The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy

by Philip S. Gorski

Our vision is much closer to that of the 1619 Project than the 1776 Commission. But it also differs from both in important ways. Where the 1619 Project sees mostly continuity, we see much contingency. In 1619, a more inclusive and egalitarian society was still possible, if not probable. It was the decisions and actions of Puritan thinkers and leaders that throttled it. What’s more, that possibility was choked off not only by the enslavement of kidnapped Africans, but also by warfare with native peoples—and their French Catholic allies. “Whiteness” was defined not only in opposition to “blackness” but also to “redness,” and not only in terms of color but also in terms of religion: Protestant vs. Catholic and Christian vs. “heathen.”4 The first colonists committed two “original sins,” not one. If we too often forget the first one—the violent expropriation of the indigenous peoples—it is partly because violence and disease left behind far fewer of their descendants to remind us. The Spirit of 1690 was to impose white control over non-white bodies, indigenous lands, and all political institutions.