Roger Williams University Law Review Volume 26 Issue 2 Vol. 26: No. 2 (Spring 2021) Article 6 Symposium: Is This a Christian Nation? Spring 2021 The Legal Ramifications of Christian Nationalism Steven K. Green Willamette University Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/rwu_LR Part of the First Amendment Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Green, Steven K. (2021) "The Legal Ramifications of Christian Nationalism," Roger Williams University Law Review: Vol. 26 : Iss. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://docs.rwu.edu/rwu_LR/vol26/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Roger Williams University Law Review by an authorized editor of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Legal Ramifications of Christian Nationalism Steven K. Green* INTRODUCTION One of the more resilient debates about American constitutional history is the one over the nation’s purported religious founding. As predictable as the Chicago Cubs’ collapse every summer, legal and religious conservatives periodically raise claims about America’s Christian heritage in their efforts to gain the moral and legal high ground in the ongoing culture wars. One recent example of this is found in the June 24, 2018, Sunday sermon of Reverend Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.1 In that sermon, titled “America is a Christian Nation,” Reverend Jeffress asserted that the nation’s Founders were predominately evangelical Christians and that they intended to instill Christian values in the nation’s governing documents.2 America was founded as a Christian nation, Jeffress insisted, and the nation’s law and institutions needed to rediscover and reaffirm this basis.3 While Reverend Jeffress’s claims could be passed off as the ramblings of a fundamentalist preacher, Dallas First Baptist is * Steven K.