religions Article Nations under God: How Church–State Relations Shape Christian Responses to Right-Wing Populism in Germany and the United States Tobias Cremer   Citation: Cremer, Tobias. 2021. Nations under God: How Church–State Relations Shape Christian Responses to Right-Wing Populism in Germany and the United States. Religions 12: 254. https:// doi.org/10.3390/rel12040254 Academic Editor: Jocelyne Cesari Received: 4 March 2021 Accepted: 2 April 2021 Published: 6 April 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Pembroke College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1DW, UK; tc459@cam.ac.uk or tobias.cremer@pmb.ox.ac.uk; Tel.: +44-7948-044319 Abstract: Right-wing populists across many western countries have markedly intensified their references to Christianity in recent years. However, Christian communities’ reactions to such de- velopments often vary significantly, ranging from disproportionate support in some countries to outspoken opposition in others. This paper explores the role of structural factors, and in particular of Church–State relations, in accounting for some of these differences. Specifically, this article explores how Church–State relations in Germany and the United States have produced different incentives and opportunity structures for faith leaders when facing right-wing populism. Based on quantitative studies, survey data, and 31 in-depth elite interviews, this research suggests that whereas Germany’s system of “benevolent neutrality” encourages highly centralised churches whose leaders perceive themselves as integral part and defenders of the current system, and are therefore both willing and able to create social taboos against right-wing populism, America’s “Wall of separation” favours a de-centralised religious marketplace, in which church leaders are more prone to agree with populists’ anti-elitist rhetoric, and face higher costs and barriers against publicly condemning right-wing pop- ulism. Taking such structural factors into greater account when analysing Christian responses to right-wing populism is central to understanding current and future dynamics between politics and religion in western democracies. Keywords: right-wing populism; religion; nationalism; secularization; church and state; Trumpism; US constitution; civil religion; AfD 1. Introduction This paper compares the cases of Germany and the United States to investigate how a country’s institutional settlement of Church–State relations can shape Christian communities’ responses to right-wing populist politics. Germany and the United States are representative of many western countries in having recently experienced a surge of right- wing populist movements, which prominently display Christian symbols and use Christian language (Thielmann 2017; Whitehead and Perry 2020; Elcott et al. 2021). Pro-Trump rioters parading oversized crosses and Jesus flags during the storming of the Capitol in January 2021, or Germany’s far-Alternative for Germany (AfD) stylising itself as the defender of Germany’s “Judeo-Christian heritage” are two of the most recent examples of this development (Deutschlandfunk 2018; Cremer 2021b; Green 2021). However, while right- wing populist movements on both sides of the Atlantic appear determined to use Christian symbols and language in order to appeal to voters’ concerns about national and cultural identity (Marzouki et al. 2016; Brubaker 2017; Haynes 2020), the reactions of German and American Christian communities to such references are strikingly different. In the US, White Christians supported Donald Trump’s right-wing populist campaign at record-levels in the 2016 and 2020 elections and many American Christian leaders appeared at least tacitly supportive of the Trump administration (P. S. Gorski 2020; Whitehead and Perry 2020). By contrast, German Protestants and Catholics were significantly less likely to vote for the AfD Religions 2021, 12, 254. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12040254 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions