Christian nationalists have increasingly gained influence in the U.S. government under President Donald Trump, but a religious historian says they're distorting the historical record to normalize their views.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's ties to Christian nationalist pastor Doug Wilson were highlighted last week when the Trump administration official shared a video of him arguing that women should not be allowed to vote, and historian Randall Balmer appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to discuss the threat religious archconservatives pose to American democracy.
"I think it was an utterly new idea to configure a new nation without the interlocking support of religion or established religion, and it was very important for the founders to recognize that this was the way to do it, to avoid a lot of the religious contestation that had been characterized by religion and politics in Europe. The wars of religion in France, for example, the English revolution. The founders were well aware of this, and they also had to deal with the extraordinary religious diversity in the colonies everywhere, from the Puritans in New England and the Dutch Reformed in the middle colonies. Quakers, Presbyterians, Baptists, you go on and on, Jews after 1654 in New Amsterdam."
"They came up with a novel idea to keep these two entities separate, and that, I think, is part of the genius of American life and what I find so compelling about the First Amendment, which as you know, I think is America's best idea, is that it's worked remarkably well for more than two centuries," Balmer added. "That is to say, it shielded the government from religious contestation and factionalism and, at the same time, it has ensured a vibrant, salubrious religious culture in America that is really unmatched anywhere in the world."
Co-host Jonathan Lemire read an excerpt from Balmer's latest book, America's Best Idea, showing that some right-wing Christians "don the mantle of victim" to argue that the United States is a Christian nation and insist the First Amendment does not separate the church and state, and he asked the author about their intentions.
"Talk to us more about what you see, though, as danger signs creeping in here that those are looking to erode that separation," Lemire said.
Balmer argued that Christian nationalists were trying to rewrite American history to impose their religious views.
"We have various people running around claiming, for example, that something like 53 of the 55 founders were evangelical Christians, which is so ludicrous that it's not even worth addressing," Balmer said, "and they ignore, as we talked about earlier, the Danbury letter, when Jefferson, who was one of the founders, by the way, and said this was his understanding of the meaning of the First Amendment, that it called for the separation of church and state. But you also have the Treaty of Tripoli, for example, that was negotiated at the end of George Washington's administration that called that said in Article 11, as the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, and this was sent to Congress for ratification by John Adams in 1797, read aloud before the Senate, and ratified unanimously by the United States Senate."
"That's pretty clear evidence that this is what the founders intended, and now you have various people who are trying to suggest that America was and always has been a Christian nation, should remain so, and that flies utterly in the face of the First Amendment."