Since at least the middle of the twentieth century, Republican politicians in the United States have appealed to religion in their rhetoric and actions. The very success of American society in the face of the National Socialist and Communist regimes was ensured, not least, by the powerful influence of traditional evangelical Protestantism on society. It was he who not only proposed a universal model of congregation as a model for secular institutions, from business to the army, but also provided a stable, centuries-proven system of relationships in society with its own mechanisms for preventing crises, which allowed American society to more easily survive and even gain a boost in development after the war. While regimes based on modern ideologies such as nationalism, communism, or fascism failed to develop a stable and understandable model of society and its infrastructure, which led to the destruction of the states based on them or forced them to undergo large-scale transformations, the United States was able to turn to stable and effective models in times of crisis to ensure the sustainability of the social order. Moreover, after World War II, the United States experienced several waves of religious revival, connected both with the experience of war and with a new enemy in the form of the atheistic communist USSR. The religious upsurge in society was also facilitated by the political elite of the time, in particular, by President Dwight Eisenhower, who introduced the practice of national prayer breakfasts, invited the Reverend Billy Graham to the White House as a spiritual advisor, and helped make the slogan “In God We Trust” the official slogan of the United States. It was during the Eisenhower era that a large-scale religious revival took place in the United States: church membership increased from 49% in 1940 to 69% in 1960.
If in the time of Eisenhower himself and during the Cold War, the appeal to religion was part of the existential confrontation with leftist secularism and the affirmation of American identity on the basis of religious identity, in the twenty-first century the appeal to religion has acquired an additional dimension. Despite its slower speed compared to Europe, American society in the first decades of the twenty-first century gradually secularized, especially when it comes to young people. Consequently, the role of traditional church institutions and the importance of religious practices in everyday life are diminishing. The appeal to religion, meanwhile, remains, but often takes place in a counter-sectarian and populist way, the first manifestation of which was the radicalization of the American-Muslim confrontation, which the then president himself characterized as a “crusade.” Also, the word “freedom” began to dominate his discourse as one of the key tenets of the American civil religion. While the Democrats realized their messianic aspirations under the slogans of spreading democracy, the Republicans chose freedom, including religious freedom, as their priority.
Religious populism in the rhetoric of Republican politicians has been most evident during the administration of Donald Trump, from the first weeks of his tenure as president. President Trump’s first foreign visit, a tour to Mecca, Jerusalem, and the Vatican, made it clear that the appeal to religious symbols and slogans did not end with the election campaign. On the contrary, Donald Trump has increasingly used religious themes to boost his ratings, without making religious values a guiding principle for his own daily life. One of these areas was the characteristic support for Israel, including the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018, a step that US presidents could not have taken for 70 years. Close cooperation with Israel was presented not only as economic, military, or geopolitical, but also as almost messianic. Thus, in 2019, D. Trump said that Israeli Jews revere him as the King of Israel, as the second coming of God, blaming American Jews for supporting the Democrats. Of course, the support of the Jewish community may be important to Trump, but it is equally important that many Americans see their tradition as Judeo-Christianity, which is why many evangelicals are supporters of Israel and took Trump’s support for it as evidence of the latter’s deep respect for Christianity.
Religion became even more prominent on the agenda when Michael Pompeo took over as US Secretary of State, and another Kansas representative, and equally conservative Christian, Samuel Brownback, became Special Envoy for International Religious Freedom. At the same time, in 2018, the annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom conference was launched, which became a place for high-level representatives from different countries to discuss religious freedom in the world. And in September 2019, President D. Trump organized an event on religious freedom on behalf of the United States at the UN headquarters for the first time. When presenting the US State Department’s reports on religious freedom in the world, Pompeo positioned himself as a conservative Christian and the United States as the main defender of the right of people around the world to religious freedom. According to Pompeo, the protection of religious freedom is necessary so that people around the world can freely assemble and practice their own religious needs, including reading the Bible, Torah, and Quran. The Secretary of State emphasized in his speeches that the issue of religious freedom is the most important for the Trump administration compared to previous governments, and in particular, initiatives to monitor and combat anti-Semitism are related to this. Ambassador Brownback’s rhetoric was very similar. He emphasized that this position means more to him than the governorship or senate positions he held before, because his responsibility has begun to cover billions of people, as the United States fights for religious freedom around the world, insisting that governments respect this right.
Pompeo and Brownback, as conservative Christians and parishioners of specific church communities – and the former was even proud to serve as a deacon in his church – differed significantly from Trump in this regard, and symbolized the traditional conservative way of appealing to religion within the Republican party. While supporting the idea of religious freedom, representatives of this wing of the Republicans promote the idea of moving away from non-denominational civil religion toward specific confessional beliefs. During the Joseph Biden administration, House Speaker Michael Johnson became the face of this wing of the Republicans. He is a Southern Baptist, and has repeatedly stated that his worldview and decisions are based on the Bible and the ideas of the founding fathers, who tried to build the American constitutional model (he does not favor the term “democracy” and suggests instead “republic”) on biblical principles. Opponents of the Democratic Party generally call him an anti-democrat and the most intolerant speaker in US history. His conservative worldview rejects abortion, LGBT+, calls for restrictions on migration, and promotes free gun ownership. In the interview, he also emphasized that he does not recognize the separation of church and state as desirable, arguing that the founding fathers tried to protect the church from state encroachment with the 1st Amendment, not vice versa. In everyday life, Johnson is the opposite of Trump, who is twice divorced and involved in numerous scandals.
Despite the fact that conservative and populist approaches to appealing to religion differ significantly, the value of religious freedom is one of the basic principles that unites Republicans in the United States today. The unanimity of American top officials on the issue of protecting religious freedom indicates that this issue is extremely important in the development of US foreign policy. In other words, the issue of religious freedom is becoming an instrument of political influence in the United States. Attitudes toward a particular state and sanctions against it depend largely not on the existence of democracy, but on the provision of religious freedom. American politicians approach the protection of religious freedom primarily through their own religiosity, through the desire to convert as many people as possible to the Abrahamic religious traditions. It is important for Ukrainian public figures to understand this, since, on the one hand, the Ukrainian model of religious freedom is similar to the American model and differs significantly from the European model, which sometimes contributes to the spread of sentiment toward Ukraine in the republican camp. On the other hand, populist Republicans such as Tucker Carlson, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Elon Musk accuse Ukraine of violating religious freedom and call for limiting aid to our country on this basis, and Russian lobbyists are actively spreading the relevant narratives. Even if the Republicans fail to lead the new White House administration, relations with this community will remain existentially important for Ukrainian politicians for a long time to come, so taking religious issues into account should become a serious element of Ukrainian domestic and foreign policy, and actions in the religious sphere should be part of the state strategy, not populist information campaigns.