PCC Statement on Christian Nationalism

Resources can be found on the PCC website.

Here is the preamble and the PCC statement:

RESPONDING TO CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
What is Christian Nationalism?
Christian nationalism is a growing threat across the world and in Canada. It is characterized by the belief that one’s nation was founded as a Christian nation (and that God willed it thus); therefore, the nation’s laws and structures must be guided by “Christian” beliefs and values or the nation will come to ruin. The ideology teaches that Christians must seek control or influence over all means by which power operates in a society, including the government. Additionally, its linking of national identity with Christianity devalues anyone who is not Christian—or even not Christian “enough” in the eyes of its adherents—as implicitly somehow “not Canadian” (or “not American” or “not my nation,” etc.). Christian nationalism routinely demonizes people or institutions that do not align with its avowed values, and yet the values it espouses and demonstrates often fail to exhibit core Christian teachings such as love of God and neighbour or Jesus’ teachings in the beatitudes.There is a range of understanding of what Christian nationalism means even among Christian nationalists; thus, not everyone who embraces Christian nationalist teachings would embrace this label for themselves. This is in part because there is no single centralized structure to the movement, since it is an ideology rather than an organization. A common thread, however, is exhibiting a love of power and influence. Rather than pursuing the reign of God through the kind of ministry Jesus proclaimed at the start of his ministry (namely, such things as “good news to the poor,” “freedom for the prisoners,” “recovery of sight for the blind,”and setting “the oppressed free” (Luke 4:14–21)), Christian nationalism calls for such things as humanitarian aid to be withdrawn, medical coverage to be stripped, detaining, deporting and imprisoning people seeking safety, and removing human rights protections from those facing oppression.

In addition to opposing the kind of ministry Jesus proclaimed, Christian nationalism actively seeks cultural and political dominance. It purposefully entrenches itself in the powers and social or political structures of this world, trying to shape them in what it considers “godly” ways. Christian nationalism often claims that society is unravelling or degenerate (we see this with Christian nationalist claims in the United States but the same is true here in Canada as well) and that the only way to save the nation is through “making the nation Christian again.” One way that proponents of Christian nationalism work to “make the nation Christian again” is through pursuit of what it calls the “seven mountain mandate,” sometimes also called the “seven mountains of cultural influence.” This mandate names seven areas or spheres of society—things like entertainment, education, religion, government, etc.—that it teaches Christians need to take control of in order to weed out all “demonic” influences within them. If one controls these “mountains,” the teaching goes, one controls the nation.
Looking at Project 2025—a blueprint for reshaping the entire United States government under American Christian nationalist goals created by the Heritage Foundation, which the second Trump administration has drawn extensively from—and one can see the kinds of things the movement considers “demonic” and the breadth of cultural-political control and worldly power that is sought. So too can one see the disastrous results the project of Christian nationalism is having, not only within that nation but on the world.

A Fascination with Violence and Control Rooted in a Love of Power
The means through which Christian nationalists pursue social and political power do not demonstrate the two greatest commandments as conveyed across Judeo-Christian teachings: love God with your entire self, and love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:34–40, cf. Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18). Instead, Christian nationalism is often comfortable with violence and bigotry, as many people (both Christian and not) have been warning for a long time now. It is also power-seeking. Some echelons of the movement have wedded tacit or even explicit support for white supremacy with Christian dominance, such as Christian nationalist influencer Joshua Haymes, who is influential enough to have hosted Pete Hegseth, the current U.S. Secretary of Defense, multiple times on his “Reformation Red Pill” podcast. On the “Is the Bible Pro ICE Raids? Debunking Progressive Lies about Immigration and the Bible” episode of that podcast, Haymes claimed that the Bible supports the Trump administration’s efforts to enact mass deportations, arguing that people (who he calls “global liberals”) opposing the deportations “want open borders and they didn’t hide it, right? They, and specifically, they want more non-Christian, non-white people to come supplant and replace the white voting population.”

This claim that there is a plan to “supplant and replace white people” within a nation is called “the Great Replacement Theory” and it is racist to its core. Christian nationalists like Haymes excuse and occasionally go so far as to call “good” such evils as slavery, call for physical violence or even “stoning” of 2SLGBTQ+ and nonbinary people, work to disenfranchise immigrants and minorities, and buy into a supposed racial hierarchy that defies the baptismal creed recited in Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26–29). Moreover, Christian nationalism often also embraces strict patriarchy as the supposed only “natural” social and religious structure. Some of the more vocal and radical elements of Christian nationalism, exemplified by leaders such as Doug Wilson of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, are not only focused on entrenching “Christian” dominance in all aspects of civil life; they are specifically focused on re-establishing (Christian) male dominance in all aspects of civil life, arguing that voting—not only in the church but also locally and federally—should be done by household, rather than individually, and that women, unless they are single or widowed with no household, should no longer be allowed to vote.

Even leaving aside these more radical voices, which overtly support racial, gender, and sexual orientation hierarchy, call for violence against queer people and advocate for repealing women’s right to vote, (since not all Christian nationalists would agree with all of the particulars above or even realize that significant figures in the movement do advocate for such radical actions), the movement’s overall desire for domination and power through its central teaching that Christians must wield cultural and political control within society is undeniable. Love of influence, wealth, power and authority has long been among the strongest lures for humanity, yet we see in the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, related in three of the gospels (Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13), how Jesus himself responds to such lures. The devil tests Jesus’ devotion to his mission by offering him the “authority and splendour” of all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for Jesus’ loyalty. Jesus’ rejection of these things in favour of service to God is an example that everyone who calls themselves “Christian” must follow, and the desires of the Christian nationalist thirst for power and influence must be called out as the perverse anti-Christian movement that it is.

We see throughout much of his ministry and teaching that Jesus did not work to gain political power, authority or the “splendour” of the kingdoms of his time. Held up to scrutiny against Jesus’ own life and actions, the idolatry of Christian nationalism’s desire for domination, wealth, civil influence and power is clear.

The Fruits of Christian Nationalism
Within the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns about false prophets and calls for diligence against them, saying: “by their fruit you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:15–20; see also Luke 6:43–45). In the case of Christian nationalism today, many of those fruits are already devastatingly clear. Going just by one small part of the impacts of Project 2025 (a sweeping Christian nationalist political project driven by the American Christian nationalist group the Heritage Foundation), we can already see the catastrophic fruits it has borne in the name of Christ: one of its policy goals was the significant scaling back of USAID and supposed “deradicalizing” of its programs to align with values the Heritage Foundation and associated networks espouse. The Trump administration, however, went even further than the authors of the project suggested and basically shuttered the aid agency. For all the issues with it, USAID supplied billions of dollars of food and medical aid to people all over the world. Looking at this Christian nationalist “win”—taking away food and medicine from hungry and sick people—current estimates are that hundreds of thousands of people have already died in the last year alone from the sudden withdrawal of medical and nutritional aid that USAID used to fund. Children and newborns who were receiving nutritional supplements are among the hardest hit.

That is just the estimate from the first year of this lack of aid. There are no plans to reinstate most of the aid and the Christian nationalist authors of Project 2025 have not spoken out about how far the administration went in withdrawing nearly all aid, despite all of Jesus’ teachings and demonstrated actions about the importance of feeding those who are hungry and healing those who are ill. An article by researchers published in the Lancet estimated that the dismantling of USAID could result in more than 14 million deaths across 133 low-income and middle-income countries by 2030 (“Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis” by Cavalcanti, DM, de Oliveira Ferreira de Sales, L, da Silva, AF et al., Lancet, 2025; 406:283–294). The toll of human suffering and the intergenerational trauma this one decision has unleashed is so vast as to be unquantifiable. But that makes it no less deadly, and it is only one decision among many the Project calls for. Christian nationalists were among those lobbying hard to target this aid, painting the nations (and people) it was going to as criminals or otherwise degenerate and arguing that rather than focusing on caring for “foreigners” America should be taking care of its own. This despite all the things the Bible has to say about helping those in need. They then did nothing when the impact was significantly more harmful than they had asked for. “America first” (or “Canada first” or “my country first”) is a rallying cry of Christian nationalism; it is, after all, a form of nationalism, whatever Christian language it tries to hide itself under.

Much more could be said on a variety of topics about the toxic fruit Christian nationalism produces, but from this and many other words and deeds it is painfully clear that Christian nationalism does not exhibit recognizable discipleship or demonstrate a love of God. Jesus says, “if you love me keep my commands” (John 14:15) and this movement simply ignores them, using the name of Jesus as means to garner moral authority, support and power while working against organizations and projects that aid the kind of ministry Jesus proclaimed in Luke 4:14–21: good news to the poor, freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind and setting the oppressed free. Christian nationalism demonstrates contempt for “love your neighbour as yourself,” and insofar as it turns its back on “the least of these” who are hungry, thirsty, unclothed, sick or in prison (Matthew 25: 31–45), it turns its back on Jesus, demonstrating contempt for a love of God as well.

The issue of Christian nationalism cannot be ignored. Canadian churches are already beginning to speak out against it. A statement released in December of 2025 by the Anglican Church of Canada reads in part: “Christian nationalism demands that Christianity be privileged by the state and implies that to be a good Canadian, one must be Christian. This ideology can provide cover for discrimination against marginalized groups and can increase threats and violence against religious communities at home and abroad. In that light, we denounce Christian nationalism as a distortion of the gospel of Jesus and a threat to Canadian democracy.” Prior to this statement, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada issued a letter from its national and regional bishops, stating: “We must be careful as a church not to fall into patterns of Christian nationalism that we see being manifested in other countries around the world. God’s call for us is to walk humbly as the baptized, loving our neighbour as ourselves.”
In sum, Christian nationalism claims to be working in God’s name for God’s will but both the methods it uses and the goals it pursues run counter to the gospel. Its concrete, measurable impacts wreak devastating havoc on the world God loves. In this way, it is not only a threat to democracy, attempting to marginalize anyone who does not conform to its definition of “Christian;” it is also a threat to Christianity itself because the witness of Christian nationalism is a false witness of who Christ is and how Christians should act as Jesus’ followers. If the body of Christ does not want that false witness to stand, then Christians are called to address and reject it, speaking the truth in love instead.
Considering this, the following brief statement is offered for consideration by the committees of the General Assembly:

Statement of The Presbyterian Church in Canada on Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalism is an ideology that seeks to establish Christian cultural and political domination within a nation, claiming that a particular nation was founded as Christian and must remain “Christian.” Such claims conflate religious and national identity and marginalize all those who are not Christian or who do not align with the particular values Christian nationalism promotes. This pursuit of cultural and political domination distorts the gospel and embodies teachings that do not reflect the love God showed to the world nor the ministry to which disciples of Christ are called.
We acknowledge that Jesus’ ministry began with his own rejection of political power and social influence (Luke 4:5–7) and that throughout his time of ministry and teaching he continued to eschew political power and influence.
We affirm that, as followers of Jesus, so too our focus should not be control over the social, political, and economic spheres of this world but rather, like Jesus himself, loving service to God through preaching and living the Word of love, caring for the marginalized, and ministering to those in need.
Since the church is called to faithful public witness to the gospel message of God’s love for the world, we therefore reject Christian nationalism as a sinful ideology at odds with the gospel and with the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Recommendation LMA-007 (A&P 2026, p. 36, 306–312)
That the above “Statement of The Presbyterian Church in Canada on Christian Nationalism” be circulated to the committees of the General Assembly, the colleges, sessions, presbyteries, and synods for study and report with responses due by January 15, 2027.

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