The success of populist movements in Western Europe and the United States has created conditions for the formation of new coalitions between religious groups and political ideologies that once stood hostile to each other. A convergence is taking place between the political views of conservative Evangelicals in the United States and so-called moral values traditionalists in Russia. Moreover, secular Europe, galvanized by paranoia over refugees and contempt for the European Union, is experiencing a return to Christian nationalism, a position promoted even by some atheists.

At the same time growing numbers of secularists, Christians, Jews and Muslims are joining forcing in their mutual attempt to resist the turn to nationalism. It could be said that their attempt to challenge the ills of capitalism, denounce Islamophobia, and to embrace refugees constitutes a new ecumenical movement. In many ways the Pontificate of Francis, often lauded by atheists, embodies the spirit of the new ecumenism.

This presentation attempts to outline what is driving the realignment of religion and politics in the Trump era. In doing so it argues that the political categories of Left and Right are being redefined according to a commitment to either civic ecumenism or nationalism.