Christian nationalism asserts that the United States was founded as a divinely ordained Christian nation and should be governed exclusively by conservative Christian principles. For many white Americans, this concept becomes fused with racial identity, creating “white Christian nationalism,” a form of white identity politics.
The synthesis of a particular brand of Christianity with far-right politics provides white nationalism with religious justification and appeal among a particular demographic. Proponents often frame current demographics and cultural changes—such as immigration and diversity—not as political disputes, but as “spiritual warfare.”
This apocalyptic worldview encourages aggressive political action to preserve a perceived Christian and white cultural hegemony [hedge-a-mone-ee] against existential [eggs-i-stint-shel) threats. Consequently, Christian nationalist beliefs are empirically linked to anti-immigrant, anti-democratic, and racially exclusionist attitudes among white adherents, creating an environment where conservative religious rhetoric directly empowers and validates the goals of white nationalist movements.
The religious language supplies a moral justification for what are fundamentally racial and political grievances. White Nationalism is racist, potentially violent, and in many ways undemocratic. The irony, of course, is that Jesus was a brown man from Asia with Northern African heritage, a Jew, never knew about our continent, didn’t speak our language (which did not yet exist), and was particularly concerned about “the Other” (women, children, Samaritans, lepers, sex workers). Jesus would almost certainly not embrace white nationalism, and white nationalism would almost certainly not embrace the real Jesus.
