"God's" Way to War

The World Turned Upside Down

Wikicommons by pkanella

Jesus Christ, according to Christian nationalists, had to duck through doorways, was barrel-chested, had biceps like steel, a straight, chiseled nose and strong chin, straight teeth, close-cut blond to light brown hair, white Northern European skin and blue eyes. He wore a MAGA hat and carried an M-16. And he never said anything reported in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

Of all the ideas Christian nationalists hold about Christ, the most important, the most critical, is the last.

What do Christian nationalists believe, who are they, who are the Christian nationalists in the Trump regime, and what are they up to?

Eric L. McDaniel, a professor in the department of government at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-author of The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics, described Christian nationalism:

Christian nationalism is about the idea of creating a Christian state in which a particular Christian ideology dominates all of American politics. And when we talk about Christian nationalism, we’re talking about the rise of MAGA and a particular strain of white Christian nationalism, which supports a version of Christianity that puts white men — specifically white heterosexual, wealthy men — at the top of a hierarchy. Anything that challenges that is seen as unholy or heretical.

Sociologists Andrew L. Whitehead and Samuel L. Perry created a list of six propositions which they believed would help identify Christian nationalists.

The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation.

The federal government should advocate Christian values.

The federal government should (not) enforce strict separation of church and state.

The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces.

The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.

The federal government should allow prayer in public schools.

That gives us a broad outline. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

In their book, Taking America Back for God, Whitehead and Perry wrote, “Christian nationalism gives divine sanction to ethnocentrism and nativism.” They reported that a subset of respondents claimed that immigrants, particularly non-English speakers, could never be “truly American.” They were more likely than others to agree “that Muslims and Atheists hold morally inferior values.”

One self-identified Christian nationalist, Stephen Wolfe, author of The Case for Christian Nationalism, believes that non-Christians should not have political equality with Christians, that atheism is not acceptable, and heretics can be put to death. Where does that leave him with anti-Semitism?

A teen who attended a week-long Christian nationalist camp reported:

It was common for these sermons to veer into parables on the dangers of immigration and migrants, the passive nature and submissiveness of women, or the impending “holy war” that awaited our generation. Each sermon was delivered so as to scare young and easily impressionable children into fearing their fellow Americans.

Mostly white and affluent campers were taught a dangerous and un-Christ-like gospel. Poverty, as I keenly remember one counselor telling me, was a sin of individual laziness and ineptitude. The Jesus ingrained in our minds was rugged, hyper-masculine and white—a far cry from the meek and charitable figure portrayed in Scripture.

Christian nationalism may in instances appear to be more cultural than religious. Kelefa Sanneh reported in the New Yorker that the sociologists Perry and Philip S. Gorski asserted that sometimes:

“Christian” refers less to theology than to heritage. Drawing on their own survey, they found that more than a fifth of respondents who wanted the government to declare the U.S. a “Christian nation” also described themselves as being “secular,” or an adherent of a non-Christian faith. Paradoxically, so did more than fifteen per cent of self-identified Christians. This last data point might be a sign that “Christian” is starting to become something more like “Jewish”: an ancestral identity that you can keep, even if you don’t keep the faith.

In order to be a Christian nationalist, or to be anyone who believes that religion should be the basis of politics, one must forget history. One must forget the religious wars which ravaged Europe for centuries, wars such as the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) which was rooted in the issue of which religion, the Catholic or Lutheran, was God’s preferred. Between 4.5 and 8 million soldiers and civilians were killed. Wars such as that must have lain heavy on the minds of the authors of the Constitution when they wrote the first phrases of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Clear and to the point.

But, just as Christian nationalists believe that Christ didn’t really mean the Sermon on the Mount, they believe the writers of the Constitution didn’t really mean the First Amendment.

Trump has centered Christian nationalists in his second administration.

On February 7, 2025, President Trump issued one of his executive orders, this one setting up the White House Faith Office:

to assist faith-based entities, community organizations, and houses of worship in their efforts to strengthen American families, promote work and self-sufficiency, and protect religious liberty….

Paula White heads the Faith Office. She is, as described by Adam Gabbatt of the Guardian,

the tongues-speaking, multimillionaire televangelist who called the Black Lives Matter movement the “Antichrist” and said Jesus would have been “sinful” and not “our Messiah” if he had broken immigration law.

(As an aside, it appears from all the reporting that the vast majority of non-citizens arrested and slated for deportation have legal status in the US either via parole, awaiting an administrative decision, possessing a valid and current visa, or holding a green card.)

Russell Vought, Trump’s Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, was the president of The Center for Renewing America, a think tank which prepared Trump to resume the Presidency. Vought believes that in the US Christians are discriminated against. His list of priorities for Trump include “Christian nationalism.” POLITICO reported:

Vought has promoted a restrictionist immigration agenda, saying a person’s background doesn’t define who can enter the U.S., but rather, citing Biblical teachings, whether that person “accept[ed] Israel’s God, laws and understanding of history.”

The most dangerous of the Christian nationalists in the cabinet is Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, he with the tattoos reminiscent of fascism and the Crusades. Hegseth attends a church affiliated with the Idaho-based pastor Douglas Wilson. The Secretary also said he intends to send his children to schools founded and run by Wilson.

TPM reported:

Idaho pastor Douglas Wilson can be provocative. He once wrote that “slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races.” He’s said that “sodomy” is worse than “slavery”; abortion, he’s written, is “as great an evil as slavery” due to what he sees as its ability to spark a civil war. He told me last year that he regards the American state as the “biggest blasphemer” of them all.

On a Wilson affiliated podcast, Hegseth claimed:

We’re in middle Phase 1 right now, which is effectively a tactical retreat where you regroup, consolidate and reorganize. And as you do so, you build your army underground with the opportunity later on of taking offensive operations in an overt way. And obviously all of this is metaphorical and all that good stuff.

In his book, Mr. Hegseth wrote, “Our American Crusade is not about literal swords, and our fight is not with guns. Yet.”

Hegseth is Secretary of Defense. That position was formerly known as Secretary of War. A Secretary of War who has a tattoo proclaiming “Deus Vult”—“God Wills It”—has faith that God is on his side. A Christian-nationalist country simply cannot lose a war – God won’t allow it, so why not get into one? It’s a guaranteed win.

But outside the Whitehouse, Christian Nationalists are a minority. The Public Religion Research Institute report, “Support for Christian Nationalism in All 50 States: Findings from PRRI’s 2023 American Values Atlas” concluded:

• Three in ten Americans qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents (10%) or Sympathizers (20%), compared with two-thirds who qualify as Skeptics (37%) or Rejecters (30%).

The report also found that, “There are five states in which more than 45% of residents are Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers: North Dakota (50%), Mississippi (50%), Alabama (47%), West Virginia (47%), and Louisiana (46%).”

On violence:

Christian nationalists are more likely than other Americans to see political struggles through the apocalyptic lens of revolution and to support political violence.

• A majority of Christian nationalism Adherents (54%) and 45% of Sympathizers agree that “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders,” compared with only 22% of Skeptics and 7% of Rejecters.

• Christian nationalists are about twice as likely as other Americans to believe political violence may be justified. Nearly four in ten Christian nationalism Adherents (38%) and one-third of Sympathizers (33%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country,” compared with only 17% of Skeptics and 7% of Rejecters.

How did a minority of Christian nationalist Americans gain such power in the White House? That’s the story of the 2024 election.

How did Christians, or a large minority of them, get from the Sermon on the Mount to Christian nationalism?

Josiah R. Daniels of Sojourners interviewed Professor Eric L. McDaniel, who we met earlier, and asked what in Christianity allowed nationalism to flourish. McDaniel answered:

Are you a Christian to carry out the work of Christ, or are you a Christian to gain power?

(Because) if you are a Christian to feed the poor, clothe the naked, heal the sick, you’re not concerned about your individual power, you are concerned about the others. A lot of people talk about the Christianity of Christ versus the Christianity of Constantine. When Christianity became part of the mainstream, it became about maintaining power. The thing about the Christianity of maintaining power is that it is much less work than the Christianity of helping the poor. Because the Christianity of maintaining power is just about I pray I don’t have sex with certain people and that’s really about it. But the Christianity of Christ is about constantly helping others. That is something that we have to come to grips with.

Southern slaveholders believed the Bible supported slavery while northern abolitionists believed it condemned it. If scanning the Bible and picking out those phrases or episodes which most make you feel most justified in your own beliefs is the correct way to analyze scripture, then they were both right.

There are snippets, particularly in what we call the “Old Testament,” but in the New as well, which can be laundered and hung on a line to support nationalisms. But a respectful reading of the Gospels must dismay any Christian nationalist. There are no calls to war, even a holy one, or to domination of any kind. There are, however, many calls to love and service.

It is not good to be ruled by true believers who control modern weapons.

Sources:

Mike Baker and Ruth Graham, “Pete Hegseth and His ‘Battle Cry’ for a New Christian Crusade,” New York Times, December 5, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/us/hegseth-church-crusades.html

Josiah R. Daniels, “What We Are Getting Wrong About Christian Nationalism,” Sojourners, May 6, 2025. https://sojo.net/articles/interview/reconstruct/what-we-are-getting-wrong-about-christian-nationalism.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne (Liveright: New York, 2021).

Adam Gabbatt, “Trump has put Christian nationalists in key roles – say a prayer for free speech,” The Guardian, April 16, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/16/christian-nationalists-trump-administration.

Adrian Horton, “‘Demolishing democracy’: how much danger does Christian nationalism pose?”, The Guardian, April, 27, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/apr/27/bad-faith-documentary-christian-nationalism.

Josh Kovensky, “An Outspoken Christian Nationalist Pastor Expands His Sway In Trump’s DC,” Talking Points Memo, May 22, 2025. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/an-outspoken-christian-nationalist-pastor-expands-his-sway-in-trumps-dc

Stephanie McCrummen, “The Christian Radical Are Coming,” The Atlantic, October 1, 2024. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/eau-claire-tent-revival/680097/.

Gabriel Paxton, “Christian Nationalism’s Legacy of Hate,” The Progressive, October 23, 2024. https://progressive.org/op-eds/christian-nationalisms-legacy-of-hate-paxton-20241023/.

Pew Research Center, “3. Christianity’s place in politics, and ‘Christian nationalism’,” Pew Research Center, March 15, 2024. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2024/03/15/christianitys-place-in-politics-and-christian-nationalism/.

PRRI Staff, “Support for Christian Nationalism in All 50 States: Findings from PRRI’s 2023 American Values Atlas,” Public Religion Research Institute, February 28, 2024. https://www.prri.org/research/support-for-christian-nationalism-in-all-50-states/.

Kelefa Sanneh, “How Christian Is Christian Nationalism?” The New Yorker, March 27, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/03/how-christian-is-christian-nationalism.

Katherine Stewart, Money, Lies and God (Bloomsbury: New York, 2025).

Alexander Ward and Heidi Przybyla, “Trump allies prepare to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ in second administration,” Politico, February 20, 2024. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/20/donald-trump-allies-christian-nationalism-00142086.