Many studies point out an increasing appropriation of religion by the radical right in liberal democracies, usually as part of their Islamophobic agendas. Such a view overlooks that religion is not simply appropriated, and Islam is not the only target. Religion can act as a more genuine driver of exclusionary politics, and it adds a particular sense of legitimacy to autocratic appeals that are anti-pluralistic and ultranationalist. This paper addresses the levels and processes of such instrumental appropriation along with the identification of more genuine religious elements in the radical right's strategic narratives. The focus here is primarily on what has been dubbed "Christian nationalism" or "Western civilizationalism". The major argument is that the uptake of Christian symbols and motifs by the radical right parties corresponds to a demand, in which Christian identity narratives are mixed with ultranationalist ideology, and that this demand is driven by processes of secularization, rapid cultural pluralization, and related changes in the party systems. More specifically, the paper wants to show in a case-oriented design that where secularization and/or pluralization have advanced and Christian Democracy or other religious parties have declined or become more secular, the radical right professes a growing para-Christian outlook, while higher levels of a population's religiosity feeds more genuine religious markers in radical right narratives, irrespective of how center-right parties perform.