2026 isn’t the first time Christians have tried to claim the United States as their own

Is the United States fundamentally a Christian nation? According to David Mislin, a historian at Temple University, Christians have repeatedly claimed that identity for America—from the Civil War through the Cold War. Each time, Mislin explains, existential fears drove these appeals: wars, ideological threats, cultural anxiety. Rather than a timeless truth, these claims represent moments when Christian Americans reinterpreted their nation's identity to address the crises of their era.

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