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

by Philip S. Gorski

One of the more distinctive features of the Tea Party movement was its constant appeals to, and religious reverence for, the US Constitution. Tea Partiers believed that the “founding fathers” had established a “limited government” whose only purpose was to protect “individual liberties.” They often pointed to the 10th Amendment, according to which “powers not delegated to the United States . . . are reserved to the States . . . or to the people.” Tea Party leaders such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz often styled themselves as “Constitutional conservatives.” Members of the rank and file sometimes carried pocket-sized copies of the Constitution; many joined study groups where they parsed and memorized passages from the Constitution. Despite the fact that there were often sharp disagreements about the meaning of the Constitution among legal scholars, Tea Partiers insisted that its meaning was clear to anyone with eyes. To secular observers, these practices probably seemed very odd. To those who knew the evangelical subculture, they were all too familiar. Pocket Bibles, Bible study groups, and biblical literalism were among its defining elements. Conservative white evangelicals simply applied them to another sacred text: the US Constitution.