How Trump is Spearheading the American Christian Nationalist Movement

The Christian nationalist ideology sits at the core of Trump's plans for America. From cutting DEI programs to stripping away reproductive freedoms, Trump is privileging one, specific group.

The first week of the Trump presidency made clear that we are indeed going to get a version of Project 2025. And the real-life plan, like the project, is steeped in Christian nationalism. The policy proposals coming out of the first week’s actions may be incoherent and many are likely to fail; but the ideological vision is coherent and sure to leave scars. That vision is to remake America as an authoritarian state whose aims are consonant with the leaders of the Christian nationalist movement.

Some elements of the Christian nationalist agenda are showing up in smaller, less-publicized decisions. For example, Trump said he was “honored” to pardon nearly two dozen anti-abortion activists charged with using ropes, bike blocks, and chains to stop patients from entering reproductive health clinics; were found to have stolen fetal remains; and whose actions injured a nurse. The pardon was intended as a reward to the anti-abortion movement for supporting Trump, and movement activists are celebrating it in hopes of future gains.

The even more consequential—and utterly disgraceful—pardon of the January 6 criminals was also more than just a way of encouraging the formation of violent, extra-legal militias to work on Trump’s behalf. It was a reward and empowerment of the segment of Christian nationalist leaders who spread the lie about the supposedly stolen election and then encouraged or led the assault on the Capitol. Indeed, some of the mob, most of whom have now been pardoned, held religious symbols and signage as they carried out their violent rampage. They and others interpret the pardons as an affirmation of their project to replace American democracy with a religious nationalist form of authoritarian government.

An effort to reward Christian nationalist leadership for their loyalty is also driving many of Trump’s critical appointments. Russ Vought, a principal architect of Project 2025 and the president of the Center for Renewing America, has been nominated to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Vought has promoted the idea that conservative Christians are victims of persecution and has discussed possible strategies of retribution. His insurrection-friendly think tank, according to internal documents, is explicitly committed to promoting “Christian nationalism.”

Of course, equally telling is the case of Pete Hegseth, a card-carrying—or, rather, tattoo-bearing—representative of the movement. The tattoos include a crusader cross and the words “Deus Vult,” meaning “God wills it,” widely thought to be a crusader cry. The tattoos suggest a commitment to the belief, respectable within Christian nationalist circles, that the murderous crusades of the medieval era were an honorable effort, maybe worth trying again. In his books and podcast appearances, Hegseth toes every one of the movement’s party lines, including the idea that public schools are anti-Christian indoctrination camps. Hegseth’s former sister-in-law has claimed he didn’t think women should vote. Hegseth has close ties to a church that belongs to pastor Doug Wilson’s Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), which is breathtakingly reactionary. A CREC-affiliated press published Stephen Wolfe’s book, The Case for Christian Nationalism.

The role of Christian nationalism in the new administration was also evident in the exchange between Trump and the Bishop of Washington, Mariann Budde, at the National Cathedral. The Christian nationalist leaders behind Trump largely detest the kind of Christianity that the bishop, in their eyes, represents.

At Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, a 20,000-person gathering of the MAGA hard core that took place in Phoenix, Arizona in December, speakers condemned what they call “woke Christianity.” Taking aim at “the social gospel,” the “historical Jesus movement … liberation theology and Black liberation theology,” Lucas Miles, head of Turning Point USA Faith, the sponsoring organization’s faith outreach arm, said, “We have to decide which Jesus … is the real Jesus.” This cohort has welcomed Trump’s attack on the bishop, and indeed some have followed up with proposals to deport Budde or seize the National Cathedral from the Episcopalians and turn it over to a more biblically correct (and now politically correct, in their manner of speaking) reactionary church.

But the theocratic authoritarian impulse is also present in a deeper way, in actions that at first glance may appear to have little to do with religion. Several of Trump’s actions this week, for example, are transparently intended to reward his personal political friends and punish his political enemies. Are you a crypto-libertarian tech bro fired up for Trump but weirdly obsessed with the prosecution of a drug kingpin? Trump will pardon your hero. Are you a long-serving national security official who insulted Trump at some point? Trump will cancel your security clearance, and maybe even your protective security detail.

It is easy to see that this government is organized largely around satisfying the emotional needs and financial interests of one person. But we should not overlook that this kind of personal rule involves a certain vision of what purpose government fundamentally serves, and that vision is deeply rooted in Christian nationalism. For the Christian nationalist leaders whose movement brought Trump to power, the fundamental model of government is “kingship.” Many of them describe Trump as a new King Cyrus and insist that God chose him to “save” America. There is no room in this model for the “rule of law”—except where that phrase is used as a euphemism for “the iron fist.” There is also no gap between the king’s personal household and the administration of state business. The king is the law, and you are either with him or against him.

Trump’s assault on diversity initiatives and orders to eliminate anti-discrimination provisions dating from the Civil Rights era are also deeply shaped by Christian nationalism. While the administration frames these orders as an antidote to identity politics and affirmative action in favor of merit, they are very clearly intended—and are already being interpreted—as affirmative action for the “right” type of people. As in any nationalist government, the “right” type of people are those who show loyalty to the ruling party and present themselves as members of the right identity group, which in this case consists mostly of white conservative Christian males. Pete Hegseth is a pretty good example of this kind of reverse-DEI in action; were he not a white male with the supposedly correct religious and political views, there is no conceivable way that someone with his substandard qualifications and appalling record would have been appointed the Secretary of Defense.

Trump’s health agenda, too, draws tremendous support from the anti-science and anti-intellectual currents that dominate the Christian nationalist movement. Pulling out of the Paris Agreement may look like a way of pandering to the fossil fuel lobby—and it is that—but it is also a cause dear to many Christian nationalists, who believe that God has given man dominion over the earth and who see the environmental movement as a secularizing “Green Dragon.” Trump’s confusing directives on the lifesaving research at the NIH and withdrawing from the WHO are intended to please the Make America Healthy Again crowd gathering around RFK Jr., but these moves, too, win the hearts of many leaders of the Christian nationalist movement, which sees those organizations as spreaders of abortion and woke medicine.

The love that Trump lavished on the fossil fuel industry this week went beyond climate denial, and it, too, is also strangely connected with his Christian nationalist base. The fossil fuel industry, notably in Texas, is intimately tied to the movement; some of the key movement funders, such as Tim Dunn and the Wilks brothers, are energy billionaires who help fund disinformation projects and right-wing culture war initiatives. Trump’s moves in this direction are a way of rewarding one of the industries that subsidize the Christian nationalist movement, thereby providing critical support for Trumpian politics by spreading disinformation and turning out its base on MAGA’s behalf.

In the coming months and years, many of Trump’s policy proposals are likely to fail. They will fail through incompetence, or they will turn out to be un-implementable, or they will be struck down or snarled up in the courts. But there are some sure bets at this point, including tax cuts for the wealthy, the deregulation of the most anti-social elements of the tech industry and crypto con, subsidies for planet-destroying industries combined with a rollback of recent gains in the renewable energy sector, the further destruction of public education, and the promotion of a culture of distrust, paranoia, and contempt for those who fail to conform. The Christian nationalist vision at the core of the enterprise will likely continue to make advances. That’s because it is easier to destroy than to create. All they need to do is destroy American democracy. They’re off to a good start.

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Katherine Stewart is the author of Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy (Bloomsbury) as well as The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism and other books. You can find her at @katherinestewart.bsky.social