American Christian Nationalism

Examining the threat it poses to the entire country

Christian nationalists pose a grave threat to the future of both the United States and the future of the human species. If that sounds dramatic to you, consider the following:

“GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Donald Trump loyalist from Georgia, told an interviewer on July 23, 2022, that the Republican Party ‘need[s] to be the party of nationalism. And I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.’

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Similarly, Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado, recently said, “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church.’ Boebert called the separation of church and state ‘junk.’

Many Christian nationalists repeat conservative activist David Barton’s argument that the Founding Fathers did not intend to keep religion out of government.”¹ If you want to understand what happens when religious fundamentalists get a hold of too much power, look at Afghanistan as an example.

Religious liberty is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, yet the meaning of this core American value has been debated throughout the nation’s history. Today, conflicts most often arise from Christian nationalism, the anti-democratic notion that America is a nation by and for Christians alone. At its core, this idea threatens the principle of the separation of church and state and undermines the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It also leads to discrimination, and at times violence, against religious minorities and the nonreligious. Christian nationalism is also a contributing ideology in the religious right’s misuse of religious liberty as a rationale for circumventing laws and regulations aimed at protecting a pluralistic democracy, such as nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQI+ people, women, and religious minorities. These issues will only draw more attention in the years ahead, since the 6-3 conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court appears eager to hear more religious liberty cases advancing Christian nationalist arguments than in previous years.²

Religious fundamentalism retards progress in scientific discoveries, individual freedoms, social equity, and human rights. The link between the American Taliban and Donald Trump’s cult of personality is clear. There is also a clear link between white supremacist beliefs and the priorities of Christian nationalists. Christian nationalists want control over sexual agency, women’s reproduction, the language we speak, and of course, government powers at every level.³

All of this, in their views, is a mandate from an invisible being that created reality. This being comes in three parts: A father in some unfathomable form, a human son who was murdered because the father wanted it that way, and who rose from the dead and will someday return from another plane of reality to gather up his followers. Everyone else will be severely punished and eventually burn up for eternity but never die. Just suffer forever. It would be laughable if there weren’t ten of millions of Americans subscribing to such lunacy. These tens of millions are deeply enmeshed in a form of tribalism that dehumanizes and discards the value of anyone not in the tribe.

This makes Christian nationalists predisposed to violence against those who resist their agenda for the country. Christian nationalists tend to be conspiracy theorists and climate change deniers. They scream about freedom of choice when it comes to vaccines but don’t want to have complete control over all the uteruses in the land. Trump and his cultists packed the Supreme Court with “justices” interested in hearing pro-Christian nationalist arguments and furthering their agenda. It is up to activists interested in stopping this movement to get involved and get others involved.

1. https://theconversation.com/after-trump-christian-nationalist-ideas-are-going-mainstream-despite-a-history-of-violence-188055

2. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/christian-nationalism-is-single-biggest-threat-to-americas-religious-freedom/

3. https://ctmirror.org/2022/06/27/roe-v-wade-and-the-american-taliban/