Once understood to be a derogatory term, support for Christian Nationalism is continuing to gain support among right-leaning evangelicals, with a number of prominent voices advocating for a vision of America defined by a set of cultural and ideological values that comports with their faith tradition.
The shift in tone toward Christian nationalism began in the political arena, with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene leading the way in a marked turn toward appropriating the term in comments given at a conservative student conference in July. More recently, a similar shift has been taking place in evangelical church leadership circles.
For example, William Wolfe, who attends Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) and is a contributing writer for Liberty University’s Standing for Freedom Center (formerly the Falkirk Center), recently tweeted, “There is a Baptist case for a form of Christian nationalism, no doubt about it.”
SBTS president Dr. Al Mohler has also recently expressed that he is “not about to run from” being labeled a Christian nationalist by his critics.
In fact, a new book length argument for Christian Nationalism is set to be released on November 1. “The Case for Christian Nationalism,” authored by Stephen Wolfe (PhD) and published by Canon Press, seeks to show “that the world’s post-war consensus has successfully routed the United States towards a gynocratic Global American Empire (GAE). Rather than the religious right’s golden calf, Christian nationalism is the idea that people in the same place and culture should live together and seek one another’s good.”
Wolfe, who has been promoting the upcoming release of his book, has also been active on Twitter to discuss some of the arguments it contains.
Discussions about Christian nationalism have often intersected with the topics of race and gender, as a number of sociologists and historians have drawn connections between Christian nationalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.
In a video clip of a presentation that recently began circulating online, sociologist Samuel Perry (PhD) argued that Christian nationalism is inextricably tied to race, saying, “We are actually moving, as a discipline, to try and refer to White Christian nationalism rather than just blanket Christian nationalism.”
“Religion in the United States is fundamentally racialized,” Perry went on to say. “It’s shaped by our racial identity, and it’s shaped by our racial experiences, and our status in that social structure that we call race.”
Perry then presented data indicating that the more White Americans identify with Christian nationalists ideals, the more likely they are to believe that White Americans are the most discriminated against group in the nation. This was not the case in any significant way for Black Americans who identified strongly with Christian nationalist ideals.
Though some commented with accusations that Perry had visually manipulated the data to make these correlations appear more statistically significant, Perry told ChurchLeaders, “Actually what I was showing was a pretty straightforward interaction relationship. No manipulation going on.”
“As white Americans more strongly affirm Christian nationalist views, they clearly respond to questions about racial inequality, authoritarian violence, and democratic participation differently than, say, African Americans,” Perry said. “That isn’t to say Christian nationalism never operates similarly for Black and White Americans. But Christian nationalist language taps into some different feelings for white Americans than it does for Blacks, and this shows up in multiple data sets across multiple measures.”