The Cross and the Flag: How White Christian Nationalism Threatens American Democracy
History warns us what happens when religion becomes a tool of political power. We are fools not to listen.
White Christian Nationalism is no longer a fringe movement. And it isn’t just a cultural force. It’s a political ideology, one that threatens the foundations of American democracy.
At its core, white Christian nationalism is the belief that America is a nation founded by and for white Christians, and that its laws and institutions should reflect their values and authority. It seeks to fuse American identity with a very particular brand of Christianity, often evangelical, patriarchal, and exclusionary. In this worldview, to be a "real American" is to be white, Christian, and politically conservative.
This isn’t merely a fringe belief. According to a recent survey, 30% of Americans either fully embrace Christian nationalist views or sympathize with them. And it’s no coincidence that the rise of this ideology in the public consciousness coincides with the rise of Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.
Historical Roots
White Christian nationalism didn’t appear overnight. It has deep roots in American history. From the Puritan settlers who saw themselves as a chosen people establishing a New Jerusalem, to the slaveholders who used scripture to justify bondage, to the segregationists who cloaked Jim Crow in biblical language, religion has long been used to sanctify white supremacy.
In the 1950s, in reaction to communism and the civil rights movement, the phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and “In God We Trust” became the national motto. These moves were not apolitical. They signaled a government endorsement of a particular religious identity, one that aligned with whiteness, conservatism, and Cold War values.
MAGA and the Modern Merger of Church and State
Donald Trump didn’t create white Christian nationalism. But he did mainstream it.
From photo ops with Bibles to campaign events held in megachurches, Trump has carefully cultivated the image of a Christian warrior, even though his personal conduct and policies rarely if ever align with traditional Christian teachings. But that’s the point: the appeal of Trump isn’t theological, it’s tribal. He promises dominance, vengeance, and the restoration of a Christian America. His followers, in turn, see him as divinely appointed, even believing that God saved him from an assassins bullet one year ago.
Under Trump, the Republican Party has become a vessel for this ideology. We’ve seen the Supreme Court erode the wall between church and state. GOP lawmakers speak of America as a Christian nation and propose laws enforcing “biblical values.” Religious rhetoric is deployed not as a matter of faith, but as a political weapon—used to attack LGBTQ+ rights, deny reproductive freedom, and delegitimize pluralism. This is authoritarianism cloaked in religion, giving it the illusion of authenticity.
The Hitler Parallel
This isn’t the first time religion has been used to sanctify authoritarianism.
Adolf Hitler understood the power of religion. In the early 1930s, Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation. To gain public support, Hitler claimed to champion Christian values, promoted the vague but appealing idea of “Positive Christianity,” and framed his rise as divinely ordained. He strategically aligned with sympathetic church leaders, used Christian imagery in propaganda, and portrayed his political mission as spiritually sanctioned. Religious language was woven into his speeches to mask violent nationalism in moral terms. Simultaneously, he worked to co-opt, control, and eventually dismantle religious institutions that did not conform to his regime.
But behind the rhetoric was a calculated political strategy: to use Christianity to gain legitimacy, silence dissent, and create a moral justification for tyranny. Churches that resisted were crushed. Clergy who spoke out were imprisoned or killed. The Nazis didn’t need genuine faith. They needed obedience, and religion helped deliver it.
The lesson is clear: when political leaders co-opt religious identity for power, democracy becomes disposable. America should take heed.
What Would the Founders Say?
The Founding Fathers, for all their flaws, were explicit about the dangers of entangling religion with government.
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote of a “wall of separation between church and state.” James Madison warned that religion and government both suffer when they are intermixed. The First Amendment was not an accident. It was a firewall against theocratic rule.
Many of the Founders were Deists or skeptics of organized religion. They had seen the bloodshed of religious wars in Europe. They knew that a government claiming divine authority was a threat to liberty, not its guarantor.
Today, as we watch Christian symbols hoisted alongside political banners at rallies, and as lawmakers cite scripture to justify stripping others of rights, we should ask: Whose God? Whose interpretation? And what happens to the rest of us?
Why It Matters
White Christian nationalism isn’t about faith. It’s about power.
It’s about defining who counts as American… and who doesn’t. It’s about using religion not to uplift or unite, but to dominate and divide. And it’s a key pillar of the authoritarian movement that threatens to unravel the American experiment.
If we care about democracy, we must reject any ideology that says to belong you have to worship the right God in the right way.
History warns us where this path leads. Let’s walk it with our eyes wide open to where we are potentially headed.
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The myth that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation is just one example of why it is so dangerous that too few Americans understand our history or the Constitution. And the people pulling the strings want to maintain such ignorance.