‘The Charge of a False Religion’

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Fellowship

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How prominent is “Christian = nationalism” becoming in the U.S.? Curtis Chang on t= he challenges for American Christians, and American democracy, from “= the secular god of politics.”

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Thomas Vitali

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(Originally published 2022 | 1= 2.13)

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“We need to be the p= arty of nationalism,” the U.S. Republican Congresswoman Marj= orie Taylor Greene told an interviewer earlier this year: “We should = be Christian nationalists.” Green is well known in America for her fa= r-right politics and extreme rhetoric—the Republican Senate Minority = Leader Mitch McConnell even once called her views a “cancer” fo= r their party—but the idea that the United States should be a “= Christian nation” appears to be moving further into mainstream Americ= an public opinion. There are cartoonish versions of this idea at play in th= e media, including Nick Fuentes’s—Fuentes is a white-supremacis= t influencer who recently made headlines for having dinner with Donald Trum= p and Kanye West—which is that America needs a dictatorship to enforc= e his vision of reactionary Catholicism. But Christian nationalism did moti= vate many of the Donald Trump supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on J= anuary 6, 2021. And according to recent polling from the Pew Research Cente= r, most American adults say their country was founded to be a “Christ= ian nation”—with 45 percent saying it should still be one. At t= he same time, Pew notes, “many supporters of Christian nationhood def= ine the concept in broad terms, as the idea that the country is guided by C= hristian values.” How are these movements in American Christianity sh= aping U.S. political life?

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Curtis Chang is t= he founder of the Evangelical organization Redeeming Babel, a senior fellow at Fuller Th= eological Seminary, and on the consulting faculty of the Duke Divinity Scho= ol. To Chang, most American Christians aren’t really Christian nation= alists—but it’s hard to make sense of what exactly they believe= altogether about their religion’s role in the public square. Chang s= ees a lot of confusion and contradiction in the views of American Christian= s, many of whom are receptive to illiberal rhetoric—and from there, t= o being taken in by political tribalism—not because they’re inh= erently illiberal, but because they’re just not experiencing any powe= rful alternative messages about how to live their faith in a way that&rsquo= ;s consistent with democracy and pluralism.

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Graham Vyse: How = do you understand the phenomenon of Christian nationalism in the U.S.?

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Curtis Chang: I u= nderstand the phenomenon of Christian nationalism in the U.S. as part of th= e broader phenomenon of nationalism we’ve seen rising globally—= in which a subset of a country’s population will try to claim that it= s beliefs, values, and politics ought to shape the entire country … = and that people who don’t share those beliefs, values, and politics s= hould be relegated to a subordinate status in the country, if not excluded = from it altogether. In this sense, nationalism contradicts the idea of plur= alism—the idea that each person can have a unique set of convictions = while coexisting with people who have different convictions.

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America’s Christian national= ists tend to have a narrow understanding of Christianity, which they associ= ate with the dominance of white, right-wing political power—and they = tend to be hostile to differing viewpoints, including left-wing, progressiv= e, or “woke” ideas. They tend to have a very binary, us-versus-them attitude= , based on the notion of opposing them, who are out to get us.= Frankly, it’s a very paranoid outlook.

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Vyse: And how wid= espread do you see this outlook being on the American right?

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Chang: It’s= a difficult question to answer. You might see public-opinion surveys askin= g self-identified Evangelical Christians whether they hold Christian-nation= alist views, but it’s often hard to know who in that group actually b= elieves in Evangelical theology, who attends church regularly, and who trea= ts being Evangelical as less of a spiritual or religious orientation and mo= re of a cultural or political orientation. We also know that the loudest vo= ices are often the most extreme—that’s as true on the left as i= t is on the right—and in that context, there’s an exhausted maj= ority of American Evangelicals that’s increasingly withdrawing from p= olitical engagement.

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I find it hard to make sense of Pe= w’s data showing that 45 percent of American adults think the U.S. sh= ould be a Christian nation but two-thirds of American adults say churches s= hould stay out of politics. I certainly believe that people with views like= Nick Fuentes’s are a small minority of the population, but when Dona= ld Trump elevates their voices, they can influence other people who’r= e trying to figure out what it means to be a Christian—or to have Chr= istian politics.

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Think about the phenomenon we saw with Covid vaccines= . Historically, vaccines haven’t been politicized in the U.S., an= d American Evangelicals have been in favor of them. Then Trump and others o= n the right sent the message that Republicans should be against vaccines, a= nd Evangelicals became the most vaccine-skeptical population in the world. = That demonstrated just how much the actions of national leaders—inclu= ding the messages they send about who Christians should be and what Christi= ans should do—can have a significant influence on the people at large= .

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Vyse: I sometimes= worry about overstating the influence of someone like Fuentes, who was a l= ittle-known figure before his dinner with Trump, and Greene, whose politics= are unusually extreme even within a Republican Party that tolerates a lot = of extremism. At the same time, as you point out, it’s undeniable tha= t Trump has elevated their voices. What role do you see them playing in sha= ping the Republican Party and public conversation about Christian nationali= sm?

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Chang: They&rsquo= ;re very influential, because they shape the boundaries of conversation. Vi= ews like Fuentes’s won’t be embraced in the mainstream of Repub= lican politics, but they will shift the boundaries of mainstream discussion= simply on account of being introduced into mainstream dialogue. In this wa= y, Trump and his allies have given seats at the table to extremists who wou= ldn’t have been mentioned a decade ago.

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Terren Hurst

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More from Curtis Chang at The = Signal:

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“Given the extent of= political polarization in America, many church leaders are now di= sincentivized from preaching about politics—desperately afraid their = words will be misinterpreted. Most Evangelical pastors avoid politics in or= der to try to hold their congregations together, but in doing so, they&rsqu= o;re ceding the ability to influence the minds of their congregations to Fo= x News and MSNBC—and even worse influences.”

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“If you’re in = progressive circles—including progressive Christian circles,= which I traffic in sometimes—you can see a dogmatic, inflexible, imp= ulse toward persecution. If you don’t always use the right pronouns o= r adhere to the progressive party line, you can be ousted in much the same = way you can be on the right. The Christian Left can be as prone to followin= g the secular god of politics as the Christian Right can.”

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“There’s a ver= y real, very strong impulse on the left toward banishing conservat= ive Evangelical Christian views from the public square. Conservatives aren&= rsquo;t making that up. This truth can be weaponized by extremists to fomen= t us-versus-them sentiments and conspiracy theories, but the core concern i= s entirely rooted in reality.”

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