Christian nationalism gains ground
Conservative notion misreads founders’ intent, historians say
The U.S. Constitution doesn’t mention Christianity or any specific religion. The Declaration of Independence famously proclaims that people’s rights come from a “Creator” and “Nature’s God” — but doesn’t specify who that is.
Yet large numbers of Americans believe the founders intended the U.S. to be a Christian nation, and many believe it should be.
Such views are especially strong among Republicans and their white evangelical base. Already such views are being voiced by supporters of Donald Trump amid his bid to recapture the presidency.
The idea of a Christian America means different things to different people. Pollsters have found a wide circle of Americans who hold general God-and-country sentiments.
But within that is a smaller, hardcore group of people who also check other boxes in surveys — such as that the U.S. Constitution was inspired by God and that the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation, advocate Christian values or stop enforcing the separation of church and state.
Those embracing that package of beliefs are more likely to have unfavorable views toward immigrants, dismiss or downplay the impact of anti-Black discrimination and believe Trump was a good or great president, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey.
This latter group reflects a movement widely called Christian nationalism, which fuses American and Christian values, symbols and identity and seeks to
Former President Donald Trump speaks June 24 during the Faith & Freedom Coalition Policy Conference in Washington. privilege Christianity in public life.
The idea of Christian nationhood fills Americans’ need for an origin story, a belief that “we’ve come here for something special, and that we’re here for God’s work,” said Eric McDaniel, an associate professor of government at the University of Texas.
It creates a sense of “national innocence,” so adherents resist confronting the uglier parts of U.S. history, he said.
The belief connects to other beliefs past and present, from the Manifest Destiny doctrine that justified continental conquest to Trump’s “America first” and “Make America great again” slogans, said McDaniel, a co-author of “The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics.”
Trump has echoed some of these ideas, vowing to bar immigrants who “don’t like our religion.”
Many conservatives and Republicans embrace the idea of Christian national origins, even as many reject the “Christian nationalist” label.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has proclaimed that America is and was founded as a Christian nation and that Thomas Jefferson was “divinely inspired” in writing the Declaration of Independence, according to a 2015 sermon that drew wider attention with his election as speaker.
WallBuilders, an organization Johnson credits for its “profound influence” on him, has spread materials claiming that “revisionist” historians have downplayed America’s Christian origins, but the group has been criticized for historically dubious claims.
A lawsuit on its behalf is challenging the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s refusal to run its bus ads touting the purported beliefs of founders.
Vocal
Trump supporters of have described current politics as spiritual warfare for the destiny of a country that former Trump aide Steve Bannon described as the “New Jerusalem” and conservative activist Charlie Kirk said was founded by “courageous Bible-believing Christians.”
Recent Texas, Oklahoma and Kentucky Republican Party platforms proclaim the country was founded on “Judeo-Christian” principles.
The Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, said he doesn’t identify as a Christian nationalist, but does believe America was founded as a Christian nation.
“I’m not claiming that all of our founders were Christians,” he said in an interview. “Some were deists, some were atheists, but the majority were Christians. I’m also not saying that nonChristians shouldn’t have the same rights as Christians in our country.”
But he said “there’s a case to be made that the Judeo-Christian faith was the foundation for our laws and many of our principles.”
He cited founder John Jay — the first Supreme Court chief justice — asserting it was Americans’ duty “in our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”
Jeffress said he doesn’t believe America is privileged by God but, as with any nation, “God will continue to bless America to the extent that we follow him.”
Anthea Butler, chair of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said history precludes any idea of a Christian nation.
“It doesn’t mean that Christians weren’t a part of the founding of this nation,” said Butler, a historian of African American and American religion. “What it does mean is that if you believe that America is a Christian nation and you happen to subscribe to Christian nationalism as a part of that, you’re buying into a myth.”
That idea of America as a
Christian nation is a “trope of exclusion,” she said, centering American history on white Anglo-Saxon Protestants as “the ones that are willing and should be running the country both then and now.”
That justifies viewing others as “heathens,” including enslaved Black people and Native Americans whose land was being taken.
Those arguing for a Christian America are generally not historians and not really talking about history — they’re talking politics, said John Fea, author of the 2011 book “Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?”
“They appeal to a false view of the founding, or at least a partial view of the founding, to advance political agendas of the present,” said Fea, a history professor at Messiah University, a Christian university in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. “These agendas are built on a very weak historical foundation.”