While Trump has long forwarded immigration policy proposals his critics have condemned as anti-immigrant or inhumane, his reasoning has not heretofore been explicitly tied to Christian nationalism. But Vought’s thinking may provide a religious justification for Trump’s policies: In an April 2021 editorial for Newsweek titled “Is There Anything Actually Wrong With ‘Christian Nationalism?,’” Vought wrote, “ … Once stripped of its superimposed liberal scar tissue, ‘Christian nationalism’ is actually a rather benign and useful description for those who believe in both preserving our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage and making public policy decisions that are best for this country.”
The piece defended nationalism as an effort to preserve “the cohesiveness of a particular people and a cultural inheritance,” and Christian nationalism as an “orientation for engaging in the public square that recognizes America as a Christian nation, where our rights and duties are understood to come from God and where our primary responsibilities as citizens are for building and preserving the strength, prosperity and health of our own country.”
According to Politico, Vought recently defended the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant families at the border that was overwhelmingly condemned by religious groups.
Whether or not Vought’s think tank has a policy prescription for introducing Christian nationalism, he has signaled enthusiastic support for the general concept. On a podcast episode hosted by U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee in October, Vought said: “The first priority of our organization is to regain a notion in this country, a consensus, that we’re not a secular country. We are a Christian nation, as founded, and that should be shared by everyone — even if they have religious liberty for another faith.”
A month earlier on a podcast hosted by Founders Ministries, Vought said the United States “has to obey God, and there is only one true God — and that is Jesus Christ our Lord.”
This article originally appeared here.
