How Dangerous Is Christian Nationalism?

By Ed Buckner | 11 April 2025
Letters to a Free Country

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

It’s quite important for me to make a clear distinction here: I do not think Christians are necessarily dangerous, at least not because of their religious beliefs. I have good friends, great neighbors, and pretty close kinfolk who are Christians, and none of these are dangerous. Wrong about religion—in my opinion—yes. Some of them are wrong about other matters, too, like politics or what teams to root for, or where’s the best place to live. But not dangerous, not a threat to our freedom, democracy, republic, world peace, or national existence. (OK, maybe indirectly, through who they vote for—but secondarily dangerous even then, not full on threats.)

But yes, I genuinely think that full bore Christian Nationalism is profoundly dangerous, here and now—and must be strongly and effectively opposed.

As Americans United for Separation of Church and State recently put it, in a brochure (designed, I’m sure, to help raise funds—but right nevertheless)—

By marginalizing religious minorities; restricting the rights of women to make their own choices about reproductive health care and contraception; censoring public school and library books; and threatening educators who teach lessons on America’s history of enslavement and racial discrimination . . . . . . these enemies of equality, freedom, religious neutrality, and democracy itself are more powerful than ever before.

So, just to reiterate: Christians and Christianity are not dangerous. But Christian Nationalism is.

Who Are Some of the Dangerous Christian Nationalists?

That same brochure from AU provides an important list of the most dangerous Christian Nationalists but with a serious omission—

All nine of the above richly qualify as dangerous leaders. Most of them fit right in with “Project 2025” and are mentioned, many of them by name, in Katherine Stewart’s fine 2025 book, Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy.

But the greatest single threat, though not only because of Christian Nationalism, is President Donald J. Trump. (Vice President J. D. Vance, too.) There really isn’t any very good reason to conclude that Trump is a believing Christian, but he is transparently willing to exploit the religion and its adherents for the sake of his own power. Elon Musk seems smarter and saner than Trump, and no more of an actual believing Christian than Trump, but he is driving and benefitting from the movement as well.

And in fact that is perhaps the crucial distinction for all the leaders of this movement: Christianity is not a religion for them so much as a tool that is useful for gaining and keeping political power—and perverting democracy.

Dangerous to Democracy

Christian Nationalism is quite dangerous to democracy because it steadfastly teaches that individual rights and unorthodox opinions of any sort are “socialism” and unAmerican, immoral, and unpatriotic. If only one leader and one way of thinking is the great, correct, and American way, then it follows that dissent and a free press are antithetical to our culture and society instead of what they really are: critical for liberal democracy.

There have been excesses related to diversity, equity, and inclusion—and I’ve commented on those in these Letters, but Trump and the Christian Nationalists have used those excesses to oppose and undercut some fundamentally important American values. Uniformity is not American, inequality or alleged racial superiority is not American, and insuring power or special privileges for Christians (or white people or men or straight people) is decidedly unAmerican.

Dangerous to Non-Christians

Is my fear of and opposition to Christian Nationalism based on my atheism, my own lack of acceptance of a religious view? I do certainly think the movement is dangerous to those of us who are not believers, are not “of the faith”—but that is true not only of atheists but of all other minority points of view. And to Christians who don’t toe the party line, too.

Dangerous to Christians

Christian Nationalism is quite severely dangerous to Christianity as a faith or religion and to many Christians as well—and not just to those Christians who may be persecuted for not falling in line—for not accepting the movement’s positions on racial, gender, and abortion matters.

Most good American Christians I’ve known in my long life accept as good, Christian values that one should love his neighbor, treat others as he would want to be treated, accept non-Christians as nevertheless “God’s children.” But these days it takes Christian Nationalism to turn a Christian into a hater, a rude and arrogant bigot. Like Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ex-husband.

The story on Mr. Greene’s behavior in a recent Atlanta Journal Constitution is focused on his rudeness, his apology (sincere?) and perhaps whether he may get sued. (See attached scans.) But the important thing about the incident, as I see it, is how quite evidently the specific political movement has corrupted the religion he has.

The movement has corrupted—badly—not only American values but Christian values as well.

Every good Christian would no doubt say that everyone would be better off if he or she were a Christian. But no good American—including all the good Christian Americans—should say that anyone must be a good Christian to be a good American.

This is and must remain a free country for everyone, including Christians—not a “Christian nation” where non-Christians are deported or denounced or insulted or even merely tolerated.

Ed Buckner is an American atheist activist who served as president of the organization American Atheists from 2008 to 2010. He served as executive director for the Council for Secular Humanism from 2001 to 2003 and was once the Council’s southern director. He is the author (with Michael E. Buckner) of In Freedom We Trust: An Atheist Guide to Religious Liberty (Prometheus Books, 2012).

“Letter to a Free Country” by Ed Buckner (with Q&A)

How Christian Nationalists TOOK OVER Trump’s Republican Party

Why Trump Is Partnering With Christian Nationalists | Robert Reich

How Trump 2.0 is following the Project 2025 playbook

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2 COMMENTS

  1. As always, I'm grateful to Lola Heavey and "Church & State" for publishing my words. The danger to our American democratic republic is real and ongoing. Thanks, Ed B.

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