Less attention has been paid to the role of Christianity within contemporary extremist movements.
By Jakob Guhl
Senior Manager, Policy & Research
Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD)
This Insight focuses on white Christian extremist communities on Telegram, which have been growing in the context of a renewed interest of extreme right communities in Christian Nationalism. It analyses their key narratives and discussions of aesthetics and religious practice. Based on this analysis of the digital manifestations of white Christian extremism, it argues that the role of religion in general and Christianity in particular within extreme right communities deserves greater attention from the research community.
In the post-9/11 context, debates about the role of religion within extremist movements and radicalisation pathways have predominantly focused on Islamist extremism and Salafi-jihadism in particular. While some scholars have argued that the importance of religious belief and its implications for the behaviour of extremist groups is overstated, others have argued that religion needs to be taken more seriously.
Less attention has been paid to the role of Christianity within contemporary extremist movements. This is partially due to the diminished role of Christianity within extreme right groups and propaganda in Europe at the end of the 20th century, which coincided with the increasing secularisation of European societies. Similarly, some of the key figures of the so-called ‘alt-right’ in the U.S. were self-declared atheists.
However, the US did not experience the same rapid process of secularisation in the second half of the 20th century. Levels of belief among Christians and church attendance in the US fell slowly, but remained high until their decline began to accelerate in the 1990s. In this context, many extreme right groups in the US retained a Christian outlook. More recently, there has been renewed interest in once-fringe concepts like Christian Nationalism and Catholic Integralism which have been embraced by the extreme right ‘Groyper’ movement but also by Republican Member of the House of Representatives and noted conspiracy theorist, Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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