Orthodox Jews, Latter Day Saints, and the MAGA Movement: A New Lens on Christian Nationalism

Research on Christian nationalism in the United States has largely focused on White Evangelical Christianity. However, the most widely used measures for assessing support for Christian nationalism—such as those employed by PRRI/Brookings (2023) and the General Social Survey (Gorski et al., 2022)—consistently capture significant numbers of non-Evangelical supporters and adherents. This paper, drawing on findings from a six-month comparative ethnography conducted among Orthodox Jews and Latter-day Saints (LDS) in the United States during the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2024 elections, argues that non-Evangelical support for the MAGA movement offers a useful lens for reconsidering the concept of Christian nationalism. Specifically, it does so by offering two interventions into the current discourse on Christian nationalism: (1) by distinguishing the overarching Christian nationalist meta-narrative from its particular Evangelical expression and (2) by highlighting the diverse leadership structures that facilitate Christian nationalist support beyond Evangelical contexts.