Christian Nationalism is ascending thanks largely to the decline of denominations and the absence of effective gatekeepers in American Christianity. Today, American religion increasingly is led and governed by popular online personalities who are fueled by controversy. The PCA preliminary report is an intelligent resource for resistance against Christian Nationalism. But sadly, it likely will not seriously impede Christian Nationalism’s growth, even among the PCA’s own members.

A preliminary report from the 400,000-member conservative Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has denounced most of what is associated with self-identified advocates of Christian Nationalism, which is good news.

But do denominational declarations still matter?

The report warns, amid a suggested “crisis of masculinity,” there is “nothing can justify ungodliness in speech, or in conduct.” And “crass language, unclean speech, and disdain for the good name of our neighbors must not be excused.”

It also strongly denounces “some expressions of what is called Christian Nationalism that embrace forms of antisemitism, race realism, and Kinism” that “advocate for the segregation of different ethnicities and cultures.”

It also rejects that magistrates may conduct “persecution of persons, the coercion of conscience, the molestation of peaceable religious assembly, or exclusion from public office” or disenfranchise “citizens on the basis of religion,” affirming that “God created of one man all humanity in his image.”

It warns that that the Ordo Amoris does not condone “preferential treatment of one’s own ethnic group ahead of any other…or that race or ethnicity may, in any way, function as a moral norm directing or defining love for neighbor.”

It denies that “cultural anxieties or social change justify profane speech or contempt for women,” and notes that “complementarity does not preclude women’s participation in education, civic life, or public service,” as “political authority must remain accountable to justice and be exercised for the good of all.”

It denies “that rejecting the label ‘Christian Nationalism’ means one is in favor of a hostile, secularist, anti-Christian Nationalism,” as “there are other ways to affirm the influence of Christian ideas and Christian individuals on our civic life.”

It affirms that “in God’s providence, liberal political orders—of the kind that have shaped America—have secured genuine goods, including protections for religious liberty, limitations on arbitrary political power, recognition of human dignity, and the expansion of certain civil and political rights.”

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