CNN has teased a new documentary this week about Christian Nationalism. They claim that this “radical” ideology is the belief that America was founded on Christian values, that laws and institutions should reflect those values, and that Christians face increased hostility in their own country.

If this is “radical,” then democracy is radical, because a Constitutional Republic is built on the assumption that ordinary citizens will bring their convictions into public discourse, argue for them, and try to persuade their neighbors at the ballot box. When any other group does this, it is called civic engagement. When Christians do it, it gets labeled radical.

You can acknowledge Christianity shaped our civic culture and moral language, while still rejecting a state-run church and fully protecting the equal rights of every citizen, including those who disagree. But make no mistake, Christian values did shape American culture, and recognizing that historical reality is not extremism, it is a basic understanding about where many of our moral instincts, institutions, and reform movements came from.

• Many of our country’s first colleges were founded specifically for the purpose of training clergy and nurturing moral leadership (i.e., Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.). 
• Much of America’s first civic and social culture assumed that citizens would read the Bible and attend church, which impacted assumptions about literacy rates, family expectations, civic responsibility, and public morality.
• Abolitionism, the movement to end slavery, was spearheaded by Christian preaching and organizing. Many of its leading voices saw abolitionism as grounded in Scripture, that treating human beings as property was both immoral and unscriptural.
• The Black church shaped the Civil Rights Movement in America. Black pastors provided moral and strategic leadership. Churches provided meeting spaces, funding streams, and organizing capacity. Biblical language about justice and righteousness informed the movement.
• Christian nonprofits pioneered American charities and social services. From orphanages to rescue missions to settlement houses to disaster relief organizations, Christians often saw caring for the poor and vulnerable as a religious mandate.
• Healthcare institutions were founded by Christians and Christian organizations, helping embed an ethic within healthcare that you don’t have a “right” to healthcare but that caring for the sick is a moral responsibility.
• The Christian idea of vocation influenced American attitudes about labor and work. The idea that you could use your hands for dignity, serving both God and your neighbor, helped build a culture that prized hard work, honesty, and responsibility in professions.
• Christian voluntary organizations showcased Americans’ robust tradition of civic organizing and gave people training and practice in associating voluntarily through churches. That helped fuel both local charity and national associations for missionary work, education, and disaster relief.
• The whole public rhetoric of American political life has drawn on explicitly biblical language. Americans have called their country to covenant, repentance, justice, mercy, and accountability.
• Americans drank less alcohol, built more prisons, organized workers rights movements, and started public schools not simply because secular politicians wanted to, but often because churchgoers mobilized their neighbors to believe that laws should treat moral truths as real and not simply expressions of opinion or preference.

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Laws reflect values. Every law is moral in nature, whether it concerns life, marriage, speech, education, commerce, crime, or civil rights, and every movement in American history has tried to shape institutions according to its vision of justice and human dignity.

The real question is not whether you have values, because everyone does. The real question is whether your values are argued openly, applied fairly, and restrained by constitutional limits, including equal rights, due process, and the freedom of conscience that protects religious citizens and non-religious citizens alike.

What we reject clearly is any politics that seeks power through coercion, intimidation, or violence. We reject any ideology that treats fellow citizens as less than fully equal and any attempt to fuse faith with the machinery of the state in a way that undermines liberty, because those moves are incompatible with ordered freedom and with Christian ethics.

What we insist on is a public square where Christians and everyone else can participate without fear, where religious liberty is protected for all, where persuasion replaces demonization, and where our neighbors are treated as neighbors, not enemies, even when we sharply disagree about what is true and good.

So call it what it is, because when Christians vote their convictions and advocate for laws they believe will strengthen families and communities, they are doing what citizens in a free society are supposed to do, which is to make their case, accept debate, and submit to the peaceful outcomes of elections rather than demanding that dissent be silenced.

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