A scholarly term for people who want the U.S. to be governed as an explicitly Christian nation has been reclaimed by those who once rejected it.
It also includes violent extremists willing to tear down democratic processes to bring about their vision of a white Christian nation. And while the vast majority of people who could be categorized as Christian nationalists fall into the first two camps, experts worry that the idea of a self-identified label could bring different kinds of Christian nationalists more closely together.
It’s a dangerous normalization. “You have surveys that show there’s correlation, that the more staunchly people hold Christian nationalist profiles, the less they defend democracy,” said Du Mez. Other scholars have shown that Christian nationalismIt may have been inevitable that some on the political right would reclaim the term. Groups that see themselves as victimized often tend to reappropriate accusatory language, and social media makes for a useful place to experiment with identities and test out the public’s reaction. “Christian nationalism is simultaneously becoming more stigmatized in the mainstream,” said Sam Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma who studies Christian nationalism. “And yet the people that do affirm it are becoming more radicalized, more militant, more really open about it. Like, ‘OK, if this is who we are, we just need to embrace this thing.”Scholars and self-proclaimed Christian nationalists may not always mean the same thing when they use the term. Some self-identifying Christian nationalists might simply be social conservatives who advocate against gay marriage, for example. This is different from the scholarly study of those who believe the American political process itself should be overhauled to serve God—or that the reasoning undergirding the laws of the U.S. should be explicitly Christian.But many Christian nationalists who identify that way likely know what they’re advocating for. Greene may have missed some of the nuances of the conversation, but she opportunistically and openly represents brash, aggressive, stop-the-steal types of Americans. And she knows she can use the shock of the label to burnish her brand. As Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist studying Christian nationalism at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, put it: “It’s, ‘if it makes the left or liberals upset, I’m more than willing to claim it.’”
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