(Re)membering a Christian nation: Christian nationalism, biblical literalism, and the politics of public memory
Tahlia G.M.B. FischerFocusing on the rhetoric of David Barton, Christian nationalist par excellence and Republican Party operative, I argue that discourses of Christian nationhood mobilize the theologies of providence, inerrancy, inspiration, and literalism as rhetorical strategies to situate God’s law as the definitive legal standard through which American law and cultural values are (de)authorized.
Drawing upon the presumptions of biblical literalism to present the textual “proof” of a Christian nation, the politics of this memory work aims to influence and shape public memory, opinion, political behavior, and policy formation in favor of far right Protestant hegemonic interests. In the process, these memory narratives present contemporary far right political ideology (and policy positions therein) as biblical, Constitutional, and directly reflective of God’s will for the nation