On April 21, Pope Francis passed away due to a stroke and subsequent heart failure. The Pope’s death is not just a devastating blow for the Catholic Church, but for communities around the world, regardless of religion, who believed in the Pope’s humanitarian and progressive strides within the church. The Pope was one of the few international religious figures who called Gaza’s Christians every night since the beginning of the ongoing blockade, demonstrating his commitment to supporting Christian communities worldwide.
Beyond the Pope’s activism, his death signified a larger worry among nations around the world who fear the rise of Christian nationalism — an ideology that argues for a nation to be governed by Christian values and beliefs. In the United States, 30% of Americans identified as either Christian nationalist adherents or sympathizers, opposed by around 67% of respondents who were skeptics or outright reject the idea. Moreover, according to NPR, more than half of Republicans believe that the United States “should be a strictly Christian nation.”
Far and away, the largest supporters of Christian nationalism are white evangelical Protestants — though there are also significant numbers of Black and Hispanic Christian nationalists, as well as many Latter-day Saints. Supporters of the ideology are more likely to live in red states, and support both the Republican party and President Donald Trump. Christian nationalism is also strongly linked to “born-again” mentalities and high levels of church attendance, though most concerningly is their tendency to view politics in apocalyptic terms. More than half of self-identifying Christian nationalists believe “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders,” while also being about twice as likely to find political violence justified.
This is a problematic movement festering in the heart of the United States; it’s especially problematic that the Trump administration has aligned itself with these evangelical Christian movements and wholeheartedly committed itself to eliminating “anti-Christian bias” in the United States.
Trump’s pandering to Christian communities is a front. Not long after the Pope’s death, Trump shared an artificial intelligence-generated photo of himself as the Pope, sparking outrage amongst the global Catholic community. The move was met with disapproval from Catholic officials, while Trump brushed off any suggestions that he either did anything wrong or that real Catholics weren’t able to take the “joke.” If this isn’t an indicator of how little he takes the Christian faith seriously, then his unwillingness to swear on the Bible at his inauguration and his choice to merchandize pro-American Bibles might better represent his disrespect.
It might seem confusing that Catholic Christians might be unhappy with Trump’s actions while evangelical Christians could revel in them, but this is because Trump is specifically appealing to American Christian traditions with his religious pandering. Catholic leaders have alleged as such by standing up against Trump’s move against “anti-Christian bias,” claiming that it privileges certain evangelical and Latter-day Saint traditions over others which ironically creates more anti-Christian bias. It’s clear that Trump is in a symbiotic relationship with Christian nationalists, where the two parties feed off each other’s support and legitimacy to enact mutually beneficial policy changes that will restore the United States to an idealized status quo which privileges them both. It also seems clear Trump isn’t doing this because he’s a true believer in Christianity, but instead an exploitative opportunist.
On the ground, mega-church pastors and televangelists like Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland and others have continued to promote this new era of American Christianity. American televangelist Mark Burns gave a speech at a “Women for America First” rally in 2020, stating “I’ve got patriots here who are ready for a fight on every race-baiting, dividing, God-hating liberal in America, that you will not take away the beautiful country we call the United States of America.” The implication here is, of course, that the United States already belongs to this group of Christians rather than anybody else.
The presence of Christian nationalism on the political level has detrimental impacts on the presence and impact of liberal voices. The Jan. 6 insurrection at Capitol Hill demonstrated the growing and dangerous influence of Christian nationalism, as a great deal of the language used to justify their presence was based on Christian doctrine. According to a joint project conducted by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, “These Americans believe that Christianity should influence our public policies, sacred symbols, and national identity.” They don’t have a commitment to freedom of religion: Their commitment is to instituting their religion on a national scale.
Christian nationalism has also risen to prominence globally. In Europe, Christian nationalism has “bolstered far-right political parties and political leaders with an authoritarian bent” by targeting even the smallest presence of Islam. Often couched within anti-immigrant movements, Christian nationalism and religious fundamentalism has taken root in many places, worming its way into policy for coalition governments in Italy, Austria and Slovakia and directly following the rise of the alt-right in Europe. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, for example, has famously referred to Vladimir Putin and his quest to re-expand Russia to its former glory as a “miracle from God” and directly legitimizes Putin’s regime with his support.
The Pope’s death reveals not only the permeation of Christian nationalism at the national and international level, but also the precarious status of more progressive and accepting religious movements promoting the inclusion of LGBTQ+ populations in the church. Many worry that Francis’ replacement will not hold the same progressive beliefs as he did, and that a conservative replacement could further exacerbate Christian nationalist fervor. Cardinal Peter Erdo of Hungary, one of the top contenders for pope, is “considered a favorite among the more conservative cardinals,” possibly due to his stance that divorced Catholics cannot receive communion and that priests should never bless gay couples. Francis’ “Who am I to judge?” attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community was both unprecedented and influential on religious voices around the world, and there’s no telling whether the Catholic Church will allow this sentiment to continue.
Francis’ death has proven to be a tragic loss both for the Vatican and for spiritual progressives around the world. If the next head of the church doesn’t follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, we will see a continued and worsened suppression of non-Christian voices in the United States and across the globe.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Leila Olukoga at [email protected].
