Edwards, Mark “‘Christian Nationalism in the United States’—Ebook Introduction” Religions (9 May 2017) 1-2. doi:10.3390/rel8050093
Abstract: America’s allegedly “Christian” founding and culture remains a subject of substantial debate among scholars, as well as the general public. Many persons associate conflicts over the civil religious nature of America with the rise of evangelical conservativism during the 1970s and 1980s. However, the intellectual tradition of Christian nationalism is much older and messier—as studies by historians such as Robert Handy and Frank Lambert, and newer work by Kevin Kruse, Steven Green, and Matthew Sutton, have demonstrated. Their scholarship teaches us several lessons. First, we should avoid “decline and revival” narratives and understand Christian nationalism as a construction (if not fiction) that has arisen at various times in various places to accomplish a myriad of work. Second, Christian nationalism has been advanced by a diversity of persons and groups favorable and hostile to the idea, not just by evangelical Protestants. Third, Christian nationalism can be operational even when its keywords “Christian nation” and “Christian America” are absent. Finally, and most importantly, “Christian nationalism” like “secularism” is a discursive site where politics and history meet—where assertions of identity and power are conjoined.
