christians who have rejected the concept.

The organizer of the campaign told Insider Christian nationalism violates core Christian values.

Proponents of Christian nationalism have suggested those expressing concerns about the ideology are simply the "godless left," but tens of thousands of Christians maintain the concept directly defies the teachings of their faith.

Christian groups launched a campaign in 2019 aimed at denouncing Christian nationalism — the belief that the US and Christianity are intrinsically linked and therefore the religion should have a privileged position in American society and government.

Christians Against Christian Nationalism has since had more than 27,000 Christians of different denominations and political philosophies sign their statement of principles rejecting the concept. The principles include assertions like "one's religious affiliation, or lack thereof, should be irrelevant to one's standing in the civic community" and "government should not prefer one religion over another or religion over nonreligion."

"Many of our signers believe that pushing against Christian nationalism is essential not just for our democracy but also for the preservation of our faith," Amanda Tyler, the executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the lead organizer of the campaign, told Insider.

She said the effort was the result of growing concern over Christian nationalism becoming more violent, citing the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the 2019 mosque shootings in New Zealand. In both cases, the suspects espoused Christian nationalist ideas.

Despite dismissive claims made by supporters of the ideology, opponents of Christian nationalism say it violates core American and Christian values.

Violating two core Christian beliefs

There are numerous ways in which Christian nationalism defies Christianity, according to Tyler, but the most overt involves two of Jesus's most fundamental teachings: first, to love God above everything else, and second, to love your neighbor as yourself.

"Christian nationalism creates this false idol of power and leads us to confuse political authority with religious authority," Tyler said. "And in that way causes us to put our patriotism, our allegiance to America, above our allegiance to God."

Christian nationalists believe the US has a special relationship with God. This overlap of patriotism, politics, and Christianity was on full display at the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. Supporters of former President Donald Trump carried flags with messages like "Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president" and "Make America Godly Again."

Tyler said Christian nationalism "leads people to idolatry of the country over worship of God."

"One can be a patriot as I am. We can love God and we can love country at the same time, but if our patriotism causes us to sacrifice our theological conviction then it ceases to be patriotism. It becomes nationalism," she said.

Christian nationalists also believe that the government should declare the US a Christian nation, advocate for Christian values, and return prayer to public schools.

But these ideals "create this second-class status for our neighbors who aren't Christian," Tyler said — and sends the message that in order to be a true American you have to be a Christian.

"That causes harm to our neighbors who are not Christians, and also causes us to violate our call to love our neighbor," she said.

She added Christianity is also a global religion, so the Christian nationalist belief that God has a special plan for the US dismisses members of the faith around the world.

'Troubling' embrace of Christian nationalism

As for American values, the separation of church and state has long been considered a defining characteristic of religious freedom in the US. But recently some on the right, such as Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, have suggested that separation has been taken too far. Boebert went as far as to say "the church should be controlling the government."

Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has openly identified as a Christian nationalist and said the Republican party should be the party of Christian nationalism.

Though the concept is not new, Tyler said she was concerned with the way it's been increasingly embraced in recent months, noting she saw numerous instances of Christian nationalism at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month.

"It was always present but the fact that they're openly embracing the label is different and troubling," she said, adding: "Unfortunately I'm seeing this almost one-up game in some circles, who can be the bigger Christian nationalist."

Tyler said the overt support for the ideology makes it especially important for Christians to speak out against it to show that people of faith also view it as dangerous.

"We're at risk of normalizing Christian nationalism," she said. "It's even more incumbent on us to explain why that is un-American and a departure from Christian values as well."