The Culture Wars and Christian Nationalism
- NOTOC**
Christian Nationalism: Definitions, Measurement, Identity, and Scholarly Debate
Christian nationalism has become an important but contested concept in the study of religion, politics, nationalism, and American identity. The term generally refers to efforts to connect Christianity with national identity and public life, but scholars disagree over how broadly the concept should be defined, how it should be measured, and whether different religious and political orientations are sometimes grouped together under the same label.
The growing literature therefore includes not only research about the political consequences associated with Christian nationalism but also an extensive debate about the concept itself. Some scholars treat Christian nationalism as a distinctive worldview connecting Christianity with national identity. Others argue that researchers need to distinguish among religious traditionalism, political conservatism, nationalism, Christian identity, civil religion, support for government promotion of Christianity, and broader forms of conservative identity politics.
These disagreements do not necessarily mean that Christian nationalism is an unusable concept. Instead, they illustrate an evolving field in which researchers are attempting to determine precisely what the term describes and how different forms of religion and national identity interact.
Defining Christian Nationalism
One of the fundamental debates concerns the definition of Christian nationalism. In its broadest sense, the concept describes an understanding of national identity in which Christianity occupies an important place in the nation's history, culture, institutions, or political order.
However, this definition leaves several questions unresolved. Supporting a cultural connection between Christianity and American history is not necessarily the same as supporting government establishment or preferential treatment of Christianity. Likewise, religious conservatism, patriotism, nationalism, and Christian nationalism may overlap without necessarily being identical.
Paul D. Miller, writing from a Christian theological perspective, distinguishes Christianity, patriotism, nationalism, and Christian nationalism. His approach illustrates an important conceptual distinction: attachment to one's country or belief that religion can contribute to public life does not automatically establish support for a political system in which Christianity receives governmental privilege.
Jesse Smith and Gary J. Adler Jr. similarly argue that researchers should distinguish among different ways people understand religion's relationship to national and public life. They question whether Christian nationalism sometimes functions as an overly expansive category encompassing political and religious attitudes that may have different origins and meanings.
Other writers have extended this criticism into public discussion. Brad East argues for greater precision in conversations about Christian nationalism, while Michael Sean Winters questions whether the phrase remains sufficiently precise for understanding the diversity of conservative Christian politics. George Yancey proposes that some attitudes identified as Christian nationalism may sometimes be better interpreted as forms of conservative identity politics.
These arguments form part of a broader debate over whether Christian nationalism should be understood as a narrowly defined ideology, a collection of political attitudes, a cultural worldview, a social identity, or several related phenomena.
Varieties of Christian Nationalism
Research increasingly suggests that people who connect Christianity with national identity do not necessarily share a single political program.
Nilay Saiya's work on the varieties of American Christian nationalism develops a typology intended to distinguish different orientations within the broader phenomenon. Such approaches challenge interpretations that assume all supporters of stronger connections between Christianity and national identity hold identical beliefs about government, democracy, religious freedom, or political authority.
Ruiqian Li and Paul Froese offer another distinction by separating religious traditionalism from Christian statism.
Religious traditionalism concerns attachment to traditional Christian beliefs, values, institutions, and moral understandings. Christian statism, by contrast, concerns support for governmental involvement in promoting or privileging Christianity.
The distinction is important because a person might hold traditional Christian beliefs while opposing state control or establishment of religion. Conversely, political support for public Christian symbolism or government recognition of Christianity may not necessarily reflect strong personal religious observance.
These distinctions suggest that Christian nationalism may contain several dimensions whose political consequences should be examined separately rather than assumed to operate identically.
Measuring Christian Nationalism
A major portion of the scholarly debate concerns measurement.
Much quantitative research has relied on survey questions designed to measure attitudes about Christianity and American national identity. Researchers can combine responses to such questions into a Christian nationalism scale and examine associations between that scale and other political or social attitudes.
The validity of this approach has become a significant methodological debate.
Nicholas T. Davis examined the psychometric properties of the commonly used Christian nationalism scale and questioned whether its component questions necessarily measure a single underlying phenomenon.
Smith and Adler likewise argue that some widely used survey items can be interpreted in multiple ways. A respondent who agrees that religion should influence public life, for example, might do so for reasons that differ substantially from another respondent giving the same answer.
Jesse Smith and George Yancey subsequently proposed an alternative measurement approach designed to distinguish more directly among different components of Christian nationalism.
The dispute illustrates a broader problem in social-science research: researchers must determine whether survey questions are measuring the theoretical concept they are intended to represent. Different definitions and measurement strategies can produce different interpretations of the same political attitudes.
Consequently, debates about Christian nationalism concern not only what people believe but also how researchers classify those beliefs.
Christian Nationalism as a Social Identity
Another development in the literature examines Christian nationalism as a social identity rather than exclusively as a collection of policy attitudes.
Brooklyn Walker, Paul Djupe, Anand Sokhey, and Donald Haider-Markel distinguish between Christian nationalism as a worldview and Christian nationalism as an identity that individuals consciously recognize and adopt.
This distinction may help explain why people who provide similar answers to individual survey questions do not necessarily understand themselves in the same way politically or religiously.
Social identities involve perceptions of belonging. Individuals identify themselves with particular communities while distinguishing those communities from other groups. When Christian nationalism functions as a social identity, questions about belonging, recognition, perceived threats, and group boundaries may therefore become especially important.
This approach also raises questions about the difference between holding particular opinions and consciously considering Christian national identity an important part of one's political or religious identity.
In-Groups, Out-Groups, and National Belonging
Several studies examine how Christian nationalism relates to perceptions of social groups.
Zachary Broeren and Paul Djupe experimentally distinguish between preferential treatment for Christian in-groups and hostility toward perceived out-groups. Their work emphasizes the role that perceived persecution or threats to Christianity can play in shaping political responses.
Fanhao Nie examines attitudes toward atheists in connection with Christian nationalism. Questions about atheists are particularly relevant to national-identity research because they address whether religious belief is considered part of the criteria for being regarded as a trustworthy or legitimate member of the national community.
These studies illustrate why researchers increasingly examine Christian nationalism not simply as a religious doctrine but as a possible framework for determining symbolic boundaries around national belonging.
A central research question is therefore whether Christianity is understood as one cultural influence among many within national life or as a defining characteristic separating perceived insiders from outsiders.
Race, Civil Religion, and Christian Nationalism
Research also investigates relationships among Christian nationalism, racial attitudes, and American civil religion.
Brooklyn Walker and Donald Haider-Markel examine how racial cues can affect expressions of support for Christian nationalism and civil religion. Their research suggests that the relationship between national religious identity and racial attitudes warrants examination rather than assuming that religious and racial identities operate independently.
Civil religion provides an important comparison. American political culture has long incorporated religious language, ceremonies, symbols, and references to God. Such practices can create a generalized religious dimension to national identity without necessarily establishing a specific Christian denomination or theological doctrine.
Researchers therefore face the problem of distinguishing civil religion from Christian nationalism. A person might support public references to God because they regard them as part of American civic tradition, while another might support similar practices because they believe government should explicitly privilege Christianity.
Identical responses to individual survey questions can consequently reflect different underlying beliefs.
Political Institutions and Perceptions of Religion
Christian nationalism research also explores how religious and partisan identities influence perceptions of political institutions.
Samuel Perry examines whether Americans view political parties and the Supreme Court as friendly or hostile toward religion. Such perceptions may depend not only on institutional behavior but also on whether people believe political institutions reflect their own religious and political identities.
This highlights an important relationship among religion, partisan identity, and institutional trust.
People may evaluate the same institution differently depending upon their expectations concerning religion's proper role in public life. Consequently, perceptions that government is either protecting or threatening religion can become an important element of political identity.
These findings also demonstrate why scholars attempt to separate Christian nationalism from ordinary religious commitment. Political attitudes concerning courts, political parties, and government authority cannot automatically be inferred simply from whether someone identifies as Christian or participates in religious institutions.
Religious Inclusion and Political Tolerance
Research has also examined alternatives to Christian nationalism.
Paul Djupe and Brooklyn Walker study whether religiously inclusive orientations necessarily produce greater political tolerance. Their findings complicate assumptions that simply rejecting Christian nationalism automatically produces tolerant attitudes across every political circumstance.
This distinction is important because political tolerance is itself multidimensional. People can support religious pluralism while remaining intolerant toward particular political movements, or they may defend rights for groups with whom they strongly disagree while maintaining substantial social or ideological distance from them.
The research therefore cautions against constructing a simple spectrum in which Christian nationalism occupies one end and universal political tolerance automatically occupies the other.
Instead, attitudes toward religion, pluralism, political rights, national identity, and political opponents may interact in more complicated ways.
Christian Nationalism and Democracy
Some scholarship places Christian nationalism within broader debates about democracy and religious nationalism.
Nilay Saiya examines Christian nationalism from an international perspective and considers circumstances in which forms of religious nationalism may come into tension with democratic institutions and religious pluralism.
This comparative perspective is useful because religious nationalism is not exclusively an American phenomenon. Political movements in many countries have connected majority religious traditions with national identity.
However, institutional contexts vary considerably. The political consequences of religious nationalism can depend on constitutional arrangements, party systems, minority protections, religious demographics, and the degree to which governments formally privilege particular religious traditions.
Claims about Christian nationalism and democracy therefore require distinctions among specific beliefs, political movements, institutional arrangements, and national contexts rather than assuming that every relationship between Christianity and national identity produces the same result.
Methodological and Interpretive Debate
The scholarly debate surrounding Christian nationalism has increasingly become a debate about social-science methodology.
Jesse Smith argues that some explanations of Christian nationalism risk essentialism when they assume particular motivations, such as authoritarianism, rather than testing competing explanations.
Steven Foertsch, by contrast, defends critical approaches to Christian nationalism research and argues for examining relationships among religion, nationalism, hierarchy, and political authority.
These disagreements illustrate two different concerns.
One concern is that researchers may interpret ambiguous survey responses too broadly, attributing motivations to respondents that the survey questions themselves do not establish.
The competing concern is that studying political attitudes without considering historical structures, hierarchy, inequality, or power relationships may overlook important features of religious nationalism.
Both perspectives highlight the importance of separating empirical evidence from theoretical interpretation.
Researchers can observe statistical relationships among survey responses, demographic characteristics, identities, and political attitudes. Determining why those relationships exist requires additional theoretical arguments and evidence.
An Evolving Concept
The literature increasingly portrays Christian nationalism as a multidimensional subject rather than a single easily defined ideology.
Among the distinctions appearing in the research are:
- Christian nationalism and patriotism
- Christian nationalism and religious conservatism
- Christian nationalism and civil religion
- Religious traditionalism and Christian statism
- Christian nationalism as a worldview and as a social identity
- Religious belief and political identity
- Christian in-group preference and hostility toward out-groups
- Cultural Christianity and governmental religious preference
- Christian nationalism and broader conservative identity politics
These distinctions have important consequences for research.
A broad definition may capture more aspects of the relationship between Christianity and national identity but risk combining people with significantly different beliefs. A narrow definition may provide greater conceptual precision while excluding cultural or political attitudes that other researchers consider important to the phenomenon.
There is therefore no single methodological solution accepted across the literature. Researchers continue developing alternative scales, typologies, experiments, identity measures, and theoretical frameworks.
Conclusion
Christian nationalism has become a significant field of research at the intersection of religion, nationalism, political identity, and American public life. At the same time, the literature demonstrates substantial disagreement about precisely what the concept means and how it should be studied.
Some scholarship emphasizes connections between Christianity, national identity, political authority, group boundaries, and attitudes toward democratic institutions. Other scholarship argues that the category has sometimes become too broad and that researchers should separate religious traditionalism, Christian statism, conservatism, patriotism, civil religion, nationalism, and identity politics.
Measurement remains one of the most important areas of debate. Standard Christian nationalism scales have made large-scale quantitative research possible, but critics question whether all of their survey items measure the same underlying phenomenon. Newer approaches consequently attempt to distinguish between different dimensions of belief and between Christian nationalism as a worldview and as a consciously adopted social identity.
Taken together, the research suggests that Christian nationalism is best understood as an ongoing area of empirical and conceptual investigation rather than as a term with a single universally accepted definition. Greater attention to definitions, measurement, social identity, institutional context, and competing explanations can help clarify how Christianity, national belonging, and political authority intersect in contemporary public life.
- TOC**
Definitions, Concepts, and Debates
1. [On Christian Nationalism | Jesse Smith; Jonathan Tran | Religious Studies Review | September 5, 2026]
Reviews contemporary scholarship and public discussion of Christian nationalism while questioning whether the concept sometimes combines too many different religious and political phenomena under one label.
2. [The Weakness of Anti-Christian Nationalism: When Religiously Inclusive Orientations Can’t Increase Tolerance | Paul A. Djupe; Brooklyn Walker | Politics and Religion | March 26, 2026]
Investigates whether religiously inclusive alternatives to Christian nationalism consistently produce greater political tolerance and finds important limits to that expectation.
3. [It’s Not ‘Christian Nationalism.’ It’s Conservative Identity Politics. | George Yancey | Christianity Today | January 22, 2026]
Argues that some phenomena described as Christian nationalism may be better understood as conservative identity politics and offers an alternative interpretation of the relationship between religion and political polarization.
4. [Time to Retire the Phrase ‘Christian Nationalism’ | Michael Sean Winters | National Catholic Reporter | November 21, 2025]
Critiques the usefulness of Christian nationalism as a political category and argues that the terminology can obscure important distinctions among conservative Christians and political movements.
5. [The Varieties of American Christian Nationalism | Nilay Saiya | Politics and Religion | May 13, 2025]
Develops a typology of Christian nationalism in the United States, emphasizing that people who favor a stronger relationship between Christianity and national identity can differ substantially in their political goals and attitudes toward democracy.
6. [How (Not) to Talk About ‘Christian Nationalism’ | Brad East | Christianity Today | March 13, 2024]
Discusses problems that can arise when Christian nationalism becomes an overly broad political label and considers how Christians might discuss religion, nationhood, and political identity more precisely.
7. [The Duality of American Christian Nationalism: Religious Traditionalism versus Christian Statism | Ruiqian Li; Paul Froese | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | August 2, 2023]
Separates Christian nationalism into religious traditionalism and support for state-backed Christianity, showing why different dimensions of the ideology can produce different political and cultural attitudes.
8. [What Is Christian Nationalism and Why Is It a Problem? | Drew J. Strait | Brethren in Christ History & Life | April 2023]
Introduces Christian nationalism from a church-history and theological perspective, discussing its relationship to national identity, political power, and competing Christian understandings of citizenship.
9. [What Isn’t Christian Nationalism? A Call for Conceptual and Empirical Splitting | Jesse Smith; Gary J. Adler Jr. | Socius | 2022]
Examines the expanding use of the term Christian nationalism and argues that researchers should distinguish among different religious, political, and nationalist orientations rather than treating them as a single phenomenon.
10. [What Is Christian Nationalism? | Paul D. Miller | Christianity Today | February 3, 2021]
Defines Christian nationalism from a Christian theological perspective and distinguishes patriotism, Christianity, nationalism, and proposals for privileging Christianity through government.
Concepts, Measurement, and Identity
11. [Christian Nationalism as a Social Identity | Brooklyn Walker; Paul A. Djupe; Anand E. Sokhey; Donald P. Haider-Markel | Public Opinion Quarterly | July 4, 2026]
Examines Christian nationalism as a consciously held social identity rather than solely as a collection of survey attitudes and explores how self-identification relates to political worldviews.
12. [Defending Critical Epistemology: The Case of Christian Nationalism and Christofascism | Steven Foertsch | Sociological Forum | December 29, 2025]
Responds to methodological debates surrounding Christian nationalism research and defends critical approaches for examining relationships among religion, political authority, hierarchy, and nationalism.
13. [Measurement and Conceptualization of Christian Nationalism: A Critical Examination and Alternative Approach | Jesse Smith; George Yancey | Review of Religious Research | May 21, 2025]
Examines how Christian nationalism has been defined and measured in survey research and proposes alternative ways to distinguish religious nationalism from related political and cultural attitudes.
14. [Which Political Entities Are “Friendly” to Religion? The Interplay of Entity, Identity Congruence, and Christian Nationalism | Samuel L. Perry | Politics and Religion | October 2, 2024]
Examines how Christian nationalism and partisan identity influence whether Americans perceive political parties and the Supreme Court as friendly, neutral, or hostile toward religion.
15. [Old Wine in New Wineskins: Christian Nationalism, Authoritarianism, and the Problem of Essentialism in Explanations of Religiopolitical Conflict | Jesse Smith | Sociological Forum | August 11, 2024]
Critiques parts of the Christian nationalism research literature, arguing that researchers should consider alternative explanations for observed political attitudes and avoid assuming that all Christian nationalist beliefs arise from authoritarian motivations.
16. [A Colorblind Christian Country? How Racial Attitudes Affect Support for Christian Nationalism and Civil Religion | Brooklyn Walker; Donald P. Haider-Markel | Politics and Religion | June 5, 2024]
Uses an experiment to investigate connections among racial attitudes, Christian nationalism, and civil religion and finds that racial cues can influence support for public expressions of religious nationalism.
17. [The Ingroup Love and Outgroup Hate of Christian Nationalism: Experimental Evidence About the Implementation of the Rule of Law | Zachary D. Broeren; Paul A. Djupe | Politics and Religion | December 4, 2023]
Uses survey experiments to distinguish preferential treatment of Christian in-groups from hostility toward out-groups and finds that perceived Christian persecution plays an important role in activating negative responses.
18. [In God We Distrust: Christian Nationalism and Anti-Atheist Attitude | Fanhao Nie | Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion | November 6, 2023]
Investigates the relationship between Christian nationalism and attitudes toward atheists, including questions about trust, morality, national belonging, and religious boundaries.
19. [Christian Nationalism’s Threat to Global Democracy | Nilay Saiya | The Review of Faith & International Affairs | May 12, 2023]
Places Christian nationalism in international perspective and examines circumstances in which religious nationalism can conflict with religious pluralism and democratic institutions.
20. [The Psychometric Properties of the Christian Nationalism Scale | Nicholas T. Davis | Politics and Religion | July 11, 2022]
Evaluates the widely used six-item Christian nationalism scale and raises questions about whether it reliably measures a single underlying political-religious orientation.
