Civil Religion, Symbolic Power, and the Displacement of Religious Belonging in the Contemporary Christian Right

• In Event: Sociology of Religion Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1. Christian Nationalism

Abstract

Contemporary debates on the Christian Right have largely focused on the rise and political influence of Christian nationalism. This paper shifts analytic attention away from dominance and belief prevalence toward a less examined but consequential outcome of these developments: the symbolic displacement of theologically evangelical Christians who reject nationalist politics while maintaining participation in evangelical church cultures.Drawing on Robert Bellah’s concept of civil religion, the paper analyzes elite led Christian Right policy initiatives as interventions that reshape the symbolic boundaries of religious and civic belonging in the United States. Rather than treating Christian nationalism primarily as an ideological belief system, the analysis conceptualizes it as a civil religious project that recodes national identity as religious identity. As a result, public meanings of “Christian” become tethered to assumed partisan political alignment, narrowing the range of identities recognized as both religiously legitimate and civically coherent.The paper argues that this symbolic redefinition produces a dual displacement. Within evangelical church cultures and congregational life, Christians who dissent from nationalist politics encounter symbolic exclusion rather than formal doctrinal sanction, contributing to withdrawal from congregational life and reconfiguration of religious practice. At the same time, these Christians are misrecognized in public life, where Christian identity increasingly functions as a political marker rather than a theological one, undermining civic legibility and participation.Methodologically, the paper draws on qualitative analysis of public facing policy documents, speeches, and religious political rhetoric associated with elite Christian Right networks, including initiatives linked to the Heritage Foundation. Using interpretive methods common in the sociology of religion, the analysis examines how civil religious symbols are mobilized to define legitimacy, authorize political belonging, and marginalize alternative forms of Christian identity. By reframing Christian nationalism as a project of civil religious boundary making rather than merely an ideological movement, this paper contributes to debates in the sociology of religion and political sociology by showing how symbolic power operates across religious and civic fields, fragmenting Christian belonging from within evangelicalism and reshaping the conditions of pluralism in American public life.

Author

• Bridget I Wisner