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n 2026, the United States will mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Preparations are already underway to commemorate July 4, 1776, the day when American colonists declared themselves independent from the British monarchy.
As we mark that milestone, democracy is under threat. The Declaration's underlying commitment to the "self-evident truths" that "all men are created equal" and that a just government is rooted in the consent of the governed is crumbling. The ideal has always been flawed in its deployment, but even those not treated as equal before the law have used the broadly held commitment to equality to challenge injustice.
Dominant forms of American religion have embraced, and reinforced, social equality as a widely held value. While some forms of Christianity have rejected equality as a social value, the forms that thrived in the US were born in a rejection of God-ordained hierarchy.
But today's "Christian nationalism" rejects the commitment to equality on which democracy depends. It draws together at least three forms of Christianity, explained below, that will seem foreign and even "not Christian" to most modern Christians, but they have become powerful forces behind the current dismantling of democracy in the US.
