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On Christian Nationalism

What is Christian nationalism, why is it attracting evangelical support, and how does it differ from faithful Christian political engagement?

Last updated: April 17, 2026

TL;DR

Christian nationalism generally refers to the belief that America has a special Christian identity that should be preserved through government policy. It differs from faithful Christian political engagement in emphasizing national identity over gospel mission and often conflating partisan politics with biblical faithfulness. Evangelicals debate whether it represents legitimate patriotism or dangerous idolatry.

Christian nationalism has become one of the most contested and emotionally charged terms in contemporary evangelicalism. Critics warn it represents an idolatrous fusion of Christian faith with national identity, a modern manifestation of Christendom that mistakes earthly power for the kingdom of God. Proponents argue they are simply defending Christian civilization and values in the public square, warning against hostile secularization. The debate often generates more heat than light, with both sides talking past each other — but the stakes are real, touching core questions about the church's relationship to political power, the nature of religious liberty, and what it means to follow Christ in a pluralistic democracy.

Few evangelical leaders began this decade thinking Christian nationalism would become a central concern. Yet the question has become unavoidable: What does it look like to be a faithful Christian in a nation that is becoming increasingly post-Christian? How should evangelical churches relate to political power? What does proper love of country require? How do we distinguish between wholesome Christian civic participation and the idolatry of conflating Jesus with any political movement or national project? The controversy over Christian nationalism is ultimately a controversy about the kingdom of God and where evangelicals place their ultimate allegiance.

Key Questions This Topic Addresses

  • What exactly is Christian nationalism, and how does it differ from biblical patriotism or Christian engagement in politics?
  • Does Christian nationalism have legitimate roots in American religious history, or is it fundamentally a modern corruption of Christian faith?
  • Can Christians coherently support both religious liberty and a nominally Christian public square?
  • How should evangelical churches respond to Christian nationalist rhetoric within their congregations?
  • What does the Great Commission and the gospel demand of Christian political engagement?

The Evangelical Debate

Three Evangelical Responses to Christian Nationalism

Evangelicals have developed three distinct responses to Christian nationalism: some embrace it as a legitimate defense of Christian civilization, others vigorously oppose it as idolatrous, and still others attempt to chart a careful middle way between cultural accommodation and political withdrawal.

Position 1
Christian Nationalism (Sympathetic)
Stephen Wolfe · Doug Wilson · David French (critics' perspective) · Jenna Ellis
Christian nationalism advocates argue that a Christian civilization is both natural and biblically coherent. A nation with Christian heritage, Christian laws, and Christian values reflects biblical wisdom and honors God. This is not theocracy but rather the integration of Christian ethics into national life. Secularism's attempt to remove Christian influence from public institutions is itself a comprehensive worldview being imposed. Christians should work to restore Christian foundations to law, education, and culture, recognizing that culture flows from worldview and that Christian worldview should shape political and social life.
Key Reads
The Case for Christian Nationalism Church, State, and the Authority of Jesus
Position 2
Robust Christian Political Engagement (Anti-Nationalist)
Russell Moore · Tim Keller · Voddie Baucham · Trillia Newbell
Christian nationalism is fundamentally idolatrous, confusing earthly kingdoms with the kingdom of Christ and subordinating gospel witness to national power. The church's primary calling is not to restore Christian civilization but to proclaim Christ across all nations and peoples. History shows that when Christianity becomes identified with national power, the gospel gets compromised and the church becomes captive to political movements. Christians should engage politically from a posture of exile and prophetic critique, not triumphalism. Religious liberty is not a Christian value to weaponize but a shared civic good to defend for all faiths.
Key Reads
Unpacking "Separation of Church and State" Christians in the Public Square
Position 3
Theologically Chastened Engagement
Kevin DeYoung · Derek Rishmawy · Darrell Cole · Ligon Duncan
Christians should engage robustly in politics and culture, advocating for policies shaped by biblical conviction — but without illusions that any nation can be thoroughly 'Christian' or that political power is the kingdom of God. We can work for Christian values in law and culture (religious liberty, justice, sexual ethics, life) without naïveté about what politics can accomplish. The church must remain prophetic, willing to critique both political parties and any fusion of the gospel with political power. Patriotism is permissible; nationalism is not. Christian cultural engagement should be robust but humble, confident in truth but cautious about power.
Key Reads
The "New" Christian Nationalism How (Not) to Talk About 'Christian Nationalism'

What the Conversation Adds Up To

The Christian nationalism debate cuts to core evangelical convictions about power, kingdom, and witness. All evangelicals want faith to have cultural influence; they disagree sharply about whether cultural dominance is possible, desirable, or consistent with the gospel. The strongest evangelical voices warn against the idolatry of identifying Christ with any nation or political movement, while also insisting that Christian conviction should shape how we engage as citizens. The question is not whether to disengage from politics but how to engage as people whose ultimate allegiance belongs to another kingdom.

Perhaps the deepest evangelical consensus is this: the church's prophetic voice is most powerful when it is most obviously independent of political power. When Christians become identified as a voting bloc or cultural militia, we lose our ability to speak truth across political divides and we compromise the gospel's universal claim. The path forward is neither withdrawal from politics nor baptizing any nation as Christian, but faithful presence — engaging culture and politics from the conviction that God's kingdom transcends all earthly kingdoms and that our primary citizenship is heavenly.

The Evangelical Conversation, Curated

1
What Is Christian Nationalism?
Paul D. Miller · Christianity Today
Written in the weeks after the January 6 Capitol riot, Miller's explainer defines Christian nationalism as the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity and that government should act to keep it that way. He distinguishes it sharply from patriotism, which he calls a good love of place, and argues that nationalism founders because cultural boundaries are fuzzy while political ones are hard, so nationalist projects drift toward coercion of dissenters and minorities.
2
Christian Nationalism vs. Christian Patriotism
Thomas Kidd · The Gospel Coalition
Historian Thomas Kidd notes that “Christian nationalism” is usually an insult rather than a self-description, then traces the real thing through Cold War civil religion and the post-Roe fusion of evangelical identity with Republican politics. He defends measured patriotism from Romans 13 and 1 Timothy 2, and offers warning signs of idolatry: making America central to redemptive history, recasting political champions as devout believers, and churches that fail to reflect the nations.
3
“Christian Nationalism” Misrepresents Jesus, So We Should Reject It
Jonathan Leeman · 9Marks
Leeman separates “Influencers,” who want biblical conviction to shape a nation’s laws, from “Identifiers,” who want Christianity formally established, and counts himself among the first group. Using the image of establishment as a dimmer switch rather than an on/off switch, he argues that the adjective “Christian” inevitably declares an identity, so even well-meaning Influencers should drop the label lest they misrepresent Christ and his church.
4
The Case for Christian Nationalism: A Review Article
Kevin DeYoung · Themelios
DeYoung, who knew Stephen Wolfe’s scholarship from his own doctoral work, praises the book’s chapter on the good of cultural Christianity and shares Wolfe’s impatience with Christians who welcome the faith’s loss of public standing. But he concludes the overall project must be rejected, faulting its claims that ethnicities should not mix, that heretics may be executed, and that the nation needs a Caesar-like leader.
5
Book Review: The Case for Christian Nationalism, by Stephen Wolfe
Andrew T. Walker · 9Marks
Walker engages Wolfe from a Baptist perspective, arguing that the book is a work of clever logic more than exegesis. He presses on Wolfe’s core syllogism that government must promote true religion, contending that it reasons from an unfallen Eden instead of the Noahic covenant of Genesis 9 and the Bible’s redemptive-historical storyline, and sets it against the church-state principles of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
6
Larry Arnn and the Hillsdale Half Step
Douglas Wilson · Blog & Mablog
Responding to a conversation between Hillsdale’s Larry Arnn and Kevin DeYoung, Wilson offers a friendly but pointed case for the label. He argues that if morality requires a transcendent source and nations are moral agents, then believers are Christian nationalists in substance whatever they call themselves, and he sums up his version simply: America must repent of sins such as abortion and pornography and turn back to Christ.
7
6 Questions for Christian Nationalists
Kevin DeYoung · Clearly Reformed
DeYoung opens with the admission that he is “not a Christian Nationalist, but I almost could be,” affirming Samuel Miller’s “enlightened patriotism” and a privileged public place for Christianity while rejecting establishment and state coercion in religion. He then puts six questions to the movement, from whether it unequivocally renounces antisemitism and racism to whether the First Amendment was a mistake and what historical political order it actually wants.
8
How (Not) to Talk About ‘Christian Nationalism’
Brad East · Christianity Today
Borrowing Alvin Plantinga’s quip about the word “fundamentalist,” East argues that “Christian nationalism” has become a relative smear for anyone to one’s political right and should be retired. He still names five legitimate concerns its responsible critics raise, including ethno-nationalism and lawlessness, and insists the real dangers should be condemned in more precise terms, as “another gospel.”
9
America Has Always Been a Christian Nation
Riley M. Moore · First Things
Writing for America’s 250th anniversary, Congressman Riley Moore rejects the claim, which he says comes from both left and right, that America is a purely creedal nation of Enlightenment ideas. He argues that America is a covenant rooted in a Christian civilization, citing the Mayflower Compact, the Continental Congress’s prayers, fasts, and Bible purchases, and the opening of every Congress with prayer, and calls for teaching that history unapologetically.
10
The “New” Christian Nationalism
Paul C. Fine · Mere Orthodoxy
Fine, a historian of Cold War civil religion, tests the claim made at the National Conservatism Conference that a renewed Christian nationalism can repeat the 1950s triumph over godless communism. He argues that Eisenhower’s “spiritual-industrial complex” produced a government-promoted religiosity that quickly dissolved into vague spirituality, and warns that using Christianity as a tool of national renewal has repeatedly harmed the church.
11
Christian Nationalism Since 2019: A Retrospective
James Diddams · Providence
Diddams traces the movement from Yoram Hazony’s national conservatism and the Protestant retrieval of Reformation political theology through the reception of Wolfe’s book. He documents how online influencers pulled parts of the movement toward conspiracy and antisemitism, prompting the Antioch Declaration, and asks whether self-described Christian nationalists can keep those elements out of their tent.
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