The Theocratic Threat: Christian Nationalism in 21st Century America
Theocracy — the fusion of religious authority and political power — has resurfaced as a potent force in American public life. Though the First Amendment famously calls for a separation of church and state, today's Christian nationalist movement presses ever harder against that barrier, seeking to remake U.S. democracy in the image of a "divinely ordained" and "morally correct" republic. These theocratic impulses threaten both our democratic institutions and the possibility of a unified working class struggle. In order to better understand theocracy, it is necessary to first understand its history. And to resist it, we must organize for a secular and socialist future.
Historical Roots of Theocracy
Before the concept of the modern nation-state existed, religious authority and political sovereignty were often inseparable. The term "theocracy" first appeared in the first century CE. Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, used it in "Against Apion" to describe the government of the Jewish people, which he saw as distinct from monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy. He wrote:
Now there are innumerable differences in the particular customs and laws that are among all mankind, which a man may briefly reduce under the following heads: Some legislators have permitted their governments to be under monarchies, others put them under oligarchies, and others under a republican form; but our legislator had no regard to any of these forms, but he ordained our government to be what, by a strained expression, may be termed a Theocracy, by ascribing the authority and the power to God, and by persuading all the people to have a regard to him, as the author of all the good things that were enjoyed either in common by all mankind, or by each one in particular, and of all that they themselves obtained by praying to him in their greatest difficulties.
In many early societies, from the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the emperors of China, political rulers claimed some divine mandate, and religious institutions could be indistinguishable from the state apparatus. For example, a commoner might have paid taxes or tribute to a local temple, church, and/or lord in exchange for some degree of protection or liberty. And kings were not merely chosen by the gods, but often ruled as gods.
In medieval Europe, Christendom institutionalized theocracy as the Catholic Church, through the expansion of its influence on monarchs and empires, evolved into a sort of transnational power broker. Excommunication could be a death sentence not only spiritually, but politically. So great was the power of excommunication that Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered for wielding it in a way King Henry II of England disliked. Heresy was criminalized, the Spanish Inquisition and anti-pagan campaigns tortured and executed dissenters, and landownership and legitimacy were fused to clerical blessing.
Even after the Catholic-Orthodox Schism and the Protestant Reformation disrupted the unity of European Christendom, its theocratic model did not disappear; it simply multiplied. Rather than one church influencing many governments, separate governments governed by their own religious interpretations. For example, in Calvin's Geneva, dancing (a sin) was punishable by imprisonment. Religion was not merely a belief system, but the law, state, and cultural totality.
The American Precedent
The U.S. is often imagined as a secular republic in origin, but this is only a half-truth. While the First Amendment does prohibit the establishment of a state religion, many of the early colonies were explicitly theocratic. The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay famously sought to build a Christian "city upon a hill," a model of governance where civil authority was subordinate to religious law. During the same period, Roger Williams foreshadowed Jefferson's writing by criticizing the Puritans and calling for a "hedge wall" of separation between the church and state. He was later exiled for his "heretical" thinking.
After independence, this ideological thread persisted. Christianity, especially in its Protestant and evangelical forms, remained deeply woven into American nationalism. The institution of slavery was defended from pulpits, Indigenous genocide justified with biblical imagery, and imperial conquests cloaked in the language of mission and divine destiny. Today, political figures claim divine intervention.
The line between divine authority and political authority was never truly erased in American history. It simply changed form.
What is Christian Nationalism?
Christian nationalism is not simply patriotism with a religious bent. It is an ideological project that seeks to reforge the state into an explicitly Christian nation — not in a pluralist or multicultural sense, but as a nation grounded in a specific, reactionary interpretation of Christianity: white, Protestant, patriarchal, and deeply hostile to secular governance.
At its core, Christian nationalism fuses religious identity with national identity. To be a "real" American is to be Christian, not just culturally, but politically. The Constitution and all written law becomes subordinate to this perverted interpretation of the Bible. Citizenship becomes conditional on conformity to "Judeo-Christian values," a phrase which (despite its ecumenical appearance) often excludes actual Jewish voices and flattens the diverse views held among Christians into a right-wing caricature. Dissenters, from atheists to Muslims and from feminists to Queer folks, are cast as internal "threats" to the nation's supposed moral and spiritual purity.
This ideology has deep historical roots. The nineteenth century doctrine of Manifest Destiny rationalized territorial conquest with religious fervor, casting westward expansion as a God-given mission to claim land in His name and to Christianize the Indigenous "heathens." In the twentieth century, the rise of the Christian Right turned evangelical churches into blatant (and reliable) arms of the Republican Party, mobilizing believers around opposition to Queer Liberation, reproductive choice, and secular public education. Christianity was routinely invoked to defend Jim Crow laws, with segregationists claiming that racial segregation was divinely ordained and backed by scripture. White churches across the American South preached obedience and racial hierarchy as moral duties, sanctifying a social order built on terror and exploitation.
In recent decades, Christian nationalism has evolved into a broad and flexible coalition. Through the Tea Party, QAnon, school boards, and Supreme Court confirmations, it has found new life in the culture wars, gaining ground through coded rhetoric and increasingly overt authoritarianism. It no longer bothers to hide. Trump sells Bibles and proclaims himself "the chosen one."
Christian nationalism is not fringe. It is institutional, well-funded, and growing. And it is inseparable from white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalist power.
Contemporary Case Studies
The influence of Christian nationalism is not abstract or limited to symbolic gestures. It plays out in real time through legislation, court rulings, grassroots movements, and organized campaigns of repression. These are not isolated incidents, but coordinated efforts to transform the political terrain in favor of theocratic governance.
Texas: Trigger Laws and Fetal Personhood
After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a Texas "trigger law" that bans abortion in nearly all cases came into effect. Lawmakers cited religious conviction as a moral mandate, with some going further to propose fetal personhood laws. This is not simply reactionary — it is theocratic. It imposes a view of life based upon a particular interpretation of theological doctrine upon the public, using state violence as an enforcer.
Florida: Anti-Queer Legislation and Gag Orders
Under the banners of "parental rights" and "family values," Florida has passed laws like "Don't Say Gay," which heavily restrict or outright ban classroom discussion of gender and sexuality. Simultaneously, book bans and educational gag orders have proliferated, targeting Critical Race Theory (CRT), Queer authors, and historical material about racism and colonialism. DeSantis and allies frame these actions as efforts to protect children from "woke" moral decay, invoking a Christian nationalist worldview in which state institutions must enforce ideological purity.
National Organizations: The Christian Right's Legal Infrastructure
Groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Family Research Council provide legal representation and policy guidance for anti-abortion activists, homophobic discrimination, and religious "freedom" exemptions. ADF has involved itself in SCOTUS cases, often under the guise of First Amendment protections, seeking to dismantle secular public spaces and legal protections for marginalized groups. These organizations are not grassroots, but are instead lavishly funded by capitalists and integrated into policy circles.
Judicial Capture and the Supreme Court
Christian nationalism's long game has been most successful in the federal judiciary. Conservative legal networks have elevated "Christian jurists" whose legal philosophies align with Christian nationalist ideologies, as in the case of the Supreme Court, which seemed poised to approve the U.S.'s first publicly funded religious charter school before narrowly blocking its creation by a narrow 4-4 vote with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself. Justices like Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas invoke Christian moral frameworks in decisions that reshape constitutional interpretation. These decisions affect millions of lives, not only by banning abortion, but by allowing businesses to deny services based on "sincerely held religious beliefs."
Cincinnati: The Saga of Darbi Boddy
The insidious tendrils of Christian nationalism reach into local governance, where school boards have become battlegrounds for ideological control. Darbi Boddy's tenure on the Lakota Local School Board is a clear example. Boddy campaigned against CRT, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and what she terms "anti-American" curricula. In office, she has proposed motions to eliminate DEI programs and opposed the formation of a community diversity council. Her rhetoric often frames these initiatives as "divisive" and "unpatriotic," echoing broader Christian nationalist narratives about morality, authority, and national identity. Adding insult to injury, she floods social media with hateful comments demonizing Queer children. Boddy's tenure exemplifies the growing threat of ideological agendas overtaking public education and the serious challenges this poses for inclusive, secular governance. Her eviction should be an immediate priority of every Lakota resident.
Theocracy's Role in Upholding Capitalism
Theocratic ideology does not merely emerge or operate in parallel with capitalist power; it actively reinforces it. Far from being a spiritual counterforce to greed or corruption, the religious right in America functions as an ideological state apparatus, legitimizing inequality, pacifying resistance, and disciplining the working class through moralistic control. To paraphrase Louis Althusser, religion operates not in opposition to the dominant class, but as a mechanism through which that class "interpellates" subjects into a system of obedience and submission. In other words, religion helps shape people's beliefs and identities in a way that makes them more likely to accept their place in the existing social order, even if that order is unequal or exploitative. It helps people make sense of their position in class society.
Christian nationalism provides a divine justification for capitalist hierarchies. Wealth is recast as moral virtue. Poverty becomes the wages of sins, laziness, or unbelief. The rich are "blessed" and "deserving," the poor are suspect, and the social order is treated not as a product of class exploitation but as the natural result of a fusion of "divine will" and Social Darwinism. This theology, echoed in Prosperity Gospel megachurches, renders structural critique not only unnecessary, but blasphemous.
Moreover, religious institutions themselves often benefit directly from capitalist power. Churches enjoy tax exemptions, vast real estate holdings, and "charitable" legal protections while collaborating with right-wing interest groups and politicians. Evangelical networks channel millions into political campaigns, ballot initiatives, and legal challenges, undermining public services while demanding ever greater influence over policy. The religious right and capitalist class are co-architects of austerity, privatization, and moral discipline.
Christian nationalist ideology also works to divide the working class. By weaponizing race, gender, and sexuality under the banner of religious "truth," it deflects anger away from the ruling class toward teachers, Queer youth, immigrants, and women. It teaches workers to fear each other more than they fear capital. In this sense, theocracy is not just about controlling culture. It's about maintaining a social and economic order in which capitalist exploitation is framed as sacred, rebellion as immoral, and solidarity as heresy.
A Marxist Critique of Theocracy
From a Marxist perspective, religion under class society often functions not as a liberatory force, but as a mechanism of control. Karl Marx wrote in A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right:
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Religious rationalization for injustice placates the working class. This is not a rude dismissal of religious belief, but a critique of the role religion plays in dulling pain while obscuring its actual cause. Theocracy is a tool wielded by the ruling class to justify exploitation, impose discipline, and prevent the formation of a unified working class.
Christian nationalism divides the working class by moralizing and criminalizing manifestations of life and humanity that deviate from patriarchal, heteronormative, or white supremacist norms. It redirects class rage into culture war panic. Workers are taught to fear transgender teachers, not landlords. The enemy is not capital; it is anyone who violates a divine social order that conveniently mirrors capitalist hierarchy.
Further, theocracy offers a metaphysical justification for private property. The rich are not just powerful; they are "holy." The poor are not exploited; they are "irresponsible," "immoral," or "ungodly." This ideology serves to naturalize inequality and to preempt rebellion. If injustice is divine, then resistance is heresy.
A secular socialist politics, by contrast, demands the material conditions of liberation: housing, healthcare, education, and autonomy for all, free from clerical mediation or moral surveillance. It does not require hostility to faith, but it does require total political separation between church and state. And it requires the organizational unity of the working class across lines of belief, race, gender, and sexuality.
The task is not merely to fight Christian nationalism as a political ideology, but to expose its function within the machinery of class rule. Theocracy, in this country, is not the enemy of capitalism. It is one of its most enduring and effective weapons.
Strategies for Resistance
The fight against theocracy cannot rely solely on legal battles or appeals to liberal pluralism. Christian nationalism is not just a cultural aberration, but a class project. Resisting it requires organizing a counter-power grounded in material solidarity, intersectional struggle, and secular public life.
Cross-Faith and Secular Coalitions
Christian nationalism thrives on moral absolutism and social divine. To undermine that current, we must unite across lines of belief around shared material demands. Interfaith groups already fighting for abortion access, Queer rights, and housing justice should be supported and expanded. The goal is not uniformity, but unity around liberation.
Secular Public Institutions
Schools, courts, and public services are currently being reshaped to reflect and impose narrow theological worldviews. We must defend these spaces as secular, inclusive, and accountable to the public. This means fighting voucher programs, religious charter schools, and reactionary curricula bans, and it means demanding robust public investment in education, libraries, and healthcare free from religious meddling.
Unite Struggles Against Oppression
Theocratic policies disproportionately target women, Queer folks, migrants, and Black and Indigenous communities. These are not separate fights, but are instead fronts of the same struggle. A revolutionary resistance must be built around the principle of solidarity with all oppressed people, not conditional solidarity based on respectability or conformity.
Frame the Struggle in Class Terms
Moral panics over gender, race, and religion are used to disguise economic theft. We must insist that working-class suffering — low wages, medical debt, homelessness — is not the result of sin but of systemic exploitation. Organizing around labor rights, tenant protections, and public healthcare can bring people into collective struggle and break the spell of theocracy-as-moral-authority.
Political Power, Not Just Defense
Defensive fights are necessary, but insufficient. We must contest for real power in unions, city councils, school boards, and beyond. Our goal is not just to hold the line, but to transform the terrain; to build a society where solidarity, not scripture, determines law. That means openly challenging religious encroachment and unapologetically advancing a socialist vision of freedom.
Christian nationalism is not just a cultural problem or a temporary display of religious overreach. It is a political strategy designed to entrench capitalist rule, suppress dissent, and divide the working class. It cloaks inequality in divine legitimacy and disciplines the population through fear, shame, and repression. Its vision of order depends on hierarchy: men over women, straight over Queer, white over Black and brown, rich over poor. And its ascendancy marks a profound threat not only to democracy, but to the very possibility of collective liberation.
But theocracy is not invincible. Its power relies on our disunity. Against its authoritarianism, we offer solidarity. Against its moralism, we offer dignity. Against its manufactured consent, we offer a new social contract: one rooted not in divine command, but in human need.
We must organize for a secular and socialist future in which no one's rights depend on their religion, where care replaces punishment, and where liberation is measured not by moral conformity, but by collective freedom. History teaches that every advance toward justice has come not from obedience, but from resistance.
Now is the time to resist.