For Christian nationalists, questioning Obama’s faith served the same function as questioning his citizenship.

Evidence

Race had been central to the formation of white evangelicals’ political and cultural identity, and so it’s not surprising that evangelical opposition to the first African American president would reflect a belief in his “otherness.” Explicit expressions of racism were rare, but among conservatives generally, the birther movement gained traction, questioning the legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship. Within evangelical circles, Franklin Graham added fuel to the fire by agreeing that the president had “some issues to deal with” regarding his birth certificate. Graham also questioned the legitimacy of Obama’s Christian faith. For Christian nationalists, casting doubt on Obama’s faith functioned in the same way as questioning the legitimacy of his citizenship. The president’s problem, according to Graham, was that “he was born a Muslim”—the “seed of Islam” had passed through his father to him, and “the Islamic world sees the president as one of theirs.” Graham saw “a pattern of hostility to traditional Christianity by the Obama administration” while Muslims seemed to be “getting a pass.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 535

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the birther movement literature and work on racial ‘othering’ of Obama — e.g., Ta-Nehisi Coates on birtherism — and to scholarship on Christian nationalism (e.g., Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry).
• SEED: Angle: how religious legitimacy claims function as a euphemistic proxy for racial legitimacy in white evangelical political discourse — the ‘soft’ racism of faith-testing.