Most of what is written about Christian nationalism is silly. Critics and analysts sweepingly deride conventional Christian conservatives as Christian nationalists. By some counts, there are, by this definition, tens of millions of Christian nationalists. Sometimes even civil religion, with its homage to a vague deity, is labeled Christian nationalism. If so, all presidents from George Washington to Joe Biden are Christian nationalists.
Sometimes the target of these critics of Christian nationalism are folk religionists who conflate God and country. They sometimes sport paraphernalia with American flags draped around the cross. These folk religionists typically aren’t aware they are Christian nationalists. They don’t publish articles, much less books. And they typically don’t have articulated policy agendas, just an attitude that God and country should be interchangeably honored.
But, in a somewhat new movement of thought leaders, some more intellectual Christians do consciously self-identify as Christian nationalists. Media coverage typically fails carefully to distinguish them from more traditional Christian conservatives. The self-identified Christian nationalists have an agenda that fulfills the worst nightmares of many secular progressives. They are useful for progressive media to spotlight. But these self-identified Christians nationalists also are commanding greater attention among some especially young Christian conservatives who despair over current cultural trends hostile to traditional Christianity. So, they do merit serious attention.
Christian nationalists are distinct from conventional Christian conservatives in several important ways. The former are typically post-liberals who want some level of explicit state established Christianity. The latter have been and largely still are classical liberals who affirm traditional American concepts of full religious liberty for all, with limited government. Both groups want a “Christian America.” But the former want it by statute. The latter see it as mainly a demographic, historical and cultural reality, or, at least, an aspiration.
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Mark Tooley became president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) in 2009. He joined IRD in 1994 to found its United Methodist committee (UMAction). He is also editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence.