“I have some friends (or relatives) who are really behind Trump. I just don’t get it.”

If you haven’t said words like those above, you, know doubt, know someone who has.
The statement tends to be made in a rather dumbfounded manner, a kind of “how could they?" accompanied, often, by a resigned shaking of the head.

My interest, in this post at least, is a consideration of some of what may lead a Christian to become a Christian Nationalist. I want to approach such a consideration charitably. It doesn’t really help to simply say that people who get caught up in Christian nationalism are deceived or basically bad people. Christian nationalism, whether in the United States in 2025 or Hungary in 2022 or Germany in 1933, is a movement of power and politics that uses symbols and distorts concepts of religious faith for the accumulation of wealth and power for a relative few.

In almost every manifestation of Christian nationalism, the movement, at least for a time, is upheld by a loyal mass following. In the case of the present day United States, this mass following is made up largely of evangelical Christians. So, how could such people get caught up in such a movement?

In my consideration of this I have been helped by the work and writing of Catholic theologian William Cavanaugh (DePaul University). Cavanaugh’s most recent book is called The Uses of Idolatry. It looks at the human tendency to worship things other than God. Cavanaugh takes, what he calls, a sympathetic look at idolatry, more specifically at how easily we can all fall into it. Cavanaugh speaks about what he calls the migration of the holy. It is not that we don’t worship, it is just that what worship becomes attached to movements or to things or to political parties or to particular politicians.

If you grew up in an evangelical church you may be familiar with warnings against idolatry. In the often used “secular/sacred” paradigm, evangelical preachers would warn against the worship of idols. Sometimes, such warnings seemed to have a good deal of self-interest behind them. For example, a preacher might warn against sports becoming an idol, “It used to be that families were in church on Sundays. Now more and more are at the soccer field or the hockey arena.”

Cavanaugh’s consideration of idolatry offers a more thoughtful examination than simply a good-old-days religious nostalgia. He mentions that, in our tendency to worship, we wind up sacrificing ourselves and others for what it it is that we are worshipping. You can see this in the political idolatries on the right and on the left today. Cavanaugh quotes French philosopher, Jean-Luc Marion, in saying that idols work not as a window to the divine, but rather as a mirror to the self. Marion uses the term “splendid idolatry” in reference to how idols can be a consequence of our desire to worship. That desire, in itself, may not be a bad thing. This is why idolatry and faith can be hard to tell apart. Some theologians and sociologists say that nationalism is not a religion at all, it is only political. Others say that nationalism is very much a religion and when it is attached to other religions it shows how strange things can get. In other words, saying “A Christian Nationalist” would be akin to saying “A Mormon Muslim”. You can’t really be both.

It is fairly obvious, upon reflection, to see how the idolatry of nationalism is a mirror to the self rather than a window to the divine.

Here is a quote from Cavanaugh’s book, “Nationalism is a kind of splendid idolatry dedicated to the service of something larger than the self but ultimately coming down to a type of collective narcissism. Nationalism calls forth real virtues of self-sacrifice for ideals and people beyond the individual self, while simultaneously directing lethal levels of devotion toward what is not God.”

I was recently sharing a meal with a couple who had, just two weeks previous, had a tour of the White House. They both went to some lengths to mention that they were not fans of Donald Trump, but that a personal relationship with a friend had occasioned the tour. They were in the West Wing, the hallways, even the Oval Office. Perhaps the most compelling note they made about their tour, maybe the most troubling, is that they said there were pictures of Donald Trump all over the place, photos and paintings on so many walls.

Can you imagine?
Back to those warnings from the evangelical preachers.

Idolatry was what they referred to as a problem in “the world”. Cavanaugh’s work demonstrates that if it is a problem in the world, it is also a problem in the church. Faith and idolatry can become confused and the second can begin to take over the first.

What happens if virtually an entire expression of Christian faith becomes subsumed by an idolatry? I am not alone in thinking that this is happening to evangelicalism in America.

You may find it hard to believe that some people you know may have become part of a movement that you see as idolatrous. I am in agreement that nationalism is an idolatry, not a faith. However, in seeking to offer a better way forward, it might help to see that many (perhaps most) of those followers are not terrible people wanting to do bad in the world. It is just that, as Jean-Luc Marion says, “In its search for God the self becomes fatigued and lets it gaze come to rest on material objects (or political leaders) that dazzle it.”

Let us not grow weary in seeking God’s goodness. Let us not give into whatever idolatries that we tend towards.

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