Who Is a True Christian? - Contesting Religious Identity in American Culture

'No true Christian could vote for Donald Trump.' 'Real Christians are pro-life.' 'You can't be a Christian and support gay marriage.' Assertive statements like these not only reflect growing religious polarization but also express the anxiety over religious identity that pervades modern American Christianity. To address this disquiet, conservative Christians have sought security and stability: whether by retrieving 'historic Christian' doctrines, reconceptualizing their faith as a distinct culture, or reinforcing a political vision of what it means to be a follower of God in a corrupt world. The result is a concerted effort 'Make Christianity Great Again': a religious project predating the corresponding political effort to 'Make America Great Again.' Part intellectual history, part nuanced argument for change, this timely book explores why the question of what defines Christianity has become, over the last century, so damagingly vexatious - and how believers might conceive of it differently in future.

List of contents

Introduction: The Rule of Faith in an Age of Anxiety; 1. Modernizing the Rule: The Quest for the Essence of Christianity; 2. Recovering the Rule: The Retrieval of 'Historic Christianity'; 3. Inhabiting the Rule: How Christianity Became a Culture; 4. Weaponizing the Rule: Making Christianity (and America) Great Again; 5. Rewriting the Rule: Christianity without Orthodoxy; Conclusion: The Many Rules of Christianity.

About the author

David W. Congdon is a Senior Editor at the University Press of Kansas, where he acquires new titles in political science, and an Instructor at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. He is the author of three books, including The Mission of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann's Dialectical Theology (2015, which won the Rudolf Bultmann Prize in Hermeneutics from the Philipps University of Marburg), and the editor of Varieties of Christian Universalism: Exploring Four Views (2023).

Product details

• Authors: David W. (University Press of Kansas) Congdon, Congdon David W.
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.11.2025
• EAN: 9781009429023
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0942902-3
• No. of pages: 408
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; History of Ideas, PHILOSOPHY / Religious, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / General, RELIGION / Religion, Politics & State, HISTORY / Social History, RELIGION / Christianity / History, RELIGION / Philosophy, RELIGION / Christianity / General, Christianity, History of Religion, Philosophy of religion, Religion and Politics, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Religion, Politics & State, Religious and theocratic ideologies and movements