During the “Bible and American Renewal” breakout session at this week’s National Conservatism Conference, Josh Hammer stood out as the lone Jewish person on the panel of otherwise conservative Christian activists: a pastor, the editor of an online Christian magazine and a self-described Christian nationalist.
Yet, it was Hammer who told an audience member that “America was founded as a Christian country.”
“I’ll be the first to say that,” Hammer added. “There is very little doubt in my mind about that.”
The exchange was a window into a curious dynamic that permeated “NatCon,” as attendees call the conference, where speakers and organizers alike worked to craft a vision for a stridently conservative Christian America that somehow steers clear of anti-Catholicism and, especially, antisemitism.
A right-wing gathering that was once considered fringe, NatCon now boasts among its alumni Vice President JD Vance and this year featured a number of Trump appointees and allies, including Russell Vought, Office of Management and Budget director; Kelly Loeffler, director of the Small Business Administration; and Steve Bannon, a longtime podcast host and former chief strategist for President Donald Trump.
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Hammer was hardly alone in appealing to America’s Christian roots at the three-day conference, held in downtown Washington from Sept. 2-4. Idaho Pastor Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist, declared from the main stage, “We were in fact a Christian republic at the founding.” At a breakout session on “The Threat of Islamism in America,” one panelist declared “we are a Christian nation,” and another titled his talk, “Creating Islamic Communities in Christian America.”
But those declarations were made even as speakers openly voiced concern about the potential fracturing of NatCon’s fragile right-wing coalition. In an opening plenary session, Yoram Hazony, the Jewish chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, said early supporters of NatCon skewed heavily Catholic, so he brought in more Protestants — only for Catholics to fret that the movement had, in turn, become anti-Catholic. He has since wanted to bring in more Orthodox Jewish leaders, but is facing a problem: a rise in virulent antisemitism on the right, especially after the attack by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023, in southern Israel.
“I didn’t think it would happen on the right, and I was mistaken,” Hazony said. He pleaded with the group to avoid antisemitism, noting that he is still willing to negotiate disagreement about Israel’s policies as well as have an “honorable conversation” about rethinking “the relationship between Jews and Christians in America.”
Hazony didn’t detail what that relationship looks like, exactly, but several conference speakers appeared to navigate the divide by referring to shared “Judeo-Christian” principles. Vought declared that the U.S. was founded on “Judeo-Christian worldviews.” Gene Hamilton, head of America First Legal, similarly described the U.S. as a “country based on Judeo-Christian values,” and Loeffler referred to “the moral foundations that built this country” — namely, “Judeo-Christian values.”
What’s more, Southern Baptist theologian Albert Mohler insisted that a conservatism that honors “prophets and apostles and patriarchs” can “unite Jewish conservatives and Christian conservatives, Catholic conservatives and Protestant conservatives, Eastern Orthodox conservatives, all in a shared conservatism of principle and conviction, mutual respect and mutual assistance, mutual commitment and commitment to shared conservative principles.”
But more often, NatCon attendees seemed to mitigate their differences by trying to find common cause. Asked about the dynamic, Wilson derided antisemitism but acknowledged the tension between advocating for a Christian America and holding together a coalition that includes Jewish people.
“Jesus either rose from the dead or he didn’t — I’m a Christian,” he said.
But in the “political sphere,” Wilson said, there are pathways for extreme right Christians to find commonality with Jewish conservatives.
“I think it’s good for them to see that there are Orthodox Jews who hate pornography as much as they do,” he offered by way of example.
But in practice, the common enemy that emerged to unite Christian nationalists and Jewish allies at NatCon wasn’t pornography, but Muslims. Several speakers made a point to single out Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim American and leading New York City mayoral candidate.
“New York, our greatest city, is on the precipice of being run by a Zohran Mamdani — I think we realize that something has gone absolutely wrong,” Jack Posobiec, an alt-right political activist who has promoted Christian nationalism in the past, told the crowd. He then added: “As I stand here today, we are less than 10 years away from one of America’s great cities being run by a Muhammad.”
Posobiec was echoed later that day by Bannon, the onetime adviser to Trump. Referring to Mamdani, Bannon insisted “the existential threat to Israel — the Jewish people — is not in Tehran,” but rather “is right in New York City.” He then denounced Mamdani as “a Marxist and a jihadist,” while acknowledging Mamdani is likely to win the election.
Whether a return to the anti-Muslim sentiment — a flavor of vitriol that once helped bolster Trump’s 2016 election coalition — will be enough to help NatCon is an open question. But if this year’s gathering is any indication, it appears to be the chosen path forward for Christian nationalists hoping to expand their tent: In his own address, Wilson argued that while America was “deeply Christian and Protestant at the founding,” it also “did successfully adapt to the presence of Catholics and Jews.”
But accepting large numbers of Muslim immigrants in the U.S., he said, is a bridge too far.
“Millions of Muslims without any commitment to, or mechanism of, assimilation is another matter,” said Wilson, who has previously said that Muslims would be barred from holding office in his version of a Christian America. “There’s only so much white sand you can put in the sugar bowl before it isn’t the Sugar Bowl anymore.”
Jack Jenkins is an award-winning journalist and national reporter for the Religion News Service.
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33 Responses
This won’t end well for the Christian Church in America. Attempts to cement our influence through legislative attempts such as these will ultimate strip the Gospel its power.
One of the reasons the Church has flourished in America is because we have a ‘free market of religion’. Any attempts to make a particular religion the sole or dominant one diminishes that free market system and turns it into a monopoly.
Just look at what state religion did to true faith in “Christian Europe.” On the flip side, many young people in Iran are exploring Christianity not because of its claims to truth, but because of the oppressiveness of state-mandated Islam.
Christianity, being the truth about God, needs no assistance from human government structures.
The Bible is almost entirely responsible for the existence of our constitutional republic, arguably the most civil government structure in all of history, Brian.
It’s because Christians are to cowardly, lazy, and impotent to try to win people to their cause. They give a pittance of their wealth and attend church for an hour on Sunday and vote Republican. And they allow the ministerial staff to do all the work and hope the government legislates morality for them. They see persecution in pushback. Truly they don’t understand which church they are presenting from the book or revelation
Should only atheists influence legislation, Darren?
Galatians 3:28 (KJV): “There is neither Jew nor Greek . . . for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Christianity does not recognize national distinctions. “Christian Nationalism” is therefore an oyxmoron.
I’m not a Christian Nationalist, but I’m really starting to like this Doug Wilson guy.
What specifically do you like about him?
Hm, 🤔 Fear – anxiety is the emotion & motivation for establishing uniting.
“I was afraid so I hid” Thats right, the immediate consequences of humanity’s first sin.
Interesting when Judaism & Christianity first and foremost, are about faith in the living God who created and sustains all things and that both are instructed not to turn to the created, but rather the Creator.
“Put not your trust in princes, in mortal man who canot save”
“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them…Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? …Do not worry about tommorrow, for tommorrow will worry about itself.”
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer & petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
“And they cried out for fear. But Jesus spoke to them saying, “It is I, do not be afraid.”
I have often wondered who came up with the term Judeo/Christian values. I don’t think it just evolved. They are not the same. If there is a controversy, the Jews go with the Talmud over the Torah. The Talmud says it’s ok to lie to non Jews and that non Jews are dogs. Other things I cannot say. They don’t really have Christian values. To be so closely connected can’t be right. It seems there is alot of Jew and Israel worship by the Christian community. Things are out of balance. They have their place, but why invite Jews to speak at Christian events when it’s for Christians while some want to invite more Jews to speak? It’s a good idea to go back to our roots as the Christian nation we once were. At least give it a good effort. What else is left? Going Muslim? No!! If the Jews took over, Christian would have no freedoms. And yes, don’t let Muslims run for office. I think Thomas Jefferson would be rolling over in his grave.
“ I have often wondered who came up with the term Judeo/Christian values.”
I appreciate your critical thinking, Kathy!
Imo, those at the top of the pyramid of power love to introduce new terminology to assist in programming the public’s mind. Once programmed, the mind generally calcifies, fails to ask questions, and judges everyone else according to their understanding.
Other terminology would include the more recent definitions of racism and antisemitism.
I think there’s so much wrong with all of this.
It doesn’t really matter if America was founded as a “Christian Nation”. As pointed out by others, when was America ever a Christian nation? When it destroyed the Native American nations? When it enslaved millions of people in the southern States? When abortions destroyed the lives of millions?
The most successful “Christian nationalism” today is the Russian Orthodox Church’s support of Putin’s “Holy War”.
We learned what happened after the Reformation with the religious wars in the 16th and 17th centuries when Christians who didn’t fit the right sect were burned at the stake. Once you agree on a Christian nation, then we’d have to decide exactly which groups are truly Christian. Can you imagine if Mohler or Wilson were the leader of a new Christian nation? How long before the Wesleyans and Mennonites would be considered sub-Christian?
If you want a Christian nation then persuade people to be by faith subject to Christ—then it would happen spiritually, not politically.
The Kingdom of God is not any nation, no matter how devoted and dedicated the founders may have been. We obey the authorities where we live, but the Kingdom of God is not of the world. As Paul Harvey’s said in his famous prophecy “If I were the devil … I would teach [people] to pray, after me, ‘Our Father, which art in Washington.”
James: “Once you agree on a Christian nation, then we’d have to decide exactly which groups are truly Christian.”
It kind of reminds me of the Puritans from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Roger Williams, a Puritan minister who eventually questioned the authority of the Puritan church in enforcing religious conformity, was ultimately expelled by Puritan authoritarians for not being “pure” enough.
Not to mention prayer in public schools in the South (In the past) and the posting of the Ten Commandments did not diminish racism or the support of segregation.
In fact most churches supported those things.
“The Gospel is the power of God to Salvation.” And Salvation is what changes people, who then change nations.
This organisation is a mixture of all kinds of false spiritual beliefs and they think they can band together to change your country?
Learn from history! Trying to force religious change on people results in inquisitions, witch hunting and all kinds of abuse. Only God can change the heart.
Like the rest of the Religious Right (Christian Nationalists) there has to be a broadening of the members in order for the movement to flourish. That’s the way of power and what this movement is about. It’s a political lobby.
The fear of Muslims also shows that in order to grow a movement you need a boogeyman. And for this group there are many.
I think Dearborn police now having uniform badges made in English and Arabic is a cause for concern. Have you been watching what is happening in Europe? Immigration can be great, with assimilation. Without assimilation ( or anti-assimilation) it’s an invasion. Period. Speaking as a son of immigrants.
You do realize that many 1st generation immigrants throughout our history only spoke/read their native language. It was the children of that 1st generation was bilingual. What is happening in Dearborn is nothing new. One could complain about the pea-soupers immigrants from Canada who only spoke and read French and needed signs in their native language.
So how specifically are Muslims to assimilate into our culture? No hijabs? No longer speaking Arabic? No Mosques? No Islamic garb? No celebrating Ramadan or other Holidays? No taking time to engage in Islamic prayer during work hours? No opposition or protests to Governmental policies?
Most Muslims in Dearborn are law abiding citizens and many serve in the police and other areas of the Government. I should know since I used to work there.
And there is no Shariah law in Dearborn. This has been a lie perpetrated online with no documented support.
What ‘specifically’ do you mean by ‘assimilation’? What do Muslims or any other group have to give up when coming into the US?
Please give examples to support your point.
And in Texas, police have badges in English and Spanish. It’s to enable them to serve the population they swore to serve, remember? That doesn’t change due to language.
BTW, the reason so many cities have “China Town”, “Polish Town”, “Ukrainian Village”, “Little Italy” and the like – complete with the parades, restaurants, markets, festivals and celebrations that you love (dying the river green for St Patrick’s Day sound familiar? that Jamaican festival with the amazing jerk chicken and music that neighbors flock to?) – is due to immigrants settling and still holding onto aspects of their culture, language, food, and faith that they hold dear.
And in this country, where there isn’t an “official language” or faith, immigrants have a RIGHT to do that.
Remember that next time you’re enjoying incredible sushi or chicken mole made at that restaurant by that immigrant family.
Yes Jerome. Been watching for 15+ years, little by little a takeover, implementing Sharia law. There is no desire to assimilate.
I urge everyone to check out “Islam Pushing for World Domination” article and podcast at VCY.org, June 30, 2025. For a better understanding.
It is an interview with Osama Dakdok, a Christian who has a ministry for Muslims called “Straight Way of Grace Ministry”. (Many are coming to Christ!) Osama was born and raised in Egypt and was taught about Islam. He speaks Arabic and has translated the Quran into English. Osama speaks around the country so people are informed, and not remain ignorant.
As I pointed out to Jerome there is no Shariah in Dearborn or anyplace else in the United States. I saw none of that in Dearborn when I worked there for years. Certainly in Islamic run countries but not here.
The only sites promoting this idea are either using very questionable sources or downright outright lying.
Where in this country is Sharia law implemented? This sounds like exaggeration (which is LYING) to promote fearmongering and hatred of Muslims.
Just, NO.
Evangelize by going out there and teaching and living truth. Don’t promote exaggerations, fear, and bigotry.
Marin,
No lying here. If you actually read Jerome’s comment, then mine, it was regarding Europe. There’s no hatred of Muslims in Osamas’ teachings. He wants to love them to the Lord. As we should to everyone! Did you happen to read/listen to the article I referenced?
Do you consider yourself informed? If so, you realize then that CAIR organization shuts down conservative speakers if they speak truth. And even puts a FATWA on their heads. (Yes, I’ve witnessed it).
Who would you say is “fear mongering, hating or bigots”?
“I didn’t think it would happen on the right, and I was mistaken,” Hazony said. Really? Why didn’t he think it would happen on the right? It never stopped. Anti-semitism and anti-semetic conspiracies never gone, it’s just disguised now. Instead of directly saying “The Jews” they say “George Soros” or “Global Elites” or “The Cabal”. The conspiracism and prejudice are the same, only the terms have changed.
Make no mistake folks, Christian Nationalists would be happy to get support from Jewish people to take power, and to make fighting “Anti-Semitism” their PR tool of the moment to distract from their misdeeds. Be equally certain though that they would discard and disenfranchise Jewish people as soon as they felt they could govern without them.
As for everyone’s favorite slavery-apologist Doug Wilson saying “There’s only so much white sand you can put in the sugar bowl before it isn’t the Sugar Bowl anymore.”
Someone should remind him that it wasn’t even a Sugar bowl to begin with. An awful lot of other spices were “wiped out” to make room for all that sugar.
To accept Doug Wilson is to accept wife beating and racism. Read his writings. Our Constitution protects ALL religions, sexes, genders, races, speach, cultures and political streams equally. That is a fact. Anyone espousing anything else is not a true American patriot. PERIOD!
Why would any Godly or ethical person join the group of people listed in the article?
I for one am very thankful to see this group in the article come together!
Answer me this: were there any Christian leaders of color attending the conference, or did the reporter just decide not to cover them or ask their opinions?
Doug Wilson and his cohorts are too much like the late L. Nelson Bell, who tried to support both evangelism and Jim Crow segregation. Bell was so afraid that the end of segregation (which he saw as loving and kind) would mean the start of mixed marriages. He fought against allowing African American teens to attend conferences held at Presbyterian facilities in the Carolinas–even as late as 1968! Is there anyone in American Christianity willing to confront Doug Wilson over this? Or are they so envious of the power he wields that they are willing to ignore his racism so they can have their share of that power?
One of the few times I’m gonna say, “Go ahead and leave us Black folks out. We don’t need to be included.”
Christian Nationalism is a blasphemous movement that needs to be rejected and countered with the REAL gospel at all costs.
What most fail to realize is that patriot Jews were responsible for us winning the revolutionary war and independence-giving ALL THEY HAD AND DYING IN DEBT TO DO IT.
I get very tired of know it all “christians” who never bothered to dig into our REAL history or the Bible for that matter. They act as if it is a favor to be nice to Jews failing to recognize their contribution in helping us and Gods direction in Romans 11 to not disparage the temporarily blinded Jews because our branch can be removed just as easily.
One example of a man who gave all and saved the nation is Haym Salomon- A JEW.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/haym-salomon