Present-day American Christian nationalism represents arguably the most potent and culturally and politically visible Christian expression in the contemporary North American context. While the application of this term to social and political analysis in North America has not been typical, it has gained increased currency in the US context over the course of the twenty-first century precisely because it highlights the potent convergence of White nationalism, Christian identity, an impulse towards organised violence, and nostalgia for a mythic America imagined to exist before the social, political, religious and demographic tumult of the 1960s and the decades that have followed. Showing troubling signs of exportation to Canada, it represents the mainstreaming or banalisation of political and social impulses long present in the USA and aims at the (re)establishment of a ‘Christian nation’. The political impulses, and the potential violence, at the heart of what has become a mainstream expression of North American Christian identity was vividly displayed in the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. As that event attests, Christian nationalism is not merely an expression of a distinctive political ideology, religious belief or personal religiosity, but a populist-nationalist movement that aims to maintain and exercise political authority in the USA by all means necessary.

‘Values Voters’ to Christian Nationalists

A shift from a focus on so-called ‘values voters’ at the turn of the twentyfirst century to recognition of the presence and significance of Christian nationalism is discernible in analyses of religion and politics in the USA. This shift marks a movement away from a narrow focus on the political behaviour of White Evangelical Christians to a recognition of the broader scope of Christian nationalism, increasing recognition of its specifically populist and nationalist dynamics, and calls for a shift in analytical perspective from religious and political belief to a more robust understanding the social dynamics of political and religious identity. Viewed from within this shifted perspective, Christian nationalism emerges not as a novel or nascent phenomenon, but one that has been operative throughout the twenty-first century.

Typical of the time, analyses of the role of religion in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections focused heavily on the significance of White Evangelical Christians as ‘values voters’.