How did you get here?
I didn’t set out to study religion and politics or the religious right. As an undergraduate, I was much more interested in political philosophy and social theory. But I grew up in a liberal Protestant family in a town that was full of conservative evangelicals, so I had a sense that religion was more important than most people on the secular left realised. Still, it wasn’t until graduate school at Berkeley that I decided to focus my research on religion and politics. Historical sociology was making a big comeback in those days, but the focus was on the classical, Marxist questions of class, state, and revolution. “Early modern state formation” was a hot topic in those days. The big debate was between Marxists (e.g., Immanuel Wallerstein and Perry Anderson) and “left Weberians” (e.g., Charles Tilly and Theda Skocpol). But despite all the talk of revolution and geopolitics, there was not a word about the Reformation or the Wars of Religion. Filling in that gap and correcting those accounts was the focus of my early career research. That research – and especially my research on the political culture of the Dutch Republic – attuned me to the close connection between Protestantism and nationalism, and the role that ideas of national “chosen-ness” played in linking them together. While that connection had weakened if not disappeared in the Netherlands and the UK, it was still present and powerful in the United States. So, my interest in Christian nationalism and civil religion in the contemporary US actually evolved out of my work on the Dutch Republic.
What is occupying you these days?
Like many people, I am following political developments in the US with growing alarm. Right-wing populism is not uniquely American, of course, and it has many different causes. But one of them is certainly the ongoing radicalisation of the religious right and its increasingly anti-democratic agenda. Another is the sudden and surprising emergence of what might be called “the new spiritual right.” “New” because there were also “spiritualist” currents in the fascist movements of the 20th century. “Right” because “spirituality” used to lean left not so long ago. I think this will probably be the focus of my next major research project.
As a senior US scholar who is relatively well-versed in Dutch and European affairs, what is your perspective on Dutch populism vis-à-vis US populism?
European and American populism are of course quite similar in many ways, particularly in their hostility towards immigration, (cultural) elites and Islam. One key difference concerns the place of religion. Europe is more “secular” than the United States in the sense that traditional Christianity is less influential – and less conservative. In the US, churchgoing Christians are a key constituency in the MAGA alliance, and (white) Christian nationalism – the claim that “America was founded as a (white) Christian nation” – is a core tenet of MAGA ideology. So much so that “evangelical Christian” has become a political label. In Europe, by contrast, and especially in Western Europe, the religious strand of right-wing populism is civilisationism – the idea that “Europe is founded on Judeo-Christian values” – and this claim is generally opposed by church leaders, rather than supported by them, as in the United States. That said, I see increasing convergence between populist movements in Europe and the US, also with respect to religion. Conservative religion is winning converts amongst the younger generations in both places, especially amongst young men. Meanwhile, the other big story about American religion is the rise of the “nones”, those who have no religious affiliation. They are now about one quarter of the US population and nearly 40% of the younger generation. So, the mix of religious and secular elements in European and American populism is not as different as it used to be.
That said, MAGA populism is now far more radical than its European counterparts, both in the virulence of its rhetoric and the lawlessness of its politics. Here, I think institutions are important. In particular, differences in their electoral systems and constitutional architectures. Donald Trump and his allies staged a hostile takeover of one of the two major parties. America’s “first past the post” electoral system combined with a high degree of “affective” or “negative polarisation” between the parties and other peculiarities of the American system means that a minority movement has achieved majority control of all three branches of American government. We now have a system of minority rule in which one well-organised and highly mobilised alliance is able to act like a political majority. This would not have been possible under a system of proportional representation of the sort that exists in the Netherlands and many other European countries. Geert Wilders and the PVV need parliamentary allies and have to make political compromises. Donald Trump and the GOP do not. Now, the electoral system in the UK is quite similar. And the Conservative Party there was also hijacked by right-wing populists led by Boris Johnson. So, why has it not followed the American trajectory? This brings us to the second major institutional difference: America’s powerful presidency. The Spanish political sociologist Juan Linz long ago argued that Presidential systems such as one finds throughout the Americas are inherently unstable and often devolve into political autocracies because they create two rival power centres – the President and the legislature – unlike Parliamentary systems, which have only one power centre. But critics noted one glaring exception to Linz’s theory: the United States. Linz died in 2013, three years before Donald Trump vindicated his theory.
Could you tell us something about your research at NIAS?
I am finishing a book tentatively entitled The Fragmentation of the Sacred: An Alternative Narrative of Western Modernity. I have a longstanding interest in secularisation theory, especially the neo-Weberian version advanced by Peter Berger, Jose Casanova and Charles Taylor amongst others. I have come to the conclusion that these theories are deeply mistaken, or at least, very one-sided. For better or worse, our post-Christian culture is just not “disenchanted” (entzaubert). It fairly bursts with myths and magic and gods and heroes. As often happens, intellectuals have mistaken their worldview for the culture. The goal of the book is to tell a very different story about the history of the West. It is of course true that traditional religion (i.e., organised Christianity) has lost influence, also in the United States. But it has not been replaced by scientific rationalism or philosophical materialism but by various forms of sacrality – everything from DIY spirituality to yoga studios to celebrity worship to hypernationalism. This reading of the culture leads to a different diagnosis of our politics as well.
The problem is not “the place of religion in the public sphere” so much as “building democratic solidarity amidst deep metaphysical diversity.” If we imagine that the pluralism of the present is anomalous it is only because the collective memory of the West, its historical account of itself, has been so deeply inflected by romanticised images of Mediaeval harmony and unity. Now, it is true that the Catholic Church exercised enormous influence during the High Middle Ages (ca. 1200). But it is also true that this was a time of conflict and division, of crusades and inquisitions, popes and councils, pogroms and persecutions. It was the Romantics of the 19th century (e.g., Schlegel and Novalis) who wrapped this history in gauze and longed for its return. And it is the reactionaries of today (e.g., JD Vance and Steve Bannon) who would like to take us back to this era.
Are Bannon and Vance not very different creatures? How would you describe their spiritual/religious makeup? (nationalist reactionary vs internationalist-accelerationist?) If I am not mistaken, you have been thinking about Accelerationism quite a lot lately? How do you think it differs from previous and competing systems in terms of goals, beliefs and strategies?
Bannon and Vance are not as different as they may seem. Both are officially Catholic, for example. Both also see themselves as tribunes of the (white) working class. Both were in the military. And both have a “burn it all down” vision of politics. In other words, they are both accelerationists who want to “sharpen the contradictions.” And both have allied and political order and clearing the ground for a new order ruled by men like them. The Trump coalition that they have helped to build is very different from the Reagan coalition that dominated the GOP until 2015. It is reactionary rather than conservative. Nationalist rather than internationalist. Protectionist rather than neoliberal.
There is one other key difference between the Reagan and Trump coalitions. The religious wing of the Reagan coalition was dominated by a “new religious right” that consisted of conservative white evangelicals and churchgoing white Catholics. Those two groups are also part of the Trump coalition. But they have been joined by what I am now calling the “new spiritual right” comprised of “charismatic Christians” (e.g., Pentecostals), spiritualistic libertarians (e.g., Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), Silicon Valley fascists, and the neo-Nietzschean manosphere. What unites these groups is the worship of power, the idea that there are hidden or occult powers in the world, that the world is defined by zero-sum conflict, and that those powers can be harnessed to prevail in the conflict (whether through prayer, yoga, coding or weightlifting). Unlike the Christian right, which at least gave lip service to Christian values such as charity and compassion, the spiritual right does not. Its politics are completely unhinged from ethics and are more influenced by aesthetics, by what feels good, looks right, seems natural, and so on. Responding to my worries about the politics of the religious right, a conservative Catholic intellectual warned: “Wait ‘til you meet the post-Christian right.” Looking back, I can’t say he was wrong.
How does your current project relate to / build upon your previous work?
I have worked on various periods of European and American history over the years – everything from the High Middle Ages to High Modernity. And I have always had a side interest in Antiquity, particularly Egypt and Mesopotamian civilisation, but also early Christianity. This project pulls these interests together and draws on the deep wells of specialised scholarship that has accumulated over the past century. But it also builds on my knowledge of the online and underground right.
And to other disciplines and domains?
This is a very, very interdisciplinary project that draws on various strands of social theory (especially Bourdieu’s theory of “social fields”) but also on many different historiographies.
With that in mind: what – if any – valuable new insights from other disciplines and domains do you feel your year at NIAS and in Amsterdam provided? Could those also have been gained at Yale, or is the perspective from NIAS and Amsterdam different? And, if so, how?
My favourite hour of the day at NIAS is the lunch hour. Each day, at 12:30 sharp, the fellows make their way down to the lunch room and sit down together for food and conversation. Not since I was a university undergraduate have I had such interesting and enriching discussions with smart people who study things I know little about. Could I have similarly wide-ranging conversations at Yale? In principle, yes. In practice, no. When I’m at Yale, I mostly speak with colleagues whose interests and expertise are fairly close to my own.
My favourite time of the day in Amsterdam is my morning and evening commute. I have been an avid cyclist my entire life. And in Amsterdam, bikes are the kings of the road. I love that! Of course, many tourists are afraid to ride bikes in the city – and rightly so! The bike traffic is heavy, the pace is quick, and while there are traffic rules and road markings, they are often ignored. But what I have learned is that Dutch cyclists are attuned to the traffic around them and make common sense accommodations for each other and for cars and pedestrians. To me, this has become a metaphor for Dutch society in general, and something that I have come to admire about the country.
What would you like your work to achieve?
I wanted the work that I and others did on Christian nationalism to raise public awareness of this phenomenon and we definitely succeeded in that. Ten years ago, you would not have heard the phrase “Christian nationalism” outside of a seminar room or an academic conference. Now, it routinely pops up in major newspapers, magazines and podcasts. But I guess the greater aim of my work would be to contribute to a diagnosis of the present that highlights the dangers facing democracy and points towards possible remedies.
Of course, I also want to do good scholarship that contributes to human knowledge. My current project on the fragmentation of the sacred is a very scholarly one. I don’t expect this book will be read by many non-academics. Because the project covers so much historical ground – it’s kind of a history of the sacred from Babylon to Beyoncé as I sometimes joke – I draw on the work of many historical specialists – Egyptologists, philologists, Mediaevalists, media studies, etc., etc.
And that research has led me to appreciate two things about our current historical moment. On the one hand, we are living in an era of immense intellectual creativity and productivity. The amount of knowledge that I have at my fingertips in the form of PDFs and e-books is astounding compared to, say, a Mediaeval monk who might have access to 300 books over the course of his entire life. On the other hand, this modern renaissance may be coming to an end, just like past renaissances did. There are plenty of people out there who prefer fantasy to fact, and mythology to history. They may even be in the majority.
Interview: Merlijn Olnon. A Dutch version of this interview appeared in de Nederlandse Boekengids | The Dutch Review of Books 2025 #4.
