Is Christian nationalism really Christian?

Many today wonder what Christian nationalism is and if it’s truly Christian. While it is a rather amorphous movement, it’s fair to say that Christian nationalism in America is a cultural framework and political ideology that shape attitudes and behavior with five basic tenets:

America is a Christian nation, divinely appointed by God.
America’s founders established it on Christian principles, with white men as its leaders.
Blacks, Browns, Indigenous Americans, etc. must accept this narrative and submit to their leadership.
Biblically, America has a special place in world history related to the return of Christ.
There is no separation between church and state.[1]

These tenets are plainly built on a false narrative, one we must correct. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion,” says Senator Daniel Moynihan, “but not their own facts.” And the fact is that the American Constitution doesn’t mention God, Jesus, Christianity, the Bible, or the Ten Commandments. While many of America’s founders were Christians who wanted their religion to be a stabilizing factor in the nation, there was never any agreement on the part of the founders to make America a Christian nation. And Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, two of the key founding fathers, were deists strongly committed to the separation of church and state. They specifically ensured that America had no state religion.

However, many of America’s founders were slave owners, and white Christian nationalism played a huge part in justifying the enslavement of millions of African slaves. Not everyone was happy with the separation of church and state either. By the 1940s most states either required or allowed daily recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools. And in the 1950s “In God We Trust” was added to all American money and “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance. But in 1962 a series of Supreme Court decisions basically banned mandatory recitation of the Lord’s prayer in public schools.[2] So, there’s been tension over how Christian America would be, with pluralism increasingly prevailing.

America’s secularization has increased since the 1960s. Statistics plainly show that church attendance in America is now at an all-time low, with 31% of American adults attending church weekly in 2019, down from nearly 50% in the 1950s.[3] According to Ryan Burge, 39% of self-proclaimed evangelicals attend church once a year or less in 2020.[3a] Also, non-white Americans have been the majority for over a decade. Nevertheless, fueled by disinformation, Christian nationalists meld Christian identity with white American identity, boldly claiming that they’re going to “take back America for God” from the supposed “minority” of godless secularists who have wrested control of it from believers. Today 45% of Republicans and over 50% of evangelicals consider themselves Christian nationalists.

Glad to exploit their support to remain in power, President Donald Trump elicited the blessing of Christian nationalists. Despite his depraved lifestyle, he was and remains willing to say anything to tickle their ears—for example, “We are Americans, and Americans kneel to God and God alone.”[4] While Vice President Pence lives a very different life from that of Donald Trump, Pence did all he could to cement President Trump’s connection with Christian nationalists. As a result, many leaders of the independent Pentecostal tradition prophesied that Trump would be re-elected in 2020.[5]. In the weeks leading up to the January 6 riot, Christian nationalist and Donald Trump’s one-time security adviser Michael Flynn worked tirelessly to make the insurrection a success.[6] Christian nationalists played a significant role in the breaching of the US Capitol, and they play an increasingly key role in Republican politics, arguing that white Christians are being persecuted and must take their country back.

Despite white Christian nationalists’ insistence to the contrary, their militant commitment to an idealized white version of America’s founding narrative distorts the Gospel beyond recognition. They ultimately worship political power and are prepared to use any means necessary to achieve their goals. Those means include such things as

Fear-mongering, promoting disinformation that sows division, and lying about election results
Marginalizing Black, Brown, and other non-white minorities especially by suppressing their right to vote
Rejecting the Constitution as illegitimate to the degree that it thwarts their lust for power
Using extreme and violent rhetoric to stoke hostility toward anyone resisting their agenda
Engaging in physical violence to overthrow any leaders they consider illegitimate

But with no sound basis—either historical or biblical—for its key claims, America’s Christian nationalism is wrong on all counts:

America is NOT a Christian nation, divinely appointed by God.
America’s founders did NOT establish it on Christian principles.
NO ethnic group should have to submit to their distorted narrative and their ill-informed leadership.
Biblically, America has NO special place in world history related to the return of Christ.
Biblically, church and state are clearly SEPARATE.

To be clear, white Christian nationalism is not synonymous with conservative Christianity: you can be a conservative Christian angry about things the political left is doing without being a Christian nationalist. Neither should Christians set their moral principles aside when entering the political arena. No one leaves their moral principles aside when engaging in politics. Neither is it that patriotism per se is wrong, but patriotism that swallows up and spits out the Gospel has no place in the life of a follower of Jesus. Hence, Christian nationalism is not Christian at all. It merely hides its evils behind empty claims of devotion to Christianity, as the Klu Klux Klan has always done.

According to the gospel, Jesus could have marshalled heaven’s armies to destroy all those who opposed him if he’d wanted to. But instead, he renounced violence in the name of religion, calling his followers to “turn the other cheek” when attacked (Mt. 5:38-42; 26:51-53). And he died willingly at the hands of an angry mob, proving his commitment to love those he opposed. He didn’t advocate ceding the public sphere to others, but he insisted that his followers put his kingdom first and live pure and honorable lives (Mt. 6:33; 11:28-30). His kingdom is not to be confused with America, and his approach is entirely compatible with Western pluralism.

Many non-Christians struggle to understand how America’s evangelical Christians can be so strongly committed to Donald Trump, a man now convicted of both fraud and sexual abuse. The sad fact is that most of the evangelicals who voted to return Trump to the Oval Office worship the same idol he does: political power at any cost. They’re in such agreement with him there that they’re willing to reinterpret any biblical teaching necessary to make their marriage of convenience with the former president work. And they don’t see that, by promoting violence as a means of taking power, Trump put them on the same path Hitler put Germany’s Christians on in the 1930s.

But Jesus calls us to stand up to hate. He said those who don’t do what he commands us to do will come to him on the judgment day, crying, “Master, Master, we prophesied in your name, didn’t we? We cast out demons in your name! We performed lots of powerful deeds in your name!” But because they paid only lip service to his teachings, he’ll reply, “I never knew you! Go away from me, you evildoers.” (Mt. 7:22-24)

As a Canadian, I experienced militant white Christian nationalism firsthand while attending college in the United States. Ironically, I’m encountering it again now in Canada as evangelicals swept along by American Christian nationalist rhetoric do their best to transpose into a Canadian version of Christian nationalism. Christian nationalists in Canada have been very active in protesting the government’s COVID mandates. Some protesters in the convoy protest that paralyzed Ottawa’s Parliament Hill and Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge, Canada’s main trade route to America, were Christian nationalists. Those sieges were also partly funded by American Christian nationalists.[7]

Canadians, however, have no more biblical basis than Americans for viewing their nation as especially appointed by God to fulfill his purposes. And historically speaking, Canada has an even shakier claim to being a Christian nation than America does.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZukWuT9lcA Accessed Nov. 7, 2023.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_prayer_in_the_United_States Accessed Nov. 8, 2023.

[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/pf_10-17-19_rdd_update-00-012/ and https://today.usc.edu/the-1950s-powerful-years-for-religion/ Accessed Nov. 8, 2023.

[3a] https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1380184604066332673 Accessed Nov. 11, 2023.

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZukWuT9lcA Accessed Nov. 7, 2023.

[5] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/02/18/how-christian-prophets-give-credence-to-trumps-election-fantasies-469598 Accessed Nov. 8, 2023.

[6] https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/08/politics/michael-flynn-trump-what-matters/index.html Accessed Nov. 8, 2023.

[7] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/07/canada-protesters-fundraising-platform/ Accessed Nov. 9, 2023.