Journal of the Council for Research on Religion

Religious Nationalism, Mythic Maps, and the Territorial Integrity of Mother Earth

Adam DJ Brett — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0400

This article argues that what we call “religious nationalism” is best understood as a mythic, juridical, and cartographic project that naturalizes domination. Drawing on Indigenous critiques of borders—summarized in the refrain “we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”—and on concepts such as the One Dish One Spoon wampum, the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s “white possessive,” we show how eurochristian nation‑states transform theology into law, territory into property, and relatives into resources. Maps, borders, and legal categories such as “terra nullius,” “plenary power,” and “domestic dependent nations” function as sacred texts of the modern nation‑state, encoding hierarchies of race, religion, and civilization while erasing Indigenous sovereignty and relational cosmologies. Engaging Patricia Seed, Steven T. Newcomb, Atalia Omer, and others, we frame religion, nationalism, and religious nationalism as second‑order analytic categories that expose the ritualized fusion of faith, law, and political identity. The article juxtaposes eurochristian ceremonies of possession with Indigenous understandings of Mother Earth’s territorial integrity, where sovereignty is rooted not in state borders but in webs of kinship with land, waters, and more‑than‑human relatives. By tracing how religious nationalism operates through narrative, ritual, and institutional power—from colonial papal bulls to contemporary Christian nationalism and Project 2025—it is argued that dismantling religious nationalism requires decolonizing the myths, metaphors, and legal grammars that sustain it, and recovering relational frameworks in which language, land, and sovereignty are inseparable.

Scriptural Nationalism in Print

Muhammad Afdillah — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0400

This article examines the role of scriptural interpretation in shaping modern nationalism by examining Persatuan Islam (Persis), a reformist Islamic organization in Indonesia. Drawing on an analysis of its print culture – particularly the magazine Risalah and the fatwas of Dewan Hisbah between 2005 and 2025 – the article introduces the concept of scriptural nationalism, defined as a form of national imagination in which scriptural reasoning provides the ethical grammar of citizenship. The study argues that Persis constructs nationalism not through institutional expansion or political mobilization alone, but through disciplined hermeneutic practices. These are sustained by a structured division of discursive labour: Dewan Hisbah consolidates doctrinal authority through juristic reasoning, while Risalah translates theological concepts into accessible discussions of national life. This genre partition enables Persis to maintain orthodoxy while engaging broader publics. The article further demonstrates that Persis constructs the “Other” through a layered framework: theologically as bounded exclusivism, socially as conditional coexistence, and politically as oppositional differentiation. This stratification allows the organization to reconcile doctrinal boundaries with civic participation. By foregrounding interpretation, this study contributes to broader debates in religious studies and nationalism theory. It suggests that nations can be constituted not only through institutions, identities, or narratives, but through recurring acts of scriptural interpretation. In doing so, it extends existing frameworks such as civil Islam and offers a new lens for understanding how religious traditions shape modern forms of political belonging.

Alternative Orientalism

Mohammad Meerzaei — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Henry Corbin (1903–1978), through his extensive contributions to Islamic and Iranian studies, introduced a paradigm shift in modern Western scholarship on Iran and Islam. As a counternarrative to classical Orientalism’s relegation of Islamic societies, Corbin’s construction of “Iranian Islam” generated a comprehensive body of knowledge that valorized Iran as a model for the West. He depicted Iran as an exceptionally continuous tradition that preserved mystical and philosophical practices from pre-Islamic times, assimilated foreign influences, and resisted the nihilism of modernity. This sophisticated image of Iran as uniquely spiritual and intellectual was celebrated by makers of Iranian nationalism. Yet, I argue that Corbin’s narrative of Iranian religious history ultimately constitutes another Eurocentric account of the Orient. Instead of disparaging the “Orient” to elevate the West, Corbin recast the Orient as the repository of an alternative future – a projection of the West’s own lost past to which it might return.

“Remember What Amalek Did to You”

Roger Baumann — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0400

This article offers a critical analysis of how religion is used on African American Christian Zionist tours of the State of Israel to advance the goal of bringing African American Christians and Black churches into the religious-political project of Christian Zionist advocacy. It draws on participant observation data from a 2016 African American denominational delegation to Israel to analyze the racial and political salience of religious narratives about ostensible “enemies” and “others” – especially the biblical Amalek narrative. Since October 7, 2023, such Biblical narratives of elimination and annihilation have been deployed by Israeli political and military leaders and some of their American Christian supporters to defend and undergird support for extreme and sustained state violence directed at Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere. This article shows that this rhetorical strategy is not an innovation post-October 7, but rather a longstanding feature of efforts to build global solidarities linking American Christians and the State of Israel. In focusing specifically on the dissemination and reception of biblical narratives of annihilation among African American Christians visiting Israel, the article further explores the role of race in these processes and analyzes the interpretive malleability of religious narratives to serve political purposes across racial, religious, and national lines.

Christendom College, the Spanish Civil War, and Constructing the Past in Religious Conservatism

Patricia Tillman — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 -0400

A common tactic among right-wing ideologies is the creation of an idealized or falsified past, which can be used to build a sense of common history among the followers of that ideology. One period in history which is a perennial favourite of right-wing ideologues to glamorize is the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. For instance, the history of the Spanish Civil War was resurrected during the Cold War as a rallying point for right-wing American Catholics, then engaged in a vigorous culture war against the social changes of the 1960s. They called the struggle a crusade, and viewed Franco as a hero. Several of the attendees at the Christian Commonwealth Institute, a summer educational program for American Catholics held in Franco-era Spain, went on to found Christendom College in 1977, in the spirit of what they had seen in Spain. Christendom College, and a handful of other small Catholic liberal arts colleges founded in the 1970s and after, constructed themselves as opponents to the trajectory of the mainstream American Church. They viewed themselves as akin to the Medieval warriors of the Reconquista in Spain, or the military leaders of Franco’s coup, in that they believed they would one day sally forth to retake mainstream culture from the forces of secularism. As more recent events have shown, this was no mere romantic pipe dream or metaphor, but a serious plan to transform the cultural landscape of the US in their image.

We Still Don’t Know What It Is

Andrew R. Polk — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Although scholars, journalists and the American public have been debating the impact and influence of Christian nationalism for years, scholars have recently noted that there is very little consensus about what, exactly, Christian nationalism is. The nebulous nature of the term has confounded researchers and journalists alike, with current remedies providing little clarity. This essay argues that the nebulous nature of Christian nationalism does not come from a lack of statistical data or the weaknesses of scholars’ analytical tools, but is rather an intentional feature of the ideology built in by its proponents in the mid-twentieth century. When the presidential administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower wanted to unite Americans behind their preferred policies, they promoted a particular form of American religion that is the basis of modern Christian nationalism. Since their preferred unity in diversity was tenuous, they subsumed race with religion and insisted that any critique of the nation only helped America’s enemies. After establishing the historical nature of Christian nationalism, I offer some potential avenues of research that might break through the ambiguities.

The Establishment of Christian Hegemony through the Doctrine of Discovery

Adam DJ Brett, Betty Lyons — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0400

This essay examines the establishment of Christian hegemony through the theological and legal framework of the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (DoCD), tracing its roots from medieval Europe to its application in the Americas. Drawing on postcolonial and decolonial theorists, the work interrogates how Christian identity was formed in opposition to the “proximal” and “distal” other—Jews, Muslims, pagans, and later Indigenous peoples—through a dominion theology that fused religious exclusivity with political supremacy. Historical case studies from Ireland, Iberia, the Baltics, and the Canary Islands demonstrate how conquest, conversion, and legal codification operated as laboratories for colonial domination. Particular attention is given to papal bulls such as Dum Diversas, Romanus Pontifex, and Inter Caetera, highlighting a key linguistic shift from conversion to “bringing them back to the faith,” reframing colonization as restoration rather than invasion. The analysis also highlights the Canary Islands’ role in shaping the DoCD. It offers a critical reading of the 1513 Requerimiento, situating it as both a ritual of possession and a theological performance of atonement and absolution. Integrating the insights of Steven T. Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape), Frantz Fanon, Audre Lorde, and Gil Anidjar, the essay argues that Christian dominion theology is rooted in enslavement, exploitation, and extraction, and is structurally embedded in international law and modern governance. Ultimately, it contends that the legacy of Christian hegemony persists in contemporary settler-colonial systems, where religiously infused legal frameworks continue to rationalize dispossession and subjugation. By tracing this genealogy, the essay seeks to expose and dismantle the theological underpinnings of domination.

The Psychology of Christian Nationalism: Why People Are Drawn in and How to Talk across the Divide, by Pamela Cooper-White

Colene Belmont — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Lost Tribes Found: Israelite Indians and Religious Nationalism in Early America, by Matthew W. Dougherty

Nethanial Belmont — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism, by Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood

Matthew Pierce — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Editorial Address & Advisory Board

Gerbern S. Oegema, Amanda Rosini, Elyse MacLeod, Aaron Ricker — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0400

The first issue of volume seven of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) is a special issue on the Sources of Religious Nationalism. This issue examines religious nationalism as a complex, multidimensional phenomenon that functions not only as a political ideology but also as a textual, epistemic, and transnational practice. It explores how nations employ mythic structures, borders, laws, and historical memories to construct sacred identities, justify domination, and establish insider-outsider binaries.