Christian nationalists are key, if not indispensable, members of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement and the larger neofascist coalition. In Trump, they see a type of martyr and prophet who is a weapon for them and their God to create a Christofascist theocracy and Apartheid state. Christian Nationalists sincerely and deeply believe that they are fighting to preserve “their way of life” and “traditional American values” in a titanic battle between “good and evil” – where, of course, like other religious zealots, they are God’s elect as opposed to villains and evildoers.
As public opinion and other research has repeatedly shown, Christian nationalists (White Christian supremacists) and those allied with them believe in and support the use of political violence as a way of achieving their revolutionary plans for American society. The support for political violence and other cruelty by Christian nationalists and other members of the Christian right is also legitimated by their belief that the world is in a mythological End Times battle. Donald Trump, a masterful propagandist, has repeatedly signaled to this through his repeated use of language such as a “final battle” and need to get collective “revenge” on the Democrats and other “enemies” of so-called real America.
It was predictable and by design that Christian nationalists would play a prominent role in Trump’s Jan. 6 coup attempt and the lethal terrorist attack on the Capitol.
To better understand the role of militant White Christianity in America’s democracy crisis and the Age of Trump, I recently spoke with Bradley B. Onishi, president of the Institute for Religion, Media, and Civic Engagement and the Founder of Axis Mundi Media. In 2023 he published, “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism." He is also a faculty member in Religion and Philosophy at the University of San Francisco.
In this conversation, Onishi explains how violence is central and not peripheral or somehow coincidental to Christian nationalism and how the events of Jan. 6 highlighted the dangers of such a movement to the country. Onishi also warns about the type of antidemocratic and (even more) cruel America that the likes of Speaker Mike Johnson and the other Christian nationalists are trying to impose on the American people — and how Dictator Trump would be the vessel for that dystopia.
This is the second of a two-part conversation.
What is the role of violence in the Christian Nationalist movement? “Militant” Christianity is far from being peaceful or benign as its leaders and followers would (dishonestly) like to suggest.
There is a wonderful framework in Gorski and Perry’s book "The Flag and the Cross." They talk about how White Christian nationalists focus on a trinity consisting of freedom, order, and violence. White Christian nationalists only believe they can experience freedom if the social order is in its proper form. That means that all the various constituents of American communities must know their place in the social order and live out that role culturally, politically, and so on. If all the constituents don’t live out and/or accept their roles, then the social order is out of place - and thus White Christians can’t experience the freedom they believe to have been promised. As Gorski and Perry argue, White Christian nationalists reserve the right to use violence in order to put the social order back in place. When they act violently, it is as patriots, godly warriors, and real Americans. When others, including Black folks and people of color, and immigrants, and queer people, use protest or uprising to change the social order, they are deemed terrorists, extremists, and threats to the American way of life.
We've seen how Christians used violence in the past to put the social order back in the place they think it should be in. Scholars have shown us the iteration of the KKK in the 1910s and 1920s was a thoroughly Christian movement to reify the American social order in the wake of Reconstruction. Jim Crow can be seen as an extension of this movement. And of course, there were many in the thirties and forties who joined organizations and movements like the Christian Front and the America First movements inspired by people such as Charles Lindbergh or Father Coughlin who did so in the name of faith.
All of this is to say that when the social order feels out of place to the white Christian nationalists, they feel as if they are not experiencing American freedom. And then they feel as if they have the right to use violence to rectify that situation. January 6 is no different. And since then, we've only seen the calls coming from many sources in Christian America for further violence, for civil war, for a national divorce in order to make things, in their minds, how they should be.
What role did White nationalists and other “Christian” militants play on Jan. 6 with Trump’s coup attempt and the attack on the Capitol?
January 6 was in many ways a religious crusade. If you look closely at the symbols present on January 6, you will see of course American flags, but you'll also see Confederate flags. You'll see Christian flags. You'll see the Appeal to Heaven flag. You'll see people who are carrying icons of Mary and statues of Christ. You will see people who are praying at almost every stage of the insurrection, whether that is outside the building or inside the Senate chamber.
January 6 was for many of the rioters a chance to take back the country for God. And for the people whom God had rightly given the country too.
Mike Johnson is elevated to Speaker of the House and there is all this discussion about Christian Nationalism/White Christian supremacy. That lasts for a few days or perhaps a week or so, then it disappears. Mike Johnson is still Speaker of the House; he has not disappeared just because the media has stopped focusing on him. How does that feel given your years of sounding the alarm about the danger(s) such forces represent to the country?
I understand that we live in a situation where there's a 24-hour news cycle. For quite some time, there have been more crises to pay attention to than most of us have the bandwidth for. I think for me, the critical thing in my work is to continue to point out the threats that Christian extremists pose to our democracy.
I think at the moment we are in the eye of the storm. We're about a year from the election. And there's been a sense that the threat of Trump's reign is in the past. However, I think more folks are now coming to realize that the 2024 election is approaching. And the elevation of Johnson to speaker is a kind of foreshadowing of the kinds of retrograde social order that MAGA nation and Christian nationalists want to put in place in this country. So, for me, the task is to continue to point out how dangerous these ideologies and approaches to government are for our society. One of the biggest challenges in this media landscape is for people to realize that it is possible for White Christians to be dangerous.
What type of America and world do Mike Johnson and the other Christian nationalists want to create?
White Christian nationalists want an American society in which their particular interpretation of faith is privileged over all others. This means that, as Johnson says, the church has a profound influence on the government by way of policy, education, and law. If they had their way abortion would be banned, no-fault divorce would be illegal, and gay marriage outlawed. What does that equate to? It equates to a social order in which heterosexual Christians who adhered to a patriarchal family structure are the real Americans - and everyone else is seen as either deviant or second-class (unwilling or unable to attain the status of the real American). This social vision is retrograde. It prioritizes White Christian men, heterosexual families, native-born Americans, and treats the rest of us as “other.”
Mike Johnson's political vision is representative of many white Christian nationalists in the country. And what it represents is a demand that their particular interpretation of faith and values be implemented in our laws and policies. For them, if that vision is not implemented, then America is off course and they, as people of faith and as American citizens, are being persecuted. I've said it many times, but for those who are accustomed to privilege, equality in the public square feels like persecution. And so for Johnson and his cohorts the representation of other faiths, the legal protection of family structures that they see as deviant, the inclusion of trans people, of immigrants, of those who are not like them, in our society is not taken as an expansion of our Union, but as a kind of backsliding from the way America should be.
Unfortunately, for many Christian nationalists, there is a sense that democracy is not the answer, but the problem. They want power at any cost, and so if you don't have the majority; if you are not those who hold over 51% of the vote; if your opinion is increasingly in the minority; you will turn increasingly to non-democratic approaches to getting what you want.
We see this in the way that many on the American Christian Right totemize Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban. They see these men as leaders of countries who do so in God's name - who do so without apology and in a way that honors what they take to be the nuclear family values, traditional religious ethics, and so on and so forth. In their minds, the fact that Orban and Putin are at best illiberal leaders and at worst autocrats doesn't matter. And in fact, that's a benefit because they don't have to rely on Congress, the State Department the Department of Justice or anyone else to implement their vision for society. They don't have to go through the very slow and complex churnings of a democratic republic that relies on norms and processes to make sure things are fair.
The end result is an increasing recognition that if democracy doesn't get what you want then perhaps you should put it aside. And that's one of the scariest aspects of this movement.
What is the “Christian ethic” that guides the likes of Mike Johnson and the other Christofascists? What of the harm they are doing and will do even more to entire groups of people here in the United States and around the world? How do they reconcile that with their “Christian faith”?
From an outside perspective, it's often jarring to see people like Mike Johnson advocating for policies that are hurtful to other human beings and doing so in the name of Jesus Christ or in the name of Christianity. People like Mike Johnson will say that abortion should be banned in almost every case, despite the fact that it might lead to health complications for the mother, or even death. Or simply a loss of bodily autonomy and choice.
People like Mike Johnson might argue that if you're a gay person, you should have no right to be married. And in fact, you should be compared to someone who engages in bestiality, you should be seen as deviant from God's plan for your life. I could go on with many examples, but these are, of course, really hurtful to those affected by these statements by these kinds of policies. However, someone like Johnson feels as if they're doing something good for those human beings. By trying to correct them, by trying to reshape them in the image of God, they believe they're doing them a favor. And in doing so they believe they're creating a better society.
For Johnson, America suffers, America is punished, when we disobey God. By calling for the repeal of gay marriage, by trying to ban abortion, by trying to create a situation where the church has influence on the government, even if we live in a country where there are many non-believers atheists and so on, in Johnson's mind that's doing good for individuals and for society.
This is of course an incredibly paternalistic view. It's a view that says, I know better for you than you know for yourself - and what's better for you is the vision God has given me for society and for your life. To the outsider, it appears as if he's being cruel, hurtful, lacking empathy. To the insider, it is the hard work of somebody willing to take on the difficult task of restoring America for God's purpose.
In the world they are trying to create, what will happen to those of us who believe in real democracy and a pluralistic, secular, multiracial and cosmopolitan society and set of values?
I think we already have a clear picture of what will happen to those who don't fit into the Christian nationalist vision for America and the MAGA vision for America. Donald Trump has already laid out what his second term would look like. He has signaled that Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation. Project supported by many Christian nationalist organizations like the Family Research Council and Hillsdale College, is something that he would seek to implement. Project 2025 would demand that all State Department employees and other federal employees signal their loyalty to Trump as at-will employees, otherwise they will be removed.
This is of course an attempt to make sure that there are no roadblocks, that there is nothing standing in the way of Trump's vision. He has also talked about camps for migrants, widespread large camps. This is a scary idea for me as a Japanese American and all the memories in our community of the camps that were set up in the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He's also talked about the Insurrection Act and the use of the military as a way to keep control of the American social order. Mike Johnson is not going to stand in the way of any of those initiatives because they serve his understanding of how things should be in America. They represent the putting into place of the American social order as it should be.
If we put those two together, Trump, as the authoritarian leader, and Johnson as the representative of a white Christian nationalist vision for the country, we see how the two go hand in hand dating back to 2016 and now in 2023 and into 2024.
We are at a place in our country where there are Christian fascists. There are intellectuals, there are theologians, there are historians, there are pastors who are openly calling for a post-constitutional America; people who long for a Red Caesar that will save the country from itself. These are people who are openly saying that it would be better if we had a Christian Prince or another form of an autocratic leader, because that would mean a Christian nation operating according to their Christian values. Thus, democracy would be done away with, in the name of a godly country.
