“The New Christian Right, Antisemitism & U.S. Democracy”

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks, Bianna. Tom Gjelten, thank you so much for talking with us.

 

TOM GJELTEN: Great to be with you, Michel.

 

MARTIN: So, Tom, you’re a veteran journalist. You’ve spent a lot of years covering lots of different things: international affairs, religion and politics. In a recent cover story for a Moment Magazine, you dig into what you call the new Christian right. So when you, when you describe the new Christian right, what specifically are you talking about?

 

GJELTEN: We’re familiar with the Christian, right, and the role that evangelical Christians in particular have played in American politics for the last 40 years or so. And what I’m saying in this article is that the Christian — we have a new Christian right. It’s not the same as the old Christian right. I mean, you remember Michel, the Moral Majority in, in the eighties. And of course, the important support that evangelical Christians gave to Donald Trump in his 2016 and again, 2020 and 2024. But we’ve seen kind of a transformation of Christian conservatism in the last few years. And what I say is it’s taken on a much more of a nationalistic tone. Whereas in the past conservative Christians were really focused on a number of policy issues: abortion, same-sex marriage, school choice.
Now Christian conservatives are more interested in actually taking power and bringing government sort of under Christian control at the local level, the state level, the national level. And so this is a really, it’s a different phenomenon. And what I’ve tried to do is sort of describe how that evolved, what it means and where it’s going.

 

MARTIN: You referenced the Moral Majority? Yeah. Is the, is the, is the idea for this new Christian movement that they are the majority, but that their views are not being reflected in public policy per se? Or do they have the sense that they are an embattled minority and therefore they need to claim power to, in order to sort of protect themselves? Or, or is it something else? 

 

GJELTEN: No, I think, Michel, I think that the Christian nationalists that I’m writing about feel that they are beleaguered. You know, there is a, a prominent Christian writer by the name of Aaron Renn, who has laid out sort of three worldviews that have prevailed in the last 30 years, and those worldviews have to do with the attitudes towards Christian, Christians in society. From the — he saw a positive world in the eighties and the nineties where sort of Christians felt that the worlds saw them in positive terms. And then the next phase was kind of a neutral world where they weren’t seen in either positive or negative ways. 

And now he says, he writes — and this is very important — he sees that the world is negative towards Christians. They, so the Christians that sort of follow this line of thinking see themselves as being under siege and needing to kind of create their own institutions, take a much more active and kind of fight approach to defending their interests. And that means that it’s, you know, it’s, it’s harder for them to sort of compromise because they see themselves as being beleaguered and needing to stand up for themselves against their enemies, and they see their enemies on every side.

 

MARTIN: You attended a conference in Washington a couple of months ago. What struck you about being in that room? What did you notice?

 

GJELTEN: Well, Michel, this was National Conservatism. And interestingly enough, it’s a movement that was begun by two conservative Jews who saw themselves as Jewish nationalists and certainly with respect to Israel. But the, the kind of unifying theme was that nationalism is a good thing that countries need to have a kind of a core central or religious or cultural identity in order for them to be cohesive as a nation. And even though the founders, as I say, were Jewish, they actually reached out to Christian nationalists to make it clear that they were welcome in this world. Because nationalism is, in their view, is a good thing. 

And what’s happened, however, is that as Christian nationalists have become more important, they have sort of emphasized their own Christian identity to the exclusion of others. Hardcore Christian nationalists are actually rejecting the notion of a Judeo-Christian tradition. They believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and should be a Christian nation. And so there is a sort of less interest in reaching out to non-Christians. And I think one of the things that I saw at this conference is there was a sense among the Jewish supporters of this movement that maybe Christian nationalism was a little bit more of a threat to them than they had originally anticipated. 

 

MARTIN: That’s one of the ironies of your piece for

 

GJELTEN: Exactly. 

 

MARTIN: For a movement that sort of had its roots in these two Jewish thinkers. One of the things that you wrote about is how openly anti-Semitic ideas are circulating. 

 

GJELTEN: Right. 

 

MARTIN: In the piece you wrote, you quote a pastor writing, “The Jews killed the Lord Jesus antisemitism be damned.” He goes on to write, “the vast majority of Jews in America are Marxists who support the Democratic agenda.” 

Did you get a sense in your reporting of how widespread or how fundamental those ideas really are to the movement?

 

GJELTEN: Well, one thing I noticed, Michel, is that this conference, National Conservatism has been around for a few years. And in the beginning, Tucker Carlson was one of the sort of featured speakers. He’s been absent for the last couple of years because he has moved much more in a, in a direction — I won’t say antisemitic — but sort of, what, antisemitic-adjacent, maybe is the word. And characters like Nick Fuentes, who is — considers himself a hardcore Christian nationalist.  And you mentioned some of these pastors who are hardcore Christian nationalists who are now very open in their own antisemitic views. 

And as these views came to be more important within the Christian nationalist movement, some of the original Jewish supporters, as I say, became more alarmed. Yoram Hazony, who was the founder of the National Conservatism Movement, at this conference in September, stood up and said, you know, a year ago, I wasn’t worried about antisemitism on the right. I thought antisemitism was really a phenomenon on the left. I was mistaken, he said. And another prominent Jewish supporter of the movement, Josh Hammer, told me that the concerns about antisemitism on the right are a five-alarm fire. 

And what’s interesting about this, Michel, is that a lot of these sort of conservative Jews saw conservative Christians up until now as co-belligerents. They saw them as kind of political allies in the fight against wokeism, in the fight against political Islam, in the fight against globalism. So, you know, even though they came from different religious traditions, they saw themselves as being sort of politically on the same side. That alliance has now really eroded.

 

MARTIN: Now, one of the reasons this is interesting, that historically evangelical Christians in the U.S. were often strongly pro-Israel, and even sort of seeing Jews as God’s chosen, chosen people, and Israel is having a special biblical status. Now, that’s well attested, you know, for theological reasons. Okay? But this worldview that you’re documenting here really breaks from that tradition. Why do, why do you think that is?

 

GJELTEN: That’s a fundamental point, Michel. I mean, conservative Christians for a long time were actually sort of philosemitic. I mean, they actually loved Israel. And there was I mean, we can, we can sort of get theological about this. They were part of what’s called the Dispensationalist tradition. They believed that God did sort of promise Abraham and his descendants the land of Israel for generations to come. The conservative Christians accepted that covenant. There was a movement Christians United for Israel. You’d see people like Mike Huckabee, the current ambassador to Israel, came out of that tradition. 

So as, as you say, for a long time conservative Christians really were super pro-Israel. What has now happened within the Christian nationalist movement is that old tradition has really weakened. And now Christian nationalists say that the — Christianity has superseded Judaism as God’s chosen faith. (16:38): So they reject a — fundamentally reject that idea that Jews have some sort of biblical claim to the land. Now, that is not necessarily anti-Semitic, in fact, that that would be sort of overlap with a lot, with a kind of an anti-Zionist view of Israel. That there, that Israel is just another country. But once you begin to see Jews as just another people without any sort of biblical significance, political, biblical claim to their land, that kind of opens the door to some of the more explicit antisemitism that we have seen. 

 

MARTIN: But, but I, I do wanna push against some, one of the arguments, the argument that a critique of Israel is of necessity anti-Semitic. I mean, there are plenty of Jewish groups,

 

GJELTEN: Absolutely.

 

MARTIN: Jewish citizens who have deep concerns and profound critiques of the way Israel has conducted itself in a number of spheres, particularly in the wake of the Gaza war. And the argument even that Israel should be treated like another, any other country, is that inherently anti-Semitic? 

 

GJELTEN: No.

 

MARTIN: What’s the line here?

 

GJELTEN: It’s, it’s not, no, not, not at all. In fact, as I said, you know, I would, I would argue that kind of an anti-Zionist position is not, per se, an anti-Semitic position. But what is, I think, alarming is that among these Christian nationalists, there is a really a determination. It’s kind of Christian, there’s kind of Christian supremacy is what is alarming. The idea that, you know, that, that Christians should be in a supremacist position. That — and the idea that Christianity is, you know, it should be favored over Judaism. So that’s kind of the reflection. That’s where it gets taken into a more alarming directions. 

One of the things that that I found in talking to a lot of these Christian nationalists is the, their rejection of the idea of a Judeo-Christian tradition. I was told that, you know, a number of these Christian nationalists believe that the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70 by the Romans, was actually an act of God, a punishment to the Jewish people for having rejected Christ. Now, when you have sort of a viewpoint like that, then distancing yourself from Israel becomes a sort of a more a more problematic position to take. 

 

MARTIN: In the piece, you quote somebody named Stephen Wolfe, who is a political theorist and author of “The Case for Christian Nationalism.” You say this is a book that’s become influential in Christian nationalist circles. And he writes, “Non-Christians living among us are entitled to justice, peace, and safety, but they are not entitled to political equality…public space should be exclusively Christian.” How widespread is this, is this belief?

 

GJELTEN: Well, let’s put that in a broader context. Michel. For a long time, sort of the notion of what it means to be American and the i — and, and what America stands for has been defined in kind of ideological terms. There’s a sort of a creed that is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and essentially anyone, any immigrant, let’s say, regardless of their ethnic background, their religious background. Any immigrant who fully commits to the American idea, the idea of the American creed, can legitimately claim to be American. What we have seen in the last few years is a move toward more of a kind of an ethnonationalist approach where — and JD Vance expressed this pretty clearly in a speech at the Claremont Institute — where he said, he rejected that idea of a creedle identity to America. He’s, instead is emphasizing that America is a homeland for people with ties here. And he’s, he explicitly rejected the idea that anybody can become an American simply by sort of believing in the American idea. This is a really a fundamental change. And one that kind of calls into question a lot of the kind of democratic principles that have been the foundation of the American identity for a long time.

 

MARTIN: The question I have though, is how this translates into public policy. Why should other people be concerned about this?

 

GJELTEN: The Trump administration in the second term, just a month into its second term established what they call a Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the government. And then a few months later, another task force to promote religious freedom. Both of these task forces take an explicitly Christian sort of view of the world. And they kind of are laying the groundwork for Christian nationalist attitudes within the U.S. government. 

So you know, this is not something that we have seen before. I mean, the task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias does not concern itself with antisemitism, per se, with Islamophobia. It has got a very narrow focus on promoting Christianity and eradicating what is seen as a kind of a bias against Christians. The religious freedom task force is all about promoting sort of more space in the public square for the exercise of Christianity. So, you know, they — the supporters of these task forces would not say that they represent a Christian nationalist viewpoint. However, they are kind of setting the stage for in, for increasing the influence of Christianity within our public life.

 

MARTIN: So Tom, your piece was for Moment Magazine, which is a journal of Jewish thought and, and ideas. Your piece comes at a time when there has been a rise in — globally — of anti-Semitic incidents. And even as we are speaking now a mass shooting in Australia, in which, you know, dozens of people were injured and like 15 people were killed. I mean, just a horrifying event. But it’s not the only one. But for people, for people who are not part of that community, what would you say is a reason to pay attention to this?

 

GJELTEN: Well, I think that one of the alarming developments is that there’s been a kind of a confluence of antisemitism on the right and antisemitism on the left. They’ve sort of come together. You know one person I talked to talked about this kind of horseshoe effect where, you know, extremes on the right and the left seem to find common ground. And I think one of the places where we are seeing that is in sort of a suspicion of of Jews, you know. I mean, we just saw a couple of months ago a horrific murder here in Washington D.C. of two young Israelis coming out of the Jewish cultural center who were gunned down by, you know, somebody sort of in the name of the Palestinian cause. So, you know, I have highlighted in this article the day —  the growing danger of antisemitism on the right. But I don’t mean to downplay the danger of antisemitism that we have seen on the left, sort of in the context of, you know, what’s been happening in Gaza in the last three years. So I think that, you know, any time you see sort of extremists on the right and the left sort of finding common ground, that is an alarming situation.

 

MARTIN: Tom Gjelten, thank you so much for speaking with us.

GJELTEN: Always good to see you, Michel.