All through the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 5, 2026, Paula White-Cain, senior adviser to the White Space Administrative center of Religion, offered President Donald Trump as “the greatest champion of faith that we have ever had in the executive branch.” Taking the rostrum after her, Trump declared, “I’ve done more for religion than any other president.”
Must a secular chief be selling a heavenly motive? One of the most American citizens who say “yes” – on no account all – are most probably sympathetic to the tips and values of Christian nationalism. A blanket time period, Christian nationalism levels in which means. Some voters may see themselves as Christian nationalists just because they’re Christian and patriotic. Others, on the other hand, assert that the US is rightfully a Christian country that must be ruled through Christian leaders, ethics and rules.
As a historian, I’m conscious that Christian nationalism is based upon a selective and ceaselessly distorted view of American historical past. As a historian of the Eu Heart Ages, particularly, I’m involved in any other fable of a shared Christian previous that turns out to lie underneath the outside of a few Christian nationalist claims. That’s the speculation of the medieval Christian West, sometimes called “Christendom”: a time earlier than the fashionable separation of church and state.
1,000 years
What used to be Christendom? Very similar to Christian nationalism, the time period can imply various things to other other people.
It normally recollects a protracted time frame – 1,000 years, give or take – between the “fall” of Rome round 500 C.E. and the start of the fashionable generation round 1500. Christianity ruled Eu politics, society and tradition. The Heart Ages actually have been an generation when kings dominated in Christ’s identify, when the popes of Rome commanded obedience from believers round Europe, and when monasteries performed a the most important position within the shaping of values and training.
Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800.
Wikimedia Commons
In recent times, despite the fact that, I’ve seen puzzling and ahistorical ways in which the idea that of Christendom has began to appear in sure corners of conservative political concept. That generation of Christian dominion is now and again remembered as a misplaced age of Christian harmony, a time when faith and politics have been “properly” aligned.
Such perspectives don’t map well onto any partisan place or spiritual association. The Catholic-inspired web site The Josias, as an example, a information “for those who wish to bring their faith into the public square and resist the tides of liberalism, modernism, and ignorance of tradition,” is full of works through medieval thinkers.
In some conservative Protestant circles, one reveals yearnings for the advent of a “new Christendom,” an “American Christendom,” or, as pastor Doug Wilson calls it, “mere Christendom.”
Wilson is the founding father of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Church buildings – one in every of which Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth attends. Wilson says that his imaginative and prescient of “mere” Christendom does now not entail a go back to theocracy however “a network of nations bound together by a formal, public, civic acknowledgment of the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the fundamental truth of the Apostles’ Creed.”
In his 2023 e book “The Boniface Option,” minister Andrew Isker requires Christians to struggle for the advent of “new Christendom.” He additionally co-authored 2022’s “Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Guide for Taking Dominion and Disciplining Nations.”
From a historic point of view, there are a lot of issues of such perspectives of Christendom. For starters, they erase the truth that, whilst Christian government ruled Christian-majority kingdoms throughout the Heart Ages, Europe used to be additionally house to Jewish and Muslims communities. Additionally they paper over the truth that medieval Christians themselves by no means reached a consensus over the right kind courting between worldly and non secular powers – or, as we may name them nowadays, church and state.
Religion and empire
Once I educate on faith and politics, I evaluate two past due historic thinkers whose works left profound legacies at the medieval global: the primary historian of the church, Eusebius of Caesarea; and the immensely influential theologian, Saint Augustine.
A demonstration of Eusebius of Caesarea in a Seventeenth-century manuscript, created through Armenian artist Mesrop of Khizan.
J. Paul Getty Museum/Wikimedia Commons
Writing within the fourth century, Eusebius celebrated the reign of the primary Christian Roman emperor, Constantine, who dominated from 306-337. The tale of Constantine’s conversion is known. As Eusebius advised it, the emperor used to be marching towards Rome throughout a civil struggle when he noticed a radiant “cross-shaped” imaginative and prescient within the sky, accompanied through the phrases “by this conquer.” That evening, the “Christ of God” gave the impression to the emperor in a dream and advised him to march to struggle below that signal, which he did with victory.
From Eusebius’ point of view, there used to be so much to have a good time about Constantine’s reign. Constantine ended the persecution of Christians unleashed through his predecessors. Underneath his path, imperial cash flooded into clerical arms, adopted through a wave of church construction across the empire. The emperor granted bishops prison privileges and tax exemptions, and he referred to as church councils to get to the bottom of disputes over Christian doctrine and group.
This type of boosterism for Christian monarchs, hailed as “champions of the faith,” would bear all over the Heart Ages and past. The Byzantine Empire, the Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, Christian kingdoms from England to Armenia: Supporters noticed their worldly energy as representing the heavenly energy of Christ, the “King of kings.” This used to be, in impact, one of those Christian nationalism earlier than the upward push of contemporary countries.
‘Not of this world’
But medieval Christian thinkers additionally maintained skepticism in regards to the skill of temporal princes to appreciate God’s kingdom right here on Earth.
That is the place Augustine, who wrote “The City of God” within the early 5th century, comes into the image. Augustine used to be a prolific creator and immensely sophisticated philosopher whose perspectives modified around the process his lifetime. Very similar to Eusebius, he believed that God made up our minds the destiny of all empires and kingdoms, whether or not Christian or now not.
A portray of Saint Augustine through Seventeenth-century artist Philippe de Champaigne.
Los Angeles County Museum of Artwork by means of Wikimedia Commons
Augustine supported the suitable of rulers to salary “just wars” and use drive to handle public order. Nonetheless, the bishop of Hippo hit the brakes on unbridled enthusiasm for the divinely appointed position of earthly empires and kingdoms, despite the fact that their rulers have been Christian.
Dwelling throughout the aftermath of Rome’s plundering in 410 through the Visigoths, Augustine keenly liked the truth that empires come and cross. True happiness for Christian princes didn’t come from in quest of their very own non-public ends: successful battles, gaining probably the most territory, leaving their thrones to their heirs, and conquering their enemies. It got here from striking their “power at the service of God’s mercy” and the better excellent. “Remove justice,” Augustine requested in “The City of God,” “and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?”
In Augustine’s view, which profoundly influenced medieval theologians and political thinkers, this global used to be the transitory “City of Man,” stuffed with love of self and lust for domination. What actually mattered used to be the everlasting “City of God.” There used to be not anything incorrect with Christian kingdoms, empires and countries, he concept, however there used to be not anything particularly blessed about them, both. In the end, hadn’t Jesus mentioned within the Gospels, “My kingdom is not of this world”?
There hasn’t ever been a novel Christian point of view at the courting between religion, energy and political identities. There no doubt wasn’t on the planet of medieval Christendom. To indicate in a different way is a myth that misrepresents the sophistication of Christian political concept throughout the Heart Ages – and within the provide.
