Christian nationalism versus actual Christianity

When I was doing my undergraduate work at Ohio State, I had several roommates who belonged to the evangelical Christian group, Campus Crusade for Christ. One day, a couple of Mormon missionaries came to our house. My roommates welcomed them in, pulled out their bibles, and engaged in an hour-long argument on why Mormonism was “wrong” and “not really Christianity.” The encounter ended with the Mormons storming out after one of my roommates called them “heretics.”

Political Christianity is a powerful force in this country. It is remarkably easy to define and Republicans had been amazingly adept at using political Christianity to their advantage. I am a Christian. He is a Christian. She is a Christian. We are Christians. They are not Christians. We have our Christian values, they don’t. We have our Judeo-Christian values, and they don’t. By defining Christianity as an “us versus them” battle, the Christian right has won elections, expanded their voter base, and continued to grow.

While Republicans have embraced political Christianity, they also knew there were limits on their promises. They made promises about winning the “war on Christmas” and “bringing back prayer to school” and “making America a Christian country again.” The problem is, the religious right actually wanted all of these things, from abortion restrictions to school prayer. When Republicans didn’t come through, they started voting for populists that would.

Enter the Christian nationalists.  

We like to argue that the separation of church and state needs to remain in place because the government cannot endorse........

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