There are two documentaries on streaming services about a phenomenon called “Christian nationalism”: God and Country and Bad Faith. I encourage everyone, regardless of your background, to watch either or both of these movies.
The film Bad Faith opens with the following definition of Christian nationalism: “A political movement that believes America was founded as a Christian nation, privileging Christianity over all other faiths. Masquerading as religion, this ideology exploits scripture and sacred symbols to achieve extremist objectives.”
The term Christian nationalism may be new, but the fusion of politics and religion is not. Is this movement unfamiliar because the concept is new? Has this fusion just been normalized for many years? Does this phenomenon escape notice because it is just the water in which we swim?
I invite you to start to consider that Christian nationalism has been present in our society for most of our lives, especially if you are under the age of 60. Before most of us were born, what we call Christian nationalism may have been contained in movements like the Moral Majority or the Religious Right.
As a child, during the early years of the Moral Majority movement, I heard a lot of strange statements, many of which sounded racist to me. “Oh no, that’s just Christianity,” I was assured by a few. I especially remember when I was arguing that civil rights was just a radical form of loving your neighbor (a central tenet of Christianity). “Oh no,” said one person, “Jesus died for only white people.” Statements like these conflated politics and religion.
I tried to ignore these messages, but they grew stronger as I attended college during the Reagan-Bush years. I remember as a first-year college student, I told my dad that some of my peers were equating Christianity with certain political views — most of which were not supportive of social justice or civil rights. I don’t think my father knew how to respond at first, but he took a deep breath and he said, “It’s not like we won’t let you come home if you believe God is a Republican.” Then he laughed.
I was shocked that my father would think that I would switch parties after a few weeks of college. I said, “No, no, no, it’s not like that at all. I don’t believe that, but I am meeting people who do.”
“Oh,” he sighed with relief. We quickly moved on to a conversation about something else. I forgot about the original question and thought the linkage between faith and politics would just disappear. That was more than 40 years ago. The conflation of religious thought with politics was confusing then. Today, those kids are among the leaders of this current movement called Christian nationalism.
And now it’s front and center in American politics. As we are grappling with global chaos, suffering, violence, and extreme loss of life in various parts of the world — particularly Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and Ukraine — Christian nationalism lurks in the shadows. Forty years ago, this movement was born in the shadow of the end of the Cold War, the implementation of new civil rights legislation, and the rise of a new disease called AIDS, which seemed to affect LGBTQ+ people predominantly.
But before AIDS had a name, the Moral Majority resisted acknowledging that gay people existed and inferred that AIDS was God’s punishment. Political commentator Andrew Sullivan described how the health crisis “presented a political as much as a public health problem.” Many Religious Right writings of this period promoted silence about gay people and AIDS. AIDS activists adopted the moniker “Silence=Death,” because when people spoke up, gay people and their suffering were humanized, and an outcry for treatment and research shifted public opinion. Compassion, both a human and religious trait, shaped the political response.
However, even in the 1980s, it was not easy to see who was supporting AIDS victims and who was still playing into the conservative social outlook. In 1988, AIDS activist Larry Kramer criticized then-AIDS researcher Anthony Fauci for not moving quickly enough on AIDS research. Sullivan, however, said that Fauci had sat with AIDS activists, listened, and found a way to decrease the amount of time that HIV drugs would take to become available.
Where will Christian nationalism be 40 years from now? As a nation, there would not have been a civil rights movement or advances in medical research for AIDS or COVID-19 without the efforts of a diverse coalition. We have already lost ground as an extremist Christian perspective has shaped conversations about reproductive health. I think the takeaway is not so much demonizing Christian nationalism but a reminder that advances, which essentially saved our society, came as a result of working together across differences. Don’t ignore Christian nationalism. Listen to what it is saying and start talking about the topics deemed undiscussable. Do this with humility and compassion. It will not be easy. Think about this: What will they say about us in 40 years? Will we be seen as paying attention and looking out for each other?
Rev. Valerie Bailey Fischer is Chaplain to the College and the Protestant Chaplain.
