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

by Philip S. Gorski

The concept of white Christian nationalism encompasses the many ways bigotry, prejudice, xenophobia, patriarchy, and racism show up in Christian guise. More than merely providing a nomenclature for a sociocultural phenomenon, white Christian nationalism helps explain the mindsets and beliefs that lead to certain behaviors that seem so contradictory.

Gorski and Perry give clear and deeply researched examinations of critical ideas such as Christian libertarianism as well as idiosyncratic notions of order, freedom, and the use of violence. The authors go further. They show how white Christian nationalism is not simply a set of beliefs, but a narrative—a “deep story” that keeps getting told, re-told, and embellished to suit the desires of those who buy into it.

The only way to avert that outcome is to build a popular front in defense of American democracy, an alliance that extends from #NeverTrump Republicans to Democratic Socialists, an alliance that includes religious conservatives as well as secular progressives.

The solution - coalition building

The French and Indian Wars were like a crucible in which whiteness was forged. What began as a fight among European powers for control of land and resources was transformed as colonists of English descent allied with others of European descent to defend “white” rule. Out of this crucible came a new racial hierarchy, painted in white, red, and Black: white on top, Black on the bottom, and red in between.

What supposedly made white American men different from their former British countrymen was that they also had a tinge of “red” and a bit of the “savage” in them. The first symbol of this white American masculinity was not the “cowboy” but the “scout,” the frontiersman who ventured into the wild, learned the ways of the “Indian,” and absorbed a bit of “savagery” in the process.26 The figure of the scout, in other words, was the first heroic embodiment of the individualistic ethos that is at the heart of white Christian nationalism and its holy trinity of freedom, order, and violence.

Christian libertarianism did not really become a major force in American politics until the Reagan Era. Here, too, the crucial turning point was civil rights. Evangelical resistance to desegregation could no longer be couched in explicitly racist terms. Libertarianism provided a politer language.

Christian libertarianism joined free markets, racial purity, and authoritarian religion into a unified “Biblical worldview.”

How could conservative evangelicals who claimed to defend “family values,” “character,” and “civility” support a thrice-married, egomaniacal real-estate mogul who paid off porn stars? Outside observers have been asking some version of this question ever since Trump’s early victories in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries.

The first thing to note is that Trump’s MAGA narrative can be understood as a semi-secularized version of white Christian nationalism’s deep story. Trump’s narrative is shorn of the sorts of biblical references and allusions that peppered earlier presidents’ speeches. But the MAGA narrative still has many parallels with the deep story.

If self-identified evangelicals respond to Trump’s semi-secularized version of white Christian nationalism, then this is in part because the evangelical label itself has become semi-secularized as well. Political scientist Ryan Burge has shown that an increasing number of Americans outside of evangelical Protestant traditions (such as Catholics, Mormons, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, and even Muslims and Hindus) are now identifying as “evangelical or born-again Christians.” He shows that this is largely driven by the merging of Republican and evangelical identities, so that when Americans are asked whether they’re “evangelical,” they increasingly read this not as a question about their theological beliefs, but whether they identify with the Republican Party.

So why does Trump’s ethos still resonate with so many white Christians? Because there are many deep continuities between Trumpism and white Christian nationalism’s core ideals of freedom, order, and violence. Or, in story form: (white) men exercising (righteous) violence to defend (their) freedom and impose (racial and gender) order.

Conservative whites fear and abhor violence in some contexts (for example, from Blacks, immigrants, or Muslims). But they applaud it in other contexts (for instance, by police, soldiers, and other “good guys with guns”). The key that explains the inconsistency, we argue, is white Christian nationalism and its racialized combination of libertarian freedom (for whites) and authoritarian control (over non-whites).

Even after accounting for political partisanship and conservative political ideology along with other relevant characteristics, Christian nationalism is the strongest predictor that white Americans believe we already make it too easy to vote in this country and that they would support hypothetical laws restricting the vote from certain felons or only to those who could pass a basic civics test—a shocking echo of Jim Crow.

White Christian nationalism is a theory of order, and of hierarchy. It distinguishes insiders and outsiders, and when those two must occupy the same country, those on top and those on the bottom. “People like us”—white Christian citizens—are the true Americans. Everyone else is only here on their sufferance.

Throughout this book, we have argued that white Christian nationalism is becoming a serious threat to American democracy. Now it is time to make clear what we mean by “democracy” and why white Christian nationalism is in fact a threat, perhaps even a mortal one. By “democracy,” we mean what political philosophers call “liberal democracy.” Democracy simply means rule by “the people.” Liberal democracy has a number of additional features. These include universal suffrage, human rights, and equality under the law, among others.

The first and most fundamental way in which white Christian nationalism threatens American liberal democracy is that it defines “the people” in a way that excludes many Americans. White Christian nationalism is a form of what is often called “ethno-nationalism.”16 It defines national belonging in terms of race, religion, and native birth. Liberal democracy rests on what is usually called “civic nationalism.” It defines the nation in terms of values, laws, and institutions.

Because it reinforces a narrow, ethno-nationalist definition of “the people,” white Christian nationalism primes its followers to demand “election integrity” reforms that restrict ballot access for their opponents. Especially when they lose.