Abstract
Narratives constitute the social and political identity of Christian conservatives as they do for other groups. In particular, Christian nationalist narratives about the American founding have come to dominate Trump-era Christian conservative identity. Christianity has always played a significant role in American civil religion, with sometimes liberating results. On this view, the Christian story is a powerful redemptive metaphor, shaping political life symbolically, and generating political principles–like equality, fair treatment, and moral dignity–that can be interpreted and appropriated in different ways. By contrast, Christian nationalists see the Christian history of the nation more as a blueprint, and they seek to reconcile contemporary American reality as literally as possible to this true and only identity. The shift from civil religion to Christian nationalism poses dangers to American liberal democracy, as illustrated during the 2020 election and its aftermath. This paper first describes the redemptive and reconciliatory approaches to historical narrative, drawn from the work of key narrative theorists. Second, the paper explains the differences between the uses of history in the American civil religious tradition and the Christian nationalist movement, correlating those differences with the redemptive/reconciliatory distinction. Third, the paper tests the redemptive/reconciliatory distinction by seeing if it makes sense of empirical studies of Christian nationalism, including my own ethnographic fieldwork with Christian conservatives.
Presenters
Jason WhiteheadAssociate Professor, Political Science, California State University, Long Beach, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Christian Nationalism, Civil Religion, Christianity and Politics, Narrative Theory
