Not Presently

He is, he does, and he's wrong on both counts.

Josh Hawley: “Some will say now that I am calling America a Christian Nation. So I am. And some will say that I am advocating Christian Nationalism. And so I do."
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— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) December 18, 2024

In some narrow sense, the USA is a Christian nation.  The PRRI survey of "The American Religious Landscape in 2020" indicates that slightly less than 70% of the public identifies with a religion that is generally considered "Christian": Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon).

That number is well below that of several generations ago and obscures a significant shift in religious practice. In March of 2021, Gallup reported

Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999…..

The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference. Over the past two decades, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 1998-2000 to 13% in 2008-2010 and 21% over the past three years.

On September 4, Senator Hawley spoke before the National Conservatism Conference, outlining "The Christian Nationalism We Need," focusing on family and faith.  There was emphasis on "work, home, and God," as if Christians held a monopoly on these values.

Of course, there was no talk of the underpinnings of the Chritian faith, nor a call to Americans to return to church, or to prayer, or to reading the word of God. That would have required too much persuasion by the Senator in a country which has increasingly turned away from religion- and from God, notwithstanding Hawley's embrace of the "In God We Trust" motto. Generating misconception is the Missouri senator's specialty.

It was not a religious speech nor a Christian speech but a political one in which Hawley attempted to entangle God with country, which neither honors America as a land of religious mosaic nor glorifies the Almighty. Josh Hawley calls America a "Christian nation" and advocates Christian nationalism, doing his small part ultimately to undermine both God and nation.  

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