Donald Trump’s energetic embrace of Christian nationalism before a convention of religious broadcasters last week sent a clear message to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and every other religious minority: You don’t belong here.
He promised to use a second term to defend Christian values against those on the Left who “want to tear down crosses where they can and cover them up with social justice flags.” He is well aware that social justice – civil rights, civil liberties, religious freedom – are historic hallmarks of Jewish political engagement.
The disgraced former president, who has spoken in a way that left himself open to accusations of antisemitism, went on to tell the National Religious Broadcasters International Christian Media Convention: “No one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration, I swear to you.”
“The Left is trying to shame Christians,” Trump added. “They’re trying to shame us. I’m a very proud Christian.” In a long and rambling speech, he also promised to “make sure everyone’s speaking English.”
He was linking Christian nationalism to the great replacement theory, which is founded on the need to keep undesirable foreigners from overtaking this white, Christian country.
That was the possible motivation for the first impeachment of a sitting cabinet secretary in the nation’s history.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached on a one-vote margin in a party-line roll call with all Republicans (minus three defections) and no Democrats, for failing to solve the southern border crisis. Undercutting their claim, the GOP blocked bipartisan efforts to deal with the issue on orders from Trump, who wants to keep the topic festering so he can use it in the fall campaign.
No evidence of the constitutionally required “high crimes and misdemeanors” was produced against Mayorkas, a Cuban-born immigrant and son of Holocaust survivors. Mark Green (R-Tennessee) chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said his panel was “deporting” the Jewish official, whom he called “a reptile with no balls.” The White House branded that statement “vile” and “antisemitic.”
As the leader of the xenophobic, isolationist MAGA movement, Trump promised the Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend that as president he will launch “the largest deportation in the history of our country.”
The embrace of Christian nationalism was also at the heart of a notorious decision by the Alabama Supreme Court last week declaring that human embryos are children and their destruction is tantamount to murder.
Chief Justice Tom Parker went beyond any legal argument, writing that embryos “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself.”
The Nation called the ruling “Christian theology masquerading as law.” Trump quickly seemed to embrace it as part of his boast (accurately) of having destroyed Roe v. Wade (which led to the Alabama decision), but as soon as he saw the quick backlash he reversed himself and denounced it.
Republicans across the country are gingerly trying to distance themselves from the decision without offending the anti-abortion crowd, which thinks it was a good idea and may target contraception next.
THE ALABAMA ruling is only the latest example of public officials embracing extreme Christian nationalism and challenging church-state separation. Look for Republicans to ramp up their campaign if Trump wins in November.
Journalist Tim Alberta has written of “a clear link between Christian nationalist ideology and racism, xenophobia, misogyny, authoritarian, and anti-democratic sentiments, and an appetite for political violence.”
Even as Trump boasted that he has done “more to uphold religious freedom than any administration in history,” he announced plans to create a task force to combat “anti-Christian bias” by investigating “discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America,” the Guardian reported.
A survey by the Pew Research Center found “some Americans [primarily Republicans, it noted] clearly long for a more avowedly religious and explicitly Christian country.” Pew noted that this view is not shared by Jews and other religious minorities.
Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are outspoken Christian nationalists. Greene, a conspiracy theorist and discoverer of Jewish space lasers, believes America should have a Christian government. Boebert has said: “I’m tired of this ‘separation of church and state’ junk… The church is supposed to direct the government.”
Speaker Mike Johnson has said anyone who wants to know what he thinks about any issue should “go pick up a Bible off our shelf and read it.” In a retreat for Republican colleagues last week, he gave a briefing that some attendees said sounded like a sermon as he focused on “declining church membership and the nation’s shrinking religious identity.”
The heart of Christian nationalism
At the heart of Christian nationalism is the belief that America’s founding fathers intended this to be a Christian nation. PBS reported that some want Congress to “declare the US a Christian nation, advocate Christian values [and] stop enforcing the separation of church and state.”
What they seem unaware of, or intentionally ignore, is that there is no explicit mention of God in the US Constitution or even the divine. It was left out because the Founding Fathers wanted a complete separation of state and church, the opposite of what so many of today’s Republicans demand.
Many of the founders were not religious. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin (who wanted to make Hebrew the national language), James Madison, and Thomas Paine called themselves “deists,” meaning a belief in God but not following the teaching of any specific religion. John Adams rejected the divinity of Jesus. George Washington never mentioned God in any of his writings, referring instead to “Providence.”
It is curious and troubling that the preferred candidate of so many white Protestant evangelicals today is a thrice-divorced philanderer who was declared a rapist by a judge who found him liable in a sexual abuse case, who has boasted about grabbing women by the genitals, and is charged with paying hush money to a porn star.
Trump also has been indicted on 91 criminal charges, was judged to have committed financial fraud, and has pleaded guilty to misusing a charitable foundation that was then ordered dissolved.
Trump’s antisemitism is seen in many campaign tropes, the classic canard “you people,” the accusations of dual loyalty, the references to Jews being “only in it for themselves,” hosting dinner for antisemites at his resort, accusing liberal Jews who didn’t back him of voting “to destroy America and Israel,” referring to Israel as “your country” and “your prime minister,” and calling neo-Nazis and white nationalist marchers as “very fine people.”
There is no absolution for someone, even if he has Jewish grandchildren – not even if he claims he brought peace to Israel and made Jerusalem its capital.
Trump’s embrace of Christian nationalism and replacement theory “poses a threat not just to secular people but also to the vast majority of religious people whose faith does not entail using the state to impose theology,” Jeet Heer wrote in The Nation. And it is a fundamental threat to American democracy.
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former American Israel Public Affairs Committee legislative director.