Historians of Christian Nationalism see disturbing parallels to today’s tax cut battle

Why Christian nationalists love Trump

God and country.

But as Kruse documents in his book, many conservative Christians did not ascribe to the Social Gospel, and still others did not celebrate FDR’s sweeping reforms. Corporate tycoons were especially unhappy with how the president’s rhetoric and his rash of regulations tarnished the image — and bottom line — of Big Business. By the 1940s, pro-business lobbying groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) were already mounting a public-relations counterattack that fused faith, patriotism, and capitalism.

“Economic facts are important, but they will never check the virus of collectivism,” H.W. Prentis, president of NAM, said in a speech at the time. “The only antidote is a revival of American patriotism and religious faith.”

The result, Kruse says, was the creation of the Spiritual Mobilization movement, led by Congregationalist minister Rev. James W. Fifield Jr.

Kruse describes the pastor as a sort of progenitor to modern megapastors: Fifield’s Southern California-based worship community was the single largest Congregationalist church in the world in the early 1940s at around 4,000 members, and his adult education series “The College of Life” claimed some 28,000 paying participants. His chauffeur drove him around in an expensive car, his parishioners were often famous and wealthy, and a reporter once described him as the “Apostle to Millionaires.” And most importantly for business moguls, he was a big fan of capitalism—and knew how to preach it.

“The easiest way to override a secular authority is to appeal to a higher power,” Kruse told ThinkProgress in a phone interview.

Fifield set out to do just that. Backed by money from oil tycoons, General Motors, and other patrons from across the corporate world, Fifield slowly built an national network of ministers who preached a message that glorifying the government was a denial of God. By the late 1940s, Kruse explains, Spiritual Mobilization claimed more than 17,000 ministers as representatives and published its own publication filled spiritual messages that opposed the Social Gospel, the New Deal, and liberalism they equated with totalitarianism.

“Essentially, they argue that Christianity and capitalism are both systems in which individuals rise and fall according to their own merit,” Kruse said in a separate interview with NPR. “The New Deal, they argue, violates this natural order. In fact, they argue that the New Deal and the regulatory state violates the Ten Commandments.”

When “Red Scare” culture arose in the 1950s, Fifield and Spiritual Mobilization began openly conflating Christian libertarianism with Christian nationalism in an effort to push back against “godless” Communists. The organization published a monthly magazine entitled “Faith and Freedom,” where concepts of “liberty” and “personal responsibility” were touted as “spiritual values.” The idea of “freedom under God” became a rallying cry: Pastors preached “freedom under God” homilies as part of a sermon contest held on “Independence Sunday,“ thousands gathered at “Freedom Under God” rallies, and versions of the phrase soon worked their way into the Pledge of Allegiance—and, perhaps most fittingly, onto U.S. currency.

In so doing, they created the lexicon of Christian nationalism still in use today.

A legacy of praising God, country, and wealth

Over time, the original goal of promoting Christian libertarianism became something of a side project alongside triumphant God-and-country rhetoric. The effort ultimately created the structure and ideological framework that gave rise to what we now call the Religious Right, which has been most concerned about social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion.

“This language that is crafted in the 1930s and 1940s to press for economic conservatism gets transformed over the course of the 20th century, and there’s an unintended consequence of it now being a rallying cry for social conservatives,” Kruse told ThinkProgress.

Still, sects of modern conservative Christianity retain elements of Christian libertarianism, often set alongside Christian nationalism. Republicans have cited the Bible while chipping away at programs that help the poor in recent years, for instance, drawing inspiration from theology that delineates between “deserving” and “undeserving” poor.

Kruse also pointed to the landmark 2014 Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which granted the craft store giant an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.

“If you look at, say, the line of businesses that would be lined up behind Hobby Lobby,” he said. “That argument in that case is essentially drawn directly out of Christian libertarianism, that corporations have certain religious beliefs, and those beliefs trump any kind of government action.”

One of Trump’s favorite lines to quote on the stump, “We worship God, not government,” would have fit right into the sermons of Spiritual Mobilization pastors.

“That is almost a verbatim quote from some of the people I study in the book,” Kruse said.

Kruse suggested the most obvious theological legacy of Spiritual Mobilization is the development of what we now call the Prosperity Gospel movement, an often blatantly pro-capitalist form of Christianity that instructs church members they can be blessed with wealth and success if they simply strengthen their faith (a pursuit that often includes donations to their pastor).

Although modern Prosperity Gospel preachers had been largely apolitical until Trump’s rise, “the Donald” has made a point to surround himself with “health and wealth” preachers such as such as Paula White, who currently serves as one of his spiritual advisers. While White’s recent embrace of Christian nationalist rhetoriccame as a surprise, Kruse’s work hints the prosperity gospel was never far removed from conflations of piety and patriotism.

And then there is the other connection Kruse says didn’t make it into his book. When Fifield was looking for a replacement to run the organization in 1947, he sought out Norman Vincent Peale, an author and pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City.

Peale was an important figure at the time, and remains influential to this day—especially for Donald Trump, who attended his church. Peale’s teachings and sermons on self-love are credited with helping craft the president’s unflinching self-confidence, and the pastor remains one of the few historical religious figures Trump mentions by name, once calling him “one of the greatest speakers” he’d ever encountered. Peale’s 1952 book, The Power Of Positive Thinking, is also often listed as a progenitor to the modern prosperity gospel movement.

“There’s a real connection there,” Kruse said. He said Peale ultimately passed on Fifield’s offer, reasoning he could make more money “staying at Marble Collegiate and doing his book tours.”

Origins matter

It’s not always a straight line between the Spiritual Mobilization movement and modern Christian nationalists, Kruse said. The movement has morphed and splintered over time, and Fifield’s ideological descendants often vehemently disagree with each other. For example: Erick Erickson has been deeply critical of Trump, and has decried the Prosperity Gospel as a heresy—as have many other Christian conservatives.

But as Kruse notes, the tendency for the Religious Right, Christian nationalism, and pro-capitalist theology to occupy the same space is something that happens periodically in the United States, in part because they often emerge out of the same conversations. He said this is especially true in historical moments when the accumulation of personal wealth is seen to be an ideal—like, say, when the country elects a prominent businessman as president.

“I do think there is a historical pattern here,” he said. “When society decides that…’Greed is good,’ often you see religious leaders acquiescing to that—not all of them, but many see what their congregations are believing in, and fit themselves to that.”

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