Christian nationalism on the rise in some GOP campaigns

Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, said those Jan. 6 displays were not surprising. According to a recent survey by the institute, white evangelical Christians were among the strongest supporters of the assertion that God intended America as a “promised land” for European Christians. Those who backed that idea were far more likely to agree that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence ... to save our country.” “To my mind, white Christian nationalism is really the threat,” Jones said. Elizabeth Neumann, chief strategy officer for Moonshot, a tech company that aims to counter online violent extremism, disinformation and other harms, said Christian nationalism began picking up steam around 2015 amid a rising narrative of purported persecution of Christians. Neumann, who served in the George W. Bush and Trump administrations and grew up in an evangelical Christian household, called the movement “heretical and idolatry” and an “apocalyptic vision (that) very often leads to violence.” Many pastors are pushing back against it, she added. “I see Christian nationalism as the gasping, dying breath of the older generation in America that is afraid that Christians are going to be replaced,” she said. https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2022/05/29/christian-nationalism-on-the-rise-in-some-gop-campaigns/