Nearly all self-identified Christian Nationalists are Calvinists, typically Presbyterian like Wolfe, but often theologically Reformed Baptists like the subjects of the Politico article
www.christianpost.com
Most of what is written about Christian Nationalism is silly. Critics and analysts sweepingly deride conventional Christian conservatives as Christian Nationalists. By some counts, there are, by this definition, tens of millions of Christian Nationalists. Sometimes even civil religion, with its homage to a vague deity, is labeled Christian Nationalism. If so, all presidents from George Washington to Joe Biden are Christian nationalists. Sometimes the target is folk religionists who conflate God and country.
They sometimes sport paraphernalia with American flags draped around the cross. These folk religionists typically aren’t aware they are Christian nationalists. They don’t publish articles, much less books. And they typically don’t have policy agendas, just an attitude that God and country should be interchangeably honored.
But some more intellectual Americans do consciously self-identify as Christian Nationalists. Politico has
published an article about two of them. But unhelpfully the article does not explain distinctions and, like a hundred other articles, focuses on a combination of Christian conservative and New Right views held by their subjects without defining why they call themselves Christian Nationalists.
Christian Nationalism is distinct from conventional Christian conservatism. The former are typically post-liberals who want some level of explicit state-established Christianity. The latter have been and largely still are classical liberals who affirm traditional American concepts of full religious liberty for all. Both groups want a “Christian America.” But the former want it by statute. The latter see it as mainly a demographic, historical, and cultural reality.
