PARTNER PERSPECTIVE
The Right’s Embrace of White Christian Nationalism
PHILIP GORSKI, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Sociology, Yale University
Until recently, the term “Christian nationalism” (CN) was rarely heard outside of academic circles. That changed after Trump’s failed coup attempt. In the days and months following January 6, 2021, CN entered the public debate. It made its first appearance in national newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and The New Yorker. Some religious and political leaders then began to openly embrace the label. Now, some far-right “thought leaders” are writing books and essays “making the case for CN.” The rhetoric and rituals of CN have also become a common feature of MAGA extremism.
Just what is “Christian nationalism?” In our recent book, The Flag and the Cross, Sam Perry and I offer two definitions: “deep story” and “political vision.” The deep story of CN is a mythological version of American history. It runs roughly as follows: “America was founded as a Christian nation; the founders were traditional Christians; the founding documents are based on Biblical principles; America has a special role to play in history; it has therefore been blessed with enormous power and prosperity; however, those blessings and those missions are endangered by the presence of non-whites, non-Christians, and non-native born people on American soil.” The deep story is deeply rooted in conservative Christianity. It features in Christian history and government textbooks used by Christian schools and Christian homeschoolers. And it is actively promoted by a CN industrial complex that produces books, movies and events.
The deep story about America’s past undergirds a political vision of its future, a future in which white American Christians are the dominant group (again). In The Flag and the Cross and elsewhere, Perry and I show that CN is powerfully associated with various political positions including: opposition to immigration, abortion, gun control, and mask-wearing and support for punitive policing, mass incarceration, capital punishment, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and—as should be obvious by now—support for Donald Trump. An earlier book by Sam Perry and Andrew Whitehead, Taking America Back for God, revealed that somewhere nearly half of the American population embraces CN to some degree, while somewhere between 20 and 25% do so strongly. The latter group includes nearly 80% of white evangelicals and also nearly half of white Catholics and non-evangelical white Protestants. Recent polls released by Pew and 538 have strongly confirmed these findings. CN is not a “fringe” phenomenon. Nor is it just a Christian phenomenon. Paradoxical as it may seem, many non-Christians and non-believers also embrace CN. It has become a core element of contemporary conservatism.
CN is also a racial ideology. This is why Perry and I refer to it as white Christian nationalism (WCN). As we show in The Flag and the Cross, CN first crystallized during the late 1600s. This was a period of brutal warfare between the English colonists and the native peoples. WCN provided a theological justification for seizing native lands and exterminating indigenous people. New England was to the colonists what Israel was to ancient Jews: a Promised Land. It was their right and their duty to seize it, by any means necessary. This was also the period when “Black” came to mean “slave” and vice versa. WCN also provided a justification for racial slavery. Africans were the descendants of Hamm, whom God had condemned to eternal bondage. From the beginning, then, CN was entangled with white supremacism.
But that is all in the distant past. Is WCN still a racist ideology? Yes. Amongst American whites, CN is statistically correlated with measures of anti-black animus and white grievance. For example, the more strongly respondents embrace WCN the more likely they are to oppose interracial marriage and adoption, and the more likely they are to believe that whites are subject to racial discrimination.
WCN is also a patriarchal ideology. It always has been. Like any story, the deep story has its protagonist. Usually, it is a straight, white, conservative, Christian man. His credo is “freedom, order and violence.” Which is to say his freedom, order for everyone else, and “righteous” violence for anyone who steps out of line. In The Flag and the Cross, we refer to this as the “holy trinity” of WCN. It may not sound particularly “Christian.” But as the historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez points out, Christian conservatives couldn’t make John Wayne into Jesus, so they made Jesus into John Wayne, a freedom-loving, “politically incorrect” tough guy.
How does WCN shape the policy goals of the American Right today? It is often said that the contemporary Republican Party has no policy platform because it has devolved into a cult of personality devoted to Donald Trump. This is an exaggeration. In practice, the MAGA GOP remains just as devoted to the material interests of the “donor class” as ever (e.g., lowering taxes, cutting spending, and deregulating the economy). For “the base”, as ever, there are circuses: anti-trans bathroom bills, mask protests, and anti-critical race theory (CRT) legislation, to name a few recent examples. And, joining them together, the more serious business of rigging the vote and implementing minority rule.
At first glance, this may seem like a grab-bag of issues. What holds them together—the bag if you will—is WCN. “Transgenderism” threatens heteronormative masculinity. Masks threaten “freedom.” CRT—which is to say: any mention of racial injustice—undercuts the heroic role of the white man in the deep story. And voter suppression and gerrymandering are just so many means of making sure that the vote belongs to “real Americans.”