Claiming Christian Heritage: How European Christian Leaders Struggle to Disentangle Themselves from Nationalist Logics

This paper ethnographically examines dialogues of European Christian representatives in the context of a 2025 ecumenical meeting in Paris that was focused on building dialogue across religious and cultural difference. While the values of dialogue across difference might appear antithetical to Christian nationalist values, this paper analyzes how Christian leaders – despite expressing concern over the rise of religious nationalism – can still participate in its historical logics. In their evocation of world war memory, the speakers cast Christianity as central to an exceptional Europe. Ultimately, the paper suggests that secular governance – both in its institutional mode of interfacing with Christian representatives and as a rhetorical alternative to religious nationalism – does not preclude these affinities. The paper therefore concludes with a consideration of how appeals to “Christian heritage” would need to account for its history of exclusions.