Christian Nationalism
is destroying
our democracy
Meet the Shadow Network
Summary
The Shadow Network is a powerful alliance of Christian Nationalist groups, billionaires and politicians is trying to destroy our democracy by undermining the separation of church and state.
The heavyweights at the center of the Shadow Network handpick Supreme Court justices, create cases for those justices to decide, and created the Project 2025 playbook which outlines many of the policy changes the Trump Administration is implementing at record speed.
These influencers stalk lawmakers and courtrooms to promote policies and legislation that will impose their beliefs on everyone else. Their goal is to make America a Christian nation, and nothing is safe.
Resources
Deep Dive
Learn more about Christian Nationalism
Puppet Master
Leonard Leo is pulling the strings
The Network
Leading the attack on our democracy
Shadow Agents
Project 2025 agents inside the Trump Administration
FAQ
You've got questions, we've got answers
Videos
Learn more about Christian Nationalism
Reading list
More about the Shadow Network
Fight back
Help us stop the Shadow Network
Deep Dive
Christian Nationalists want to destroy church-state separation
What Is the Shadow Network?
The Shadow Network is a lot like a predatory fungus. It grows and strengthens unseen while attacking church-state separation. And LGBTQ+ rights. And abortion rights. And public education. And democracy. This hidden network of Christian Nationalist billionaires and politicians has been called the Religious Right, the Moral Majority and the authors of Project 2025. Regardless of what we call it, the Shadow Network has been covertly weakening the foundation of our democracy for generations.
While the general public may be aware of how members of the network oppose abortion, marriage equality and secular public schools, often overlooked is how these issues fit into the Shadow Network’s larger mission: to make America a Christian nation that imposes narrow beliefs on everyone.
Christian Nationalism is the dangerous ideology that America is – and must remain – a Christian nation created for white Christians. This nationalistic position excludes millions of progressive and moderate Christians as well as non-Christians and the nonreligious.
This dangerous ideology denies the separation of church and state promised by the Constitution and opposes equality for Black and Brown people, women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and the nonreligious. At its core, white Christian Nationalism seeks to preserve traditional white, straight, male Christian power structures and roll back any progress toward a more inclusive democracy.
The Rise and Threat of White Christian Nationalism
This resurgent movement is part of a backlash against America’s changing demographics. It poses an existential threat to democracy by attempting to rewrite our history, values, and national identity.
Since AU’s founding in 1947, the organization has worked to expose and combat White Christian Nationalism. Previously known as the Religious Right, this movement aims to:
Tear down the wall between church and state.
“Christianize” public schools and government institutions.
Roll back women’s rights.
Strip LGBTQ+ people of basic freedoms.
Create a theocratic state.
Their ultimate goal? To destroy church-state separation and establish two distinct classes in America: privileged white, cisgender, straight, evangelical Christian men and everyone else.
Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American
According to AU’s Andrew L. Seidel in The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, Christian Nationalists aim to:
- Rewrite American history and values to favor fundamentalist Christianity.
- Codify Christian privilege into law.
- Legally disfavor the nonreligious, non-Christians, and marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ individuals.
The separation of church and state is a uniquely American idea, born from Enlightenment principles and implemented during the “American Experiment.” It protects every individual’s right to think freely by ensuring that religion and government remain separate. Without this principle, democracy falters.
Combating the Shadow Network & Christian Nationalism
While Christian Nationalism threatens democracy, a growing number of Americans are fighting against it. Organizations like Christians Against Christian Nationalism and the Baptist Joint Committee (BJC) are working to raise awareness and opposition. These groups emphasize that Christian Nationalism does not represent the values of most Christians and that opposing Christian Nationalism is not anti-Christian or anti-religious.
Why It Matters
- Freedom and Equality: Christian Nationalism privileges a small group and denies America’s promise of freedom without favor and equality without exception.
- Progress and Resistance: As America’s leadership grows more diverse, marginalized voices are gaining power and pushing back against white supremacy and Christian Nationalism.
- Protecting Religious Freedom: The separation of church and state is essential to preserving equality, protecting marginalized communities, and ensuring freedom for people of all beliefs.
We must remain vigilant in protecting church-state separation from disinformation and efforts to undermine it. Together, we can safeguard democracy and ensure that everyone has the freedom to live as themselves and believe or not believe as they choose.
FAQ
Top 10 questions about Christian Nationalism
What is Christian Nationalism?
“Christian Nationalism,” and “white Christian Nationalism,” describe a political movement that is trying to topple our democracy by undermining church-state separation and declaring America a “Christian nation.”
This movement is part of the backlash against the changing demographics in America and the struggle to retain traditional white Christian power structures. In other words, white Christian Nationalists are raging against the dying of their privilege.
How is Christian Nationlism different than patriotism?
Patriotism is a feeling or emotion we have about our country. “I love my country” is a patriotic statement.
Nationalism is a political belief that people should strongly support their own country and put its interests above others, often excluding other nations or groups.
Christian Nationalism is a dangerous ideology based on the false belief that America was founded as a Christian nation for white Christians and that our laws and policies must protect white Christian privilege and power.
Christian Nationalists believe that they are the “true Americans,” deny the separation of church and state promised by our Constitution, and oppose equality for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and the nonreligious.
Are all evangelical Christians also Christian Nationalists?
No. Most Christians are not Christian Nationalists.
Many organizations, like Christians Against Christian Nationalism and Christian scholars like Kristin Du Mez, Dr. Anthea Butler, Dr. Jemar Tisby, Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead, are actively working to raise awareness and opposition to this movement.
“Please stop calling religious nationalist extremists “conservative evangelicals. I want to conserve the love, truth, & justice at the heart of Christian faith, so I refuse to cede “conservative Christian” to those who say so much about what God says so little & so little about what God says so much.” –Reverend William J. Barber II
What are examples of Christian Nationalism in the U.S.?
- Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ Bible Mandate forcing public schools to teach from the Bible.
- Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law mandating that all public elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools display the Ten Commandments in every classroom
- Private school voucher programs – originally created to allow white families to evade public school integration orders in the 1960s – funnel public funds away from our public schools to fund the education of a few, select students at private, mostly religious schools.
- Abortion bans impose one narrow religious doctrine on everyone and violate the separation of church and state. Missouri legislators, for example, repeatedly told the world they were imposing their religious views on every Missourian when they passed bans and restrictions on abortion. That’s why AU and the National Women’s Law Center challenged these bans on behalf of FOURTEEN clergy from SEVEN different denominations.
- The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is an example Christian Nationalists actively seeking to destroy our democracy. Images of Christian Nationalism can be seen in pictures and videos taken that day – people hoisting crosses, “Jesus Saves” signs, Christian flags, T-shirts linking President Donald Trump to Jesus and other paraphernalia of Christian Nationalism.
Is Christian Nationalism linked to white supremacy?
Yes. President and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) Robert P. Jones, in his book “The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Shared Path to an American Future,” exposes links as far back as Christopher Columbus’ return to Spain in 1493.
Many scholars including Dr. Anthea Butler and Dr. Jemar Tisby discuss the close connection between white supremacy and white Christian Nationalism.
Christian Nationalists believe that they are the “true Americans” and oppose equality for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and the nonreligious.
By insisting American laws favor one narrow set of beliefs above all others, Christian Nationalists turn religious freedom into Christian privilege. This is not religious freedom.
True religious freedom protects everyone’s right to believe, or not believe, as long as they don’t harm others.
How does Christian Nationalism affect religious freedom?
Christian Nationalists believe that they are the “true Americans” and oppose equality for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and the nonreligious.
By insisting American laws favor one narrow set of beliefs above all others, Christian Nationalists turn religious freedom into Christian privilege. This is not religious freedom.
True religious freedom protects everyone’s right to believe, or not believe, as long as they don’t harm others.
How prevalent is Christian Nationalism in America?
According to the 2023 “Support for Christian Nationalism in All 50 States: Findings from PRRI’s 2023 American Values Atlas” report by PRRI, roughly 3 in 10 Americans qualify as Christian Nationalist adherents or sympathizers.
According to this report, more than 45% of the residents in the following states are Christian Nationalist adherents or sympathizers:
- North Dakota (50%)
- Mississippi (50%)
- Alabama (47%)
- West Virginia (47%)
- Louisiana (46%)
Who are famous Christian Nationalists?
- Donald Trump
- Steve Bannon
- Mike Johnson
- Marjorie Taylor Green
- Lauren Boebert
- Charlie Kirk
- Russ Vought
- Linda McMahon
- James Dobson
- Nick Fuentes
- Pete Hegseth
- Andrew Torba
What is Project 2025?
Project 2025 is a 900-page playbook for dismantling the federal government to advance the ultimate goals of Christian Nationalists: overthrowing American democracy and installing a theocracy that takes away our freedoms.
Project 2025 was spearheaded by Christian Nationalists and reflects many of their dangerous beliefs. It seeks to take away Americans’ freedom to live as themselves and believe as they choose, by diverting public funds to private religious schools; rolling back the rights of LGBTQ+ people; banning the most accessible form of abortion and limiting reproductive health care; erecting roadblocks to racial justice; and redefining religious freedom as a license to discriminate.
When did Christian Nationalism start?
According to Robert P. Jones, president and founder of PRRI and author of “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,” white Christian Nationalism goes back to Christopher Columbus and the Doctrine of Discovery.
More recently, the movement of Christian Nationalism can be connected to the evangelical initiatives in the 1940s and 1950s to put God and Jesus into our Constitution.
How can we stop Christian Nationalism?
Christian Nationalists in the Shadow Network are trying to fuse their church into our state. Americans United is fighting back and you can help.
Here are two things you can do right now:
- Help us fight efforts to use religion to deny healthcare, refuse to provide goods and services, and undermine civil rights protections by giving to the Freedom without Favor Fund
- Join the AU Action Network and receive specific actions you can take each month at the local and national levels.
VIDEOS
Reading List
Leonard Leo
The Puppetmaster
In the billion-dollar Shadow Network trying to undermine our democracy and advance Christian Nationalism, one name rises to the top: Leonard Leo.
Leonard Leo is the powerbroker behind this nationwide network of billionaires, Christian Nationalist legal groups, lobbyists, lawyers and judges working relentlessly against abortion rights, LGBTQ+ equality, public education, racial justice and church-state separation in America.
Leo bought the courts
Leo gets most of the credit for securing lifetime appointments for the U.S. Supreme Court’s ultra-conservative justices. Not to mention the 200+ federal judges Trump appointed during his first term – nearly one-third of the federal judiciary. Leo-linked groups spent more than a half-billion dollars packing the courts from 2014 to 2020, which led to the end of the nationwide right to abortion, religious freedom being misused as a license to harm LGBTQ+ people, women, religious minorities and the nonreligious, and forcing taxpayers to fund religious indoctrination and discrimination at private schools.
Leo bankrolled Project 2025
Leo’s financial network also funneled millions of dollars to the Shadow Network organizations behind Project 2025. His Marble Freedom Trust has assets of more than $1 billion – virtually all of it earmarked to battle, in Leo’s words, the “vile and amoral … barbarians, secularists and bigots” in the way of his life’s goal to transform America into a radical Christian nation.
What is Project 2025? The 900-page playbook created to dismantle the federal government and advance the ultimate goal of Christian Nationalists: installing a theocracy that takes away our freedoms.
Project 2025 calls for diverting public funds to private religious schools; rolling back the rights of LGBTQ+ people; banning the most accessible form of abortion and limiting reproductive health care; erecting roadblocks to racial justice; and redefining religious freedom as a license to discriminate.
With Leo’s puppets now in powerful positions in the Trump Administration, they are destroying generations of social progress as they fulfill their goal to remake America. And they may soon lead us to a constitutional crisis if we don’t stop them.
The Organizations leading the attack
Shadow Network Agents
Russ Vought: Director of Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
Russ Vought ran the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the first Trump administration. He was the policy director for the Republican National Convention’s Platform Committee, is a self-professed Christian Nationalist and one of the key architects and driving forces behind Project 2025.
Vought runs the Center for Renewing America, a relatively new member of the Shadow Network that sprouted up in 2021 aiming to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God.”
Vought considers “Christian Nationalism” a top priority and was caught in undercover footage saying that he was going to “rehabilitate Christian Nationalism.”
Vought authored the chapters in Project 2025 discussing the broad expansion of presidential power and sections that call for the dismantling of protections for emergency abortion care and expanding federal surveillance of pregnant Americans.
In his work on Project 2025, Vought advocated for dramatically expanding the presidential powers and stripping protections for emergency abortion care, along with ramping up federal surveillance of pregnant Americans.
As a member of the second Trump Administration, Vought will be in charge of the second phase of Project 2025: its implementation. Vought and his team are spending thousands of hours drafting the hundreds of executive orders, rules, regulations and more, which will implement the dangerous policies in the Project 2025 handbook.
Pete Hegseth: Secretary of Defense
Hegseth has a record of extreme political views including expanding presidential authority, mobilizing the military againstAmerican protesters, fighting anti-discrimination efforts, and pushing dangerous White Christian Nationalist and anti-Islamic sentiments.
The day after the January 6th attacks, Hegseth, a then-member of the National Guard, was reported for sporting the “Deus vult” tattoo, which references a Christian battle cry from the First Crusade of the Middle Ages and has become popular among present-day white supremacist groups, including the Proud Boys and Three Percenters.” Hegseth’s obsession with white supremacist symbolism underscores his extreme and dangerous views, raising concerns about the politicization of the Department of Defense under his direction.
Hegseth champions the conservative, white, male, Christian “warrior” as the ideal U.S. military servicemember. His book, American Crusade: Our Fight to Stay Free, is essentially a call to arms for white Christian nationalists. “The book depicts America in a struggle fought by conservative white Christians and “freedom-loving people everywhere” protecting their God-ordained superiority and dominance over others by taking freedom away from secularists, leftists, globalists and Muslim immigrants.”
Hegsleth also has a storied history of accusations alleging sexual assault, heavy drinking, and multiple instances of mismanagement and personal misconduct leading two veterans’ advocacy organizations.
Peter Navarro: Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing
Nvarro was a White-House aid in the first Trump administration who infamously spent four months in prison over his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol.
Navarro also authored the Project 2025 chapter on trade.
John Ratcliffe: CIA Director
Ratcliffe was a “Distinguished Fellow” at The Heritage Foundation and “generously volunteered time and effort to assist the authors in developing and writing” Project 2025.
Ratcliffe is also frequently quoted in Chapter 7 of the Project 2025 playbook, a chapter authored by Dustin J. Carmack, who served as Ratcliff’s chief of staff both in the intelligence community and in Congress.
Steven Gill Bradbury: Deputy Secretary of Transportation
Bradbury was a “Distinguished Fellow” at the Heritage Foundation and clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.
Bradbury is listed as a Project 2025 “contributor” and is named in an author’s note on the chapter on Transportation as “deserv[ing] special mention…”
Stephen Miller: White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy
Miller appeared ina promotional video for Project 2025 two years ago, which is still featured on the Project 2025 website. Miller’s organization, the America First Legal Foundation, was an original supporter of Project 2025 and part of the Project 2025 advisory board.
Karoline Leavitt: White House Press Secretary
Leavitt is featured in a Project 2025 promotional video alongside other Project 2025 authors, contributors, and instructors, including Stephen Miller.
Leavitt herself is listed as a Project 2025 instructor and appeared in at least one Project 2025 training video.
Linda McMahon: Secretary of Education
Linda McMahon, former head of the Small Business Administration under Trump, has emerged as a major force in Christian Nationalist policy efforts and the America First movement. After leaving her Cabinet position in 2019, she led the pro-Trump America First Action Super PAC before co-founding the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) in 2021, an organization dedicated to promoting Donald Trump’s policy agenda.
McMahon openly opposes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, labeling them unnecessary and burdensome. She has hardly any education experience and has never worked as a teacher, a school administrator, or even an elected official overseeing schools. She supports school privatization efforts, pushing for private school voucher programs that siphon public taxpayer dollars to private religious schools. Additionally, she has authored executive orders and policies that undermine public education and civil rights protections.
McMahon’s leadership at AFPI and her alignment with Project 2025 signal a push for policies that would roll back civil rights protections, weaken public education, and integrate religious ideology into government operations. Through her political donations, policy influence, and advocacy for regressive education policies, she has become a key player in efforts to reshape the country through a Christian nationalist lens.
Fight Back
Give to the Freedom without Favor Fund
The Freedom without Favor Fund is an ambitious 4-year, $5 million project is critical in the fight to protect our democracy and defend the rights of all Americans. The Freedom Without Favor Fund will give us the vital resources we need to fight this escalating threat.
Christian Nationalists are prepared to stop at nothing to codify Christian privilege into law and secure their power at the expense of everyone else.
Help us fight efforts to use religion to deny healthcare, refuse to provide goods and services, and undermine civil rights protections.
Join the AU Action Network
When you join the AU Action Network, you will be notified of actions you can take in your community to protect church-state separation. These actions can include legislative and legal advocacy, outreach opportunities, invitations to attend special meetings, briefings, and training sessions. AU also provides virtual opportunities to hone your skills as an advocate.
Attend the Summit for Religious Freedom
Join us at the Summit for Religious Freedom in Alexandria, VA + Washington, D.C. and Virtually.
The Summit for Religious Freedom or SRF (pronounced “surf”) is the hub for our collective fight for real religious freedom, church-state separation, and the issues that depend on them like LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, protecting public schools, strengthening our democracy and more.
It’s a big tent — welcoming the diversity of our movement from longtime advocates to those just discovering the issue and its critical role in protecting our democracy, our equality, and our rights. We’re collaborating to defeat the biggest threats to these values including Christian Nationalists and other extremists, along with their political allies, who have launched a coordinated campaign to force us all to live by their narrow, religious beliefs.
Volunteer
Join our team of volunteers! Tell us about your interests and to receive more info about volunteer opportunities
Have you been harmed by a church-state separation violation in your community? We can help.
AU defends real religious freedom and the separation of church and state by:
- going to court on behalf of people whose religious-freedom rights have been violated
- by contacting school districts, municipalities, and state and federal agencies to resolve constitutional violations without litigation
- by contributing our expertise through friend-of-the-court briefs in cases nationwide.
We can protect your religious freedom and end church-state separation violations without ever going to court. And your complaint is confidential; we will not disclose your complaint or your identity to anyone without your consent.
