(White) Christian Nationalism, WCN

The thought that Christians oversee and lead this country and that some form of their white nationalist belief system will forever dominate our politics is not new.  What is new is that the current Republican party believes that Christian Nationalism is something they can sell for profit to the general populace. 

While it is simple to admit that perhaps 65% of Americans identify as Christian, that also means that 35% of the country follows some other path.  I would also challenge that 65% number because they probably include me in their count.  I was born Catholic, attended Catholic schools through the fifth grade, and listed Catholic in my Navy records as “preferred.”  If you eliminate weddings, funerals, and tourism, I haven’t seen the inside of a church in many decades.

A 2020 Gallup poll found that only 47% of Americans regularly went to a church, synagogue, or mosque.  By that measurement, there aren’t that many practicing Christians, and some just use religion or the Bible when they need to make a point.

With all the current emphasis on “originalism” in interpreting the Constitution, it is puzzling that “freedom of religion” now means “Christian.”   Trump’s Christian Nationalism and his America First claims, like most things he came up with, were borrowed from another era, one of white supremacy. 

“America First” was originally used by the Ku Klux Klan at its zenith in the 1920s and then later appropriated by Trump, or more likely Steve Bannon as Trump never studied or understood history.  America First was originally associated with antisemitism and the preservation of the purity of the white race and was an easy sell to the same group of bigots, xenophobes, and racists.

The original adherents were grounded in anti-Semitic and pro-fascist rhetoric.  The term was adopted by Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith, a follower of Huey Long, who was more open with his expressions of racism and white supremacy than Mr. Long.  Smith founded the America First Party in 1943 and had previously started the Christian Nationalist Crusade during the Great Depression.

Within the current disciples of his holiness, Donald Trump, we find the head cheerleader of White Christian Nationalism, Marjorie Taylor Greene.  She is waving her pom poms of religiosity with a renewed fervor in support of the January 6 “patriots.”  While they don’t always use the “White” descriptor when identifying as Christian Nationalists, it is implied.  At the Capitol riot in 2021, mixed in with the regular MAGA cult and paramilitary cosplay boys, were others waving Christian banners with “Jesus Saves” and one group hoisted a large wooden cross.

In her book, Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, covers the last three-quarters of a century of white evangelicalism.  She describes the movement as one which is attempting to masculinize Jesus as a “spiritual badass.”  No “turn the other cheek” for this group, they want Rambo Jesus, not the kind forgiving one of the Bible.  We have all wondered what evangelical Christians saw in a twice-divorced and clearly corrupt racist who defied the very teachings of their proclaimed savior.  They see Trump’s authoritarian values aligned with their own.  They see a symbiotic relationship between his approach to militarism and American masculinity.

Rambo Jesus

There is a belief among adherents of Christian Nationalism that our country was founded as a Christian nation and that the United States is the new promised land.  The Bible, much like our Constitution, is easy to twist and interpret in clever ways to justify almost any position.  Ignored is the fact that among the writers of the Constitution and our many establishing documents were atheists, Unitarians, Deists, liberal Protestants, and several other belief systems.

It was pointed out in a CNN documentary that the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli negotiated with Libya by many of the original signers of our Constitution declared, “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on Christian religion.”  Ignored also by those claiming that we were founded on the principles of a Christian Bible is the fact that much of our advancement was made at the expense of Black slaves and the subjugation of the indigenous peoples of North America, hardly an espoused Christian value system.

The juxtaposition of evangelical Christians fighting against police officers with spears, clubs, and tear gas and mixing with the rest of the violent mob that fateful day, goes against what I recollect from my days in Catholic schools.  Before becoming a lapsed Catholic, I seem to remember a peaceful Jesus and not a racist thug.

The words of Steve Bannon regarding his conviction for ignoring his subpoena where he threatens to “go medieval” on his perceived enemies, fit with his Old Testament value system.  Or perhaps he sees himself as the Jesus of the Book of Revelation with fiery eyes and a “robe dipped in blood” leading his armies on white (of course they are white) horses in a final battle against the antichrist.

Book of Revelation

The White Christian Nationalist ideology believes it is threatened by misogyny and the mongrelization of the white race to its detriment.  Their new “holy trinity” is freedom, order, and violence where there is freedom for us, order for everyone else, and violence for transgressors.  They envision a nation led by native-born white Christians with all others serving them.  By wrapping themselves in the American flag and using the Bible as a weapon, they claim the moral high ground in all arguments.  Anyone who dares challenge them is not a patriot, not a Christian, or some combination.  They make a priori assumptions based on beliefs that are not founded on reason or knowledge.

This group ignores the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause which prohibits the government from establishing an official religion.  This clause also forbids the government from unduly favoring one religion over another.  Recent encroachments on this assumed prohibition can however be seen at both the state and federal levels of government.  This is where religious ideology is used as a foundation for Supreme Court decisions, state courts promoting Bible studies in public schools, and the posting of “In God We Trust” in public places.

Establishment Clause, First Amendment

There is a wink-wink, nudge-nudge acknowledgment using the term Christian Nationalism as a dog whistle for racist beliefs as the stigma of being openly racist has been a no-no since the Civil Rights Era.  The fact that American Nazis seem to gravitate to this same political group may be an attempt to provide some shade or favor for their more open fascist, anti-Semitic, and racist views.

We should be careful however to not paint all followers of our various religions with the same broad brush.  I have a close friend who is an evangelical Christian with none of the beliefs described above related to WCN.  Most people of faith that I know abhorred much of what has been advanced in the name of religion.  People who are true to their faiths do not abide by racial hatred or religious intolerance.  We are talking about the radical fringe using the cloak of religiosity to achieve their perceived superpower.