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

by Philip S. Gorski

White Christian nationalism is a “deep story” about America’s past and a vision of its future. It includes cherished assumptions about what America was and is, but also what it should be.

The general principle is this: white men must sometimes exercise righteous violence to defend (their) freedom and maintain social (and racial) order. It is freedom for “us” and authoritarian social order for “them.”

Is their freedom really in danger? They surely believe that it is. White Christian nationalists sincerely believe that whites and Christians are the most persecuted groups in America.

Indicators of Christian nationalism (in combination or included separately) are powerful predictors of ultra-conservatism for white Americans, especially on any issues involving race, discrimination, xenophobia, or justice. But they have very little influence on the attitudes of Black Americans. And often little influence on Hispanic Americans too.9 As noted earlier, whiteness is the hidden link that transforms the deep story of Christian nationalism into a political vision.

being a faithful American is connected to both promoting Christianity in the public square and opposition to those who would replace “our” culture and prosperous free markets with totalitarian socialism.

he drew a sharp line between Christianity and morality: the one did not imply the other.

England’s colonization of North America and its conquest of Ireland overlapped in time and influenced each other. For example, English commentators often described the Catholic Irish as “heathens” and sometimes even as “Indians” in order to justify the seizure of Irish property and establishment of English “plantations” on the “Emerald Isle.”