A Foundation Built on LIES: Christian Nationalism is dangerous bunk

Christian Nationalism is based on falsehoods. It is based on falsehoods of many kinds. My main interest in this post is to point out the falsehoods propagated by proponents of Christian Nationalism regarding Church/State Separation—including the history, philosophical justifications, and legal status of Church/State Separation. It is easy to show that their claims on this topic are wrong, so it is the obvious point of attack, not to mention the fact it is the most important one from the point of view of the general US public.

Some of Christian Nationalism’s other lies are about Christianity itself, and those I am happy to leave to others to call out. Since I’m not a Christian or a theologian, I am not typically going to tell Christians how to interpret their own doctrine. But I do insist, as Chrissy Stroop, Andrew Seidel and others have argued, that Christian Nationalism is a Christian problem: The “those are not real Christians” attempt to dodge responsibility does not work. Christian Nationalists claim Christianity, claim they have the correct/only interpretation of the religion, claim they are acting in the Christian God’s name to create a Christian extremist theocracy. It is ugly, so I understand the desire of less extreme Christians to say, “That’s not us.” Its ugliness is precisely why Christians need to engage with it. No one is better placed to defeat Christian Nationalism than Christians—Christians have the numbers, access, leverage, internal credibility/authority, and best reasons to defeat Christian Nationalism. As with any doctrinal controversy, the theological battle, and the battle for the hearts and minds of followers, are internal matters. That is why the Christians Against Christian Nationalism movement is so important to the overall defeat of Christian Nationalism. (See this post for some links to organizations fighting Christian Nationalism.)

It is also worth noting, however, that Christianity itself is based on falsehoods. (A few examples are discussed in my post, The Bible is Morally Wrong and Factually False.) This aspect of how the religion trains its followers to think is at least partly responsible for their susceptibility to other falsehoods, including those from corrupt preachers, deceitful conspiracy theorists, sham prophets, and politically opportunistic Christian Nationalists. Christianity needs to grapple with this, too, while it is grappling with dangerous extremism in its midst.

The doctrinal debate is an internal matter, but do not neglect the fact that outside influences—including media, politicians, corporate interests, billionaires, and foreign powers—have been stoking the flames of Christian Nationalism because they think it is in their interest to have Americans in its thrall. They think it gives them advantages, political and economic, to have Americans believe the false claims of Christian Nationalism and for the government that Christian Nationalists dream of to come into existence. (Let that sink in: America’s enemies would be happy if Christian Nationalists won.)

Nationalism is an obscene mutation and corruption of patriotism/love of country since it is really about power and oppressing people who are “other.” In the U.S., nationalists have coopted the flag and its colors; they make flamboyant displays to send the message that they are the “true Americans.” They are not. They are anti-American in the literal sense of promoting values that go against the principles the country was founded on. Some of them have proposed, even acted on, over-throwing the government. Sedition and treason are explicitly anti-American, by definition!

Religious nationalism is especially heinous. It so quickly becomes fascism and religious extremism, often leading to oppression, violence, and war. The kind of religious nationalism being pushed in the U.S. today is very similar to what we have seen—and what Americans have typically abhorred—from groups like the Islamic Republic of Iran, al Qaeda, ISIS, Hindu nationalists, both sides in the Irish conflict, and the Taliban. It is worth mentioning that sometimes these movements are fundamentally political, and they merely take advantage of the fact that adding religion to the mix allows them to more effectively convince people to support their cause (rather than the religion being an inherent part of the nationalism).

Some Christian Nationalists are dumb, or think their audience is. Here’s an example from CPAC 2022. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick declared, “we were a nation founded upon not the words of our founders, but the words of God because He wrote the Constitution.”

This insane claim about the US Constitution being divinely inspired, I was shocked to learn, is not Patrick’s alone. Baptist News Global reports that, “According to Pew Research Center, 72% of Republican Mormons, 56.3% of Republican Orthodox, 48.3% of Republican evangelical Protestants, and 28% of Republican Catholics and non-evangelical Protestants believe that ‘The U.S. Constitution was inspired by God and reflects God’s vision for America’.” That’s thankfully still a small minority of US citizens overall, since these groups are mostly demographically small and since Republicans are currently only getting about half the popular vote. But given that the claim is a complete fabrication and a distortion of American history, not to mention the content of the Constitution, the proportion of people who believe this claim should be zero.

We see similarly deceptive claims from people like Congressperson Lauren Boebert, who has said that the separation of church and state is not part of the Constitution. In her particular case it is hard to look past “stupid” as an explanation for her remarks, but they are also deceptive. As Harvard political scientist Gwen Calais-Haase put it, Boebert’s remarks are “false, misleading, and dangerous,” (quotes from Boebert and Calais-Haase in this Washington Post article).

Any religious person should want freedom of conscience, and by the Golden Rule (or even just by Social Contract thinking) they should want the same freedom of conscience for everyone—or else others could violate their freedom of conscience, too. Christian Nationalism wants freedom of conscience for themselves, but not for others with whom they disagree. We have seen this current Supreme Court in the U.S. support this aspect of Christian Nationalism in decisions that twist the meaning of freedom of religion—in overturning Roe, in the cakeshop decision, in the praying coach decision, and in other cases, too. The trend is toward making it so that extremist Christians can impose their religious ideas on others, while others are not equally free to believe (or not) as they see fit. This is clearly a violation of the First Amendment and it is leading us down a path where a religious minority is succeeding in imposing its extremist ideas on the whole country. This in turn is perhaps the best reason to explore the option of expanding the Court to dilute the corrupting influence the recent appointments have made.

Perhaps it is fair to say that the fundamental purpose of legitimate governments is to foster conditions that promote the welfare of their people, both individually and collectively. Part of this can be done through regulations that incentivize a choice architecture that maximizes freedom while protecting people from harms caused by others. Religious nationalism abandons this goal of good governments in favor of deliberately oppressing some people and deceiving others, so that a small subset of powerful and/or rich people receive extra benefits. So, in addition to being religiously wrong, a corruption of patriotism, founded on deceptions, and a violation of the Constitution’s protection of freedom of (and from) religion, Christian Nationalism also undermines the very purpose of governments. I discuss my view on the correct position for governments to take on religion in this post, Governments and Religious Freedom.