scholarly journals “I Don’t Want Everybody to Vote”: Christian Nationalism and Restricting Voter Access in the United States

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel L. Perry ◽  
Andrew L. Whitehead ◽  
Joshua B. Grubbs
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Nationalism

scholarly journals Christian Nationalism and Views of Immigrants in the United States: Is the Relationship Stronger for the Religiously Inactive?

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312098511
Author(s):  
Samuel Stroope ◽  
Heather M. Rackin ◽  
Paul Froese
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Nationalism ◽  
Religious Service ◽  
Religious Service Attendance ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Christian Nationalism ◽  
Service Attendance

Previous research has shown that Christian nationalism is linked to nativism and immigrant animus, while religious service attendance is associated with pro-immigrant views. The findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between religious ideologies and practices when considering how religion affects politics. Using a national sample of U.S. adults, we analyze immigrant views by measuring levels of agreement or disagreement that undocumented immigrants from Mexico are “mostly dangerous criminals.” We find that Christian nationalism is inversely related to pro-immigrant views for both the religiously active and inactive. However, strongly pro-immigrant views are less likely and anti-immigrant views are more likely among strong Christian nationalists who are religiously inactive compared with strong Christian nationalists who are religiously active. These results illustrate how religious nationalism can weaken tolerance and heighten intolerance most noticeably when untethered from religious communities.

Wednesday, January 6, 2021

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-23
Author(s):  
Ron Scapp
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Nationalism

A commentary on the recent assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which the author situates the attack in the longer history of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, patriarchy, and unfettered capitalism.

From King Cyrus to Queen Esther: Christian Zionists’ discursive construction of Donald Trump as God’s instrument

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-137
Author(s):  
Sean Durbin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Evangelical Christian ◽  
White Evangelicals ◽  
Christian Nationalism ◽  
The Way

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential elections with the help of 81 percent of self-identified white evangelicals, liberal commentators, relying on folk-conceptions of religion that privileged concepts like morality and belief, struggled to understand how someone who seemed to lack both could garner such support. Since then scholars have provided various explanations, relating to Christian nationalism evangelical appeals to authoritarianism, and straightforward racism. This article aims to expand this discussion by analyzing the way that evangelical Christian Zionists have supported Trump by rhetorically identifying him as God’s instrument on account of his support for Israel and withdrawal of the United States from the Iran Nuclear Deal. In addition to analyzing the process by which Trump is constituted as God’s instrument, the article also demonstrates more generally how religious discourse functions as a legitimating discourse for those who seek to gain, or maintain, positions of power.

Taking America Back for God

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew L. Whitehead ◽  
Samuel L. Perry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Christian Nationalism

Taking America Back for God conclusively reveals that understanding the current cultural and political climate in the United States requires reckoning with Christian nationalism. Christian ideals and symbols have long played an important role in public life in the United States, but Christian nationalism demands far more than a recognition of religious heritage. At heart, Christian nationalism fights to preserve a particular kind of social order, an order in which everyone—Christians and non-Christians, native-born and immigrants, whites and minorities, men and women—recognizes their “proper” place in society. The first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian nationalism in the United States, Taking America Back for God illustrates the scope and tremendous influence of Christian nationalism on debates surrounding the most contentious social issues dominating American public discourse. Drawing on multiple sources of national survey data collected over the past several decades and in-depth interviews, Whitehead and Perry document how Christian nationalism radically shapes what Americans think about who they are as a people, what their future should look like, and how they should get there. Regardless of Americans’ political or religious characteristics, whether they are Ambassadors, Accommodators, Resisters, or Rejecters of Christian nationalism provides powerful insight into what they think about immigration, Muslims, gun control, police shootings, atheists, gender roles, and many other political issues—even who they want in the White House. Taking America Back for God convincingly shows how Christian nationalists’ desire for political power, rigid social boundaries, and hierarchical order creates significant consequences for all Americans.

scholarly journals Crusading for Moral Authority: Christian Nationalism and Opposition to Science

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Baker ◽  
Samuel Perry ◽  
Andrew L Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Epistemic Authority ◽  
Biblical Literalism ◽  
Attitudes About Science ◽  
Christian Nationalism

Numerous studies show biblicist Christianity, religiosity, and conservative political identity are strong predictors of Americans holding skeptical attitudes toward publicly controversial aspects of science, such as human evolution. We show that Christian nationalism—meaning the desire to see particularistic and exclusivist versions of Christian symbols, values, and policies enshrined as the established religion of the United States—is a strong and consistent predictor of Americans’ attitudes about science above and beyond other religious and political characteristics. Further, a majority of the overall effect of political ideology on skepticism about the moral authority of science is mediated through Christian nationalism, indicating that political conservatives are more likely to be concerned with particular aspects of science primarily because they are more likely to be Christian nationalists. Likewise, substantial proportions of the well-documented associations between religiosity and biblical “literalism” with views of science are mediated through Christian nationalism. Because Christian nationalism seeks to establish a particular and exclusivist vision of Christianity as the dominant moral order, adherents feel threatened by challenges to the epistemic authority undergirding that order, including by aspects of science perceived as challenging the supremacy of biblicist authority.

The Biblical Theme of Covenant and American Popular Culture from Colonial Times to Comic Books

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-182
Author(s):  
Terry R. Clark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Culture Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
American Civil Religion ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
Christian Nationalism

American civil religion incorporates a nostalgic version of biblical Israel’s covenant with their patron deity, Yahweh, imagining the United States as a new Israel. This new myth reflects early Puritan hope for a new foray into a new wilderness of promise, while also promoting a romantic notion of the providential founding of the United States, national innocence, and national purpose, upholding an ideal of pure democracy and divine favor for establishing it universally. This form of Christian nationalism has a tendency toward a new form of imperialism in the modern era that is heavily supported (at least subconsciously) by a vast array of popular culture products. Yet some pop culture media (including comic books) occasionally call into question the concept of human beings living in a covenant relationship with a divine creator, as well as the validity of America’s status as a divinely chosen and divinely guided nation.

Congregants and Citizens: Religion and Naturalization among US Immigrants

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 674-706
Author(s):  
Nicolette D. Manglos-Weber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
American Citizenship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Immigrant Religion ◽  
Religious Membership ◽  
Christian Nationalism

Scholars and pundits have long debated whether religion helps new immigrants integrate politically in the United States. Those who see religion as an integrative institution cite the country’s history of vibrant religious congregationalism that supports connections between the native and foreign born, while critics point to anti-immigrant hostility, Christian nationalism, and patterns of religious membership that can reinforce social segregation. This article aims to adjudicate this debate, using a large sample of survey data, the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), fielded among new legal residents in 2003/2004. I find that religious membership is associated with increased probability of naturalizing in a short (3.5–7 years) timeframe and is stronger for those with greater human capital and income and longer tenure in the United States. Involvement in US-origin congregations also exhibits a stronger effect on naturalization than involvement in national-origin congregations. Additionally, I find that religious minorities, though less likely to be members of congregations, are independently more likely than Christian immigrants to naturalize in the same timeframe. These results are interpreted as support for a view of organized religion as a setting for American identity formation and a basis for mobilizing resources in response to anti-immigrant sentiment. For certain groups, organized religion seems to support a type of selective acculturation that combines American citizenship with the establishment and/or retention of a distinct ethno-religious identity. The article thus affirms, with caveats, the broader relevance of a long tradition of ethnographic scholarship on immigrant religion in the United States.

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