Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy

by Robert P. Jones

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy, a clear-eyed reckoning with the moral collapse of white Christianity and a call to protect American democracy.

What happens when the church trades faith for power, and democracy for dominion? In this searing book, Robert P. Jones names our moment for what it a great Backslide. White Christianity’s devotion to Donald Trump and Christian nationalism is not only a regression into authoritarian politics but a profound act of apostasy—a betrayal of the best of the Christian tradition.

Through reflections on history, his upbringing in the white evangelical South, and decades of social science research, Jones lays bare the roots of this collapse and the dangers it poses for our future. He takes us inside a faith tradition marked by an impoverished relationship to the Bible, a rejection of a genuine search for truth, and an upside-down world where empathy is considered a vice. Yet amid the wreckage, Jones finds signs of hope in efforts to remake our national holiday rituals and recover a Christianity that remains committed to democracy.

Timely and unflinching, Backslide is essential reading for anyone unwilling to surrender the soul of faith or the promise of democracy. A prophetic summons to moral responsibility, it reminds us that time is short for deciding which Christianity, and which America, will prevail.

Kindle Edition

Expected publication September 8, 2026

About the author

Robert P. Jones is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future (2023), as well as White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (2020), which won a 2021 American Book Award. He is also the author of The End of White Christian America (2016), which won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion.

Jones writes regularly on politics, culture, and religion for The Atlantic, TIME, Religion News Service, and other outlets. He is frequently featured in major national media, such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. Jones writes a weekly newsletter for those dedicated to the work of truth-telling, repair, and healing from the legacy of white supremacy in American Christianity at www.whitetoolong.net.

He holds a Ph.D. in religion from Emory University, an M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a B.S. in computing science and mathematics from Mississippi College. Jones was selected by Emory University’s Graduate Division of Religion as Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in 2013, and by Mississippi College’s Mathematics Department as Alumnus of the Year in 2016. Jones serves on the national program committee for the American Academy of Religion and is a past member of the editorial boards for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and Politics and Religion, a journal of the American Political Science Association.

Jones served as CEO of PRRI from the organization’s inception in 2009 to 2022. Before founding PRRI, he worked as a consultant and senior research fellow at several think tanks in Washington, D.C., and was an assistant professor of religious studies at Missouri State University.