In July, the United States will celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. People will commemorate and celebrate July 4^th 1776, the day when American colonists declared themselves independent from Great Britain.

These memorable opening lines, of course, are deeply etched in my brain: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Moving toward this year’s historic milestone, however, contemporary U.S. democracy is under threat. The Declaration’s underlying commitment to the self-evident truths that all are created equal and that a just government is rooted in the consent of the governed is crumbling. Various American religious traditions have historically reinforced social equality as a national value.

But today’s American “Christian Nationalism” rejects that commitment to social equality, on which American democracy depends.

According to the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington DC, one-third of contemporary Americans support Christian Nationalism: with Adherents at 11% and Sympathizers at 21%. A majority of Republicans qualify as either Christian Nationalism Adherents, at 21%, or Sympathizers, at 35%. But less than one in five Democrats, with 5% Adherents and 12% Sympathizers.

Pete Hegseth, the current United States Secretary of Defense, secondarily titled the Secretary of War, is a far-right Evangelical Protestant and a strong supporter of Christian Nationalism. He has persisted in framing the war in Iran as divinely sanctioned, repeatedly invoking “God’s almighty providence” and expressing certainty that God is on the side of the U.S. Military. He has called on the American people to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

While American Christian Nationalism is often associated with white Evangelical Protestantism, a distinct and influential cohort of American Roman Catholics has increasingly embraced the ideology. These Catholics often move beyond standard conservative politics, advocating for a “re-Christianization” of American culture and law, sometimes referred to as “Catholic Integralism.”

Key Roman Catholic figures in contemporary American Christian Nationalism are Vice-President J.D. Vance and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who has openly identified as a “proud Christian Nationalist.”

Nine days after Charlie Kirk’s death, the former Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan appeared on “Fox & Friends” and was quick to praise Kirk as a “modern day St. Paul.” Dolan called him “a missionary, an evangelist, and a hero.” I have personally known Tim Dolan, now 76, for many years. He served as Archbishop of New York from April 15, 2009 to December 18, 2025.

Charlie Kirk (October 14, 1993 – September 10, 2025) was strongly aligned with the Christian right and advocated for American Christian Nationalism. His wife and children are Catholic and he regularly attended Mass with them. Days before his murder, Kirk privately told Bishop Joseph Brennan of Fresno, California that he was close to converting to Catholicism.

Conservative American Catholic support for Christian Nationalism is closely linked with Opus Dei and the architects of Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for the Incumbent President’s second term. Its goal is restructuring the U.S. Government with a conservative, religion-based agenda. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and a key leader of Project 2025, has close ties to Opus Dei.

Opus Dei (“God’s Work”) is a very conservative Catholic organization founded in Spain in 1928. It became influential during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1939–1975). With strong Opus Dei support, the Franco regime relied on a blend of his own authoritarian nationalism and Catholic Christian Nationalism.

Project 2025, a 900-plus page policy blueprint organized by the Heritage Foundation and supported by over 100 conservative groups, aims to reshape the U.S. federal government, under the current presidential administration, by implementing the Christian Nationalism ideology. Under Project 2025’s very conservative “Christian vision” for the United States, married heterosexuality is the only valid form of sexual expression and identity. It opposes what it calls “radical gender ideology” and advocates that the government “maintain a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.” To achieve this, it proposes ending same-sex marriage and removing protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity. Project 2025 has also recommended the arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants. It proposed employing the military for domestic law enforcement and called for immediate capital punishment of convicted offenders.

American Christian Nationalism presents a limited and narrow view of God. The “In God we trust” god becomes a national instrument of power rather than a universal figure. This perspective views divine favor as exclusive and prioritizes power and dominance over love and grace. Christian Nationalism emphasizes a “god of war” image, highlighting biblical stories of a vindictive and angry God taking revenge on enemies as a justification for harsh action against perceived adversaries.

And Christian Nationalism’s morality is hardly Christian. For example, the incumbent presidential administration’s March 2025 decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.

Nevertheless, Christian Nationalism is very strong in the current presidential administration. Already in January, 2024, the incumbent U.S. President’s supporters had made a video called “God Made Trump.” It began with this statement: “On June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So, God gave us Trump.” This year at a White House event on April 1, Paula White-Cain, an evangelical Christian pastor and the president’s chief spiritual adviser, told him to his face that he was the “greatest champion of faith that we’ve ever seen in a president,” and then she compared his story to Jesus Christ’s. “You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused,” she said, “It’s a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us.” She continued, “And sir because of his resurrection, you rose up.”  It is not so surprising, then, that the incumbent president recently made the comparison himself. On April 12, 2026, he posted an image on his Truth Social media platform, owned by the Trump Media & Technology Group. The colorful image depicted the incumbent president as Jesus healing a sick man, with worshipers looking on in adoration, a flag of the United States waving in the background, and military figures floating in the sky.

Soldiers in the United States Armed Forces have now lodged more than 100 complaints with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation saying that their commanders are using extremist religious rhetoric to describe the U.S.-Israel war against Iran. American military commanders have told their troops that the attack on Iran is a “holy war,” and that Jesus anointed U.S. President Donald Trump to light the signal fire in Iran.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in 2005 by Michael L. Weinstein, a former Air Force officer and attorney. The organization’s mission is to ensure that members of the United States Armed Forces can practice their religious beliefs without fear of discrimination or coercion, and to promote the separation of church and state within the military.

I conclude this week’s reflection with a quote from Sandra Day O’Connor (1930 – 2023) who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. O’Connor was the first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. She retired from the bench in 2006 to care for her husband, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

“Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?”

All Christians in the U.S. and beyond need to reject the dangerous distortion of Christianity in Christian Nationalism. It is incompatible with the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

• Jack