Understanding Christian Nationalism: What It Is, Why Our Founders Rejected It, and Why It Matters Now
Dr. Don McLaughlin
This essay offers a careful examination of Christian Nationalism as a political ideology, distinguishing it from the personal exercise of faith in public life.
It traces the historical experience that led America’s founders to reject the fusion of religious and governmental authority, documents their deliberate constitutional choices in the First Amendment, the Treaty of Tripoli, and the writings of Madison and Jefferson, and examines the 1954 Cold War addition of the phrase “one nation under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance as a departure from, rather than a recovery of, founding intent. The essay concludes by affirming the positive civic role of religious conviction when it serves the goals of equality, liberty, and justice for all, and distinguishing that role from the coercive imposition of Christian identity through state power.
