I'm Aisha Roscoe and you're listening to The Sunday Story from Up First, where we go beyond the news to bring you one big story.

So if you've been following the news over the last year, you've likely heard about the rise of the Christian nationalism movement.

Today on the Sunday story, we take a closer look at one group of Christian nationalists and hear their vision for the country in their own words.

I'm here with journalist Heath Drusen.

He's the hosting creator of the extremely American podcast series from Boise State Public Radio and the NPR Network.

The podcast series provides an inside look at how a national movement traces back to a church

in Idaho.

Keith, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks.

So I know that you've immersed yourself in reporting on Christian

nationalism in America. Talk to me about what this very, very broad category means to you.

Right. So Christian nationalism is a pretty broad movement. It can mean a lot of different things,

but there are some unifying ideologies in the movement. One big example is something called

dominionism. Now that's sort of a jargony term, but really what it means is that Christianity

should rule all aspects of life and that

Christ's teachings should be the foundation for all of society. And, you know, I've been covering

extremism since 2018, just looking at how extremism interacts with politics.

And a lot of my early coverage was about militias.

I covered the COVID lockdown pushback, which was really strong in Idaho especially,

and even elected officials pushing conspiracy theories.

And eventually, my reporting turned to Christian nationalism.

When I started in 2018, I think people saw it as a really fringe movement.

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