White Christian Nationalism in the United States
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White Christian Nationalism in the United States
White Christian nationalism is a term used by scholars, journalists, religious leaders, and advocacy organizations to describe an ideology or cultural framework that connects American national identity with Christianity and, in its specifically White form, with ideas about White cultural identity, social status, historical memory, and political power. The literature on the subject emphasizes that Christian nationalism is not synonymous with Christianity, evangelicalism, political conservatism, patriotism, or ordinary Christian participation in politics. It is instead generally studied as a particular way of understanding the relationship between Christianity, the nation, government, citizenship, and social order.
Research also cautions against assuming that every person who expresses Christian-nationalist beliefs understands them in the same way. Christian-nationalist attitudes occur among people of different racial, ethnic, denominational, and political backgrounds. Several studies in the literature find important differences between White, Black, Hispanic, Asian American, and other respondents. As a result, the term White Christian nationalism is usually used more narrowly when the religious-nationalist framework is specifically intertwined with White racial identity, perceptions of racial status, or ideas about who historically belongs within the American nation.
Historical Roots
The sources place contemporary White Christian nationalism within a much longer history of religion, race, and national identity in the United States. Some trace important elements to colonial narratives portraying European settlement as part of a divine mission. Puritan ideas about covenant, providence, and America as a chosen society later contributed to broader narratives describing the United States as having a special religious purpose.
Other scholarship looks further back to European Christian doctrines that accompanied exploration, conquest, and colonization. The Doctrine of Discovery and related religious justifications for territorial expansion contributed to political and cultural frameworks that placed European Christians above Indigenous peoples and helped legitimize conquest and dispossession.
Slavery represents another major component of this history. Christian theology was used both to defend and to challenge slavery. Pro-slavery churches and theologians developed religious arguments supporting racial hierarchy, while Black churches and abolitionist Christians developed competing interpretations emphasizing liberation, equality, and human dignity. The result was not a single Christian political tradition but conflicting traditions that continued after emancipation.
After the Civil War, Christian language was sometimes incorporated into defenses of segregation and the Jim Crow racial order. Religious institutions could reinforce racial separation even as other Christian organizations became important participants in abolitionism, the civil-rights movement, and campaigns against racial discrimination.
The source material therefore presents the historical relationship between Christianity and race as contested rather than uniform. Religious ideas have been used both to defend established social hierarchies and to challenge them.
The Idea of a Christian America
A recurring feature of Christian nationalism is the belief that the United States is, or historically was, fundamentally a Christian nation. This belief can take several forms.
Some versions emphasize the religious beliefs of the founders and argue that Christianity provided an important moral foundation for American institutions. Others go further and contend that American government should formally favor Christianity or explicitly incorporate Christian principles into public policy.
Historians and constitutional scholars represented in the source material dispute claims that the United States was legally established as a Christian nation. They point to the Constitution's prohibition on religious tests for federal office, the First Amendment's religion clauses, religious diversity among the founders, and historical disputes over establishment.
At the same time, Christianity has undeniably played a major role in American culture and history. This distinction between substantial Christian cultural influence and formal political establishment is central to many debates over Christian nationalism.
Christian-nationalist narratives frequently emphasize selected episodes from American history in which Christianity appears closely connected with national development. Critics describe some of these accounts as mythologized or nostalgic versions of the past, while defenders argue that contemporary scholarship can understate the historical importance of Christianity.
Race and National Identity
Race is one of the most extensively studied dimensions of White Christian nationalism.
A large body of social-science research in the source material examines relationships between Christian-nationalist attitudes and White racial solidarity, perceptions of racial discrimination, interracial marriage, immigration, policing, racial inequality, and definitions of who qualifies as authentically American.
Several studies find that among White respondents, stronger Christian-nationalist attitudes are associated with greater attachment to White group interests or with particular interpretations of racial inequality. Research has also examined whether Christian nationalism is associated with perceptions that White Americans or Christians are losing cultural or demographic status.
This has led many scholars to describe White Christian nationalism as involving overlapping religious, racial, and national identities rather than religion alone.
However, other research complicates any simple equation between Christian nationalism and White identity. Christian-nationalist beliefs are also found among Black, Hispanic, and other non-White Americans. Studies examining these groups suggest that identical survey responses can sometimes reflect different historical experiences, theological traditions, or understandings of national belonging.
Black Christian political traditions, for example, developed partly through struggles against slavery, segregation, and racial discrimination. Consequently, expressions of Christian influence on American life among Black respondents cannot automatically be assumed to carry the same racial meaning as similar responses among White respondents.
The literature therefore increasingly distinguishes between Christian nationalism as a broad phenomenon and White Christian nationalism as a particular racialized form of it.
Measuring Christian Nationalism
One of the most important debates in the scholarship concerns measurement.
Much social-science research has relied on survey questions asking respondents whether the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation, whether the success of the country is part of God's plan, whether government should advocate Christian values, whether Christian identity is important to being American, or whether religion should have greater influence over public life.
Researchers frequently combine responses to several questions into a Christian-nationalism scale.
This methodology has generated a large body of empirical research, but it has also been criticized. Some scholars argue that commonly used questions can combine several different ideas, including religious traditionalism, civil religion, cultural Christianity, government endorsement of religion, conservative politics, and explicit Christian nationalism.
Critics therefore warn that people receiving similar scores may hold significantly different political or theological beliefs.
Alternative approaches attempt to distinguish Christian nationalism from Christian statism, religious traditionalism, civil religion, patriotism, racial identity, and ordinary support for religious participation in public life.
These disagreements do not eliminate the large existing research literature, but they affect how confidently particular survey findings should be interpreted. Measurement remains one of the most active debates in the field.
White Evangelicalism and Christian Nationalism
White evangelical Protestantism receives considerable attention because surveys repeatedly find relatively high levels of Christian-nationalist attitudes among White evangelical respondents.
This does not mean that White evangelical Christianity and Christian nationalism are interchangeable. Many White evangelicals reject Christian nationalism, and Christian-nationalist beliefs exist outside evangelical Protestantism.
Researchers instead examine why certain historical, theological, political, and cultural developments created especially strong connections between segments of White evangelicalism and Christian-nationalist politics.
The rise of the modern Christian Right during the twentieth century is an important part of this history. Battles over school prayer, desegregation, private Christian schools, abortion, feminism, LGBTQ rights, taxation, and the perceived secularization of American culture helped create political networks connecting conservative Christianity with partisan politics.
Religious identity increasingly became intertwined with disputes over national identity and cultural change.
The literature also examines Catholic forms of Christian nationalism, including debates surrounding integralism and political theories that give Catholic teaching a stronger role in public institutions. These movements differ substantially from evangelical Christian nationalism but demonstrate that Christian nationalism is not confined to a single denomination.
Immigration and National Belonging
Immigration is another recurring subject.
Research examines whether Christian nationalism shapes attitudes about immigrants, refugees, border enforcement, demographic change, and the cultural requirements for becoming American.
For some respondents, national belonging is understood primarily in civic terms such as citizenship, constitutional principles, and participation in democratic institutions. Others place greater emphasis on cultural characteristics, including language, religion, ancestry, or adherence to traditional social values.
Christian nationalism can overlap with this second, more cultural understanding of nationality.
Studies in the source material examine perceived threats from immigrants, Muslims, refugees, and demographic change. Some research finds that Christian-nationalist attitudes correlate with greater distrust of immigrants or stronger support for restrictive immigration policies, particularly when respondents perceive Christianity or existing cultural groups as losing social influence.
Other research emphasizes that race, ethnicity, religion, and partisan identity can modify these relationships.
Gender, Sexuality, and Family
Ideas about gender and family appear repeatedly in the literature.
Christian nationalism is frequently associated with traditionalist understandings of gender roles, marriage, parental authority, sexuality, and family structure. Studies have examined relationships with opposition to same-sex marriage, attitudes toward LGBTQ people, beliefs about women's roles, masculinity, femininity, abortion, pronatalism, and child discipline.
Some scholars interpret these patterns as part of a broader concern with maintaining a traditional moral and social order.
Research into pronatalism is especially illustrative. Scholars distinguish general support for policies encouraging families to have children from selective forms of pronatalism motivated by concerns that particular religious, racial, or cultural populations are declining.
Research also examines the relationship between Christian nationalism and abortion politics. The findings suggest that attitudes toward abortion can intersect with broader beliefs about authority, punishment, gender roles, and social order rather than functioning as an isolated political issue.
Education and Historical Memory
Education has become an important arena for disputes connected to Christian nationalism.
The literature examines controversies involving Bible instruction, displays of the Ten Commandments, school prayer, religious curriculum, homeschooling, parental rights, book restrictions, critical race theory, teaching about sexuality and gender, and competing interpretations of American history.
These disagreements frequently involve deeper questions about national identity: What history should children learn? What role should Christianity have in understanding America's development? Should public schools promote common moral values, and if so, whose values?
Historical memory is especially important. Christian-nationalist narratives may portray American history as a story of divine providence, national exceptionalism, and decline from an earlier Christian culture.
Critics argue that such narratives can minimize slavery, Indigenous dispossession, segregation, religious pluralism, and other aspects of American history. Supporters of more traditional narratives sometimes respond that secular or progressive interpretations minimize Christianity's contributions to American political and cultural development.
Education therefore functions as both a policy dispute and a struggle over collective memory.
Political Behavior and Elections
A substantial research literature examines Christian nationalism as a political identity.
Studies have investigated relationships between Christian-nationalist attitudes and voting behavior, partisan identification, political candidates, campaign rhetoric, perceptions of political enemies, and expectations about governmental authority.
Research concerning the 2016, 2020, and 2024 presidential elections repeatedly examines connections between Christian nationalism and support for Donald Trump. These studies generally attempt to separate Christian nationalism statistically from other factors such as ordinary religious commitment, political conservatism, race, education, economic position, and party identification.
The literature also examines how politicians and political activists use Christian-nationalist rhetoric. Experimental research suggests that elite rhetoric can affect willingness among some respondents to adopt the Christian-nationalist label.
This means Christian nationalism may function not only as a set of private beliefs but also as a political identity that can be strengthened or reshaped through public discourse.
January 6 and Political Violence
The January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol generated extensive research and commentary concerning Christian nationalism.
Christian imagery, prayer, crosses, flags, biblical language, and other religious symbols were visible among some participants. Subsequent investigations examined Christian-nationalist organizations, rallies, political networks, conspiracy theories, and religious rhetoric surrounding efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Researchers have studied whether Christian nationalism is associated with support for political violence. The findings generally emphasize interactions with other factors rather than suggesting that Christian nationalism alone produces violence.
Variables studied alongside Christian nationalism include racial identity, perceived victimhood, conspiracy beliefs, apocalyptic expectations, gun identity, authoritarian attitudes, and perceptions that traditional groups are losing political or cultural status.
Most Christian nationalists do not engage in political violence, and most Americans reject political violence. The research question is instead whether particular combinations of Christian-nationalist beliefs and other attitudes increase willingness to justify coercive or violent political action.
Authority, Law Enforcement, and Punishment
Another group of studies examines Christian nationalism in relation to authority and punishment.
Research has considered attitudes toward policing, capital punishment, criminal justice, voting restrictions, government coercion, and law enforcement.
Some studies report greater support for punitive policies among respondents scoring highly on Christian-nationalism measures. However, newer experimental research suggests that support for authority can be conditional and influenced by the race, identity, or perceived behavior of the people involved.
Research on policing similarly finds that race can shape how Christian-nationalist beliefs translate into support for law enforcement.
These findings reinforce a broader theme of the literature: Christian nationalism often interacts with other social identities rather than operating as a single independent ideology.
Economic Attitudes and Social Hierarchy
Christian nationalism has also been studied in connection with economic policy.
Researchers have examined taxation, redistribution, labor unions, universal health care, inequality, government spending, and attitudes toward economic hierarchy.
The results complicate assumptions that Christian nationalism concerns only cultural issues. Some studies find relationships between Christian-nationalist beliefs and opposition to redistributive taxation or organized labor, although these relationships can differ substantially according to respondents' own socioeconomic position.
Other scholarship examines whether religious-nationalist politics reinforces broader preferences for hierarchy, individualism, or limited government.
The economic dimension remains less publicly visible than debates over race, immigration, abortion, or education, but it has become a growing area of research.
Public Health, Science, and Conspiracy Beliefs
The COVID-19 pandemic generated another body of research.
Studies found relationships between Christian nationalism and resistance to some public-health restrictions, vaccine skepticism, and opposition to government mandates. Researchers distinguished these patterns from religiosity itself, noting that ordinary religious commitment did not necessarily produce the same attitudes.
The pandemic became a conflict over competing concepts of authority: government expertise, individual liberty, religious authority, and national identity.
Research also explores connections between Christian nationalism, biblical literalism, and conspiracy beliefs. These relationships are not universal, but scholars have investigated how political and religious worldviews can reinforce distrust of institutions or alternative sources of knowledge.
Diversity Within Christian Nationalism
One of the clearest developments in recent scholarship is growing attention to diversity among people classified as Christian nationalists.
Studies increasingly reject the assumption that Christian nationalism is exclusively White.
Researchers have examined Christian-nationalist attitudes among Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, LGBTQ respondents, Catholics, Protestants, frequent churchgoers, infrequent churchgoers, and the religiously unaffiliated.
The meaning of Christian-nationalist survey responses can vary substantially across these populations.
For example, Black Christian traditions often combine strong Christian identification with histories of civil-rights activism and opposition to White supremacy. Hispanic Christian nationalism may be influenced by different combinations of theology, immigration history, ethnicity, social conservatism, and partisan politics.
Recognizing these differences is particularly important when interpreting nationwide survey statistics.
The existence of non-White Christian nationalism does not invalidate research on White Christian nationalism. Instead, it demonstrates the need to distinguish broad religious nationalism from the specifically racialized historical and political phenomenon described as White Christian nationalism.
Christian Opposition to Christian Nationalism
The source material also contains substantial evidence of opposition to Christian nationalism from within Christianity.
Progressive Christians, Black church leaders, evangelical pastors, Baptists, Catholics, interfaith organizations, and other religious groups have criticized Christian nationalism on theological as well as political grounds.
Some argue that nationalism transforms Christianity from a religious faith into an instrument for obtaining political power. Others contend that giving Christianity privileged legal status violates religious freedom because government authority can eventually be used to define which forms of Christianity qualify as legitimate.
Christian critics also argue that the teachings of Jesus concerning humility, care for outsiders, nonviolence, and service conflict with movements centered on cultural domination or national power.
Supporters of stronger Christian influence in public life respond that religious citizens should not be required to remove their beliefs from political participation. This creates an important distinction between participation by Christians in democratic politics and Christian nationalism as a demand for Christian national dominance.
The debate therefore occurs within Christianity as well as between religious and secular Americans.
Terminology and Scholarly Disagreement
The phrase Christian nationalism has itself become politically contested.
Some scholars argue that the concept identifies a coherent and measurable ideology that helps explain attitudes toward race, democracy, immigration, gender, and political authority.
Others argue that the term is sometimes applied too broadly and can collapse ordinary Christian conservatism, patriotism, civil religion, religious political participation, and explicit theocratic nationalism into a single category.
Methodological critics have questioned the validity of widely used survey scales and proposed alternative measures.
There is also disagreement over terminology such as White Christian nationalism, religious nationalism, Christian statism, Christian America, and Christofascism. These terms overlap in some scholarship but are not interchangeable.
Careful analysis therefore requires identifying what a particular author means by Christian nationalism rather than assuming that every source uses the term identically.
Contemporary Significance
Christian nationalism has become an increasingly visible subject of American political and religious debate.
National surveys show substantial differences among religious traditions, racial groups, political parties, and generations concerning the relationship between Christianity and government. Some Americans favor explicit governmental promotion of Christian values, while others support strong institutional separation between religion and government.
At the same time, views about Christian nationalism cannot be reduced to a simple Christian-versus-secular division. Christians themselves are deeply divided over the issue.
Research also suggests that the Christian-nationalist label is becoming a political identity in its own right. Political leaders, activists, churches, scholars, journalists, and advocacy groups increasingly use the term, although they frequently disagree about what it means.
As public use of the term expands, distinguishing between descriptive scholarship, theological argument, political advocacy, and partisan rhetoric becomes increasingly important.
Conclusion
White Christian nationalism in the United States is best understood as an intersection of religion, national identity, race, historical memory, and political power rather than as a synonym for Christianity or political conservatism.
Its roots reach into longstanding debates over whether the United States has a special Christian purpose, who belongs within the American nation, and what relationship should exist between religious authority and government. Those debates have intersected historically with colonization, slavery, racial hierarchy, immigration, gender, education, and competing interpretations of American history.
Modern social-science research has found numerous associations between Christian-nationalist attitudes and political behavior, racial attitudes, immigration views, gender traditionalism, education policy, punitive authority, and perceptions of social change. At the same time, researchers continue to debate how Christian nationalism should be defined and measured and whether commonly used survey questions sometimes combine distinct religious and political beliefs.
Race is central to much of the literature but requires careful treatment. White Christian nationalism represents an important and historically specific form of Christian nationalism, yet Christian-nationalist attitudes are also found among non-White Americans and may carry different meanings in different racial and religious communities.
The research therefore portrays Christian nationalism not as a single organization or uniform belief system, but as a contested family of ideas about Christianity, American identity, public authority, and social order. Understanding those differences is essential for separating ordinary religious participation in democratic politics from movements seeking a privileged political or cultural status for Christianity.
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Definitions, Measurement, and Public Opinion
Examines Christian nationalism as a social identity rather than only a collection of policy attitudes and tests how identification with the movement shapes political and social behavior.
Discusses how Americans encounter and interpret the phrase “Christian nationalism” and why theological, political, and cultural definitions of the term can differ.
Tests whether rejection of Christian nationalism and support for religious inclusion necessarily translate into greater political tolerance.
Maps Christian nationalism across all 50 states using PRRI’s 2025 American Values Atlas and compares patterns by race, religion, party, age, education, and media use.
Provides detailed Christian-nationalism data for Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.
Responds to methodological criticisms of Christian-nationalism scholarship and defends critical approaches to studying Christian nationalism and the related concept of Christofascism.
Critiques common Christian-nationalism measures and proposes an alternative scale, arguing that existing measures may conflate several distinct beliefs about religion and public life.
Maps Christian-nationalist attitudes across the states using 2024 survey data and examines differences by race, religious affiliation, education, partisanship, and presidential vote.
Reviews competing definitions of Christian nationalism and considers how religion, national identity, political power, and cultural dominance interact within the concept.
Examines fundamentalist responses to immigration, religious pluralism, modernism, secularization, and changing ideas of American identity.
Uses a national sample to examine links between Christian nationalism and fears concerning immigrants, Muslims, White racial replacement, communism, gun control, and loss of autonomy.
Examines Americans classified as skeptics or rejecters of Christian nationalism and compares resistance across states, religions, political parties, racial groups, and demographic categories.
Uses moral-foundations theory to examine which moral intuitions are associated with support for or opposition to Christian nationalism.
Uses the Jim Crow era as a historical case study of how White Christian political power operated through segregation, immigration restrictions, voting rules, and religious legitimation.
Interview with Christian authors Brian Kaylor and Beau Underwood about everyday forms of Christian-nationalist symbolism, historical memory, civil religion, and Christian identity.
Includes data comparing Christian-nationalist attitudes among Generation Z with those of older generations and explores variation by gender and party.
Provides state-level estimates from PRRI’s 2023 American Values Atlas and compares Christian-nationalist support across religious, demographic, racial, and political groups.
PRRI’s first 50-state press summary of its Christian-nationalism measures, highlighting variation by state, religion, race, party, church attendance, and other demographic characteristics.
Traces Christian-nationalist themes to the Doctrine of Discovery and other older religious narratives used to justify conquest, hierarchy, and American expansion.
Presents national survey findings on Christian nationalism, racial and religious attitudes, political violence, authoritarianism, immigration, gender, and democratic institutions.
Proposes separating Christian nationalism into religious traditionalism and Christian statism and examines how the dimensions relate differently to racial, religious, and political attitudes.
Explains debates among evangelical Christians over Christian nationalism, including disagreements about political power, historical identity, and whether the label is defined too broadly.
Provides a broad national survey of what Americans mean by a “Christian nation,” how they view Christian nationalism, and how opinions vary across religious and political groups.
Interviews historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez about Christian nationalism, political candidates, evangelical identity, gender, race, and the relationship between Christianity and American power.
Argues that Christian nationalism is sometimes treated as too broad a concept and calls for separating distinct religious, national, cultural, and political attitudes empirically.
Analysis of survey and political rhetoric arguing that public acceptance of the label “Christian nationalism” was increasing and examining how elite cues may shape that identification.
Evaluates the widely used Christian Nationalism Scale and raises questions about its psychometric properties, dimensionality, and the meaning of common classification schemes.
Historical analysis of conflicts between public-health mandates and Christian-nationalist ideas of moral authority, freedom, and national religious identity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Introduces the authors’ concept of White Christian nationalism and situates it within American histories of race, religion, political power, and national identity.
Student-journal empirical study examining predictors of Christian-nationalist beliefs and political behavior, including racial resentment, religiosity, and other social attitudes.
Provides an interfaith advocacy overview of Christian nationalism, its historical development, relationship to White supremacy, religious freedom, democracy, and contemporary political organizing.
Introduces a sociological framework for measuring Christian nationalism and distinguishing it from ordinary Christian belief, religious practice, conservatism, and patriotism.
Examines how Christian nationalism can construct symbolic boundaries around race, ethnicity, religion, citizenship, and membership in the American nation.
Race, White Identity, and National Belonging
Examines how progressive Christian activists use the language of White Christian nationalism when organizing against religious nationalism and defining alternative Christian political identities.
Investigates how Americans’ perceptions of Jesus’ political orientation relate to racial consciousness, racial solidarity, and broader religion-and-race dynamics.
Uses ethnographic research in a White evangelical church to study how contemporary events are interpreted through narratives of Christian dominance, racial normativity, and perceived victimization.
Argues that the political effects of Christian nationalism often depend on racial and religious group identity, framing it as a form of in-group protection rather than a uniformly racial phenomenon.
Uses General Social Survey data to test whether Christian nationalism is associated with racial stereotypes, particularly relative evaluations of White, Black, and Hispanic Americans.
Examines how race changes the relationship between Christian nationalism and progressive or “woke” identities, showing that the same religious-nationalist measures can operate differently across racial groups.
Explores Christian-nationalist attitudes among Hispanic Americans and examines differences by religious affiliation, racial identity, partisanship, education, and other characteristics.
Uses nationally representative data to examine the relationship between Christian nationalism and White racial solidarity, finding the association especially pronounced among White respondents.
Analyzes opposition to critical race theory through the concepts of ontological insecurity and White Christian nationalism, linking contemporary disputes to narratives about national identity and racial order.
Finds that Christian nationalism is not exclusively White and investigates demographic, religious, political, and geographic predictors, offering an important qualification to racially uniform portrayals.
Covers an interfaith gathering of religious leaders discussing White Christian nationalism, racial justice, democracy, religious pluralism, and strategies for responding to the movement.
Compares Black church political activism during the civil-rights era with contemporary White Christian nationalism and argues that religious political engagement can serve very different political purposes.
Offers a theological analysis of White evangelical support for Christian political order, questioning whether contemporary political projects align with the teachings attributed to Christ.
Compares Black and White Americans classified by PRRI as Christian-nationalism adherents or sympathizers, highlighting important differences that can be obscured by treating the category as racially uniform.
Uses survey experiments to examine how racial cues influence White Americans’ support for Christian nationalism and civil religion.
Uses Pew survey data to distinguish support for Christian influence in public life from self-identification with Christian nationalism or support for formally privileging Christianity.
Interview with historian Anthea Butler discussing White evangelicalism, race, Christian nationalism, religious politics, and the documentary God & Country.
Examines associations between Christian nationalism and Asian and Asian American respondents’ perceptions of anti-Asian hate and White privilege.
Uses polling on voters of color to discuss concerns about White nationalism and compares those concerns with research on Christian nationalism and racial hierarchy.
Tests whether Christian nationalism predicts perceived threats from racial and religious diversity, with particular attention to differences between White and Black Americans.
Commentary by two scholars arguing that Christian-nationalist abortion politics are connected to a broader preference for traditional hierarchy and social order.
Argues that White Christian nationalism is likely to persist despite demographic and electoral change, drawing on survey research about identity, perceived status loss, and political mobilization.
Introduces White Christian nationalism through Yale scholars and conference discussions, emphasizing its historical development, organizational networks, racial dimensions, and contemporary political role.
An opinion essay connecting the Buffalo mass shooting to the authors’ broader framework of White Christian nationalism, racial hierarchy, social order, and political violence.
Interview with sociologist Philip Gorski on historical roots of White Christian nationalism, slavery, racial hierarchy, January 6, and the movement’s relationship to American democracy.
Examines racial differences in perceptions of racial injustice, finding that Christian nationalism is associated among White respondents with greater perceptions of anti-White bias and less recognition of anti-Black inequality.
Reviews competing interpretations of Christian nationalism from an evangelical perspective, discussing race, privilege, scholarly definitions, and the danger of treating the category too broadly.
Finds Christian nationalism strongly associated with White opposition to interracial marriage, even after accounting for other religious and political characteristics.
History, Founding, and Christian America
Traces White Christian nationalism to traditions of slaveholding Christianity and contrasts those traditions with Black Christian political and theological countercurrents.
Explains why some Black Americans score highly on Christian-nationalism measures and emphasizes differences between Black religious history and White Christian-nationalist political traditions.
Traces Christian-nationalist themes in British-Israelism and Christian Identity and documents their historical use within explicitly White-supremacist movements.
Examines historical and legal claims that the United States was established as an explicitly Christian nation.
Traces narratives of America as a divinely chosen Christian nation through Puritan history and later reinterpretations of the colonial past.
Historical essay arguing that White Christian nationalism has roots extending well before recent electoral politics and should be situated within longer American religious and racial history.
Examines contemporary claims that the United States was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and presents historians’ arguments about the Constitution, founders, and religious establishment.
Discusses Bradley Onishi’s research on Southern California, evangelicalism, racialized suburban development, the Religious Right, gender, and the formation of White Christian nationalism.
Tests factual knowledge of religion in American political history and examines how Christian-nationalist beliefs relate to historically inaccurate understandings of church-state relations.
Examines narratives of dispossession among the Christian Right and how stories of lost cultural status can contribute to White Christian-nationalist mobilization.
Distinguishes two right-wing narratives of Christian America—a White Christian nation and a colorblind Judeo-Christian nation—and examines how each uses history, religion, and race.
Explores Christian heritage tourism in Washington, D.C., and how White evangelical visitors encounter stories about America’s religious founding, race, and national identity.
Discussion of American monuments, race, religion, and history that connects White Christian nationalism with older episodes of Christian participation in racial hierarchy.
Elections, Parties, Political Leaders, and Movements
Reports on the Rededicate 250 prayer gathering and presents differing interpretations of its Christian-America themes from organizers and critics.
Summarizes PRRI’s 2025 American Values Atlas findings, including the prevalence of Christian-nationalism adherents and sympathizers and differences across party, religion, and racial groups.
Traces partisan and racial sorting around Christian nationalism from 1996 through 2022, examining changes among White Democrats, Republicans, and other groups.
Uses survey experiments to test whether elite rhetoric can increase Americans’ willingness to identify with the label “Christian nationalist,” especially among Christian respondents.
Discusses research on how Christian-nationalist campaign rhetoric may affect voters differently across racial groups, emphasizing that racial identity can alter political responses to the same messages.
Compares state-level prevalence of Christian-nationalist attitudes with voting patterns in the 2024 presidential election.
Reviews the emergence of the modern Christian Right, including debates over school desegregation, abortion, taxation, religious schools, and American identity.
Summarizes PRRI’s post-2024-election findings on the relationship between Christian-nationalist measures, presidential voting, church attendance, political violence, and media habits.
Describes the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches and discusses its views on gender, Christian political authority, reconstructionism, and debates about Christian nationalism.
Examines the 2024 electorate by religion, race, gender, Christian-nationalist attitudes, authoritarianism, economic concerns, and other political characteristics.
Reports on the “God Bless the USA Bible” and discusses scholarly criticism of combining scripture with U.S. founding documents and nationalist symbolism.
Covers Christian activists organizing against Christian nationalism through social media, churches, local politics, and religious-freedom advocacy.
Reviews the historical and political development of White Christian nationalism, including its relationship to the religious right, racial hierarchy, and narratives of Christian America.
Interprets contemporary political rhetoric through the history of White Christian nationalism and PRRI survey findings on race, immigration, religion, gender, and national identity.
Examines demographic change in the White evangelical electorate and its implications for U.S. voting coalitions, providing context for the constituency most often associated with Christian-nationalist support.
Reports on Pastors for Trump and criticism from clergy, scholars, and religious-freedom advocates concerned about the merging of Christian identity with partisan nationalism.
Summarizes a large PRRI/Brookings survey on Christian nationalism, including especially high levels of support among White evangelical Protestants and substantial differences across political and religious groups.
Investigates the ReAwaken America Tour and its combination of Christian-nationalist rhetoric, election claims, conspiracy theories, political organizing, and religious revivalism.
Reports on a political network organized around Michael Flynn and examines its connections to Christian nationalism and conspiracy-oriented activism.
Argues that the relationship between Christian nationalism and 2016 Trump support was especially pronounced among people who were not active churchgoers.
Commentary interpreting the 2020 Lafayette Square Bible photo opportunity through scholarly research on Christian nationalism, political authority, and symbolic displays of Christianity.
Examines how Christian nationalism and fears concerning racial and ethnic outsiders were associated with intended presidential voting in 2020.
Finds Christian nationalism independently predicted support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election after controlling for a range of religious, racial, political, and demographic factors.
Democracy, Authoritarianism, Violence, and Extremism
Uses experiments to examine how Christian nationalism and racial cues influence support for police and law-enforcement authority.
Uses survey research to investigate when Christian-nationalist attitudes translate into greater support for punitive government policies.
Examines the interaction of Christian nationalism, gun ownership, and gun identity in predicting support for political violence in the United States.
Examines racial differences in the relationship between Christian-nationalist beliefs and measures of authoritarianism.
Reports survey findings on authoritarian attitudes, political violence, and Christian nationalism, while also noting that most respondents reject political violence.
Reports survey findings on Christian nationalism, authoritarian attitudes, immigration, patriarchy, democratic norms, political violence, and support for strong leaders.
Investigates a private tactical-training organization and its reported connections to Christian-nationalist, militia, and neo-Confederate networks.
Examines internal documents concerning the Society for American Civic Renewal, including membership requirements, Christian identity, political goals, and its organizers’ ideas about social hierarchy.
Investigates connections between the Claremont Institute and the Society for American Civic Renewal and reports experts’ assessments of the organization’s religious-nationalist ideology.
NewsHour interview explaining Christian nationalism, its historical roots, ties to White evangelical politics, January 6, and concerns raised by scholars about democratic pluralism.
Questions essentialist explanations of Christian nationalism and authoritarianism and urges scholars to consider alternative causal explanations, measurement choices, and researcher assumptions.
Summarizes a Brookings-PRRI event and survey examining White Christian nationalism, racial and religious prejudice, authoritarianism, political violence, and challenges to democratic pluralism.
Distinguishes several networks and varieties of contemporary Christian nationalism rather than treating the movement as a single unified organization.
Advocacy report examining developments among extremist and antigovernment movements and discussing the increasing overlap of conspiracy theories, Christian-nationalist rhetoric, anti-LGBTQ activism, and racial politics.
Reports on congressional testimony concerning White Christian nationalism, political violence, antisemitism, racism, religious extremism, and January 6.
Examines the limited treatment of Christian nationalism in the House January 6 committee’s final report and presents competing explanations for that omission.
Summarizes research linking Christian nationalism with racial hierarchy, political violence, and restrictions on democratic participation.
Traces religious rhetoric, prayer events, Jericho Marches, organizations, and individuals that preceded the January 6 Capitol attack.
An advocacy commentary arguing that investigators should examine the Christian-nationalist rhetoric, organizations, and religious symbolism surrounding January 6.
Reports on a Baptist Joint Committee and Freedom From Religion Foundation investigation into Christian-nationalist organizations, rhetoric, and symbols connected with January 6.
Reports on Christian and interfaith organizations responding to White Christian nationalism around the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol attack.
Finds that support for the January 6 Capitol attack was associated with Christian nationalism in interaction with White identity, perceived victimhood, and conspiracy beliefs.
Finds Christian nationalism associated with perceptions that voting is too easy, greater concern about voter fraud, and support for restricting access to the franchise.
Connects Christian nationalism with debates over voting restrictions and January 6, arguing that an ethnicized Christian-American identity can work against democratic inclusion.
Interprets religious symbols and rhetoric at the January 6 Capitol attack as expressions of a longer White Christian-nationalist story about America, decline, and restoration.
Examines Christian, Confederate, and White-nationalist symbolism visible during the Capitol attack and places those symbols within a longer history of race and religion.
Presents an evangelical Christian critique of Christian nationalism after the January 6 attack and discusses the relationship between faith, fear, political identity, and violence.
Profiles Nicholas Fuentes and his explicitly White-nationalist politics, useful for distinguishing overt White nationalism from the broader and more varied phenomenon of Christian nationalism.
Studies how Christian nationalism relates to Americans’ perceptions of police treatment of Black people and interpretations of racial inequality in policing.
Examines Christian nationalism as a predictor of opposition to stricter gun laws and distinguishes its effects from more conventional measures of personal religiosity.
Links Christian nationalism with punitive attitudes, including support for capital punishment, tougher federal punishment, and stronger government crackdowns on perceived disorder.
Historical profile of Aryan Nations and Christian Identity, an explicitly racist religious movement that shows how White supremacist theology differs from mainstream forms of Christian nationalism.
Immigration, Religious Minorities, and Outgroups
Uses PRRI data to argue that White Christian-nationalist support is associated with especially restrictive views on immigration enforcement and detention policies.
Examines competing civic and ethnocultural definitions of American identity and connects them with immigration attitudes and Christian nationalism.
Examines Christian nationalism and distrust of immigrants while testing whether the relationship differs according to political affiliation and racial or ethnic identity.
Uses PRRI survey data to compare immigration attitudes among Christian-nationalist supporters, including differences among White, Black, and Hispanic respondents.
Uses a survey of White Americans to examine whether apocalyptic beliefs and hostility toward social outgroups help explain the association between Christian nationalism and support for political violence.
Uses quantitative time-series analysis to examine whether political empowerment of Christian-nationalist rhetoric is associated with attacks against religious minorities in the United States.
Examines consequences of White Christian nationalism for religious minorities and also critiques simplistic responses that portray religious nationalism as wholly external to Christianity.
Finds that relationships between Christian nationalism and exclusion or assimilation vary according to respondents’ racial identities and the social group being evaluated.
Uses observational and experimental survey data to examine links between Christian nationalism and antisemitic attitudes, including the roles of Christian dominance, minority-group attitudes, and QAnon beliefs.
Finds Christian nationalism associated with more negative views of immigrants among both religiously active and inactive Americans, challenging the assumption that church participation alone explains the relationship.
Tests how Christian nationalism relates to attitudes toward immigrants and finds perceived cultural and religious threat helps explain negative reactions to immigration.
Analyzes testimony concerning refugee resettlement in South Carolina and the racial, religious, and national boundaries invoked in opposition to refugees.
Examines how ostensibly secular ideas about national belonging can retain evangelical Christian cultural assumptions and thereby influence who is considered authentically American.
Gender, Sexuality, Family, and Reproduction
Examines how White evangelical Christian nationalism intersects with sexuality, family norms, respectability, racialization, and ideas about proper American identity.
Distinguishes general policies encouraging childbirth from selective pronatalism intended to increase births among particular social groups and examines their relationship with Christian nationalism.
Uses a national survey to examine support for arresting women who obtain abortions, separating the effects of anti-abortion identity, Christian nationalism, and White nationalism.
Examines the relationship between Christian nationalism, preferences for children’s obedience, attitudes toward independent thinking, and support for corporal punishment.
Examines how Christian nationalism relates to abortion attitudes and political behavior among Black and White Americans, emphasizing that its effects can differ by issue and racial identity.
Shows that Christian-nationalist beliefs are not limited to heterosexual Americans and examines how the ideology operates among LGB respondents.
Investigates how Christian nationalism and beliefs about masculinity and femininity interact in shaping support for more extreme forms of political action among men.
Explains the racial, gendered, and religious history of the “Jezebel” trope and reports on its use by some Christian-nationalist figures during the 2024 campaign.
Examines how race and gender condition the relationship between Christian nationalism and Americans’ relative prioritization of equality and liberty.
Examines how Christian nationalism, perceptions that Whites or Christians face demographic threat, gender attitudes, and nationalist pronatalism intersect.
Analyzes the rhetoric of the evangelical media project GirlDefined, focusing on how femininity, patriarchy, religion, race, and nationalism can be combined in White Christian-nationalist appeals.
Examines how Christian nationalism predicts support for anti-pornography restrictions and perceptions of pornography as a threat to social order.
Finds Christian nationalism strongly associated with traditionalist gender-role attitudes across several religious traditions and demographic groups.
Examines the relationship between Christian nationalism and opposition to same-sex unions, distinguishing national religious identity from ordinary religious commitment.
Education and Culture-War Institutions
Advocacy article arguing that Christian-nationalist activism can undermine pluralistic public education and documenting examples involving schools, families, curriculum, and religious freedom.
Policy brief reviewing how Christian-nationalist organizations and ideas have entered debates over public education, including curricula, book restrictions, school governance, and parental-rights campaigns.
Examines how education shapes evangelical attitudes toward Christian nationalism and perceptions of racial inequality, highlighting divisions within the broader evangelical field.
Discusses White religious nationalism and considers how religious education can address its history, theology, racial dimensions, and political influence.
Examines Christian nationalism’s effects on American education through a case study and broader discussion of curriculum disputes, book challenges, and public-school politics.
Places White Christian nationalism within the history of adult education, political participation, race, and competing understandings of democracy.
Case study of a 2023 Pennsylvania school-board campaign examining how White Christian-nationalist themes appeared in rhetoric about schools, community identity, religion, and race.
Reviews state efforts involving Bible instruction, Ten Commandments displays, religious curriculum, and the constitutional disputes surrounding religion in public schools.
Defines White Christian nationalism for educational researchers and explains its relevance to school politics, book bans, critical-race-theory disputes, and questions of educational equity.
Examines homeschooling curricula that teach Christian-America narratives and disagreements among Christians about nationalism, education, history, and citizenship.
Health, Economy, Labor, and Social Policy
Uses General Social Survey data to investigate Christian nationalism, income, and attitudes toward economic, educational, and health inequalities.
Examines how Christian nationalism and socioeconomic position interact in shaping views of labor unions, workers, and organized labor.
Uses General Social Survey data to examine whether Christian-nationalist beliefs are associated with attitudes toward universal or government-provided health care.
Analyzes retailers on PublicSquare to examine how religious nationalism, conservative identity, patriotism, and culture-war themes are incorporated into commercial branding.
Studies connections between Christian nationalism and attitudes toward income taxes, redistribution, corporate taxation, environmental taxes, race, and economic hierarchy.
Studies public reactions to COVID-19 restrictions and finds Christian nationalism associated with prioritizing economic activity and individual liberty over restrictive public-health measures.
Uses a nationally representative survey to examine Christian nationalism and vaccine attitudes, finding the measure strongly associated with opposition to vaccines.
Examines pandemic behavior and reports that Christian nationalism predicted less cautious COVID-19 conduct, while some conventional measures of religiosity were associated with greater precaution.
Critical essay examining evangelical nationalism, American exceptionalism, post-truth politics, and responses to the coronavirus pandemic.
Studies how Christian nationalism shapes White Americans’ preferences for government spending that has been racially coded in public discourse.
Church-State, Religious Freedom, and Public Life
Compares Christian nationalism, civil religion, and liberal secularism as cultural models shaping Americans’ attitudes toward religious and nonreligious groups.
First Amendment explainer covering definitions of Christian nationalism, religious freedom, establishment law, historical background, and contemporary political disputes.
Covers the Rededicate 250 gathering, including religious rhetoric about America’s history, national covenant, public Christianity, and competing views of church-state relations.
Provides recent national survey data on Americans’ views of religion in government, Christian values in public life, official religion, and familiarity with Christian nationalism.
Reports Americans’ views on church-state separation, government promotion of Christian values, biblical influence on law, official religion, and the term Christian nationalism.
Provides broader survey context for Americans’ perceptions of religion’s declining public influence and their views on church-state relations and religious political power.
Examines Americans’ views of religion in public life, government, political conflict, social values, and the proper boundaries between religion and state.
Provides survey data on expectations for presidential candidates’ religious behavior and the extent to which Americans want political leaders to share or promote religious beliefs.
Reports on Mike Johnson’s relationships with Christian political activists and presents concerns from church-state specialists alongside supporters’ perspectives.
Interview with Baptist Joint Committee leader Amanda Tyler presenting an advocacy perspective on Christian nationalism, religious freedom, January 6, and church-state separation.
Examines how Christian nationalism and perceptions of anti-Christian discrimination shaped the political importance respondents placed on religious freedom.
Christian Theology, Churches, and Religious Responses
Investigates the religious practices and beliefs of Americans classified as religious nationalists and distinguishes religious commitment from political uses of Christian identity.
Studies whether differing theological understandings of God help explain variation in religious-nationalist attitudes among American Christians.
Discusses a book about Opus Dei and debates over Catholic political networks, religious conservatism, institutional power, and Christian nationalism.
Examines Catholic integralism and other Catholic forms of Christian nationalism, comparing them with better-known evangelical versions of religious nationalism.
Critiques the expanding use of the term “Christian nationalism,” arguing that it can be applied too loosely while also distinguishing more radical Christian political ideologies from ordinary conservatism.
Presents several Christian perspectives on resisting Christian nationalism through theology, civic participation, racial reconciliation, nonviolence, local organizing, and religious pluralism.
Discussion and study resource outlining Christian-nationalism terminology, historical context, theological objections, democracy concerns, and materials for congregational discussion.
Examines the religious institutions, participation patterns, theological beliefs, and denominational networks associated with Christian-nationalist attitudes.
Offers a theological and sociological critique by a leading Christian-nationalism scholar, arguing that pursuit of power and social control can conflict with Christian ethical teachings.
Interview with Andrew Whitehead about his book American Idolatry, presenting his theological and sociological critique of White Christian nationalism from within Christianity.
Examines Christian nationalism, biblical literalism, and generalized conspiracy thinking and finds the two religious-political orientations can reinforce one another.
Long-form review and analysis of Christian nationalism scholarship, theological debates, and the argument that Christian identity can function as a cultural or ethnonational marker.
Argues that the term Christian nationalism is often used imprecisely and calls for clearer distinctions among religious conservatism, patriotism, nationalism, and explicit Christian political rule.
Provides a conservative Christian definition of Christian nationalism and distinguishes it from Christianity itself, patriotism, and explicit White nationalism while acknowledging historical racial overlap.
