The radical Right does not appear out of thin air. It has to be understood in direct relation to alternative political formations attempting to occupy and command the same space. It is engaged in a struggle for hegemony, within the dominant block, against both social democracy and the moderate wing of its own party.
Stuart Hall, “The Great Moving Right Show”
With the return of Donald Trump to the White House after the 2024 election, Bob Dylan’s “With God on Our Side” has gained critical resonance for American domestic and foreign policy. Dylan’s song, written over six decades ago, anticipates the populist appeal of nostalgic nationalism while underscoring the pitfalls of religious nationalism. In the context of Trump’s reelection, “With God on Our Side” reminds us that the challenges of national identity and political loyalty are never easily negotiated, especially when claims for political legitimacy are seen to be authorized and guaranteed by divine authority.
Religion remains at the center of political life in the United States. At a time when the very foundation and future of American democracy is intensely contested, religion functions both as a panacea and as a problem. It fuels our highest aspirations, yet it also ignites our most intense debates. At this critical juncture, we must engage in careful reflection on how scholars and people of faith can inform and participate in public life, especially as the nation wrestles with questions about the future of democracy.
Within this context, it is imperative to understand how and in what ways the language of religion has supplanted the language of politics. Indeed, a politicized religious framework, aligned with a populist authoritarian agenda, has shaped our politics. Before Project 2025 elevated Christian nationalism to the dominant political and policy framework, Project Blitz outlined how religious freedom should ground and authorize a new Christian supremacy at home and abroad.
Our current political conjuncture is not merely a struggle over the good and the commons. Rather, it is a battle for a fundamentally Christian nationalist vision of the United States, powered by populist authoritarianism and a deep religio-racial resonance.
As with most religious authoritarians—from Hindu nationalism in India to Islamic fundamentalism in Iran to Orthodox Christian supremacy in Russia—policies are increasingly pursued in service of narrowly construed religious ideals. In the United States, the convergence of Trump’s populism and Christian nationalism presents a distinct yet potent iteration of this phenomenon. To understand this emerging authoritarian theo-political ideal, we must recognize how religion provides the framework, language, and architecture that supports and authorizes such a movement.
In grappling with this nexus, the British cultural theorist Stuart Hall offers crucial insights through his prescient analysis of Thatcherism in “The Great Moving Right Show.” Hall’s trenchant critique of Thatcherism’s interweaving of “nation” and “people” through a complex class-culture matrix has yet to spark a critical analogue for Trumpism’s Make America Great Again movement, which is anchored in and guaranteed by Christian nationalism.
Trump’s march through the institutions is fundamentally reshaping the landscape of political and religious struggle. The dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the dismissal of the entire staff of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) signal a disturbing shift. A policy framework based on religious pluralist analysis that distinguishes between “good” and “bad” religion in political discourse no longer suffices to address the challenges of our time. To be sure, political actors have always understood how religion operates—even if not in the ways in which scholars of religion and policy would prefer. The need now is for new conceptual and analytical tools to navigate a moment when religion portends to topple democratic politics at home and destabilize a relatively stable liberal international order.
Religion is no longer missing in American statecraft—if it has ever been. Rather, it now functions as the veritable language and culture of American political life. The sovereignty of the state is increasingly intertwined with the sovereignty of the Christian God, a fusion that underpins the religious authoritarianism that defines Trumpism.
To engage meaningfully with this transformative development, our analyses must examine contested discursive, material, theological, and political sites to develop some critical coordinates for understanding our contemporary moment. Religion, as a fundamental part of human existence, shapes our conceptions of human nature and norms for citizenship, identity, and belonging, as well as informs our boundary-making and maintenance practices. Thus, instead of proceeding from an idealist framework of how religion can provide resources for an already constituted democracy, we need to face a hegemonic Christian nationalism that permeates a political sphere, animating a nationalist nostalgia of a circumscribed “We the People.”
Conflicts over religion are not mere family quarrels; they are fundamental antagonisms that shape individual, intellectual, and institutional expressions of American democracy. They form the bedrock for understanding the complexities that continue to vex American politics and public life. Religion provides its adherents with the deep values that guide and orient ways of life. What is needed now more than ever is a critical way of interpreting those deep values to make sense of the complexities of our theo-political moment.
What is needed now is a mode of thinking that invites us to engage in "border thinking"—a relationally resonant, reflexively operative, and ethically attentive approach to understanding the pluralism that shapes our world. As William James articulated in A Pluralistic Universe, radical pluralism offers no easy or tidy answers. It challenges us to accept a “turbid, muddled, gothic” world that does not seek intellectual purity but embraces the complexity of human experience. This pluralistic approach encourages dialogue across borders, hosting conversations between Jewish, Christian, and other theological traditions that are inherently plural—not bound by the need to be “right” but grounded in a collaborative ethic of thinking together.
Paul Tillich’s evocative statement “The boundary is the best place for acquiring knowledge” encapsulates the essence of what must be done in our current conjuncture. For Tillich, the boundary represents a space of engagement, where knowledge is both acquired and challenged. In the context of contemporary American politics, this boundary is not just a metaphor but a critical site where we must confront the theological and political dimensions of religious authoritarianism. Our analysis must stake out this boundary, giving life to a style of thinking that does justice to the complexities of life and living together in an increasingly authoritarian moment.
