# Religions and Right-Wing Politics The payoff page for the [[Religions Hub]] substrate layer. Every entry in `/Foundations/Religions/` ends with a "Right-wing politics tributaries" section; this page collects those tributaries in one place and routes them into the vault layers where the political material actually lives - [[Ideologies Hub]], [[Concepts Hub]], [[Organizations]], and `/Terminology/Christian Nationalism/`. The organizing question is not "what do these traditions believe?" It is: **through what channel does each tradition enter right-wing politics, and in what role?** Four roles recur, and keeping them separate is the whole point of this page. | Role | What it means | Clearest cases | |---|---|---| | **Coalition participant** | Adherents are organized constituents of the political right | [[Non-Denominational Evangelicalism]], [[Baptist Christianity]], [[Pentecostalism]], [[Catholicism]], [[Mormonism (LDS)]], [[Modern Orthodox Judaism]], [[Haredi Judaism]] | | **Doctrinal supplier** | The tradition supplies theology the right runs on, independent of adherent numbers | [[Reformed Christianity]], [[Dispensationalism]], [[Eastern Orthodoxy]] | | **Object of mobilization** | The tradition is what the right organizes against | [[Islam]], [[Sunni Islam]], [[Judaism]] in its conspiratorial register, [[Sikhism]] by mistaken identity | | **Rhetorical reference** | Invoked as illustration or borrowed aesthetic, with no organized relationship | [[Zoroastrianism]], [[Daoism]], [[Buddhism]], [[Shinto]], [[Confucianism]] | A tradition can occupy more than one role at once, and [[Judaism]] occupies three simultaneously - which is the single most important structural fact on this page. --- ## Christianity The deepest and most articulated set of tributaries in the vault. [[Christianity]] is the parent tradition; the political work happens at denominational and movement level. ### Doctrinal suppliers - **[[Reformed Christianity]]** - small in adherents, disproportionate in output. Supplies [[Christian Reconstructionism]] ([[R.J. Rushdoony]], *[[The Institutes of Biblical Law]]*), [[Theonomy]], the postmillennial wing of [[Dominionism]], and [[Stephen Wolfe]]'s *[[The Case for Christian Nationalism]]*. [[Douglas Wilson]]'s Moscow, Idaho circle ([[Christ Church Moscow]], [[Canon Press]], [[New Saint Andrews College]]) is its institutional center. - **[[Dispensationalism]]** - Darby's periodized eschatology, hard-coded into American reading through the Scofield Reference Bible and popularized by [[Tim LaHaye]]. Produces [[Christian Eschatology]], [[Millennialism]], and the theological engine of [[Christian Zionism]]. - **[[Catholicism]]** - via Thomist natural law, supplies [[Integralism]], [[Catholic Post-Liberalism]] ([[Adrian Vermeule]], [[Patrick Deneen]], [[Sohrab Ahmari]], [[Rod Dreher]]), and the jurisprudential frame of the [[Federalist Society]] pipeline. See [[Right-Wing Catholic Ecosystem]], [[Opus Dei]], [[Knights of Malta]]. ### Coalition participants - **[[Non-Denominational Evangelicalism]]** and **[[Baptist Christianity]]** - the numerical core. [[Southern Baptist Convention]], [[Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission]], [[LifeWay Christian Resources]], [[Liberty University]], [[Bob Jones University]], [[Southern Baptist Theological Seminary]], [[Dallas Theological Seminary]]. - **[[Pentecostalism]]** and the charismatic renewal - the mobilizing energy. [[New Apostolic Reformation]], [[Apostolic-Prophetic Movement]], [[Seven Mountain Mandate]] ([[Lance Wallnau]], [[C. Peter Wagner]]), [[Prosperity Gospel]] ([[Kenneth Copeland]], [[Paula White]]), [[Bethel Church]], [[Gateway Church]], [[Lakewood Church]], [[HRock Church]], [[Global Spheres Inc]]. See [[New Apostolic Reformation Ecosystem]]. - **[[Mormonism (LDS)]]** - the Utah and Mountain West delegation, and a distinctive internal split between institutional loyalism and Never-Trump conservatism. [[Mormon Women for Ethical Government]] marks the dissenting edge. - **[[Anglicanism]]** - largely via the ACNA realignment and the Global South conservative bloc; smaller US footprint. ### The ideologies [[Christian Nationalism]] is the umbrella; [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]] and [[Christian Nationalism Lexicon]] map it. Its neighbors and variants: [[Christofascism]], [[Christian Reconstructionism]], [[Christian Zionism]], [[Quiverfull]], [[Christian Network State]], [[Crusader Complex]], [[Christian Fundamentalism]], and - at the racialist extreme, and distinct from all of the above - [[Christian Identity]]. ### The doctrines and vocabulary [[Dominionism]] · [[Theonomy]] · [[Seven Mountain Mandate]] · [[Christian Eschatology]] · [[Millennialism]] · [[Biblical Inerrancy]] · [[Great Awakenings]] · [[Fundamentalism]] · [[Religious Liberty]] · [[Cyrus Prophecy]] · [[Evangelicals and Catholics Together]] · [[Saint Culture]] · [[Biblical Worldview]] · [[Biblical Values]] · [[Spiritual Warfare]] · [[Christian Nationalism Lexicon]] ### The institutional and legal apparatus [[Moral Majority]] · [[Christian Coalition]] · [[Family Research Council]] · [[Focus on the Family]] · [[Council for National Policy]] · [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] · [[Becket Fund]] · [[Project Blitz]] · [[National Christian Foundation]] · [[Trump Evangelical Advisory Board]] · [[Christian Broadcasting Network]] · [[Museum of the Bible]] · [[Association of Classical Christian Schools]] Key legal nodes: [[Kennedy v. Bremerton]] · [[Carson v. Makin]] · [[Trinity Lutheran v. Comer]] · [[Hobby Lobby]] · [[Stone v. Graham]] · [[St. Isidore Catholic Charter Case]] · [[Bob Jones University v. United States]] · [[Roe v. Wade]] · [[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]] · [[Obergefell v. Hodges]] · [[Ten Commandments]] ### Eastern Christianity as a separate channel [[Eastern Orthodoxy]] enters through [[Russkii Mir]] and the [[Russian Orthodox Church]]'s legitimation of the Russian state - and, in the US, through a small but visible stream of online-right conversions seeking a tradition perceived as untouched by liberalism. [[Oriental Orthodoxy]] enters almost entirely as an object of persecution narratives ([[Armenian Genocide]], the Copts, [[Maronite Christians]], [[Melkite Greek Catholic Church]]). --- ## Judaism The tributaries here run in three directions at once, and conflating them produces most of the bad analysis in this space. **1. As coalition participant.** [[Modern Orthodox Judaism]] and [[Haredi Judaism]] vote Republican by margins roughly inverse to American Jews overall. The drivers are Israel policy, day-school and yeshiva funding (which puts them in coalition with the Christian school movement), and social conservatism. [[Republican Jewish Coalition]] is the institutional face. **2. As alliance object.** [[Christian Zionism]] - [[John Hagee]], [[Christians United for Israel]] - delivers unconditional political support for [[Israel]] on the basis of [[Dispensationalism]]'s end-times schema, in which the Jewish return to the land is a precondition for events most Jews would not welcome. The alliance is real, effective, and theologically asymmetric. **3. As conspiracy object.** [[Antisemitism]] runs from the [[Great Replacement Theory]] milieu through [[Nick Fuentes]] and [[Candace Owens]] to the [[George Soros Conspiracy Timeline]] and the *[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]* / *[[The International Jew]]* textual lineage. Its violent edge: [[Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting]]. The liberal majority - [[Reform Judaism]] (~37% of US Jews), [[Conservative Judaism]] (~11%) - is largely absent from right-wing coalition politics and largely absent from right-wing discourse about Jews, which is itself the point worth noting. The full chronology of all three roles is at [[Judaism Timeline]], which also carries the finding that resolves their apparent incoherence: they describe **different Jews**. The concept layer: [[Talmud]] · [[Haskalah]] · [[Religious Zionism]] · [[Babylonian Exile]] · [[Destruction of the Second Temple]] · [[Blood Libel]]. The movements: [[Hasidism]] alongside the four denomination pages. --- ## Islam Almost entirely an object rather than a participant in US right-wing politics, through three channels. - **Civilizational threat.** [[Islamophobia]] is the frame; the [[September 11 Attacks]] and the [[War on Terror Timeline]] are the events; [[Osama bin Laden]], the [[Islamic State]], and [[Muslim Brotherhood]] infiltration claims are the content. The characteristic error is treating jihadi-Salafism as [[Sunni Islam]]'s authentic expression. - **Demographic anxiety.** [[Great Replacement Theory]] converts European Muslim population growth into a conspiracy of deliberate replacement. *[[The Camp of the Saints]]* is the canonical text; [[Christchurch Mosque Shootings]] is the violent endpoint. - **Selective alliance.** [[Saudi Arabia]] and the Gulf states as partners via the [[Abraham Accords]] ([[Jared Kushner]]) on an anti-[[Iran]] axis. The operative variable is alignment, not theology - which is why [[Wahhabism]], the doctrinal source most directly implicated in 9/11, is also the state religion of the closest regional partner. [[Shia Islam]] enters separately, as the [[Iranian Revolution]]'s legacy and the organizing adversary of US Middle East policy ([[Ruhollah Khomeini]], [[Ali Khamenei]], [[Hezbollah]], [[Iran War 2026 Timeline]]). [[Sufism]] enters as the designated "good Islam" of counter-extremism policy and as depoliticized aesthetic import. The full chronology of both tracks — the tradition's own history and the American counter-jihad industry that describes it — is at [[Islam Timeline]]. The concept layer the discourse depends on: [[Caliphate]] · [[Sharia]] · [[Jihad]] · [[Orientalism]] · [[Islamic Golden Age]] · [[Anti-Sharia Movement]]. The organizations: [[Al-Qaeda]] · [[Taliban]] · [[Islamic State]]. --- ## Dharmic traditions - **[[Hinduism]]** - the fastest-growing tributary. Hindutva's transformation from movement to governing project under [[Narendra Modi]] has made Hindu nationalism a reference model for religious-majoritarian governance, and Indian-American conservatives ([[Vivek Ramaswamy]]) and the Modi-Trump relationship have made it a live US political factor rather than a foreign curiosity. [[International Society for Krishna Consciousness]] is a separate and unrelated channel. - **[[Sikhism]]** - enters US politics almost exclusively as an object of mistaken-identity violence after [[September 11 Attacks]] and in broader immigrant-targeting rhetoric. - **[[Buddhism]]** - minimal organized footprint; appears in tech-right and rationalist syncretism as a de-institutionalized mindfulness practice, and in China policy through Tibetan religious repression. - **[[Jainism]]** - no organized political tributary. --- ## East Asian and other traditions - **[[Confucianism]]** - invoked in two opposed registers: as the civilizational counterpart to [[Western Civilization]] in decline narratives, and as the explanation for Chinese state competence in "competent authoritarianism" arguments. [[Confucius Institutes]] are a separate national-security discourse. - **[[Daoism]]** - *wu wei* misread as laissez-faire in libertarian writing; the [[Falun Gong]] and [[Epoch Times]] channel is by far the more consequential tributary, and it is a major direct funder and amplifier of US right-wing media. - **[[Shinto]]** - [[State Shinto]] as the standing comparison case for what a manufactured national religion looks like; Japanese shrine politics as a parallel to [[Christian Nationalism]]. - **[[Zoroastrianism]]** - a rhetorical reference in "ancient Aryan" and civilizational-decline framings, generally by people who have not read the Gathas. - **[[Bahá'í Faith]]** - enters through Iranian persecution as a US foreign-policy talking point. - **[[Indigenous Religious Traditions]]** - enter through public-lands and sacred-sites conflicts, [[Religious Liberty]] litigation asymmetries, and dissident-right neo-pagan appropriation. --- ## The unaffiliated The fastest-growing category worldwide (1.9 billion, 24.2% in Pew's 2020 measurement) and the one with no page in this folder, because it is not a tradition. Its political significance is real: [[Secularization]] as a contested theory, the "militant secularists" framing that [[William Barr - militant secularists]] exemplifies, and the underlying dynamic this whole layer sits on - **religious identity decoupling from religious practice, with the political salience of the identity rising as the practice falls.** --- ## See also - [[Religions Hub]] - the substrate directory - [[World Religions Timeline]] - the comparative chronological spine - [[History of Religion Hub]] - organized religion as institutional power - [[Christian Right Timeline]] - the granular US chronology - [[Theocracy]] - the regime-type page - [[Presidents on the Separation of Church and State]] - the counter-tradition, in the founders' own words