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What historical movements in the US contributed to the rise of Christian Nationalism?
Executive Summary
Historical currents feeding U.S. Christian nationalism span centuries: early colonial-era religious nationalism and Manifest Destiny, 19th- and early 20th-century evangelical revivals and racialized doctrines, mid-20th-century cultural backlash to secularization, and organized late-20th-century political movements such as televangelism, the Moral Majority, and the Christian Coalition. These layered influences converged with partisan realignment and contemporary populist politics to normalize a political creed that fuses Christian identity with American national identity [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. How America’s founding myths set the table for religious nationalism
Scholars trace important roots to Puritan millennialism, early American exceptionalism, and rhetoric that presented the republic as a divinely favored project, which provided theological language for national identity. These seventeenth- and eighteenth-century currents—expressed by figures like John Winthrop and later through republican framings that merged biblical metaphor with civic purpose—laid conceptual groundwork that ties faith to nationhood. Over time, those founding narratives were reinterpreted through doctrines like the Doctrine of Discovery and the idea of Manifest Destiny, which explicitly linked Christianity to territorial and racial claims, embedding religious superiority into expansionist policy and cultural assumptions [1] [2] [3].
2. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century revivals hardened the link between faith and public life
The Second Great Awakening and waves of evangelical revivalism in the nineteenth century popularized belief that society required a Christian moral order, shaping civic expectations about religion’s public role. In the early twentieth century, reactions to modernity produced fundamentalist movements that resisted secular cultural change and sought institutional protections for Christian norms. Analysts also identify a strand of explicitly racialized and antisemitic activism in the 1930s and 1940s—led by organizers such as Gerald L. K. Smith—that fused white‑Christian identity with nativist politics, demonstrating how religious rhetoric could be mobilized for exclusionary, extremist aims [5] [6] [3].
3. Courts, culture wars, and the growth of grievance politics
Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s banning school‑sponsored prayer and Bible readings catalyzed a durable political backlash. These judicial decisions became powerful recruitment and organizing motifs for movements portraying Christians as embattled citizens deprived of their rightful public presence. That narrative of grievance animated broader cultural fights over school prayer, the role of religion in public institutions, and the perceived decline of a Christian moral order—dynamics that supplied both urgency and a sense of victimhood later harnessed by political organizations [6] [3].
4. Televangelism, the Moral Majority, and the institutional turn to politics
From the 1960s through the 1980s, televangelism and mass media transformed evangelical culture into a political force, normalizing direct political engagement by clergy and faith networks. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition institutionalized voter mobilization around issues framed as moral or existential for the nation, while Ronald Reagan’s outreach in 1980 gave political legitimacy and reciprocal policy access. These developments shifted Christian activism from local morality campaigns into national partisan influence, creating structures that sustained Christian nationalist agendas in subsequent decades [3] [7] [6].
5. Contemporary movements, personalities, and the political mainstreaming of Christian nationalist themes
Since the 1990s, networks—ranging from the Seven Mountain Mandate communities to high-profile tours and parties—have pushed an agenda to reclaim cultural institutions for Christian leadership, sometimes tied to overtly political actors. Recent years saw the 2016 presidential campaign and its aftermath accelerate the public prominence of Christian nationalist themes, as populist politics and explicit appeals to Christian identity gained traction among conservative voters. Analysts note that organizations and personalities embracing fusionist theology and political strategy continued building bridges to elected leaders and party infrastructure [7] [3] [6].
6. Demographics and politics: who holds these ideas today, and why it matters
Survey research shows roughly three in ten Americans qualify as Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers, with higher concentrations in the South and Midwest and strong correlations with self‑identified evangelicalism, frequent church attendance, white racial identity, and Republican partisanship. Media habits, education, age, and explicit support for political figures such as Donald Trump further predict adherence. These patterns mean Christian nationalism is both an ideological current with deep historical roots and a contemporary political force shaped by partisan alignment and demographic sorting [4] [8] [5].