The Religious Nature of the Political Right

A few weeks ago I finished a series on the way the State, the governments of the various nations of the world, use overtly religious symbolism and language to manipulate the emotions and actions of the people in order to generate within them a fearful awe of and attitude of obedience to the government. In that series I spoke of the way that political parties act as political denominations and competing sects of the same cult-like ideology. More recently I wrote about the religious nature of Leftist politics specifically. Today I will be digging into the religious nature of Rightist politics and explore how right wing politics and identity operate within the believer’s life in the same way that religious beliefs operate. Below I will first define what exactly I mean when I talk about “right wing” and “Rightist” politics and then I will explore the religious nature of right wing politics and the way they manipulate people into obeying and serving both political party and State.

What is the “Right” Anyway?

On some level it is more difficult to define the Right than it was to define the Left. Many definition of “right wing” look something like this one, which defines people on the political right as being “members of a conservative or reactionary political party, or those opposing extensive political reform,” which is just absolute nonsense. I don’t think anyone can look at Donald Trump, typically associated in America as being on the political Right, and believe he doesn’t have an agenda of “extensive political reform.” Definitions similarly talk about the right wing as being “conservative,” but that term is very loosely and ill-defined. Conservatives are supposed to be traditionalists who adhere to the common historic norms in economics, morality, and government as the basic foundation for how they approach social action, supposedly with a heavy distrust of government intervention.

Yet, Donald Trump’s willingness to use government power to stage mass intervention in the economy, lay down heavy tariffs, and to spend tens of billions of dollars in bailouts for businesses are all not only the very opposite of conservative, to say nothing of his embrace of using international military action to accomplish foreign policy goals, another supposedly anti-conservative policy. There is a reason some have drawn comparisons between the economic and foreign policies of Trump and FDR, a man who was the very opposite of a conservative. Yet, the majority of the media seems to agree that Donald Trump is definitively right wing and his supporters are Rightists as well.

So, if the “Right” isn’t necessarily conservative nor traditionalist, if it isn’t necessarily opposed to sweeping government reform programs designed to transform large aspects of the nation socially, economically, and politically, then what exactly does “right wing” mean? I think Donald Trump nails it in this excerpt from a campaign speech of his, right around the 1:27 mark:

“You know what I am? I’m a nationalist.” [Wild cheering ensues]

Nationalism is an ideology which claims that the central and most meaningful identity one possesses is his or her national identity. To a nationalist, his or her country is the greatest in the world, is more important than all others, and its ways and customs are better than all others in the world. This is why the nationalist is so ardent in his or her loyalty to the State and so distrustful of foreigners. Even legal immigrants bring customs and languages from their home country which, if preserved, threaten to taint the superiority of the nation’s already existing culture and customs. This is why Rightists place such a heavy emphasis on immigrants “assimilating” into American culture – that is giving up their own languages and customs and adopting English as their language and the customs of the new nation as their own.

The metaphor most commonly associated with this has long been the idea of America as one large “melting pot” where everyone’s differences melt away and we become one thing – one people, one Nation. Nationalism is also why you see national flags and national colors everywhere at right-wing rallies as both flag and colors are symbol of pride in, membership with, and possession of the Nation itself. All of these elements can be seen in the video below of a Trump rally in the USA.

So the Right is defined not by its ever shifting sense of conservatism (consider conservative hero Ronald Reagan described himself as a New Deal Democrat who had been abandoned by the party) or by its rejection of mass state social engineering through government programs. The most defining characteristic of Rightist politics is its adherence to and promotion of the belief in national greatness and superiority coupled with the belief in the necessity of all people to put what the Rightest views as national necessity above all other considerations -including family, friends, and faith. This is the real reason why Rightists and Leftists don’t get alone. It isn’t that one believes in radical identity politics and the other doesn’t or that one believes in the government using its power to radically alter society by force of law and control of education, because both Leftists and Rightists believe in these things. It isn’t even the idea that the government should give massive amounts of money to the “poor” when it believes those in power believe the masses need it, as Trump proved with his massive $2 trillion stimulus spending.

The difference between the Left and the Right is that the root of Leftist ideology is in Socialism and Socialism is internationalist at heart, while the Right is rooted in Nationalism and Nationalism rejects internationalism/globalism as a threat to the unity and purity of the national identity and national culture. This is also why the “extreme Left” is pure Socialism and Communism while the “extreme Right” is Fascism, or as it was most appropriately known in Germany, National Socialism. (And though the difference between Nationalism and all out Fascism may seem minute, the differences do exist and do matter.)

So, why is nationalism important in the larger context of how right wing ideology operates as a religion in the lives of Rightists? To help answer this question I turn to the eminent scholar of nationalism, the man who pioneered the historical study of the subject, Dr. Carlton J.H. Hayes, former professor of history at Columbia University. Dr. Hayes wrote what is still the standard work on the subject in his final book, Nationalism: A Religion. In chapter 2 of said work Dr. Hayes describes how what he calls “the religious sense,” i.e. the innate desire of humans to seek out some god or ideal to devote ourselves to the adoration and service of is as old as human history itself and can be found in every place and people on Earth. Dr. Hayes explains that during times of great change people begin to look to new ideas to direct their lives and the old religions fracture, breakdown, and make way for new faiths to replace them. He gives two examples of this – the way that Greco-Roman paganism was breaking down before the rise of Christianity and in more recent eras, the way that Christianity had first fractured into Christianity and Protestantism and then the way that Protestantism itself fractured into many different movements under pressures created by the Industrial Revolution. This has created a void in which new ideals have developed to fill:

But, as I have suggested above, any such void is unnatural, and an urge arises to fill the void with some new faith. Intellectuals have found this in “scientism,” in “humanitarianism,” in “positivism,” in “freemasonry,” to one or another of which they evince a single-minded and at least quasi-religious devotion. To be sure, these objects are likely to be too abstract, too esoteric, for mass adoration. As the masses grow cold about the historic Christian faith and practice, they have tended, rather, to accept other and more attractive substitutes offered them by intellectuals, most notable of which are communism and nationalism.

Nationalism: A Religion pg. 15

The Religion of Nationalism

Perhaps the first thing to understand about nationalism and religion is that nationalism doesn’t try and eliminate rival religious beliefs among the people. Rather, nationalists transform religious faith into something that is obedient to and services the purposes of the State, of the government. Dr. Hayes quotes the French revolutionary Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, the abbé de Raynal as saying, “The state is supreme in all things; any distinction between temporal power and spiritual power is a palpable absurdity, and there cannot be more than a sole and single jurisdiction throughout in matters where public utility has to be provided for or defended.” (pg. 45) The eminent sociologist Dr. Robert Nisbet, professor of sociology at Columbia University, offered a similar interpretation of nationalism and religion when he referenced the Raynal quote as well in his work The Sociological Tradition. There he explained that the growth of French nationalism during the French Revolution saw the new revolutionary French government try to not absolutely abolish Christianity, but rather to, “regulate it completely. If there was to be a church, it must reflect the character of the new political order. …and any rights which the church might claim disappear before the sovereign rights of the state” (pgs. 38-39)

Latter-day Saints will be familiar with this claim, that the supposed good of the nation and state trumps the will and rights of churches and religious people, as it was the basis for the Reynolds v. United States case which declared anti-polygamy laws were constitutional and the Latter-day Saint practice of plural marriage was illegal because it threatened “the principles on which the government of the people, to a greater or less extent, rests …[and] fetters the people in stationary despotism.” In other words, polygamy was seen as not aligning with the political order to the nation and was therefore a threat to the nation and state which had to be eliminated and the fact that it was a religious belief of the Saints of the era was irrelevant – the church’s rights disappeared before the power of the state and must be regulated by the state so that its practices reflected the monogamous and democratic character of the American political order.

So nationalism does not seek to destroy the old religions and old forms per se, rather it seeks to transform religion to be an organ for the perpetuation of the ideas of the state itself and to make it a vehicle for loyalty to the state and its ideals as being the supreme ends of society. The end result of this is that all elements of society -economic, political, social, religious- end up serving the state itself and are subjected to its rules for the good of the nation. The nation then becomes the highest good for which people can live, sacrifice, serve, and die. The ultimate good is no longer to be a good Christian, but to be a good American/Frenchman/Englishman/etc., indeed the idea of being a true Christian becomes equated with being a real patriot as if one could not exist without the other. The nation itself is treated as if it were holy and divine, even if those words themselves are never used to describe it. This is what Dr. Hayes called the “sanctification of the secular state.” (Nationalism, pg. 45)

That modern nationalism so often invokes Christian language and expresses itself using Christian terminology is no surprise. As Dr. Hayes notes, “Modern nationalism first arose among peoples that were traditionally Christian, and as a religion it has naturally borrowed and adapted to its own purposes many customs and usages of historic Christianity.” (pg. 165) As a result the religion of nationalism offers many rituals to its members which are similar in purpose to Christian ritual, which Hayes goes on to list and explain, including baptism (birth registration), instruction in the national catechism -religious instruction that explains how to properly believe in and live the religion (compulsory public education), marriage (marriage licensing), birth of children (birth certificate), tithing (compulsory taxation), and death (death certificate). In all these things you aren’t considered to have done them properly until you have the nation’s approval gained through compliance with state law, no matter how compliant you may be with the laws and commandments of any other God.

On the seemingly everyday nature of these rituals of subservience to the nation, Dr. Hayes says:

The ritual of modern nationalism is simpler than that of certain other religions, but, considering its comparative youthfulness, it is already fairly well developed. Its chief symbol and central object of worship is the national flag. Strictly speaking, there was no such thing on the European Continent prior to the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century, and the stars and stripes of the United States are not much older. Now every nation in the world has a flag, and a good deal of ingenuity is required to invent distinctive arrangements of pattern and color for the eighty-odd members of the United Nations—and others yet to join.

There are universal liturgical forms for “saluting” the flag, for “dipping” the flag, for lowering” the flag, and for “hoisting” the flag. Men bare their heads when the flag passes by; and in praise of the flag poets write odes, and to it children sing hymns and pledge allegiance. In all solemn feasts and fasts of nationalism, the flag is in evidence, and with it that other sacred thing, the national anthem. An acute literary critic in his purely secular capacity might be tempted to cavil at phrases in “Rule Britannia,” in “Deutschland über Alles, or even in the Marseillaise; he might object, on literary grounds, to such a lame beginning as “Oh say, can you see?” But a national anthem is not a profane thing and does not admit of textual criticism. It is the Te Deum [a Catholic hymn to God the Father] of the new dispensation; worshipers stand when it is intoned, the military at “attention” and the male civilians with uncovered heads, all with external show of respect and veneration.

Nationalism: A Religion pgs. 166-167

Dr. Hayes then goes on to describe how national holidays are not only secular holy-days (the origin of the word holiday) but that, at least in the United States, the nationalist holidays correspond quite closely with Christian holidays. For example, the Fourth of July is about the immaculate birth of the new nation whose nativity is celebrated every year with feasts, time off work, and hymns and rituals of praise and glory. In other words, it is Nationalist Christmas. Dr. Hayes also explains how the nationalist calendar is in effect a liturgical calendar as it celebrates nationalist holidays and marks the lives of important nationalist Saints to be honored (such as Washington or Lincoln’s birthdays in the United States) in a regular form every year which regulates the lives of the people living in the nation. He also explains how nationalists have their places of pilgrimage and secular temples in places like national shrines and the birthplaces of nationalist heroes and saints, his examples being the Jefferson Memorial (the national shrine/temple dedicated to Thomas Jefferson) and Mount Vernon (the birthplace of George Washington) in the USA, though every nation has their own versions. These are issues I have already discussed in deeper detail before if you ‘re interested in a deeper exploration of them.

Dr. Hayes also touches upon the way national history is told as a secular mythology that transforms nationalist heroes into saints and gods of the state as uses their obedience to the state and nation as examples for all to follow. His examples of this are the ways that the stories of the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War are told in ways that turn their combatants into mythic heroes and archetypes to be followed in their sacrifice and service to the nation though said stories often have so semblance to historical reality. (pgs. 167-169) And those who too deeply question this mythology or the nationalist canon are treated as apostates and heretics to be rooted out and either re-educated or expunged, especially those who dare to teach children to be critical of or anything other than the nationalist mythology. (pg. 171) For example, try telling most Americans that Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a good President or that the American Civil War was about more than ending slavery and see how people respond to your heretical statements.

The Religion of the Right

You would think that from here it is a very straightforward connection. The one reliable aspect of right wing political movements and the one reliable belief of Rightists themselves is that they are all nationalists of one stripe or another. And nationalism itself is a religion in every sense of the word. So the religion of the Right is nationalism, is the adoration and veneration of the nation and state in fulfillment of man’s “religious sense,” as Dr. Hayes put it. But despite this I am sure that many people who see themselves as Christians still balk at the truth that their right wing nationalism is, from the perspective of Christianity itself, a false and apostate religion that encourages them to serve, praise, and glorify the false god of the nation/country and the government which directs it. And there is a reason for their blindness, whether willful or based in ignorance. As Dr. Hayes explains:

It is this very admixture of Christian ritual with the nationalist faith that allows so many to claim to be Christian while worshiping at the altar of the nationalist religion. The same is true in many other religious denominations, such as in Jewish synagogues. Christians think that because they go to a church and say the name Jesus that they’re Christians. But as Dr. Hayes goes on to explain, no matter what they say, the presence of the American flag near the altars of Christian churches, next to the Cross in the holiest place in the entire building, the way that they celebrate the secular holy-days of the state liturgical calendar and offer the government and its saints praise accordingly, the way that “Fundamentalists” use biblical language to describe their nations as God’s new “chosen” people, the way they unquestioningly support the state and its leaders in all they do no matter how brutal, bloody, corrupt or evil they and their actions are, the way they dilute Christianity (or Judaism, or Islam, or Hinduism, etc.) with their nationalism, all of these things allow them to ignore or make it easier to be blind to the reality that they are serving God the State, not God the Father or the gods of their fathers.

Dr. Hayes ends his book by suggesting that if there is any silver lining to all this then it is that Christianity has been able to moderate Nationalism by adding to it Christian ideals of love and service, which is why the various Nationalisms of the world have focused on the idea of the State serving the people in some way and this is why most Nationalist states haven’t just been straight forward authoritarian dictatorships. If that is true then I would argue that such an influence has faded over years as Christianity has become more faded in national consciences of the various countries of the world. As is evident in the pictures above, more and more competing political ideologies, that is competing concepts of Nationalism, have split many of the countries of the world and have increasingly lead to the subversion of the traditional religions of the world such that in many countries those religions have just become mouthpieces for repeating nationalist sectarian dogmas, not the preaching of the traditional revealed truths of said religion.

No more obvious is this than in America where Americanism has replaced Christianity as Christian churches have largely just become echo chambers for repeating the competing nationalist dogmas. To anyone reading the Bible it is clear that America is not God’s new Chosen Israel and anyone who says such is teaching heresy and apostasy. Likewise, it is clear that the biblical teaching is that homosexual sexual activity is a sin and should not embraced as equal to heterosexual relationships. The reason either of these ideas are preached across pulpits is because the preacher is a missionary for American Nationalism not Jesus Christ.

In Summation

If the religion of the Left is rooted in the collectivist ideals of Socialism, the religion of the Right is rooted in the collectivist ideals of Nationalism. In every country Nationalism has co-opted the language, ideas, and rites of the traditional faiths of the people there and turned them towards the service of the State, usually by providing government “services” that mimic the purposes of the religious rituals and by co-opting the language of the faith to express the ideals of Nationalism. Often, the ministers of the religion are themselves turned into ministers of the doctrines of Nationalism as they use the traditional religions beliefs and sacred texts to teach the doctrines of Nationalism. An example of this is how Christian priests and preachers will often use biblical language to teach that their nation is either God’s own chosen people or is especially blessed by God, which has the effect of turn the otherwise secular state into a holy one and sacralizes its actions.

This example is especially true in Western nations, where it can easily be seen and heard in the professions of faith that people on the political Right make as they loudly proclaim their love and adoration for the Nation, pledge their undying loyalty to the Nation, joyfully take place in the rituals of the Nation (such as flag salutes and pledges of allegiance), glorify the actions and purposes of the Nation, preach the dogmas and myths of the Nation that sanctify it and declare its righteousness and holiness, and proudly display the sacred icons of the Nation (such as national flags) whenever and wherever the Rightists are. The religion of the Right, no matter how much it mixes in the languages and practices of other faiths, is ultimately to ensure among the masses the worship of and rendered subservience to the Nation and the government which directs it. This is why so many Christians care less for what the Bible teaches are the commandments of Christ and more for what the national law says or what they believe to be for the good of the country, because their true religion isn’t Christianity. Their true religion is Nationalism.