Hi Friends, it’s only two weeks till the release of my new booklet Christian Nationalism: A Constructive Conversation. I appreciate your prayers and please enjoy this and next week’s section from Chapter 4 titled “Danger #3: The Domination Problem.”
In his excellent book, titled “Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?”, historian and Messiah University professor John Fea details why the answer is complicated. He notes, “Americans had always seen themselves as living in a Christian nation until that idea became a contested one after the 1960s.”[1] And that “those who believe that the United States is a Christian nation have a good chunk of American history on their side… Though the Constitution would prevent the United States from making Christianity its established faith, the religious culture of pre-Civil War America was shaped by evangelical Protestantism.”[2]
What about the founders themselves? What did they believe? Well, they were an eclectic group. Some, like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson had great faith in Providence and respect for Judeo-Christian morality “but rejected doctrines that are central to historic Christian orthodoxy, such as the inspiration of the Bible, the resurrection of Jesus, or the Trinity.”[3] Some, Franklin and Jefferson among them, “exemplified behavior that might lead one to question the depth of their Christian commitments.”[4]
Still others, like John Jay, John Witherspoon, and Samuel Adams “were devout believers who tried to bring their faith to bear on their vision for the nation they helped to found.”[5] Fea concludes that “If there was one universal idea that all the founders believed about the relationship between religion and the new nation, it was that religion was necessary in order to sustain an ordered and virtuous republic.”[6]
So America was a Christian nation in the sense that it was founded with a shared respect for Judeo-Christian religion. And this “Christian structure” provided America with a rich heritage that was both immortalized and idealized in a lot of Norman Rockwell paintings. Beginning in the Colonial Era, these blessings continued throughout the Little House on the Prairie years on into the 1950s, à la Ozzie and Harriet or Leave it to Beaver: more reverence for God; more people living out the Golden Rule and Ten Commandments, more biblical literacy, more stable marriages; safer neighborhoods; stronger churches; less fragile families, abortions, adultery, distorted desire, etc.
And this brings us to two critically important historical facts that we can all agree on, regardless of how we feel about Christian nationalism:
- America has a rich Judeo-Christian heritage.
- That heritage has been steadily eroding since the 1960s.
What happened during the turbulent 1960s? Well, a lot, but two movements are key for our purposes: Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation. An honest assessment of both reminds us that not all was well with Christian America—or to be more precise, all was not well for some. For example, if you were black, your “Christian” America included slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, and redlining.[7] Many of us forget that the Christian school Bob Jones University didn’t drop its ban on interracial dating until 2000![8] And, what about women? It was little over a hundred years ago that they couldn’t vote. Married women couldn’t own property. And even for most of the last century, they didn’t have access to the same educational and vocational opportunities as men. For women, turning back the clock to the early years of our country includes disparaging them as the “the weaker sex,” restricting their potential, and confining their vocational aspirations to little more than sidekicks on the male journey of life.
Many religious conservatives are aghast that so many U.S. citizens could so easily surrender their “Christian” heritage, but the truth is much of historic, orthodox Christianity in America included and was often used to justify the oppression and subjugation of women and people of color.[9]
Thankfully, most conservative Christians now celebrate increased protections and equal representation for women and people of color in a way that they didn’t 50 years ago. Where we’re at now, however, is that many religious conservatives give serious pause and pushback to extending these same privileges to those who don’t share, are hostile to, or have a less “biblical” version of their faith.
And this brings us to the heart of the lure of Christian nationalism as—make no mistake—Christians have lost power (influence) in the United States over the last 60 years. And it’s the anger, confusion, and angst over this loss of power that has caused many, whether knowingly or not, to embrace Christian nationalism. Moreover, it’s the encroaching secularism of the last sixty years, along with the increased protections and equal representation for those who don’t embrace historic Christianity that has caused many to become alarmist and fear-based.[10]Indeed, in Christian nationalism there is a lot of doom and gloom and a settled belief that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Common perspectives include:
- “Because of [insert x decision here], today was one of the darkest days in American history…”
- “Don’t you know our country is under attack…”
- “Christianity is under threat from [insert numerous groups here] …”
- “If we don’t do [insert x], we’ll lose our children.”
- “A radical and immoral progressive movement has taken over… and is literally destroying our nation.”
- “If America isn’t a failed state, it’s at least a failing state. It’s an economic and military paper tiger that has rejected God, can’t tell male from female, and is lapsing into a state of chaos that only a strong leader can confront. He, alone, can fix it.”[11]
[1] John Fea, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016), 250.
[2] Ibid., 245.
[3] Ibid., 246.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] “Redlining can be defined as a discriminatory practice that consists of the systematic denial of services such as mortgages, insurance loans, and other financial services to residents of certain areas, based on their race or ethnicity.” (https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/redlining)
[8] https://www.cnn.com/2000/US/03/04/bob.jones/index.html
[9] There are so many examples of oppression and subjugation that could be added here like how we treated Indians on “The Trail of Tears” or Asians with the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act.
[10] Wright and Bird, in Jesus and the Powers, also note that this is why Christian nationalism “lends itself to feelings of ethnic superiority and promotes interracial tensions especially when Christianity is aligned with whiteness… The Church [however] breaks down the classes, caste systems and ethnic divisions so that God’s people are those from every kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation.” (135)
[11] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/opinion/maga-constitution.html