Christian Nationalism Finds the Campus Quad

Last updated on: September 1, 2026 at 10:06 am by Melanie Springer Mock

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Christian Nationalism Finds the Campus Quad 2026-08-31T11:31:30-07:00 Melanie Springer Mock

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This past weekend kicked off another academic year at my university. I spent part of Friday in the campus quad, welcoming students to their new home. Welcome Weekend activities offer rich opportunities for people watching; these days, I mostly observe the parents, thinking about how their hearts must be breaking as they prepare to say goodbye.

Having (relatively) recently launched my own sons into adulthood, I empathize with the parents’ potentially complicated feelings, their pride and fear in letting go. I cannot watch the tearful goodbyes without being tearful myself, so much wrapped up in that liminal space between childhood and adulthood. Especially in those cases where the young person seems irritated by their parents’ proximity, I empathize with the kids, too, remembering well my own first day of college, when I treated my parents poorly because I couldn’t face leaving them–or, rather, having them leave me.

All that to say, the emotions rolling through campus this past weekend were complicated and contradictory, as the best (and worst!) parts of life can be.

Image of a campus quad at sunrise.

Photo provided by the author.

This year, sitting at my English Department information table in the quad, I noticed a different phenomenon: a preponderance of Christian nationalist merch, worn primarily by fathers (and some sons). In all my years of Welcome Weekend people watching, this is a first for me, and it made me wonder and worry that something has changed in the campus zeitgeist, at least where the parents of first-year students are concerned.

It could be that my radar is specifically attuned these days to t-shirts and slogans that are Christian nationalist coded. I’ve spent the last year writing about the pernicious nature of Christian nationalism, how its proponents were embedded in my local school board, how its ideology caused division and rancor and chaos in the small community I love.

Perhaps others wouldn’t notice the marks of Christian nationalism I saw in the quad. The Freedom and Make Heaven Crowded merch Erika Kirk started selling after her husband was murdered last September. The T-shirts with guns and flags, one proclaiming “I stand for the flag and kneel for the cross.”

But honestly, the young man wearing a shirt that simply said Send Me was what sent me, though when I pointed it out to a colleague, she didn’t know the slogan’s recent cultural currency. Here it is: This summer, the Department of Defense initiated a social media campaign that employs biblical allusion to imply that war-making is God-inspired. Numerous social media posts superimposed the words “Send Me” over images of soldiers, echoing Isaiah 6.8 (“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”).

Clearly, that misguided–dare I say heretical?–social media campaign has now made its way to t-shirts, some produced by a company called Kingdom and Country, which offers an entire line of merchandise conflating Jesus and the Flag. That company’s site says their products affirm the belief that “what you wear should be a reflection of who you are and what you stand for,” and I’m guessing those wearing the Christian nationalist-coded merchandise definitely agree.

It’s hard to know what meaning I should ascribe to those folks choosing to wear guns-n-God merch to a child’s college orientation weekend. Do people wearing Send Me shirts assume that they will be in happy company at the college quad, among other Christian conservatives who share their belief that God blesses war? Or do they want to convert those around them who haven’t yet seen their light, especially at a Quaker-founded institution? (Or was the Send Me shirt just top of all the laundry piles, and I’m reading too much in a not-so-deliberate decision?)

At any rate, seeing the Christian nationalist-coded gear makes me a little more on edge as I start my 26th year of teaching at the university. And, to be honest, as I prepared for classes this fall, I thought about colleagues at other universities, and what they might be facing as far-right leaders continue to demand that diversity efforts be curtailed. I thought about professors in Texas, whose courses are being cancelled because they address race and ethnicity, gender, or world religions. I thought about how the Trump Administration has undermined trust in universities which, he said, are “infested with radicalism like never before.” (Just last week, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said he’d never send his daughter to Harvard, because the Ivy League corrupts girls’ minds.)

I thought about the school I love, about the way George Fox College changed my life when I was a student, shaping my shallow thinking about faith into something deeper, more profound and sustaining. I’ve spent over half my life dedicated to this institution, and although we have been accused by critics of being “too woke” and “not Christian,” the university where I work continues to have a transformative influence on students, staying faithful to the school’s Jesus-centered mission.

I worry that the nationalist merch will make this mission harder. That the books I’ve assigned for this semester, predominantly written by immigrants and other marginalized people, will be seen as too radical and unChristian (though I find them to be profoundly Christian, which is why I chose them). That any critique I make in journalism about our current administration will be considered fake news. That the book I’m publishing next spring will put the university I love in some far right provocateurs’ cross-hairs.

As with most things about life right now, my feelings about starting the semester feel heavier, more complicated than ever before. But I’m still hopeful that my work (and that of so many colleagues) will meet the moment, helping students recognize that Christian nationalism is not after all Christian, and that following the life and ministry of Christ means far more than wearing merch that promotes empire. Faced with this challenge of helping students know what it means to truly love God by loving others, I can’t help but say Here I Am. Send Me.

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