The rise of the New Religious Right in the 1960s and how it positioned itself against the Civil Rights Movement is a substantial reason we are where we are today. But the roots run much deeper. The Christian Nationalist claim of divine “election” and requirement to rule is not, by itself, a particularly radical claim within the history of Christianity, as the religion has always had a complicated relationship to secular power, particularly (though not exclusively) from the tradition’s uneasy alliance with Roman imperial power beginning in the fourth century CE, continuing through the European Middle Ages and early modernity. And contemporary Christian Nationalists seem to be aware of this history, with their nostalgic longing for a(n oftentimes fictional and always over-simplified) long ago Christian authoritarianism used to justify their claims in the modern world.

This proposed roundtable would therefore bring together medievalists and modernists, Americanists, Europeanists, and Byzantinists to discuss both the actual history of how modern Christian Nationalism tries to tap into a reservoir of images and ideas from the pre-modern world, how that desire fuels a sense of nostalgia that frames the Christian Nationalists’ searches of the past. Roland Betancourt will speak on the manifestations of Christian imperial power (and resistance to it) in the Byzantine context as they relate to attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. Eleanor Janega will offer thoughts on the medieval European context, specifically how medieval surveillance of women (and circumscription of “acceptable” activities) have burst forth once again in the contemporary American context. Lauren Horn Griffin will bridge worlds by showing how early modern developments in political theology were transported to the Americas during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as how contemporary Catholics have romanticized the early modern period (in addition to the medieval). Finally, Bradley Onishi will talk about modern white evangelicals in the United States and why authoritarian leaders elsewhere (such as Putin and Orban) have become models for their political outlooks.

This roundtable would be widely attractive to medievalists, modernists, americanists, europeanists, and anyone interested in the intersection between religion and political power.