Until recently, almost no American claimed to be a Christian nationalist or advocated for Christian nationalism per se. The phrase was coined by critics in 2006, and it has primarily been used to condemn conservative Christians who bring their faith into the public square. These critics, polemical activists and academics alike, have always defined it as a dangerous, toxic phenomenon. For instance, in their influential book, Taking America Back for God, Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry explain that Christian nationalism is “an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of American civic life with a particular type of Christian identity and culture” that “includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy,
patriarchy and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism.”
In 2022, for the first time, some prominent Christians embraced the label or argued that we should “salvage” it.2 These men and women insist that they are arguing for a healthy version of Christian
nationalism, one that does not conflate God and country and that is not racist.
See the full White Paper by Mark David Hall, February, 2023