CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
Demonizing Christians With Meaningless Slogans
You’ve been seeing the term “Christian nationalism” a lot lately. Get used to it. It’s going to be a widely used pejorative that is designed to ostracize, belittle, and delegitimize millions of conservative believers.
There are two different branches of critics of Christian nationalism.
There are professed evangelicals who claim that those they accuse of Christian nationalism have injected far too many aspects of conservative American politics into Christianity.
Secular critics take a slightly different approach. They object to the fact that so-called Christian nationalists bring far too much discussion and reliance on religious faith into their politics.
Here’s what both sides have in common. They don’t like people who have a strong set of conservative principles in both politics and faith that guide their actions.
There are things I see on the fringes of conservative politics that make me cringe. Rarely, I see things that make me believe a few people are genuinely dangerous. These are just as dangerous as the extremists on the left who burned American cities in 2020–although there appear to be far more leftist extremists than their right-wing equivalents.
But the goal of these pejoratives is to equate millions of mainstream conservative Christians with dangerous radicals—and thus, we must be silenced.

I am clearly one of these mainstream conservative Christians.
Let me explain what we actually believe. And “Christian nationalism”is a term I would never use to describe our own beliefs.
We believe that Christianity is a universal religion made up of true believers of many denominations from all over the world. A true believer is one who has placed his or her personal faith in Jesus Christ by accepting His death, burial, and resurrection as payment for our individual sins.
We believe that the Bible is the authoritative and infallible Word of God and it is our duty to know it and obey it.
We believe that the Bible’s guidance speaks to every area of life including politics. We seek to conform our political philosophy to what the Bible says. We do not do as many on the left do by seeking to conform our understanding of God’s Word by injecting our political views into our understanding of the biblical text.
In our political philosophy, we start with the belief that our nation was founded on four core principles all found in the Declaration of Independence.
*All of us are created equally
*All of us have inalienable rights from God
*A just nation rules by the consent of the governed
*The core purpose of government is to protect our God-given rights

We further believe that the Constitution creates a republic with enumerated powers which a legitimate government will not exceed. And since this is a Republic, only legislators and not executives, judges, or bureaucrats can make the law.
Finally, we love our country. And believe it has played a good and exceptional role in world history. We recognize its flaws and failures. But the story of America’s greatness is that we have been on a steady course to correct those flaws. The four principles of the Declaration have been the standard by which we have measured what should endure and what must be improved.
People who believe the things I have just described are considered dangerous by those on the left.
They believe that government is the solution to all man’s problems. We believe that God has this role. That’s a genuine conflict.
They believe in moral anarchy particularly in sexuality and they want everyone to subscribe to their worldview and seek to coerce all who refuse to join with them. We believe in God’s moral directions on these matters. That makes us dangerous because we refuse to cooperate with their desired uniformity of viewpoint.
We believe in freedom of speech for all. They believe in freedom of speech for those who agree with them.
We believe in freedom of religion for all. They are seeking to curtail religious freedom for any who disagree with them.
Of course, thousands of pages could be written to give context, nuance, and clarification. But in general terms these short descriptions accurately give the general parameters of what we believe and why the left hates us so much.
We must be careful to not play into their hands by embracing the extremists who claim affinity with conservatism. The radicals who invaded the Capitol are not us nor do they truly believe what we believe.
We will not convince the left that we are acceptable to them. Anyone who refuses to join in their coerced, amoral, statist utopia is unacceptable.
But there are millions of middle of the road Americans who ultimately decide elections. Our willingness to explain what we believe and behave rationally and civilly is what will ultimately convince these swing voters that freedom is better than coercion.
If people want to hate us because we love Jesus and also love America, so be it. It’s a free country and we intend to keep it that way.
Michael Farris

We believe in freedom of speech for all. They believe in freedom of speech for those who agree with them.
We believe in freedom of religion for all. They are seeking to curtail religious freedom for any who disagree with them.
Of course, thousands of pages could be written to give context, nuance, and clarification. But in general terms these short descriptions accurately give the general parameters of what we believe and why the left hates us so much.
We must be careful to not play into their hands by embracing the extremists who claim affinity with conservatism. The radicals who invaded the Capitol are not us nor do they truly believe what we believe.
We will not convince the left that we are acceptable to them. Anyone who refuses to join in their coerced, amoral, statist utopia is unacceptable.
But there are millions of middle of the road Americans who ultimately decide elections. Our willingness to explain what we believe and behave rationally and civilly is what will ultimately convince these swing voters that freedom is better than coercion.
If people want to hate us because we love Jesus and also love America, so be it. It’s a free country and we intend to keep it that way.
Michael Farris
Constitutional lawyer and CEO
Alliance Defending Freedom