Book Excerpt: ‘Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism?’ By Dr. Mark David Hall
Mark David Hall’s new book, “Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church,” shows definitively that American Christian nationalism does not, as its critics claim, pose “an existential threat to American democracy and the Christian church in the United States.” As well, it critiques the handful of Americans who advocate for Christian nationalism. The book shines light on a debate characterized by unfounded claims, rhetorical excesses, and fear-mongering. Here’s an excerpt:
On January 6, 2021, I was flying home from a speaking engagement. During a layover, I received an email from a freelance journalist who was writing a story for Sojourners about “Christian imagery used by the protesters who stormed the Capitol building today.” She sent me five images to review, two that were not from the Capitol Hill riot (they were from around the Washington Monument, which is 1.5 miles from the Capitol), two from the riot that featured the same Revolutionary era flag, and the now infamous photo of a Goth with skeletal hands holding a Bible.
During the layover, I examined video of the attack and numerous photographs. Trump flags, MAGA hats, and American flags were everywhere, but I could find precious few Christian symbols. I cautioned the reporter that she should be careful not to make too much of the few images she had sent me. She ignored my warning and published an article about how Christian nationalists had attacked the Capitol. It featured three photographs containing religious images and words, none of which were from the assault on the Capitol. Similar stories could be found in various outlets throughout the nation.
READ: Christian Nationalism Fuels Book Revenues
Although I had written a great deal about Christianity in the American founding, religious liberty, and church-state relations, I had read little about Christian nationalism per se. My experience on January 6 prompted me to read every book and academic article I could find on the phenomenon, and I was shocked at what I found. The vast majority of these works are polemical in nature and contain little evidence to support the authors’ assertions. The academic literature regularly cited and praised the polemical literature, and most of it was flawed in obvious ways. If these books and articles were merely on an obscure historical or sociological matter, I may well have ignored them. But it soon became evident that many authors hoped their work would make it seem illegitimate for conservative Christians to bring their faith into the public square.
I wrote Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism because I believe all people of faith — including conservative Christians—are free to advocate for laws and policies that they believe will promote human flourishing. They don’t lose this right if their views are shaped by their religious convictions. As well, I wrote it out of concern that the rhetorical excesses among both the critics and the handful of advocates of Christian nationalism are doing profound harm to American civil discourse. Christian nationalism exists and it is problematic, but it is simply not the case that, in Bradley Onishi’s words, “[m]any Christian nationalists are a clear and present danger to the United States of America. They are homegrown radicals who prioritize White Christian supremacy over multiracial democracy.” Nor is it helpful to call one’s fellow citizens “Nazis” or “fascists” as Onishi and his fellow critics are wont to do.
Book cover image courtesy of Fidelis Books
Christian Nationalism: A Brief Introduction
Christian nationalism, as described by its opponents, is an ugly phenomenon. In the words of the sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry, it is “an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of American civic life with a particular type of Christian identity and culture” that:
Includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism. It is as ethnic and political as it is religious. Understood in this light, Christian nationalism contends that America has been and should always be distinctively “Christian” … from top to bottom — in its self-identity, interpretations of its own history, sacred symbols, cherished values, and public policies—and it aims to keep it this way.
Until 2022, almost no one American called himself or herself a Christian nationalist or advocated for Christian nationalism. Nevertheless, beginning in 2006, critics published a steady stream of books identifying its advocates as, among other things, seeking to codify “Christian privilege in the law, favoring Christians above others [and] disfavor[ing] the non-religious, non-Christians, and minorities.” The steady stream became a river with the election of Donald Trump, whom the journalist Juan Williams has called “the leader of a white, Christian nationalist movement.” The river became a flood with the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was, according to the sociologist Samuel Perry, “as Christian nationalist as it gets.”
The reporter for Sojourners crafted her narrative before she saw much evidence, but that doesn’t mean evidence didn’t exist. Andrew Seidel provides additional evidence in a report entitled “Christian Nationalism and the January 6, 2021 Insurrection.” The vast majority of the symbols and language he documents are not taken from the January 6 riot, and he is not above unsubstantiated exaggerations — e.g., “the Christian flag was everywhere on January 6.” As evidence of the last claim, Seidel provides a link to a Tweet that he wrote that includes a picture of the Christian flag in the Senate chamber. One Christian flag among the rioters is one too many, but the presence of one flag does not mean Christian flags were “everywhere.” Nowhere in the two essays he wrote for this report does he acknowledge that most of the symbols among the rioters were MAGA hats, Trump flags, and American flags. By my count, the rioters had twice as many Confederate flags (2) as they did Christian flags. And there were a host of “far right symbols” that have no obvious connection to the Christian faith.
Seidel’s Christian nationalism report was co-sponsored by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Both organizations believe that church and state must be strictly separated and that religion must be scrubbed from the public square. For instance, the BJC contended that a cross erected in 1925 to memorialize soldiers who lost their lives in the First World War was unconstitutional, an argument the Supreme Court rejected by a vote of 7-2. Similarly, the FFRF objected to the inclusion of the Star of David in Ohio’s Holocaust and Liberators Memorial.
Andrew Seidel, then of the FFRF and now vice president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Amanda Tyler of the BJC are, like most critics of Christian nationalism, progressive activists dedicated to the strict separation of church and state. Indeed, most critics of Christian nationalism are secularists bent on making it seem illegitimate for Christians to bring their faith into the public square to advocate for conservative causes. Charges of “Christian nationalism” often amount to little more than the idea that Christians are arguing for laws and policies disfavored by critics. Thus, this literature portrays Christians fighting to end abortion or defending religious liberty as scary Christian nationalists, but considers Christians motivated by their faith to pursue civil rights legislation to be laudable political activists.
According to a 2024 Pew study, 54% of Americans haven’t even heard of the phrase “Christian nationalism.” Only 5% of the American population has a favorable view of it, whereas 25% has an unfavorable view (figures virtually unchanged since 2022). It would seem, then, that Christian nationalists are a rare breed. Not so fast, explain the sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry, authors of the definition of Christian nationalism quoted above. According to them, 51.9% of Americans fully or partially embrace the toxic ideology they call Christian nationalism. If this were in fact the case, this finding would be terrifying. Fortunately, there are excellent reasons to doubt their conclusion.
Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism?
In Cervantes’ great novel, Don Quixote, a would-be knight roams the land looking for wrongs to right. Early in his adventures, Quixote comes across 30 or 40 windmills which he perceives to be evil giants. Ignoring the warnings of his clear-headed squire Sancho Panza, Don Quixote jousts with the windmills and is quickly defeated. After the novel was published, the phrase “tilting at windmills” became widely used to refer to would-be heroes who attack figments of their imaginations. My forthcoming book, Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism?, contends that critics of Christian nationalism are (mostly) well-meaning knights attacking evils of their own invention.
A partial exception to my claim that these knights are “well-meaning” are authors such as Katherine Stewart, Andrew Seidel, Sarah Posner, Bradley Onishi, Carolyn Baker, and others who have written polemical attacks on Christian nationalism. Their works rely more on rhetoric than arguments, and when they provide evidence, they often make erroneous or overstated claims based on it. Among their most outlandish claims are that Rousas Rushdoony had tremendous influence (don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of him, almost no one has), that the religious right was founded to defend “racially segregated evangelical schools,” and that the current Supreme Court has been taken over by white Christian nationalists (who apparently count among their number Elana Kagan, Stephen Breyer, and Clarence Thomas!). I debunk these and other claims made by what I call the polemical authors.
Academic critics of Christian nationalism such as Samuel Perry, Andrew Whitehead, and Philip Gorski rely far too uncritically on the polemical critics, and they all err by conflating support for Christian nationalism with opposition to a high wall of separation between church and state. I would like to think that their works were not motivated by a political agenda, but sometimes their implicit biases come through. For instance, Whitehead and Perry explain that pro-life Americans are really committed to “male authority over women’s bodies” and that those who believe religious liberty means “something more than freedom to worship” are bigots. In my book I offer numerous reasons to doubt their findings, most notably that 51.9% of Americans fully or partially embrace the toxic stew that Whitehead and Perry call Christian nationalism.
Almost no American claimed to be a Christian nationalist until the summer of 2022 when Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene embraced the label. Shortly thereafter, Douglas Wilson, the provocative pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, argued that the concept is “salvageable.” The fall of 2022 saw the publication of short book advocating Christian nationalism, Andrew Torba and Andrew Isker’s Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide for Taking Dominion and Discipling Nations (endorsed by Doug Wilson) and Stephen Wolfe’s The Case of Christian Nationalism (published by Canon Press, a press closely associated with Wilson, who also endorsed it).
The emergence of Americans actually claiming to be Christian nationalists was a gift to the critics of Christian nationalism. Here, finally, was evidence of theocratic movement bent on taking over America for Christ. Unfortunately for the critics, if one bothers to read these works it becomes evident that they will be of interest only to a handful of idiosyncratic Calvinists who are not interested in the United States as a nation. Even so, because of the attention these works have received, I engage them and argue that no one should embrace this version of Christian nationalism.
After explaining why much of the literature on Christian nationalism is flawed, I offer my own definition of the phenomenon. I argue that in the United States, Christian nationalism is best understood as the view that the country was founded as a Christian nation and, consequently, that governments should protect and promote Christianity in special ways. Christian nationalists usually believe that other faiths should be tolerated, but that the national government does not need to treat all religions equally. I show that approximately 21% of Americans are reasonably called Christian nationalists. Only about half of these nationalists are active, pious Christians. Unlike the “Christian nationalism” of the critics, this ideology does not pose an existential threat to America’s constitutional order or the Christian church. Nevertheless, it is problematic, and I offer prudential and constitutional reasons for rejecting it.
I conclude Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism? by offering biblical and theological reasons for rejecting Christian nationalism in all of its forms. But I also argue that it is appropriate for Christians to be patriotic and to bring our faith into the public square. I offer some thoughts as to why and how we should do so. Among other things, I contend that we must engage in politics with humility, and we should always focus on advancing human flourishing for all Americans. Contrary to the desires of Christian nationalists, we must insist that the religious liberty of all citizens—Christians and non-Christians alike—be robustly protected and that Christianity not be favored above other faiths.
Christian nationalism exists and it is problematic, but it does not pose an “existential threat to American democracy and the Christian church in the United States” as far too many critics claim. Once we grasp this reality, we can hopefully move beyond labeling people and have a more informed and civil debate about the important issues of our day.
Mark David Hall is a professor at Regent University’s Robertson School of Government. He is the author if “Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism? Why Christian Nationalism Is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church” (Fidelis Books), from which this essay is excerpted. It is for sale now online and wherever books are sold.