Mooring Christian Nationalism: How Religious Institutions, Participation, and Beliefs Inform Christian Nationalism

Abstract

ABSTRACTChristian nationalism has been linked to a variety of political and social outcomes in the contemporary United States, however little research has investigated factors that give rise to it. Most scholars examining Christian nationalism contend that it is unmoored from extant social institutions, and even oppositional to institutional Christianity. This claim is associated with earlier research arguing for the declining influence of denominations, and particularly mainline Protestantism. In contrast, social movement theory views Christian nationalism as an ideological outgrowth of religious organizations, structured by exclusivist religious beliefs, and reenforced through religious participation. Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS) this investigation examines how religious and political factors inform subscription to Christian nationalism and explores how religious and political commitments are connected. In general, the findings support the expectations of the social movement perspective. Christian nationalism is strongly predicted by ties to sectarian Protestantism, religious participation, and fundamentalist beliefs, and it is not embraced by secular and non-Christian Americans.KEYWORDS: Christian nationalismreligionpolitics Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. A large and growing body of studies have examined the effect of United States Christian nationalism on varied outcomes such as: opposition to same sex marriage (Perry and Whitehead Citation2015b); support for Donald Trump (Baker, Perry, and Whitehead Citation2020b; Perry, Whitehead, and Grubbs Citation2022; Samuel et al. Citation2021; Whitehead and Perry Citation2020a); views about and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic (Corcoran, Scheitle, and DiGregorio Citation2021; Perry, Whitehead, and Grubbs Citation2020, Citation2021a; Whitehead and Perry Citation2020b); opposition to pornography (Perry and Whitehead Citation2020); support for abusive police behavior (Perry, Whitehead, and Davis Citation2019); opposition to immigration and negative views of immigrants (McDaniel, Nooruddin, and Faith Shortle Citation2011; Samuel, Rackin, and Froese Citation2021; Sherkat and Lehman Citation2018; Shortle and Keith Gaddie Citation2015); tolerance of racists (Davis and Perry Citation2021); opposition to science (Baker, Perry, and Whitehead Citation2020a); punitive attitudes (Davis Citation2018); perceptions of discrimination against Christians (Perry, Schnabel, and Grubbs Citation2022); support for racist family policy (Perry and Whitehead Citation2015a, Citation2015b) and ignorance about American political history (Perry et al. Citation2022).2. While the use of a single item to tap Christian nationalism may not be ideal, there are substantial problems with the multi-item measure used in the Baylor data. Recent research finds a substantial lack of unidimensionality in the scale (Davis Citation2023; Jesse and Adler Citation2022). Further, Jesse and Adler (Citation2022) discern that many of the items are not clear operationalizations of Christian nationalism but instead reflect other theoretical constructs like civic republicanism or religious conservatism.3. This classification system is superior to prior schemes because it does not lump all Black Protestants into the same category (Shelton and Cobb Citation2017), it enables the distinction of Moderate Protestants, and separates non-denominational Protestants from sectarian Protestants (Burge and Djupe Citation2021). Other classifications also conflate religious participation with religious identification, thus preventing any meaningful examination of denominational differences in religious participation. Appendix A shows the results of models estimated using such a scheme. Notably, there are few substantive differences, but the “evangelical” category is slightly more distinct because of the conflation with religious participation. Table 2 shows a significant difference between non-denominational Protestants and Catholics, which is not investigated in the commonly used classification, and 61 non-denominational respondents are lost using that scheme.Additional informationNotes on contributorsDarren E. SherkatDarren E. Sherkat is Professor of Sociology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His research focuses on religion and politics, religion and stratification, and religious demography in the United States.Derek LehmanDerek Lehman is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Tarleton State University. His research focuses on the intersection of religious and political ideologies and identities in the United States.Nabil Bill JulkifNabil Billy Julkif is a PhD student in Sociology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and is interested in quantitative methods and social psychology.