The First Amendment prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and the freedom of assembly.
Today one hears increased rumblings about U.S. Christian nationalism, an anti-democratic notion that the United States is a nation by and for Christians alone.
When thinking about American history, too many people forget about the original indigenous Americans with their religious practices and the fact that, along with Christians, many of the initial immigrants to the North American colonies had Jewish and Muslim backgrounds.
There have been Jewish communities in the United States since colonial times. They were primarily immigrants from Brazil, England, and the Netherlands (Amsterdam). About Muslim “immigrants,” scholars estimate that as many as 30 percent of the African slaves brought to the U.S. from West and Central African countries, like Gambia and Cameroon, were Muslim.
Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809, was most comfortable not with Christianity but with philosophical Deism, based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority. He also coined the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut.
If the founders had not made their stance on this “Christian nation” issue clear enough in the Constitution and the Federalist Papers, they certainly did so in Article 11 of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli.
Begun by George Washington, signed by John Adams, and ratified unanimously by a Senate still half-filled with signers of the Constitution, this treaty announced firmly and flatly to the world that “the government of the United States of America, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley recently displayed his Christian nationalism (and historical ignorance) when he tweeted a quote falsely attributed to a “founding father,” claiming the United States was founded “on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
In September last year, during a speech titled “Biblical Revolution” at the National Conservatism Conference in Miami, Hawley said, “We are a revolutionary nation precisely because we are the heirs of the revolution of the Bible. … Without the Bible, there is no America.”
At its core, Christian nationalism threatens the principle of the separation of church and state and undermines religion and the state. We would strongly argue that the separation of church and state protects the “church.”
Christian nationalism is a virus that threatens many countries worldwide, especially as more countries shift to the far right. We can think immediately of Brazil, Hungary, Poland, and, most alarmingly, Russia.
Thinking about next year’s U.S. presidential campaign, we are sure Christian nationalists will be active. We are committed Christians and Americans, but find U.S. Christian nationalism too much associated with racism, white supremacy, and political violence.
Once seen as a fringe viewpoint, Christian nationalism now has a foothold in American politics, particularly in the contemporary Republican Party, according to a 2023 survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution. More than half of today’s Republicans believe the country should be a strictly Christian nation, either adhering to the ideals of Christian nationalism (21 percent) or sympathizing with those views (33 percent).
According to the PRRI survey, 50 percent of Christian nationalism adherents, and nearly four in 10 sympathizers, said they support the idea of an authoritarian leader to keep “Christian values” in society. As Robert P. Jones, the president and founder of the nonpartisan PRRI, stressed when the survey results were published in February 2023, “it’s a sizeable minority that is not only willing to declare themselves opposed to pluralism and democracy, but are also willing to say, ‘I am willing to fight and either kill or harm my fellow Americans to keep it that way.'”
Christian nationalism is a Christian challenge at home and abroad because it is not Christian.
As Christians, we are bound to Christ by citizenship and faith. Far too often, linking religious authority with political authority leads to the oppression of marginalized groups and the spiritual impoverishment of religion.
Christians must speak in one voice condemning Christian nationalism because it is a deceptive and dangerous distortion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
John A. Dick was born and raised in Michigan and currently lives in Belgium, where he is a retired professor of historical theology and religion and values in U.S. society. His most recent book is “Paul’s Man in Washington,” about Archbishop Jean Jadot, Apostolic Delegate to the United States from 1973 to 1980. Richard Emmel is a Little Rock teacher.
