Political Narratives of Christian Nationalism: The Lutheran Legacy in Contemporary Danish Right-Wing Political Discourse

The rise of right-wing populism in recent decades has stimulated research interest in the political role of Christianity in Europe. European right-wing politicians – among them Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and Giorgia Meloni in Italy – have invoked Europe’s Christian heritage as crucial to European civilization in general and to their national identity in particular, which they portray as threatened by globalization, immigration, and a secular liberal elite. In their rhetoric, “God, Homeland and Family” are presented as core European values. Recent research has paid more attention to the political role of Catholicism than to that of Protestantism. To address this gap, the focal point of this paper is the political articulation of Lutheranism in contemporary right-wing discourse, using Denmark as a case. The paper analyzes how the broader European right-wing invocation of Christianity is translated into the Danish national context, and how contemporary right-wing narratives about the Danish Lutheran Reformation of the 16th century and the “Popular” Reformation of the 19th century shape imaginaries of Danish political culture and history today. These narratives help construct a thick national community and support Manichean political strategies aimed at defending “Danishness” against perceived existential threats from both within and beyond Denmark’s borders.