Summary: Christian nationalism is a better predictor for voting for Trump than identifying as an Evangelical.

Yesterday I pulled up Miroslav Volf's For the Life of the World podcast because it was interviewing Jemar Tisby. I am very familiar with Jemar (and his book Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church's Complicity in Racism). But I thought this was still a good interview and especially if you are not familiar with his book and work.

Because I was driving, I let it keep playing to last week's podcast because I had not heard it. Volf was interviewing Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry, sociologists of religion, talking about their recent book "Taking America Back for God". The book is about Christian Nationalism. And the podcast gives a very good overview but doesn't delve deeply into the argument. I immediately bought the audiobook and just finished listening to the book.

Short version: these two have developed a measure of Christian Nationalism and have used it in large scale surveys in 2007 and 2017 as well as compared it to other measures of Christian Nationalism. They believe that Christian Nationalism is the best predictor of voting for Trump in 2016 and will also be a good predictor for 2020. They also believe that White Evangelicals is not a good predictor of voting for Trump because many while many Christian Nationalists are evangelicals, not all evangelicals are Christian nationalists.

Christian nationalists and those that lean in that direction make up a majority of Evangelicals, and there are many factors in why that is true, but Christian Nationalists are present in many parts of the Christian church and even some that do not identify as Christian, but who view Christian nationalism as a type of American identify. Where I find the argument interesting is in the other associations with Christian nationalism, that overlap with (but are not necessarily the same as voting for Trump).

According to the authors, there are three aspects of Christian nationalism, power, boundaries, and order. (These are tendencies, so not every person that is a Christian Nationalist is deterministically someone that agrees to all of the following and those that follow any or all of the following are not necessarily Christian Nationalists, but they do hold explanatory power). Christian Nationalists tend to see political power as important and are primarily interested in the results of nationalism's expression, not as much in the means to get there. So using Trump as an example, they don't care that much about the 'pussy-grabbing' and racist language, although they may find it distasteful, as long as the judges are appointed and the power is wielded.

Secondly, (White) Christian Nationalists draw boundaries. They are not in favor of immigrants, especially refugees, who they see as likely to be Muslim or in other ways counter to their view of what it means to be an American. They distrust Muslims in particular because they are afraid of terrorism and violence, but also other immigrants from places like Central or South America (who tend to be Protestant Christian at fairly high rates) because they are still "other". And within the US, Christian Nationalists tend to have a White normative view of what it means to be American, so Black and other racial minorities in the US are still 'other' and not 'real Americans'.

(They don't spend as much time as I wish they would like on this, but they differentiate Black Christian nationalists, who lean toward Christian Nationalism at very high rates, but who use the ideas and language of Christian nationalism as a means of inclusion, not exclusion. So Black Christian nationalists use the ideas of Christian nationalism as a means of saying that Black Americans are, in fact, fully American and not as a way to exclude others from the designation.)

The third feature is an understanding of Order. This includes not only prioritizing policing and authority (Blue Lives Matter types of sentiment) but also family order and community uniformity. They tend to be patriarchal in family order and point to a normative nuclear family as essential to being American in their understanding. They would see breakdowns of the family not as a result of poverty but as a cause of poverty.

The order part also applies to resistance toward gay marriage, neighborhood or school integration, and interracial families, not only interracial marriage but also interracial adoption as contrary to the social order.

Like many sociology books, it is more about description than a solution or prescription. And they call for more research. But there is some discussion about how people that are attracted to nationalistic ideas can be drawn toward more empathy and understanding. But this feels like a significant factor when thinking about the resistance of White Christians in particular to understanding issues of racism. It feels like those that are lower on the Christian nationalism scale are likely those that are more likely to already be in discussions about race and are already crossing boundaries.

At the same time, this points out some of the broader tendencies within the church that seem to be failing in regard to race. Groups like the National Day of Prayer, family advocacy groups like Focus on the Family, and those that highly value institutions will be more likely to have staff and supporters that are high on the Christian nationalism scale.

I was pretty involved in Mission America as a young adult. Through that, I knew several that were on planning committees for National Day of Prayer and many local prayer breakfast groups. As I became disillusioned from these groups for a number of reasons (but mostly from their dominionist theology and utilitarian thinking), I was still Facebook friends or in-person acquaintances with these people.

I started to see how they responded to Obama as an "other" and dangerous (I lived in Hyde Part where Obama was from, I met him first in 1997, long before he became famous and I knew many people from Trinity Church where Obama went and knew that it was not a dangerously radical church.) Most of those relationships faded over time naturally as I moved from Chicago and was no longer involved with Mission America or pastors prayer groups as part of my job. But a few still exist, and this book really felt like it explains many people to me.

One feature discussed in the podcast is that Nationalists groups in Europe tend to be only culturally Christian. Still, many Christian Nationalists in the US are devote, regularly attend church, see their faith as important, but also have an orthopraxy problem with their faith. Some are solely culturally Christian, but at least among those that identify as Evangelical or Catholic or Mainline Protestant, many are still very active in participating with their faith.

Taking America Back For God is clear that most would not self identify as Christian Nationalists, although some would. The groups are based on the answers to six questions and then coded into groups based on the cumulative scores of these questions:

1) The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation.
2) The federal government should advocate Christian values
3) The Federal Government should enforce strict separation of church and state (reverse coded)
4) The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces
5) The success of the United States is part of God's plan
6) The federal government should allow prayer in public schools

A very solid bit of scholarship, a bit intimidating since the methodology section in the beginning is somewhat dense but that rigor does a lot to shore up the results and analysis discussed within the following chapters.

Super helpful and insightful; super dry. Worth it, but only once.

This book is an absolute must-read to understand the current religious and political climate in America right now. The authors have done extensive research to better understand what Christian Nationalism is and who Christian Nationalists are.

They define Christian nationalism as “Christian nationalism is a cultural framework—a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems—that idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life” (10). Though holding the term “Christian”, Christian nationalism is not the same as religion: “the “Christianity” of Christian nationalism represents something more than religion. As we will show, it includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism. It is as ethnic and political as it is religious” (10)

Along those lines, the authors separate Christian nationalism from the traditional American “civic religion.” American civic religion has looked to parts of scripture such as the prophets to call citizens to civic engagement and the institution of just politics and so forth. Contrast this with Christian nationalism which Christian nationalism is rarely concerned with instituting explicitly “Christ-like” policies, or even policies reflecting New Testament ethics at all. Rather, Christian nationalists view God’s expectations of America as akin to his commands to Old Testament Israel. Like Israel, then, America should fear God’s wrath for unfaithfulness while assuming God’s blessing—or even mandate—for subduing the continent by force if necessary” (11).

Christian nationalism is more political than religious. Thus, a person’s identity as a Christian nationalist has more to do with if they are politically conservative than if they are a white evangelical. That point is one of the biggest takeaways from the book: Christian nationalist does not equal white evangelical. Plenty of white evangelicals are Christian nationalists, but not all Christian nationalists are white evangelicals. One point they emphasize throughout is that once Christian nationalism is taken into account, those who actively practice religion (attend church, pray, read Bible) are nearly the opposite of Christian nationalists. Christian nationalists, for example, are anti-immigration, while religious practitioners are more likely to be pro-immigration.

“Stated simply: being an evangelical, or even a white evangelical as pollsters often define that category, tells us almost nothing about a person’s social attitudes or behavior once Christian nationalism has been considered. The two categories often overlap, to be sure. Roughly half of evangelicals (by some definitions) embrace Christian nationalism to some degree. And yet what is really influencing Americans’ behavior? Being affiliated with evangelicalism? Holding to traditional views about the Bible? Or advocating Christian nationalism? As it turns out, being an evangelical does not lead one to enthusiastically support border walls with Mexico; favoring Christian nationalism does. Being an evangelical does not seem to sour Americans’ attitudes toward stronger gun control legislation; endorsing Christian nationalism does. Being an evangelical was not an important predictor of which Americans voted for Donald Trump in 2016; supporting Christian nationalism was. Readers should keep this in mind throughout” (29).

Throughout the book they examine all these points in more depth. They describe four groups: Ambassadors are wholly supportive of Christian nationalism, Accomodators lean that direction, Rejecters wholly reject Christian nationalism and Resisters lean towards rejection. Through discussing topics such as orders and boundaries, they look at how each of these groups differs in how it views the world.

The conclusion brings it all together and again emphasizes why this topic is important:

“Acknowledging the importance of Christian nationalism also introduces the precision that our public discourse on religion and politics so desperately needs. For the past few years journalists and political commentators have obsessed over why “white evangelicals,” voted for President Trump. In reality, however, it is not just being evangelical or even being a white evangelical that truly matters. Rather, it is the degree to which Americans—perceiving current political conflicts through the lens of Christian nationalism—wish to institutionalize conservative “Christian” cultural preferences in America’s policies and self-identity. Recognizing the power of Christian nationalism helps us acknowledge not only the diversity within particular religious traditions but also why those of different religious traditions who are Ambassadors tend to vote and act in very similar ways. Evangelicals and mainline Protestants who are Ambassadors are much more alike politically than are Ambassadors and Resisters who are both mainline Protestants. Moreover, Christian nationalism is not bound to any particular religious group. . . Christian nationalism is significant because calls to “take America back for God” are not primarily about mobilizing the faithful toward religious ends ” (152-153)


And

“Christian nationalism is, therefore, ultimately about privilege. It co-opts Christian language and iconography in order to cloak particular political or social ends in moral and religious symbolism. This serves to legitimate the demands, wants, and desires of those embracing Christian nationalism in the transcendent. If God says the United States should take a particular stance, or pass a specific law, who are we to argue? Christian nationalism is used to defend against shifts in the culture toward equality for groups that have historically lacked access to the levers of power—women, sexual, racial, ethnic, and religious minorities” (152-153)

Overall, a very important book in understanding Christian nationalism.