Spiritual Manifest Destiny: B.A. Santamaria's Political Theology

This article offers a reading of B.A. Santamaria's political theology and its role in the making of contemporary Australian political imaginaries. The article charts the shifting targets of Santamaria's critique and activism, showing his departure from the perceived communist threat to a wide‐ranging attack on liberal and leftist social movements. In so doing, the article argues that Santamaria should be considered an early architect of, and advocate for, the idea and practice of the culture war in Australian politics, one that rallies conservative political actors around concepts of the traditional family, normative gender politics, and the defence of Christianity.