The West Virginians Keeping an Eye on Christian Nationalism
What is Christian Nationalism? And how does it influence our state lawmakers?
These were the questions explored by nearly a dozen volunteers who participated in Keep Watch WV, a new volunteer program created by Justice & Jubilee.
From January to March of 2026, some volunteers watched sessions of the West Virginia Senate and House of Delegates, plus committee meetings. They took note of moments when Christian Nationalist sentiments were used to justify harmful legislation. Other volunteers shared clips of these moments on social media and added their commentary.
We spoke with several volunteers about their experiences
Volunteer Rev. Sarah Wilmoth heard about Keep Watch WV through her work with From Below: Rising Together for Coalfield Justice. Like Justice & Jubilee, From Below is a founding partner of the West Virginia Faith Collective.
“Christian Nationalism is a fusing of our identity as Christians and our identity as citizens of a particular country,” Sarah said. “We put those together and say that they must coincide with each other. And that’s not how our Christian faith works.”
But why is Christian Nationalism so problematic?
Because people use it to justify very dangerous and harmful things in the name of God, which makes it hard to question or resist them.
“Christian Nationalism wants everybody to think and look and act the same in a very particular kind of way,” Sarah said. “So, any kind of variation from the standard is seen as a threat. That’s when people are policed for their bodies, their skin tone, their gender identity, their choice of how to live, and who to love.”
In West Virginia, Christian Nationalism has been used to justify ending Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, restricting healthcare for transgender people, and siphoning money from public schools.
Volunteers Cynthia Fox and Paul Henneberger
We asked volunteer Paul Henneberger to tell us the most shocking Christian Nationalist moment he witnessed while participating in Keep Watch WV.
“The arguments for putting the bibles in the schools,” Paul said.
You read that right. This year, the West Virginia Senate passed a bill requiring public and charter schools to display the Aitken Bible in classrooms. Luckily, it didn’t pass the House or become law.
The Aitken Bible was the first English Bible printed in the United States, back in 1781. Publisher Robert Aitken petitioned Congress to make it the nation’s official Bible and place it in schools. They authorized him to publish it, but didn’t fulfill any of his other requests.
Even still, it’s an easy moment for Christian Nationalists to point to if they’re looking to argue that America has always been an explicitly Christian nation.
“I was also shocked by the statements made around the Bible to justify that bill,” said Paul, who is a practicing Christian. “Including a claim that the three branches of government came from the Old Testament, which I have yet to meet anyone who knows anything about that, including clergy.”
Paul, who recently retired from a career in public health research, learned about Keep Watch WV because he participated in two other Justice & Jubilee programs: Disarming the Bible and Disrupting Empire.
Disarming the Bible is our online course, which teaches people how to recognize when Scripture is being weaponized to harm marginalized groups. Disrupting Empire is our full-day in-person workshop, which covers similar topics in more detail.
“The more I’ve learned through these programs, the more I’ve become convinced that Christian Nationalism is about domination, fear, and violence,” Paul said. “And with that in mind, it’s not really Christian anymore. It’s not really following the teachings of Jesus Christ. It’s become part of a mechanism of some sort of autocracy or empire.”
Like Paul, retired physical therapist Cynthia Fox volunteered with Keep Watch WV after attending Disrupting Empire. Her top pick for most bizarre Christian Nationalism moment during this year’s legislative session?
“Some of the prayers that were said, where people were basically claiming that individual members of the Legislature were selected and anointed by God,” said Cynthia.
Although Cynthia already knew about Christian Nationalism, she said volunteering with Keep Watch WV deepened her engagement with the topic.
“I became more attuned to it and more sensitive to being able to detect it, as I continued to watch day after day after day,” Cynthia said. “Volunteering impacted me in a way that reading some newspaper articles about the topic wouldn’t have.”
For Sarah Brown, volunteering with Keep Watch WV felt like a way to space for people to build community and resist Christian Nationalism together.
“I grew up in a Fundamental Baptist Church and grew up Christian Nationalist,” Sarah said. “So, participating in this helped me feel like I was correcting things that I had participated in over a long period of time.”
Sarah’s TikTok account @AppalachianOracle has more than 11,000 followers and more than 260,000 likes. She used the platform to post videos of her reacting to Christian Nationalist sentiments shared during Session.
Sarah still believes in Christianity, but says she has worked hard to unlearn Christian Nationalism. Her faith is the reason she felt so passionate about calling out West Virginia’s lawmakers, because she felt they were weaponizing it.
“Christian Nationalism takes a faith — something that is supposed to build people up — and it takes the teachings of Christ, which call us to do good work for people in the community and to be selfless, and it twists those words in a way to create connections to authoritarianism and our legal system,” Sarah said.
Nearly half of Americans believe in the fundamental premises of Christian Nationalism, and West Virginia is no exception. But we know that there are plenty of people in our state who seek justice and liberation for all. West Virginia’s unique geography, our state’s current political demographics, and prevailing theology just make it hard for like-minded people to find each other.
“You’ve got people who want to speak out, but they don’t know that there are other people that feel the same way. And I think that that’s intentional,” Sarah said. “They want to disconnect people, because it weakens their position. It weakens their ability to do what they’re trying to do. And that’s contrary to what this faith is supposed to be.”
It’s our hope that programs like Keep Watch WV will continue creating a space for people to build community and resist Christian Nationalism together.
