A Different Gospel: How Christian Nationalism Distorts the Way of Jesus

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all.” - Galatians 1:6–7 NIV[1]

Paul’s warning to the Galatians could just as easily be written to the American church today. In our time, a different gospel has captured the imagination of millions, a gospel not of grace, but of grievance; not of love, but of power. It calls itself Christian, but it bears little resemblance to Christ. It is the gospel of Christian nationalism.

What Is Christian Nationalism?

Christian nationalism is not simply loving your country or praying for its leaders. It is an ideology, a racialized, political theology, that fuses allegiance to Jesus with allegiance to the nation. It mythologizes America’s founding as a divine act, portrays its history through a whitewashed lens of moral exceptionalism, and declares the United States to be God’s chosen nation.

This is why faithfully diagnosing the prominent distortions of the Christian faith is an urgent task. Sociologists Samuel L. Perry, Ryon J. Cobb, Andrew L. Whitehead, and Joshua B. Grubbs define Christian nationalism as: “an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life” (“Divided by Faith (in Christian America): Christian Nationalism, Race, and Divergent Perceptions of Racial Injustice,” Social Forces, 101(2), 2022).

They explain that, in practice, this ideology mythologizes and sacralizes America’s past, casting it as founded on Judeo-Christian principles, uniquely blessed by God, and morally superior, while encoding religious language with racial content. In effect, words like “nation,” “heritage,” “values,” and “culture” become racially coded, signaling whiteness and “native-born” identity as the markers of who counts as a “true American.” Using a six-item scale, they measure support for ideas like declaring the U.S. a Christian nation, advocating “Christian values” through government, promoting prayer and religious symbols in public schools, and seeing America’s success as part of God’s plan.

The data is sobering. Those who strongly affirm these beliefs, especially among white respondents, are far more likely to minimize racial injustice, oppose immigration, support authoritarian leadership, and justify political violence in the name of preserving a “Christian America.”

In other words, Christian nationalism replaces the gospel of Jesus Christ with a civil religion of dominance. It trades the cross for the flag.

A Racialized Ideology

Christian nationalism, according to this study, is not just about fusing faith and patriotism; it is a racially coded ideology. It sacralizes a mythic Christian-America past, encodes whiteness into “true” citizenship, and functions as an epistemology of ignorance that allows white Americans to deny racism while claiming victimhood.

Christian nationalism did not arise in a vacuum. It is deeply entangled with the myth of white supremacy that has haunted American history from the beginning. Born out of the transatlantic slave trade, the attempted genocide of Indigenous peoples, and centuries of segregation and exclusion, this ideology has long baptized national power in religious language.

Its theology sanctifies inequality. Its rituals center whiteness. Its prophets preach nostalgia for a past that never truly existed, when “America was great” for some, but hell for others.

This is why it is not enough to say, “You can love God and love your country.” Of course you can. But Christian nationalism is not patriotism. It is a counterfeit faith that confuses devotion to God with devotion to empire. It demands loyalty to a flag rather than to the crucified Christ.

A Different Gospel

Paul confronted the “other gospel” of his day, those who sought to add law and ethnicity to grace. His warning echoes across the centuries.

Christian nationalism claims that faith in Jesus is incomplete unless it also serves the interests of a particular culture, race, or political movement. It exchanges humility for triumphalism, compassion for control, and neighbor-love for tribal loyalty.

This ideology has become one of the greatest obstacles to evangelism in our generation. Many people, especially young adults, aren’t rejecting Jesus. They’re rejecting the distorted version of Christianity they’ve seen weaponized in public life. On the other hand, it seems a growing number of young people are fueling a kind of nationalistic revival, wrapped in a Jesus bumper sticker.

When faith is used to exclude, intimidate, or dominate, it ceases to be good news.

The Sociological Reality

The language of Christian nationalism is measurable, not imaginary. Scholars across disciplines, sociology, political science, and religious studies, have studied it using rigorous empirical methods. Data from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Pew Research Center show that Christian nationalism is a real and growing movement, especially among white conservative Protestants.

These studies reveal clear patterns:

• Racial resentment: Christian nationalist adherents are significantly more likely to deny systemic racism and oppose multicultural education.
• Gender hierarchy: They strongly affirm patriarchal family structures and oppose women’s equality in leadership.
• Authoritarianism: They express greater support for political violence, censorship, and a “strongman” leader willing to break democratic norms to protect their values.

To call attention to this isn’t “partisan.” It’s prophetic. Social science gives us data. Scripture gives us discernment. Together, they help us tell the truth.

The Theological Crisis

Christian nationalism commits a theological heresy by confusing the kingdom of God with the kingdoms of this world. Jesus refused the devil’s offer of worldly power in exchange for worship. Yet many today are eager to make that same bargain.

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” His mission was not to seize political control but to transform human hearts through love, mercy, and justice. The earliest Christians lived as a creative minority, serving the poor, welcoming the immigrant, and bearing witness to a kingdom without borders.

Christian nationalism reverses all of that. It turns mission into conquest, discipleship into indoctrination, and the Great Commission into a political campaign. It is, as Paul would say, “no gospel at all.”

A Pastoral and Missional Response

Our task as followers of Jesus is not merely to condemn Christian nationalism but to offer a more beautiful gospel in its place. That means embodying a faith that is incarnational rather than ideological, a faith that shows up in love, not in slogans.

Through movements like Fresh Expressions, I’ve seen the Spirit at work in coffee shops, tattoo parlors, dog parks, recovery circles, and housing programs. In these everyday places, people are encountering a Jesus who is not American, not partisan, but profoundly human and divine, who transcends every tribe and tongue.

Christian nationalism may shout from the halls of power, but the real gospel still whispers in neighborhoods and dinner tables where people choose relationship over rhetoric.

Conclusion: Trading Performance for Presence

To challenge Christian nationalism, we must loosen our grip on control, our obsession with winning, with being right, with protecting “our” way of life. We must trade performance for presence.

We have to care. We have to love. We have to learn in real time, even when it’s messy. And above all, we have to trust that the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is alive in others too, calling us beyond fear and into communion.

The call of the church in this generation is not to “make America Christian again,” but to “embody the compassion of Jesus again” through humility, justice, and love. Anything less is a different gospel.

[1] Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.