Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory
We are as inundated with conspiracy theories as Florida is inundated by hurricane storm surges. The MAGA-Moscow wing of the Republican Party announces that a deep state is inviting murderers and rapists from Venezuelan prisons to migrate to America to terrorize Aurora, Colorado. More. Republicans tell us the White House is withholding FEMA emergency funds for victims of hurricanes Hellene and Milton to give federal money to immigrants in order to get their votes. Still more. “Yes, they can control the weather,” avers Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, after Hurricane Hellene tore up Florida’s beaches.
Fear-based messaging based on conspiracy theories are not copyrighted only by MAGA Republicans, however. Progressive Protestants and liberal media mogels have drunk the conspiracy Kool Aid too. My concern here is a Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory (CNCT). CNCT is aimed at denigrating evangelical Christianity. Why? Because 80% of evangelicals are MAGA voters. Anti-Trumpers displace their anger against Donald Trump onto evangelical Christians. The logic is curious: if Trump is guilty, then evangelicals should face the firing squad. CNCT provides the ammunition.
The Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory is spread through documentaries and popular books as well as websites and blog posts. In the documentary Bad Faith, directed by Stephen Ujlaki and Christopher Jacob Jones, for example, evangelicals allegedly don the hoods of the Ku Klux Klan. CN and the KKK become indistiguishable from the evangelicals who live next door. It’s time to fear and perhaps even despise the evangelicals next door.
Jumbling together multiple threats with Evangelical Christianity
Election year documentaries such as God & Country or Faith and Fascism along with Bad Faith jumble together the KKK with abortion with the racism of Senator Strom Thurmand or Bob Jones University with Thomas Road Baptist Church with Calvinism and with clips of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Bad Faith‘s narrator declares Christian Nationalism (CN) to be “one of the most influential political organizations in the country.” Really?
Now, the cardinal principle embedded in the Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory is theocracatic rule or dominionism. CNers want the U.S. government to make Christianity the state religion. According to CNCT, the US government should declare America to be a Christian nation.
But here is the shocker: if theocracy defines CN, then the Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory does not apply either to evangelicals or to MAGA Republicans. What!? That’s right.
Let me explain.
Evangelical Christians are direct heirs of Roger Williams (1603- 1683) who formulated the doctrine of Religious Liberty or Freedom of Religion. Not theocracy. Not state supported religion. Not Christian exclusivity.
This doctrine of religious liberty became articulately formulated in the First Ammendment of the US Constitution. Today, America relies largely on the Baptists to support the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. And, under the leadership of evangelical Amanda Tyler, Christians Against Christian Nationalism. If your next door evangelical neighbor turns out to oppose CN, don’t be surprised.
What about MAGA Republicanism? MAGA acknowledges no alliance with CN. Evangelical preacher Franklin Graham reiterated commitment to religious liberty at the 2024 Republican National Convention. He made no mention of privileging the Christian religion let alone theocracy. In addition, Project 2025 advocates relgious liberty, not Christian theocracy. In short, MAGA Republicanism does not ally itself with CN, theocracy, dominionism, or the like.
Here’s the takeaway. CN exists, to be sure. Yet, what CNers believe is diametrically opposed to what millions of evangelicals believe.
Here’s the problem: CN is no bigger than a gecko compared to the size of the evangelical dragon imagined in Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory. Anti-Christian nationalists use fear-mongering introduced by Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory to slay the alleged evangelical threat to democracy. The actual CN gecko becomes enlarged into a fire-breathing dragon by Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory. Fake news. Disinformation.
What’s really going on?
What’s really going on? In this Patheos series on Christian nationalism, I’ve stressed that the underlying phenomenon in France and Russia along with America is cultural anxiety. The French term it ressentiment.
Large portions of our population feel overwhelmed by social change. The feeling of being overwelmed by the onrush of the future we once labeled, “future shock.” Old values are being displaced by new values. Seniors are being replaced by their grandchildren. What many in our society feel is resentment. Resentment festers and boils and errupts into mob rhetoric if not violence. The MAGA-Moscow wing of the Republican Party has exploited this resentment to get votes. Progressive Protestants have exploited this resentment to attack their traditional rivals, the evangelicals.
Its Ressentiment, Stupid!
This is what public theologian Martin Marty observes.
Theologian
“These are not new in politics, religion, or culture, but, taken together, they appear to be grounded in profound, bone-deep, soul-destroying resentment, and are efficiently mobilized by modern media, on the internet, and with expensive advertising. The analysts point to the special character of our current explosions and often render their view technical by using the French word ressentiment.”
In short, resentment in the form of ressentiment is based on re-feeling a past injustice — either an actual injustice or one contrived by the speech maker — that stimulates our emotions to right the injustice with a mob mindset. We find this mob mindset among MAGA Republicans and progressive anti-Christian nationalists.
Theologian Roger Olson connects Ressentiment with Donald Trump
Here is veteran evangelical systematic theologian Roger E. Olson.
The majority of Americans still consider themselves Christians in some sense. But education, governments, and popular culture have quickly, increasingly banned it from having any “voice” even in TV shows where you would expect there to be a church….Almost no TV characters have any religion and if they do, it’s Hindu or Jewish and if Christianity is featured at all it is ridiculed (Big Bang Theory).
This is what the Million Women March was about (October 12, 2024). And I believe it is what is fueling the passion of many MAGA Americans. They wrongly think Donald Trump is going to bring Christianity back into the American public square. He might, but only to keep them supporting him. And what influence he attempts to give it will be shallow at best and probably not true Christianity which is all about compassion for the weak, the vulnerable, the helpless, the needy.
Evangelical Olson has no sympathy for Christian nationalism whatsoever. Yet, he understands.
Ressentiment calls for pastoral care, not anti-evangelical ideology.
I’m finding it difficult to extend the diagnosis further. The anti-Christian nationalists among us are made up of media vultures, progressive Protestants, and evangelicals themselves. What I have just said about the ideological denigration of evangelicals applies to the first two, but not the third. Anti-Christian nationalist evangelicals wish to purify their tradition by recapturing the gospel and by promoting social justice. Evangelicals who are self-critical appear to be lifting up a prophetic voice within their own Israel. Hooray! This should be encouraged, supported, and cheered.
What I yearn for is an attiudinal conversion on the part of my own progressive Protestant community. Rather than take the opportunity to denounce with all the armed angels in heaven the dastardly if not demonic behavior of America’s evangelical Christians, I ask: why do progressive Christians lack the compassion to address the anxiety underlying widespread ressentiment? Why do my progressive friends and colleagues sponsor a mob mindset against evangelical communities within the Body of Christ? The self-righteousness if not bigotry of the liberal Protestant tradition proffers divisiveness at the very moment we are praying for unity.
The real enemy is the MAGA-Moscow wing of the Republican Party. Not the evangelical family living next door. Why forgoe the possiliby of common cause in the name of Jesus?
Envoi
Yes, we can expect the majority of evangelical Christians in America to believe Donald Trump’s lies and to vote Republican. But a Christian nationalist belief system does not explain this. What does explain it? Ressentiment.
Conclusion
Just as a reminder, I’m a public systematic theologian who is evangelical when it comes to the gospel and liberal when it comes to matters of justice. I find life within the progressive Protestant community edifying, energizing, and inspiring. I have no plans to alter my worldview nor move to another theological context. I find it heartening that progressive Christians such as Matthew Distfano “call for a reclamation of authentic Christianity centered on the teachings of Jesus, emphasizing love, peace, and justice.”
Yet, I find it disheartening to see my friends and colleagues mimicing MAGA Republicans with their own consipiracy theory, a theory that risks firing up the same type of mob spirit directed against evangelicals. Why?
PT 3253 Christian Nationalist Conspiracy Theory
Christian Nationalism Resources
PT 3247 Anti-Anti-Christian Nationalism, Part 1
PT 3248 Anti-Anti-Christian Nationalism, Part 2
PT 3249 Anti-Anti-Christian Nationalism, Part 3
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For Patheos, Ted Peters posts articles and notices in the field of Public Theology. He is a Lutheran pastor and emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union. His single volume systematic theology, God—The World’s Future, is now in the 3rd edition. He has also authored God as Trinity plus Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society as well as Sin Boldly: Justifying Faith for Fragile and Broken Souls. He recently published. The Voice of Public Theology, with ATF Press. See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com and Patheos blog site on Public Theology.
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