in: Z Religion Ges Polit (2021) | Link | Open Access

In the current politicization from the far-right, the role of Christianity has so far been described as a diffuse identity marker, as belonging without believing. References such as ‘Christian culture’ express identity, but they articulate a secular and cultural rather than a believing ‘We’. Such diagnoses have been based primarily on public programs or discourses. But it remains unclear to what extent Christian ideas also appear meaningful on the level of new local groups and their identity formation. Building on the concept of affective boundary making which sharpens the focus on precisely these experience-based processes of meaning-making, this article explores the meanings and functions of Christianity for various locally active groups of the so-called New Right (AfD, Pegida, Identitarian Movement). Three exemplary cases show how multifaceted and also controversial Christianity is for a collective identity of the New Right: Christianity unifies as a secularized cultural force, but beyond that commonality, fundamentally different concepts of identity and social order are revealed. The findings point to the limits of politicization through ethnopluralism.