‘Make America Christian’: How Trump’s Christian nationalist messaging challenges America’s civic identity
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "‘Make America Christian’: How Trump’s Christian nationalist messaging challenges America’s civic identity")
Attendees pray and celebrate during "Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving" on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on May 17, 2026. Photograph: (AFP)
Donald Trump’s “One nation under God” event has reignited debate over Christian nationalism, secularism and the constitutional separation of church and state in the United States.
The idea of the nation-state is relatively new, with the US and France being the two epitomes of civic-nation. This idea of civic nationalism draws heavily from shared commitment to political principle or a legal contract based upon values such as democracy, equality and liberty, rather than ethnic nationalism like Israel or anti-colonial nationalism like India. This is notable because the US Constitution deliberately omits any mention of a state religion. Even before the Bill of Rights was added, the original text of the US Constitution added that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
In a drastic turn of events, US President Donald Trump broadcast a video message to thousands of people gathered at the National Mall to “rededicate” the nation as “one nation under God". The "Rededicate 250" perfectly illustrates the ongoing tension in political science between the United States' legal identity as a civic nation and its cultural heritage. The eight-hour-long White House-backed prayer meeting was described by many as a giant Big MAC project: Make America Christian.
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“Our rights don’t come from the government,” said US Senator Scott to the crowd. “No, our rights come from God, the king of kings.”
“Before the Christian West, most societies – and civilisations, for that matter – thought in stagnant cycles: the flooding of the Nile, the return of the rains, the cycle of the harvest. History for them was a wheel to nowhere,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “But our faith calls us outwards into the limitless darkness of the unknown. It tells us to go forth and preach the gospel to the world as a witness unto all nations and to the ends of the earth.”
The breaking of the invisible wall of Church and State
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One highly accurate metaphor to describe this political theatre is the breaking of the “fourth wall”. This occurs when in films and theatres, a character, while being part of the script, looks at the audience, and the viewer interacts with them and acknowledges that the play or the movie is not real. The "Project Big MAC" is particularly that moment in US history. For the longest period, the US politics and administration had been dominated by White Christians, until Barack Obama, not a single President, was of African American origin. Until now, not a single President has been non-Christian. Think of the US Constitution as the strict, objective "script" of the American state. It is a carefully written, neutral, secular, legal contract, when a President publicly proclaims it as “one nation under God” in front of evangelical pastors, worship bands, Bible thumpers, MAGA influencers, cabinet secretaries, conservative lawmakers with enough references to God, redemption and spiritual warfare, he is stepping out of that legal contract of the separation of the church and the state. It exposes the dual nature of reality, one, the legal contract of the constitution, and another that is embedded in the cultural reality of American society.
Trump, however, has accused the federal government of “anti-Christian bias”; he has previously launched a task force in 2025 to combat this bias. This development comes as the US is heading into election season in November, and Evangelical Christians are the driving force behind Trump's right-wing voter base.
