Over the past several months, the Department of Homeland Security has steadily released promotional videos recruiting Americans to join DHS agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These videos include clips of military agents loading into armored vehicles, bombs falling from planes, and overhead shots of barren cities. In September, the newly dubbed “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, posted a video depicting similar military operations set to a dramatic, Marvel-like soundtrack.
In one DHS video meant to recruit people to work for ICE, the words of Isaiah 6:8 are read by a deep, growling voice as the prophet’s words flash across the screen: “And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me.’”
In Hegseth’s clip, military operations are set to a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer: As Hegseth recites Jesus’s words, images of soldiers, fighter jets, and missiles accompany the prayer: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As staff writer Missy Ryan noted for The Atlantic in October, what Hegseth and other Christian nationalists openly desire is to advance “an expansive, sometimes militant version of Christianity that is evident across all aspects of public life.”
These biblical invocations are both noteworthy and incredibly disturbing. As religion scholar and co-host of the podcast Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi, explained during an interview on MSNBC, what makes these ads so unsettling is that, “It’s not an ad that says ‘join up in a patriotic endeavor.’” But rather, according to Onishi, these ads are a way for DHS and ICE to say that people who join their ranks are “answering a call from God.” “And that is Christian nationalism in a nutshell,” Onishi concludes.
It is no secret that the Trump administration has increasingly appealed to Christian values and a “biblical worldview” to enact its policies and defend its decisions, equating Christian faithfulness to partisan loyalty. In doing this, the Trump administration has turned MAGA allegiance into a holy duty.
This system, which seems so cohesive for people within it, is often paradoxical and baffling to those outside of it—both Christian and non-Christian alike. In return, many have rightly questioned how MAGA Christians can use their faith to support ends that seem so antithetical to the life and ministry of Jesus—a nomadic teacher put to death by the Roman Empire for his message of liberation and love preached to those at the margins of society.
For some, the answer is that MAGA Christians are merely using the Christian tradition to bolster a political agenda; that they are not actually Christians. While I understand this argument, I don’t think it encapsulates the bigger picture of how MAGA Christians have been deeply formed to believe with absolute certainty that their expressions of faith, demonstrated in media like the DHS videos, are the true, singular form of Christianity.
In my own attempt to make sense of this ongoing phenomenon, I came across an unlikely but helpful conversation partner: Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his 1969 book On Certainty, which was published eighteen years after his death, he offered us a helpful illustration to better understand this all-encompassing logic: a door hinge.
“Hinge propositions” are beliefs that provide a base framework for engaging the world. They are the “hinges” from which our entire worldview and social imagination swing.
To be sure, what Wittgenstein has in mind is not an entire system of belief. Rather, he is talking about more basic assumptions: If one wants a door to turn open, they take for granted that the hinges on the door will stay put. The well-known example that Wittgenstein uses is examining our hands that appear before our eyes. Rather than philosophically debating their existence, we take the knowledge that our hands are, in fact, real and ready to be used in our everyday lives as a given. If we could not trust that our hands exist, we would constantly need to renegotiate and question our relationship with a world that seems to appear plainly before us. Therefore, this metaphor seeks to explain how basic, unquestioned beliefs influence our ability to make sense of and navigate the world.
READ MORE: What Does ‘White Christian Nationalism’ Even Mean, Anyway?
Using Wittgenstein’s metaphor, I think it’s useful to understand Christian nationalism as one gigantic hinge proposition. From Christian nationalists’ broadest sentiments of supremacy down to their beliefs about how churches should function, many Christian nationalists follow a vision of Western expansion, patriarchy, and authoritarianism without hesitation. For Christian nationalists, these ends are self-evident and necessary to maintain our ordinary life. But with this outlook, there are consequences: to question these beliefs would result in Christian nationalists having to reconsider, reorganize, or—to use a more contemporary term—“deconstruct” their entire matrix of rationality.
Christian nationalism functions as a gestalt. To reject or doubt the belief that there should be a militant version of Christianity that permeates all aspects of U.S. public life is to question the very nature and being of God—and our relationship to God, which is to say one’s salvation. Christian nationalists take for granted that God is on the side of the U.S. and that to be a “good” or “real” Christian, one must affirm this thinking. This assumption is the hinge upon which Christian nationalists’ entire worldview swings. To doubt or question these beliefs is akin to doubting Christianity itself. What is evident in this logic is Christian nationalism working as a single commitment, with each belief implying all of the others.
Christian nationalists take for granted that God is on the side of the U.S. and that to be a “good” or “real” Christian, one must affirm this thinking. This assumption is the hinge upon which Christian nationalists’ entire worldview swings.
This, of course, is intentional. Onishi explains in his 2023 book Preparing for War that Christian nationalism is a cohesive, collective, and active community united by a shared vision of supremacy catalyzed through media (e.g., Fox News or Truth Social). The point of this cohesion is to bring the Christian nationalist vision of domination, nativist purity, and white supremacy to fruition. Onishi notes that for those who disagree with this vision of the country or this particular articulation of Christianity, it is not merely a matter of disagreement, but it is a matter of warfare. The hinge of Christian nationalism turns the neighbor across the street into an enemy to defeat.
Although On Certainty never engages directly with these themes, I believe Wittgenstein’s insights still offer us a helpful resolution by considering the relationship between doubt and knowledge. Wittgenstein argues that indubitability—that is, something being beyond doubt—is not an essential mark of knowledge. In other words, knowledge is not the absence of doubt.
Christian nationalists fear knowledge. This is why MAGA demands blind loyalty, absent from any doubt or questioning. Christian nationalism must function as a “hinge” because, once it is broken up and examined piece by piece, we soon find its irreconcilable errors and radical unalignment with the teachings and example of Jesus. When Trump is no longer the assumed messiah, he is quickly revealed to be a liar and lunatic. When God is no longer on the side of masked ICE officers assaulting ministers, teargassing civilians, and raiding churches, they can be seen as violent, state-sponsored terrorizers. When critiques of this administration from the media can no longer be falsely framed as Christian persecution or fake news, the depths of an authoritarian regime are revealed. When Christian faithfulness and loyalty to MAGA are separated, we can hear their references to ethnic purity and a national rebirth for what it is: fascism.
However, if we accept that it is doubt, not certainty, that accompanies genuine knowledge, then we can move in and through this world, recognizing that God’s desire for creation is not rigid dogmatism; it is love and liberation, humility and gentleness, community and Christlikeness. Christian nationalism may demand unwavering allegiance, but God welcomes our doubts.
Editor’s note: This essay was produced in partnership with The Narrative Project, an initiative of The Christian Century.
Amar D. Peterman is an Indian American scholar working at the intersection of faith and public life. He is the author of Becoming Neighbors: The Common Good Made Local. You can learn more about his work at amarpeterman.com.
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