Jensen Kugler
Staff Writer
On Nov. 3, Jeremy Rapport, associate professor of religious studies at the College, presented a lecture on Christian nationalism called “A Religious Government? Christian Nationalism in the Contemporary United States” in Lean Lecture Hall. Rapport is teaching a new class on Christian nationalism next semester, and he saw his lecture as a preview of the course.
Rapport began with an overview of what Christian nationalism means, defining it as the “claim that the U.S. was intended to be a Christian nation, founded by and for Christians, and that the contemporary government should be controlled by and for the benefit of Christians.” In today’s America, Christian Nationalists tend to be culturally and politically conservative. Rapport went on to call Christian nationalism an ideology found in many places, as well as a reaction to social change, particularly shifting attitudes towards gender and sexuality. Landmark cases, like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade, have been a catalyst for the spread of Christian nationalist ideology.
After giving an overview of Christian nationalism, Rapport presented its historical background. “Let’s start by being historians,” he began, before covering the religious intolerance of early English settlers, the connections between ‘Lost Cause Ideology’ and Christian nationalism and the rhetoric of the ‘Moral Majority.’
As Rapport addressed in his lecture, the Constitution does not extensively address the practice of religion. Article VI prohibits religious requirements for holding public office, and the First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Outside of these passages, Rapport sees American responses to issues of religious freedom as “more or less always up for debate.” The American legal system is complex and ever-evolving, as is its approach to cases regarding religion.
Rapport also discussed the religious background of today’s Christian nationalist movement. He connected Christian nationalism to postmillennialism, the belief that “humans have a responsibility to God to fix [their] problems, and thus to establish the millennium, before Jesus can return” and “final judgement can occur.”
The postmillennialist belief helps explain modern Christian nationalism because it reflects a desire to ‘fix’ society and establish the Millennium. To that end, Rapport described Christian nationalism as a “politically-based form of postmillennialism.”
One of Rapport’s primary concerns about Christian nationalism in modern America is the dissolution of the separation of church and state. “Christian nationalism threatens American religious pluralism as well as the rights of many minority Americans,” said Rapport.
Self-proclaimed Christian Nationalists include U.S. Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Trump’s spiritual advisor, Paula White-Cain. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, whose recent death has dominated news coverage, also publicly identified as a Christian Nationalist.
“Christian nationalism is in a position of power in the federal government now in a way that it never has been before,” said Rapport. “It illustrates the falling away of these boundaries that we as Americans have always thought have existed between religion and the state and the sacred and the secular.”
Rapport did not offer a simple answer as to how Americans can evaluate their position on religious freedom or Christian nationalism, but his lecture serves as an example of a potential path forward. Rapport hopes that his lecture and the others in the series have opened the campus community up to further discussions on the religious resonance of current events.
To end, Rapport posed to his audience: “What does it mean to live in a meaningful, connected world?”
The last lecture in the Fall Academy of Religion series, titled “Be Fruitful and Multiply? Trad Wives, Pronatalism, and More” will be presented by Terry Reeder, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, on Monday, Nov. 10 at 7:00 p.m. in Lean Lecture Hall.
