Christian nationalism has gotten a lot of play the last few years, particularly in the rhetoric of its opponents in journalism, academia, and even the White House.

According to its critics, Christian nationalism is a malevolent ideology that has allied itself with Donald Trump to capture conservative politics in America with the aim of bringing about a dystopian Christian theocracy akin to The Handmaid’s Tale.

Mark David Hall argues in his new book, Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism?, that such claims are overblown and that Christian nationalism is not the existential threat the critics claim. In fact, Christian nationalism may not even be a helpful phrase to describe the thinking of American Christians when it comes to politics in general.

In this interview, Mark and I chart the rise of the term turned pejorative, explore both journalistic and academic writing on Christian nationalism, evaluate the data connected with that research, and discuss how those (very) few Christians who do seek to make an affirmative case for Christian nationalism aren’t even representative of most Christians.

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