In George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, characters engage in doublespeak, a way of distorting language to obscure its true meaning. Christian Nationalists have mastered their own doublespeak. Nowhere is this more apparent than when reading Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s manifesto for transforming our government into a Christo-fascist regime.
Christian Nationalists are taught to be “in the world but not of it.” This means they are called to live alongside the world’s non-Christians, but they are called to remain separate and apart from secular behavior and influence. One way they attempt to remain apart is with language. They speak in a language I call Evangelicalese. I grew up in the world of Christian Nationalism. Evangelicalese was my second language.
By studying Project 2025 and the specific language Christian Nationalist politicians use, we can translate the words they say into what those words really mean to them. A Christian Nationalist’s use of a word or phrase may mean something very different to someone outside their community. It is vital to grasp what Christian Nationalists mean when they say things. because they deploy Evangelicalese to hide extreme positions in plain sight.
Nowhere is this more apparent than when reading Project 2025.
On pornography
Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered. - Project 2025, page 13
To many media outlets, this was a throwaway paragraph. Why would anyone make more of it? The average American understands pornography generally includes mediums like adult websites, adult films, fetish sites and similar.
To a Christian Nationalist, pornography means those things, but it also means a lot more.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has called homosexuality pornography. Oklahoma state representative Tom Woods has deemed transgenderism to be filth, a stand-in word for pornography. A Florida school pulled images of Michelangelo’s David because parents considered it to be pornographic.
Is an artist who paints a nude artwork a pornographer? What about a romance author who writes racy love scenes? Or a columnist like Dan Savage who pens sex advice? A Christian Nationalist’s definition of pornography goes far beyond what the rest of the country considers to be porn. This difference matters because they intend to imprison creators and consumers of anything they consider to be pornography.
On marriage
Marriage is between one man and one unrelated woman. – Project 2025, page 481
When the framers of Project 2025 write marriage is between one man and one unrelated woman, they explicitly exclude same-sex marriage. Their basis for this belief? Their interpretation of the Bible, where they insist that God defines marriage as between one man and one unrelated woman.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. Genesis 2:24 KJV
Christian Nationalists also believe marriage is a holy lifelong covenant between God, husband, and wife. Holy covenants cannot be broken simply because one or both parties decide the marriage was a mistake.
Through their use of language, they are signaling that they will repeal settled rights to same-sex marriage and the right to end a dysfunctional marriage through no-fault divorce.
On the family
Protect faith-based grant recipients from religious liberty violations and maintain a biblically based, social science–reinforced definition of marriage and family. - Project 2025, page 481
We need your help to stay independent
Project 2025 also defines a family as one man, one unrelated woman, and children. Their rationale for this definition is drawn from the Bible verse referenced above. They go on to condemn unmarried couples living in a home with children, as well as single parents and same-sex partners. If they come to power, they will force this definition of the family on red-and-blue state Americans alike, and use it to redefine all manner of family financial support programs.
On assisting women with children caused by abortion bans
Grant allocations should protect and prioritize faith-based programs that incorporate local churches and mentorship programs or increase social capital through multilayered community support (including, for example, job training and social events). Project 2025, page 481 (one sample Project 2025 recommendation of many utilizing faith-based welfare assistance)
Republican politicians like to insist that they will provide for women and the children abortion bans forced them to have. The Christian Nationalist mechanism for delivering this help: Religious indoctrination as a predicate for receiving aid. These programs require Bible study attendance for diapers, chapel service attendance for shelter, meetings with unlicensed Christian “counselors,” and more. They often forbid resident women to date and enforce strict curfews.
Project 2025 outlines Christian Nationalists’ ambitious goals to divert taxpayer funds to churches and religious non-profits for many types of welfare assistance. It refers to faith-based organizations, religious freedom, and churches over 130 times. When they say they will help, it will come with the strings of rigid Christian Nationalist indoctrination.
On rape and incest exceptions to abortion bans
Christian Nationalist politicians use Evangelicalese to defend their positions. When a Missouri legislator voted against rape exceptions to the state’s abortion ban, he justified it by saying forced birth can be the greatest healing agent. While many Americans may interpret this response as cruel and callous, it is in line with Christian Nationalist tenets.
Christian Nationalists believe God sends unwanted pregnancies to women to judge them for hidden sin or to draw their attention to something lacking in their lives. They insist that God doesn’t make mistakes. Every pregnancy happens because God wills it. Women should greet these messages from God with gratefulness and joy, because it will lead to healing their relationship with God.
Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
While it is fine for Christian Nationalists to believe this is how God works in their lives, it is not acceptable to force the female population of an entire state or country to live by this rigid Christian Nationalist dogma. But if Americans do not grasp this hidden meaning, how can they confront it?
On gun violence
The 920 pages of Project 2025 are completely silent on the scourge of American gun violence, but Christian Nationalists do have much to say about the causes of gun violence. Christian Nationalist politicians are notorious for offering thoughts and prayers after every shooting, while voting to expand access to guns days or weeks later. They insist: Guns aren’t the problem; people are. What does this exhausting phrase mean to them?
Christian Nationalists believe every human problem can be solved with the Bible. Mass shooters have a heart problem, they reason. A shooter’s heart can be transformed by knowing the One True God. From their pulpits, pastors claim gun violence is God’s judgment on a country that has rejected the One True God. Until we turn to him, we must live with this violence and its deadly consequences.
The next time a Christian Nationalist politician offers empty thoughts and prayers in response to a mass shooting, hit them with a rejection of what they are really saying. Americans, and especially American children, do not deserve to live with gun violence simply because Christian Nationalists worship a vengeful, angry God.
Orwell understood that the manipulation of language is an insidious tool of autocracies. Christian Nationalists have been working for decades to pollute the discourse as a means to power and control. The future of American democracy depends upon understanding what Christian Nationalists mean when they say things. It is vital to drill down into their doublespeak, or we may find ourselves living in a dystopian reality created in the image of their Christian Nationalist faith.
Shares