Religion experts sound alarm about rise of Christian nationalism in the US

More Americans are embracing the idea that the United States should be a Christian country, run by Christian men - even if that means giving up on democracy, new research has found.

About three in 10 Americans believe or at least sympathise with this notion, according to a February study gauging the prevalence of Christian nationalism. The findings by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) were based on interviews with more than 22,000 people across all 50 states.

They come at a time of heightened political tension in the US, amid an upcoming presidential election that pits two candidates who hold vastly different ideologies.

US President Joe Biden has warned that democracy and freedom are at stake in November, reminding Americans that voting and abortion rights were eroded during Donald Trump's tenure as president.

Trump meanwhile has leaned into a more authoritarian brand of leadership, pledging if re-elected to purge government of non-loyalists, kick out migrants and prosecute political enemies.

He has also promised to empower Christian nationalists, said Julie Ingersoll, a religious studies professor at the University of North Florida.

That's why the outcome of the election could determine whether this group gains a real foothold in government, she told TRT World.

"I think we are at a crisis point and the next few months are crucial. I believe a second term for Donald Trump would be disastrous. I believe it would usher in a period of authoritarianism that could be far worse than we can even imagine," she added.

This possibility keeps Jim Aho up at night. Aho is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Idaho State University and author of several books on Christian dominionism.

Speaking to TRT World, he warned that those with Christian nationalist views "are mobilising right now all over the United States. I've lost plenty of sleep about this. I've worried about this a great deal personally. I've attended their conferences, their lectures. It's very very frightening to me, and we should take it very very seriously."

In response to rising concerns, some groups including the Heritage Foundation have complained that the term "Christian nationalist" is being misused as "a smear against conservative Christians who defend the role of religion in American public life."

But critics point out that Heritage Foundation and other rightwing groups have indeed been pushing theocratic goals in its Project 2025, a "governing agenda" for the next Republican-led government.

The 180-day playbook includes plans to allow citizens to rest on the Sabbath and ensure the US rely on "biblically based" definitions of marriage and family.

According to last month's PRRI study, more than half of Republicans surveyed favoured Christian nationalist views.

White evangelical Protestants were the most supportive and made up a third of the Republican party. Hispanic Protestants and Latter-day Saints also expressed support and sympathy for the view, the research found.

Gaining traction

There are already signs that Christian nationalism is gaining traction in government. Last month, an Alabama Supreme Court judge ruled that frozen embryos are legally human beings and those who destroy them can be held liable for wrongful death.

In the decision, Judge Tom Parker wrote that Alabama had adopted a "theologically based view of the sanctity of life" and that "life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God."

The finding threw the state's in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedures into disarray and sparked a national uproar. However, state lawmakers soon passed "Band-Aid" legislation that didn't challenge the ruling, but granted immunity to providers and patients who destroy embryos while undergoing IVF.

Months before that, House Republicans elected Rep. Mike Johnson to lead the lower chamber. In a November interview, Johnson challenged the longstanding separation of church and state in government, calling it "a misnomer." And in 2016, he described the US not as a democracy but as a "biblical" republic.

Notably, the US Constitution does not explicitly separate church and state. That tradition was coined by founding father Thomas Jefferson. Religious freedoms were later added in the 14th Amendment, which among other things prohibits conditioning US citizenship on a person's religious affiliation, Ingersoll said.

But "there is now a strong faction of theocratic Christians who see that understanding of the post-Civil War amendment as too expansive and would like to see it undone to allow for the union of church and state, at least at the state level," she added.

This is problematic because, according to Aho, these "Christians (believe they) have a holy responsibility to reclaim the United States for Jesus Christ. To have dominion in the civil structures. In other words, it is dominion that they are after - not just a voice, not just influence, not just equal time.

"World conquest. That's the goal."

He added that it may sound over-the-top, but "these are the people who are supporting Donald Trump because they believe he will help them accomplish their goals."

Race, gender and violence

According to the PRRI report, those with Christian nationalist views were more likely to hold anti-Black, anti-immigrant, antisemitic, anti-Muslim and patriarchal views.

This helps explain why many in this group are also against constitutional amendments that have outlawed slavery and protect women's rights.

Though Jesus was a Jewish man from the Middle East who likely had dark skin, those pushing the Christian dominionist doctrine in the US are white men, Aho said.

He added that many believe that anything not explicitly denounced by Jesus or an apostle is technically allowed in a "reconstructed America."

"The Bible is a huge complicated document and you can pick and choose what you want out of it and that's what people do," he said.

To further their goals, some Christian nationalists are willing to take extreme measures, as seen on January 6, 2021, after Trump lost his re-election bid and supporters stormed the Capitol building.

According to Ingersoll, because this group believes authority is delegated by God, not the consent of the governed, it's easier for them to see the world in black and white.

"More than just seeing good and evil, they tend to interpret mundane conflict and cosmic conflict. This is a process scholars call cosmicization and it's very dangerous.

"Mundane conflict can be resolved with negotiation and compromise, but once a conflict takes on cosmic characteristics, once it comes to be seen not as a human conflict but as 'God’s conflict,' resolution without violence is much harder."

Come November, both Aho and Ingersoll stressed that turning out to vote was the best way to maintain religious freedom in the US.

"Most Americans support the separation of church and state," Ingersoll said. And many are tired of Trump's rhetoric, she added.

"The question is what kind of tired are they? Are they 'tuned-out tired' or 'ready to set the ship aright tired?' "

Aho said he's not sure what will happen. But he added that this appears to be a cyclical process.

"Every generation, about every 30 years, there's been an outbreak of right-wing insurgency in America, clear back to the 1800s."

Some examples include the Civil War in 1860, the beginning of US President Ronald Reagan's administration in 1980 and the rise of the conservative Tea Party in 2010, Aho said.

"We're right in the heart of this latest insurgency. Thirty years from now, assuming Trump loses, there will be another outbreak. And 30 years after that, if the past is any basis for prediction. It is depressing."