The GOP Is Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud

In 2023, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) courted attention by openly declaring herself a ​“Christian nationalist.” A few years ago, Greene might not have been taken seriously. As a believer in wild antisemitic conspiracy theories (space lasers, anyone?), who spreads white nationalist narratives like the ​“Great Replacement” theory, and who spoke at a rally for the white supremacist, Holocaust-denying Nick Fuentes, Greene was considered little more than a troll by most of the Republican establishment. But within the ever-radicalizing GOP, she’s now found her place. And at July’s ​“NatCon” conference, a much more formidable colleague joined her, as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) proclaimed that he, too, was a Christian Nationalist. 

“Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation,” said Hawley on the night of the conference. ​“And so I am. And some will say I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do. Is there any other kind worth having?”

It was a rhetorical question, of course, since Hawley went on to declare, ​“Christian nationalism founded American democracy.” Hawley also offered a theological spin on the ​“Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which holds that the Left is ​“replacing” ​“native-born” Americans with non-white immigrants, and which has been directly linked to multiple mass shootings.

“Instead of Christmas, they want Pride month,” Hawley said. ​“Instead of prayer in schools, they venerate the trans flag. Diversity, equity and inclusion are their watchwords, their new Holy Trinity, and they expect their preachments to be obeyed… Now this is the Left’s true replacement theory, their true replacement agenda to replace the Christian ideals on which this nation was founded, and to silence those Americans who dare still stand by.”

Hawley’s open embrace of Christian nationalism drew backlash from pundits and faith leaders alike. But it was far from the only controversial appearance at NatCon that signified an important shift in how the political Right is portraying its relationship to Christian nationalism and extreme voices on the religious Right. 

The NatCon movement is a relatively new branding effort to unite the Right’s various warring factions under one comprehensive umbrella: bringing together right-wing libertarians with social conservatives, fiscal conservatives and religious fundamentalists. It’s a shaky alliance at best — an impression reinforced by how often NatCon speakers pledged unity while also delivering passive-aggressive jabs against their ideological rivals. But the new big tent under which the U.S. Right is convening is Christian nationalism.

And they’re doing so with a sense of urgency made evident by the fact that some of the most militant representatives of the religious Right are now being elevated. One of them is Doug Wilson, a Reformed pastor who’s built a small religious empire in Moscow, Idaho. 

Wilson has been teaching a militarized version of Christianity for decades. He has called for a ​“theology of fistfighting” and the motto of the Christian college he founded in Moscow reads: ​“For the faithful, wars shall never cease.” 

For decades, Wilson has been relegated to the fringes of evangelicalism for his slavery apologism, ties to the neo-Confederate movement and longstanding, documented racism. That makes it significant that he was invited to speak at NatCon this year. More significant still is the fact that Wilson shared the stage with Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a longtime leader within the second-largest Christian denomination in the United States and for decades a standard-bearer of the religious Right. 

When Mohler and Wilson greeted each other on stage, conservative observers declared it ​“the handshake that will be seen around the Protestant world” — a sign of how large a shift in the right-wing landscape such a pairing represents. 

More radical still was their shared, chilling vision of a society where Christian supremacy rules.

“I want to maximize the Christian commitments of the state,” Mohler said in his remarks. ​“I’m not claiming that every citizen will be a confessing Christian. But that does not mean they are not obligated to the acknowledgment of the Christian structure of this civilization.” Within this new order, Mohler explained, other religions would be tolerated. But given that ​“a nation cannot exist without specific theological commitments,” he continued, all citizens, Christian or not, ​“must acknowledge those commitments. The secularist dream is a constitutionalist nightmare.” 

In the days after NatCon, Wilson went even further, declaring, ​“In the republic I envision, Hindus would not be able to hold political office.” 

“Wilson has often been seen as a fringe figure due to what many see as his blatant racism, misogyny and promotion of a ​‘federal vision’ theology that many consider incompatible with orthodox Christianity,” explains historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. ​“But here we see the two men finding common cause in wanting to ​‘maximize the Christian commitments of the state.’ This is noteworthy, too, because while Wilson draws on a Christian Reconstructionist theology that collapses the separation of church and state, Baptists have traditionally championed that separation.” The two men coming together, she added, ​“signifies a growing coalition around a common Christian nationalist agenda.”

Mohler and Wilson both laid out their vision for a society under Christian rule, where people of other religious faiths will have to ​“respect” the theology that structures society — whatever that vague phrasing might mean in practice. There were some clues though, to what this fun-house mirror version of religious pluralism could look like. Yoram Hazony, chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, which hosts NatCon’s conferences, moderated the talk between Wilson and Mohler and served up one example. Hazony, who is Jewish, announced paradoxically that while he was ​“not a fan of litmus tests” for joining NatCon’s big tent movement, there should at least be one requirement: that everyone agrees on the need to display the Ten Commandments in public schools.

“This maps a larger trend of Christian nationalists calling for an imposition of Christian morality and order on American society,” said Bradley Onishi, a scholar of religion and the religious Right and host of the podcast Straight White American Jesus. ​“And it does not matter if you’re a Christian or not. That is a necessity if you are going to be an American.”

“The Mohler-Wilson alliance is just a reflection of that larger trend,” Onishi continued, ​“and it will give legitimacy to it, because those are two seemingly disparate figures who have come together and are now going to provide a kind of supercharged path forward for this idea in our public square.”

Skirting the issue of how members of minority religions would be treated in a Christian state was a repeated motif of the NatCon conference, as calls for unity papered over theological and religious divisions, and stood in direct opposition to proposed policies that would allow conservative Christians to dictate the rules of public life. But it wasn’t just there. 

Religious plurality was treated similarly during the Republican National Convention as well. When California Republican official Harmeet Kaur Dhillon recited a Sikh prayer at the RNC, images of Christian crosses and U.S. flags were projected on the big screen on stage behind her. Similar images — of Christian crosses and churches — were projected onto the screens when former U.S. Senate candidate Leora Levy recited a Jewish-themed prayer. 

While past RNCs have featured diverse religious voices, these developments show that the thin veneer of religious pluralism that Christian nationalism hides behind is becoming thinner still. The responses to Dhillon’s prayer in particular made that clear, as Republican and right-wing figures from theologians to far-right activists lamented that the prayer represented “‘COEXIST’ pabulum,” a ​“Satanic Hindu prayer” or ​“pagan blasphem[y]” and ​“witchcraft.”

The sense of Christian supremacy displayed at the RNC and NatCon, as well as other, more recent examples — just in the last two weeks, a Tulsa, Oklahoma, mayoral candidate called for returning to the days when ​“public officials had to be Christians,” and two leading candidates in Missouri’s gubernatorial race declared themselves Christian nationalists — shows that Christian nationalists are feeling confident in the role they’d play in a second Trump presidency.

And why wouldn’t they? If Trump wins another term in the White House, Christian nationalists are now, even more than in 2016, in a prime position to heavily influence his agenda.

Not to mention that, for all the missteps that have surrounded the first few weeks of his status as vice presidential nominee, Trump’s VP pick, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, has been linked to Catholic integralism — what history and religion scholar Jemar Tisby calls the ​“Catholic cousin” of Protestant Christian nationalism. 

The last day of the RNC was drenched in displays of violent hyper-masculinity—with pro wrestling and martial arts stars with histories of domestic violence setting the stage for Trump—alongside devout testimonials from Republican legislators that God’s ​“hand was on President Trump,” as Rep. Greene declared from the stage. Sen. Tim Scott went a step further, directly tying Trump’s survival of the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania to his belief that the United States is a Christian country. 

“If you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday,” Scott said, ​“you better be believing right now! Thank God Almighty that we live in a country that still believes in the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the alpha and the omega!” 

Hulk Hogan ripping up his shirt on the RNC stage and yelling about how ​“Trumpamaniacs” were going to ​“run wild” on ​“scumbag” politicians might seem like an odd lead-in to the speaker who followed him: Rev. Franklin Graham, offering a benediction for the Republican nominee. But the seeming contradiction perfectly sums up both the core of the MAGA movement and the type of Christian nationalism that’s being placed in its service: a maelstrom of performative hypermasculinity, violence and resentment, anointed by God’s providence and thereby made bulletproof. 

The Christian nationalist version of unity is just as hollow as their display of religious pluralism: It only applies to a chosen few, and when one scratches its surface, authoritarianism lurks beneath.