Three weeks before winning the Republican nomination for governor of Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano stood next to a three-foot tall statue of a painted eagle and proclaimed the power of God.
“Are there any free people in the house here? Did Jesus set you free?” he asked, setting dozens in motion before him on a Saturday afternoon at a roadside hotel in Gettysburg.
Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, retired Army colonel and a prominent figure in former President Donald J. To overturn the state’s 2020 election results, Trump turned to a far-right conference that mixed Christian beliefs with conspiracy theories called Patriots Arise. Instead of focusing on issues like taxes, gas prices or abortion policy, he wove a story about what he saw as the nation’s true Christian identity and how it was time for Christians to take back political power together.
Separation of church and state is a “myth,” he said. “In November we will get our country back, God will make it so.”
Mr. Mastriano’s rise in Pennsylvania is perhaps the most striking example of right-wing candidates for public office who explicitly aim to promote Christian power in America. The religious right has long championed conservative causes, but the current wave is looking for more: a nation that actively prioritizes its particular set of Christian beliefs and far-right views, and that more openly embraces Christianity as a basis of identity.
Many reject the historic American principle of separation of church and state. They say they are not advocating a theocracy, but they argue for a fundamental role for their faith in government. Their rise coincides with significant support among like-minded grassroots supporters, especially as some voters and politicians mix their Christian faith with election fraud conspiracy theories, QAnon ideology, gun rights and continued anger against Covid-related restrictions.
Their presence reveals fringes entering the mainstream.
“The church is supposed to run the government, the government shouldn’t run the church,” Congressman Lauren Bobert, a Republican representing western Colorado, said recently at Cornerstone Christian Center, a church near Aspen. “I’m tired of this separation of church and state garbage.” The congregants rose to their feet in applause.
A small handful of people who support that vision, like Ms. Bobert, recently rose to power with the mix of Christian messages and conspiracy theories that Mr. Trump has promoted. Others, like Mr. Mastriano, are running competitive races, while most have long-term campaigns and are unlikely to survive the primaries.
The rise of these candidates comes amid a wave of action across the country that promotes cultural priorities for many conservative Christians. Most significant is the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end the constitutional right to abortion—in addition to a recent series of decisions allowing a greater role for religion in public life, such as school prayer and funding for religious education. States are also taking action; many have outlawed abortion. A Florida law bans classroom teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary school, and Texas has issued a warrant to investigate parents of transgender children for possible child abuse.
Some of the candidates see the recent spate of Supreme Court decisions as a sign that their mission has been successful. In Georgia, Candace Taylor received just 3.4 percent of the vote in the Republican primary for governor. “I’m glad SCOTUS decided to join me on FRINGEE! Jesus, guns and babies,” she said in a tweet, referring to her own campaign platform.
Declaring the United States a Christian nation and ending federal enforcement of the separation of church and state are minority views among American adults, according to the Pew Research Center. Although support for church-state integration is above average among Republicans and white evangelicals, many Christians see this integration as a perversion of faith that elevates the nation above God. The fringe vying for power is still a minority among Christians and Republicans.
Like Mr. Mastriano, some of the candidates pushing this fringe view already hold lower-level elected office but are now running for higher office where they would have more power, said Andrew Seidel, vice president of Americans United for the separation of church and state.
“We see them encouraged,” Mr. Seidel said. “They claim to be the true heirs of the American experiment.
At the Patriots Arise event, Jenna Ellis, senior legal counsel to Mr. Mastriano and a former assistant counsel in the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, told the crowd that “what it really means to be truly America First , what it really means to pursue happiness, what it really means to be a Christian nation, is really the same thing.”
At Mr. Mastriano’s primary-night victory party, which included Sean Voicht, an evangelical worship leader who led outdoor events in defiance of pandemic restrictions, he announced that his faith was being insulted. “If I read articles in which you attack Christians and paint us in a particular picture that is hateful and intolerant, we will not have time for you,” Mr. Mastriano said, cheering.
Mr. Mastriano also said, “My campaign has no place for hate, bigotry and intolerance.” Asked in an email to explain his views and thoughts on the representation of non-Christians in Pennsylvania, Mr. Mastriano did not respond.
The struggle for Christian power in America has a centuries-old history, dating back to the country’s origins, and has been acute again as the makeup of the nation changes. For generations, the United States has been predominantly Christian, predominantly white and Protestant. In recent years, Christianity has declined rapidly as pluralistic and secular values have risen.
Since the January 6 attack, which mixed extremism and religious fervor, the term “Christian nationalism” has often been used broadly to refer to the general conflation of American and white Christian identities. Historically, however, Christian nationalism in America has also included extremist ideologies.
In the 1948 presidential election, for example, a fringe political party called the Christian Nationalist Party nominated Gerald L. C. Smith, a pastor with pro-Nazi sympathies, and adopted an anti-Semitic, anti-black platform that called for the deportation of people with whom disagree.
Mr. Trump won power largely by offering to preserve the influence of white evangelicals and their values, just as many feared the world as they knew it was fast disappearing.
The fact that Mr. Trump, whom they saw as their protector, is no longer president heightens the sense among many conservative Christians that everything is at stake. About 60 percent of white evangelical Protestants believe the election was stolen by Mr. Trump, according to a Public Religion Research Institute poll conducted late last year. White evangelicals are also the most likely religious group to believe in QAnon, according to the survey. QAnon invokes a complex conspiracy theory involving Satan worshipers and child trafficking, and the FBI has previously warned that some of its adherents may become violent.
Across the country, candidates sought to gain voters’ attention by championing a Christian identity in policymaking.
In Arkansas in May, state Sen. Jason Rapert, who founded a group called the National Association of Christian Legislators in 2020, lost the Republican primary for lieutenant governor by 15 percent of the vote. The group is proposing model legislation such as banning abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy and requiring the display of “In God We Trust” in public schools.
In Oklahoma, Jackson Lamayer, lead pastor of the Sheridan Church, made a long-running bid to unseat Senator James Lankford, who personified traditional social conservatism. Mr. Lamayer lost, but received 26 percent of the vote. “Our constitution is built on the Bible,” he said in an interview. He said he was not advocating a theocracy and that he supported the separation of church and state, which he said “has nothing to do with the church staying out of the affairs of the state.” He also said that “trying to remove the Christianity upon which this nation was born from public schools has ‘absolutely’ led to an increase in school shootings.”
In Wisconsin, state Rep. Timothy Ramthun has fallen far behind in his bid for governor, which has emphasized his Christian faith and pledge not to certify the 2020 election. He produced a 72-page report on what he sees as evidence of election fraud and called his efforts to fight it “Let there be light” after the words attributed to God in the Bible. In an interview, he described his efforts as a Christian act of truth-seeking. “I’m not lying,” he said. “I work above all for the Lord.”
In a live broadcast on Rumble, a video site popular with the far right, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Georgia, called on her followers to take pride in “Christian nationalism” as a way to fight “globalists,” the “border crisis” and ” gender lies’. “While the media will lie about you and label it Christian nationalism and probably call it domestic terrorism, I will tell you right now, they are the liars,” she said.
Across the country, active efforts are underway to channel the growing religious fervor on the American right into voter turnout. This includes more typical Republican outreach efforts, but also new groups mobilized since President Biden’s inauguration.
In California, the Freedom Revival, which began late last year and is using worship to mobilize evangelicals to see Christian moral…
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