In January 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made a promise. “I will tell you, Christianity is under tremendous siege, whether we want to talk about it or we don’t want to talk about it,” Trump said. If he were to be elected president, he vowed that “Christianity would have power.”
For decades, the Christian Right has underscored many aspects of conservative politics, existing as a base of support for many Republican politicians and as a driving force behind many cultural issues. In its most extreme form, it exists as a powerful Christian nationalist movement. This movement is defined by an ideology known as Dominionism — the idea that regardless of theology, means or timetable, Christians have a right to exercise control over society’s political and cultural institutions. It is a belief in Christians’ God-given right to power in America.
Dominionism is a trans-denominational ideology. Founded in evangelical circles, it was embraced by Catholics joining Christian nationalist movements in the late 20th century. Today, its political goals are often oversimplified as a position against abortion rights, which has remained the most famous cultural issue among evangelicals and has driven a deep wedge in the Catholic electorate. In reality, Christian political organizations have cultivated “biblically correct” positions on dozens of issues, ranging from public schooling to taxes.
Dominionists frame their pursuit of political control as a defense of religious liberty. They do this by rejecting secularism as a principle of America’s foundation. Instead, they insist that the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian ideals that have been worn away over time. This revisionism has led some scholars to allege that some churches are held together more by political orientation and sociology than by theology.
This is an ongoing project.
A statue of Jesus Christ, Columbia, Mo.
×Anti-abortion pamphlets hang alongside a cross in the entryway of St. Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Boonville, Mo.
×A woman prays and dances atop the central staircase in during a “prayer and praise” event held on Monday, March 20, 2023 at the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo.
×Nick Koval came to the United States as a 10-year-old religious refugee from the Soviet Union. Today, he leads a college ministry in Columbia, Mo. and his thinking on faith and its role in American life is influenced by his understanding of his own history and the history of Christianity itself. In the first 300 years of the Christian faith, the church was never a recognized part of the Roman Empire, Koval said. After Emperor Constantine I legitimized Christianity within Rome, the church began to cater to secular leaders and began squeezing those who disagreed out of positions of influence. Now, Koval sees history repeating itself in the United States. “Caesar protected the church and the church approved the emperor. This is the downfall of the church in America. We look to D.C. to protect us, and we approve D.C.,” Koval said. “When we work so closely with Washington D.C., we destroy our ability to be a true witness for God.”
×James Imhoff prays the rosary on Nov. 3, 2020 at St. Peter & Paul Catholic Church in Boonville, Mo. He, along with a handful of other parishioners, prayed the church’s “Election Day rosary” in the hopes that the outcome of the election would advance the anti-abortion movement. Imhoff had previously spent the morning praying outside a Planned Parenthood in nearby Columbia, Mo. That Planned Parenthood location does not provide abortions.
×A stained-glass window and an anti-abortion sign sit outside St. Peter & Paul’s Catholic Church in Boonville, Mo.
×A sign present at the 2023 March for Life encourages the excommunication of Catholics in favor of abortion rights. Polling shows that despite Vatican teaching, abortion is a divisive issue for Catholic voters, with about 50% of Catholics supporting abortion rights.
×Supporters of abortion rights rally on May 3, 2022 outside the Boone County Courthouse in Columbia, Mo. The rally was part of a nationwide show of support for abortion rights, in the wake of the May 2, 2023 leak of a draft opinion that suggested the Supreme Court was prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade.
×University of St. Mary Students for Life President McKinzie Horsley and Vice President Landry Murley founded the campus chapter of Students for Life. And in 2023, they led the club on a pilgrimage to Washington, DC to take part in the first March for Life in a post-Roe v. Wade United States. Ideologically, Horsley and Murley believe in abortion restrictions without exception for rape or incest and both tie their activism to their Catholic faith. "You don’t have to be a Christian to believe that life is valuable,” Horsley said. “But for Christians specifically, that is so central to our faith, that life is sacred, that it was designed and created intentionally for a purpose is that we didn’t just happen. And if you’re truly living and acting out of that belief, I don’t know how you couldn’t do something.”
×Ava Burghart, front left, and McKinzie Horsley, center right, exchange cards during a game of Uno on the 28-hour bus ride to Washington, DC.
×McKinzie Horsley carries a carnation to the Monument of the Unborn on Benedictine College’s campus on Jan. 18, 2023.
×Students leave carnations at the Monument of the Unborn on Benedictine College’s campus on Jan. 18, 2023.
×From left, Sebastian Stephenson, Kortney Flynn, McKinzie Horsley, Ava Burghart and Kelsey Taylor eat breakfast at a Hardees in Ohio, more than 12 hours into their journey to Washington, DC.
×Sebastian Stephenson, a student at Benedictine College, holds an empty Hardee’s sandwich container.
×Students from the University of St. Mary Students for Life anti-abortion group attend the 50th March for Life on Jan. 20, 2023 in Washington, DC. This March for Life was the first since Dobbs v. Jackson Mississippi Women’s Health overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the power to legalize or restrict abortion to lawmakers.
×From left, Emma Coit, McKinzie Horsley and Weston Hutchings listen to a speaker at the March for Life rally.
×The March for Life makes its way toward the U.S. Capitol. In 2023, the march’s route was changed to walk by the Capitol before it reached the Supreme Court. The change was symbolic of the anti-abortion movement’s new focus on enacting abortion restrictions at the federal and state level now that the Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
×A small group of counterprotesters met the anti-abortion activists attending March for Life on Jan. 20, 2023, outside of the U.S. Supreme Court. Bullhorn in arm, their leader yelled, “Thank God for abortion.”
×Three men stand on the steps of the Missouri Capitol during a political rally on March 20, 2023. The event was held in support of SB49, a bill that would criminalize gender affirming healthcare for transgender children. One man's sign invokes Matthew 18:6 — “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”
×Addam Dommeyer, a regional manager with Turning Point USA Faith, points to a words engraved in an archway of the Missouri Capitol “Lord of God our hosts be with us yet - lest we forget” during his speech at a rally on March 20, 2023. During his speech, Dommeyer called on American pastors to speak out on political issues.
×A Turning Point USA Faith table, set up on March 20, 2023, inside the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. Part of the Turning Point USA network, TPUSA Faith is an organization “on a mission to engage, equip, and empower Christians to change the trajectory of our nation.”
×An anti-abortion activist dressed as Wonder Woman carries an American-themed shield invoking the phrase “God bless America” on Jan. 20, 2023 at the March for Life rally.
×A cart selling both Christian flags and flags exclaiming “Let’s Go Brandon” — a conservative euphemism for “Fuck Joe Biden” — positions itself near the entrance of the March for Life rally on Jan. 20, 2023 in Washington, DC.
×Pastor Ken Peters is the pastor of Patriot Church, where Christianity and conservative politics are intertwined. To him, his church is a fortress on the front lines of political culture wars, from where Peters can fight for the Judeo-Christian beliefs on which he believes the country was founded. He has also used it to promote the conspiracy that the 2020 election was fraudulent and that Donald Trump is the true president of the United States. Patriot Church does not align itself with any specific denomination, but it is evangelical. Experts say that evangelical support for Trump is best understood the the context of Christian nationalism, an ideology with supporters who are more likely to believe America should be a Christian nation, espouse racist and pro-authoritarian views and view political violence as acceptable. Experts also characterize Christian nationalism as a core motivation of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
×The barn in which Patriot Church meets, in Lenoir City, Tenn., is adorned with a massive American flag painted on the roof. The flag was already present when Peters found it in July 2020.
×From left, Jack Miller, Karis Peters, Alona Savchenko and Jenna Nepomuceno attend morning service on Nov. 29, 2020 at Patriot Church in Lenoir City, Tenn. The group of students, most of whom were on Thanksgiving Break from Pensacola Christian College in Pensacola, Fla., led Patriot Church’s worship service that morning.
×The book “Church & State: How the Left Used the Church to Conquer America” features chapters written by numerous far right pundits and religious leaders. The book claims, “Marxists have been infiltrating every aspect of our American way of life in an attempt to fundamentally change our great country” and frames the evangelical church as “the last beacon of hope to push back against their progressive, leftist socialist agenda.”
×Pastor Ken Peters yells during his sermon on Nov. 29, 2020 at Patriot Church in Lenoir City, Tenn. Peters’ sermon focused on ideas of “freedom” in both a Biblical and American context, as he preached from the Book of Galatians and pulled inspiration from American founding father Patrick Henry, famous for his quote, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Pastor Ken Peters yells during his sermon on Nov. 29, 2020 at Patriot Church in Lenoir City, Tenn. Peters’ sermon focused on ideas of “freedom” in both a Biblical and American context, as he preached from the Book of Galatians and pulled inspiration from American founding father Patrick Henry, famous for his quote, “Give me liberty or give me death!”
×Members of Patriot Church worship on the morning of Nov. 29, 2020, during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not a single person in the congregation was masked in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, a virus that killed 818 Americans that day.
×A worshiper raises a hand as they sing on Nov. 29, 2020 at Patriot Church in Lenoir City, Tenn.
×A cross and signs saying “Time’s Up, Turn to Jesus” stand along a side road on March 1, 2023 outside Fair Grove, Mo.
×A chapel stands just off the geographic center of the contiguous United States, just outside of Lebanon, Kan. It seats eight people and is open to visitors 24 hours a day. It is, unequivocally, a tourist attraction — a photo opportunity just a couple miles off the highway. In February 2021, rockstar Bruce Springsteen starred in a politically-themed Super Bowl commercial for Jeep featuring the chapel.
×A painting of the Virgin Mary and a statue of Jesus Christ inside St. Peter & Paul’s Catholic Church in Boonville, Mo.
×A woman, holding a Christian flag and wearing American flag socks, walks down the sidewalk during the 2023 March for Life on Jan. 20, 2023 in Washington, DC.
×It was outside a movie theater in Springfield, Missouri that Leighton Shepherd realized he couldn’t go to church anymore. He was attending a weekend church retreat along with most of his friends, when one of them brought up something that had happened within the church — a student working on the digital team was asked to step down because he was gay. For Shepherd, who is gay and had been hiding his identity from the church, his family and his friends, that incident was like a wake-up call. Three years removed from his former church, Shepherd is now an atheist. “Christianity, on another level, is a toxic religion,” Shepherd said. “How does one community get to decide ‘God sent this man’ and now he’s in power?”
×LGBTQ-affirming pins and stickers are displayed on a desk at The Neighborhood in Columbia, Mo. The Neighborhood is a queer-affirming and deconstructing college ministry that encourages its members to “question everything.”
×College students attend an “Ask Me Anything” session on April 5, 2023 at The Neighborhood in Columbia, Mo. The session, led by Rebes Bennett, explored Jewish and Christian histories with abortion rights before breaking into group sessions so students could discuss their own thoughts.
×A picture of Jesus is displayed near a sidewalk on Monday, March 23, 2023 in Jefferson City, Mo. To its right rises the steeple of St. Peter Interparish School. To its left is the Missouri Capitol building.
×Tristen Rouse is a documentary photographer and photo editor born and raised in southwest Missouri. He was also raised in the Southern Baptist Church. In 2016, he saw many of those he knew in the church begin to support a presidential candidate who dehumanized refugees, bragged about assaulting women and advocated for violence against those who opposed him — but promised to secure Christianity as a powerful force in the United States. In this candidate and in the members of his faith who supported him, Rouse did not recognize the values espoused by Jesus Christ. In 2016, Rouse left organized Christianity. Today, his relationship with God is simple, but his relationship with Christianity is complex. He believes in the values of Jesus Christ but does not see them in some of His supporters. He does not attend church but carries a Bible that once belonged to his mother. He understands Christianity to be one of the most influential voting blocs in modern conservative politics but does not understand why. This project is a reconciliation for Rouse as he searches for reason within the relationship between scared beliefs and secular politics.