OK, we get it: That whole 'Christian nationalism' thing is hot, right now. But what is it?

By all indications, urgent warnings against “Christian nationalism” (CN) will continue as a major media theme through Election Day 2024.

Journalists will need to be careful with a tricky label that’s mostly shunned by supposed participants in the CN movement and employed by opponents (as with “fundamentalist” or “ultra-“ or “cult”). How complex is the fighting about this term? Click here to tune in some of the YouTube debates.

Critics’ typical definition comes from attorney Amanda Tyler, who leads Christians Against Christian Nationalism (with a large “N”) and the proudly progressive Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. She says CN “seeks to merge American and Christian identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy.” Its “mythological” view of founding of a “Christian nation” means America is singled out “to fulfill God’s purposes on earth.” Further, CN “demands a privileged place for Christianity in public life, buttressed by the active support of government at all levels.”

Writers could pursue this sort of theme sideways by reviewing or collecting pro and con reactions to “How to Be a Patriotic Christian: Love of Country as Love of Neighbor,” the latest book by middle-roading evangelical Richard Mouw of Calvin University, formerly president of Fuller Theological Seminary.

Otherwise, here's a rundown to guide journalists on some of the notable CN chatter since The Guy took a whack at the definition issue last year year at GetReligion.

Hang on, because this gets complex. For starters, ambiguity abounded in an October Pew Research survey.

Some 60% of adults think -- yes -- the founders intended the U.S. to be a “Christian nation,” and 45% think it actually “should be” such, though for many that means only generalized moral guidance while only 18% think the phrase indicates Christian-based governance. Importantly, a 54% majority had never even heard of CN.

That belief the U.S. “should be” a Christian nation was favored by fully 65% of Black Protestants (compared with e.g. only 47% of Catholics). Yet University of Texas political scientist Eric McDaniel wrote for TheConversation.com that CN believes the only “true” Americans are “white, Christian and U.S.-born and whose families have European roots.”

Reporting on white Christian nationalists? Try talking with some of these Americans in person

“White Christian nationalism” (WCN) has become quite the bogeyman in contemporary religion coverage, even though few reporters seem to have spent much time actually engaging with people in the flocks led by said nationalists.

Instead, journalists read their social media, watch their YouTube videos and talk with sources drawn from a rather predictable list of activists and experts who oppose the bogeyman.

But that does not a complete story make. Readers end up with, at best, half of a debate.

One outlet that’s building or staking its reputation on WCN continuing to be a thing is Religion News Service, which has been rolling out stories on the topic since last September, thanks to a grant from the Pulitzer Center. The latest story in its “White Christian Nationalism since the Jan. 6 Attack” series ran Jan. 26 here. It began:

When supporters of former President Donald Trump rallied near the White House on Jan. 6 of last year, a boisterous pocket of young men waving “America First” flags broke into a chant: “Christ is King!” It was one of the first indications that Christian nationalism would be a theme of the Capitol attack later that day, where insurrectionists prayed and waved banners that read “Proud American Christian.”
It also announced the presence of followers of Nick Fuentes, a 23-year-old white nationalist and former YouTube personality who was subpoenaed this month by the U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Capitol attack. …
“Christ is King” is not controversial in itself: The phrase is rooted in Christian Scripture and tradition. But Fuentes’ supporters have given it a different connotation. They have chanted it at anti-vaccine protests and the anti-abortion March for Life, some of them holding crucifixes aloft. It was heard in March, at an America First conference, where Fuentes delivered a speech saying America will cease to be America “if it loses its white demographic core and if it loses its faith in Jesus Christ.” Fuentes also declared the country “a Christian nation.”

There are a bunch of academics and other sources quoted here but what appears to be the central thesis –- that WCN is bleeding into the mainstream institutions and life of conservative Christianity –- was not proven by a long shot.