And Who are Our Neighbors?

Christian nationalism and opposition to immigrants--but with a surprise twist!

About a week ago my good friend and colleague Sam Perry tweeted out how the most common finding in the “Christian nationalism” research is the strong link between xenophobia and Christian nationalism. He linked to just a handful of peer-reviewed studies on the topic, and both our first book Taking America Back for God and his next book The Flag and the Cross explore this relationship, as well.

This link in so strong I devoted an entire chapter to it in American Idolatry. The idols of power, fear, and violence are laid bare in how they encourage Americans who embrace Christian nationalism to fear and ultimately oppress immigrants and refugees coming to the United States.

What keeps this issue front and center during election cycles, particularly in our current presidential election year, is that for many Americans who embrace Christian nationalism, they base their vote on which candidate shares their views on immigration.

The below figure is from PRRI’s recent report on Christian nationalism across all 50 states. Almost half (49%) of “adherents” of Christian nationalism rank immigration as the most important factor in who they’ll support at the ballot box.

And these folks have clear views of immigrants…

Adherents of Christian nationalism are more likely to believe “the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence” and “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background” and disagree that “the growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society.”

The above figure is from another recent PRRI report.

You’ll notice that white Christian nationalism adherents are even more extreme in their views toward immigrants—they are most likely to view immigrants as a harbinger of decline for our country, something that we must all protect ourselves against.

Or take this finding from a survey I conducted last fall. You can see that more respondents with higher scores on the Christian nationalism scale agree that “immigrants are a drain on the economy.”

The figures and findings I’ve shared thus far paint a clear and disturbing picture. Americans who embrace Christian nationalism hold strong and derogatory views of immigrants while simultaneously ranking “immigration” as one of the most important issues for them as they pick a candidate.

Here’s where the twist comes in that Sam identified in another tweet—these views of immigrants are likely not due to any first-hand experience or interaction with real-life immigrants. Consider the following two figures.

The first shows, using PRRI and US Census data, the percentage of the population for each of the 50 states who are “adherents” of Christian nationalism and the percent of that state who are “foreign born.”

The strong negative correlation signals that those states with the highest proportions of Christian nationalism adherents have the lowest numbers of folks born outside the United States.

In this next figure I again look at the percentage of the population for each of the 50 states who are “adherents” of Christian nationalism, but this time related to the net number of international migrants (per 1,000 population) for each state.

Here again we see a strong, negative correlation. Those states with higher numbers of Christian nationalism adherents have the lowest numbers of international migrants.

So as Sam pointed out, it isn’t about exposure—it’s about fear and manufactured threat.

Study after study show that communities with more immigrants have lower levels of crime. In one study, the illegal immigrant criminal conviction rate was 45 percent below that of native-born Americans in Texas.

But that doesn’t stop some from claiming immigrants are bringing crime, disease, and economic chaos to American communities. And while those who strongly embrace Christian nationalism are the most likely to accept and perpetuate those myths, they are the least likely to actually live in states with large immigrant populations.

If they did, perhaps they would begin to see their neighbors with new eyes, those not yet twisted by the idols of fear and threat and a thirst for self-interested power inherent to Christian nationalism. They may begin to empathize with their neighbors and see them as “fellow travelers” worthy of support and our collective investment.

This is why at the end of my chapter on Christian nationalism and xenophobia, I wrote the following—

With a commitment to empathy and to placing ourselves in situations of diversity, we can begin to train ourselves to respond not with fear and a sense of threat, grasping at power and privilege, but with a sense of “holy curiosity.” We can begin to see the value and beauty in the diversity and difference surrounding us and how those we are told to fear can offer so much if we would only receive it.

With this attitude, we might begin to see with new eyes the true nature of our shared circumstances: a system placing us on one end of a continuum of affluence and power with immigrants and refugees on the other. While love might move us toward acts of charity, sometimes they are short-sighted or insufficient for addressing the roots of poverty, inequality, and, in this case, an unfair immigration and refugee asylum system. We can commit to looking upstream to break down the barriers that limit entire groups from participating in American culture and society.

Fear, hatred, and a lack of empathy toward immigrants and refugees are not faithful representations of the love of the God. They are, however, faithful representations of the desire for power and privilege inherent to Christian nationalism.

This is not to say that American Christians who fear immigrants and demonize refugees are not “true” Christians; they most definitely are. All Christians, including those of us who oppose such actions, must own all the parts of our tradition, the good, bad, and ugly. We can, however, call those actions what they are—sin—and implore our fellow Christians to lay down the idol of their national identity and the comfort and power it promises. We can turn from our idols of power, fear, and violence. We can commit to viewing everyone—whether immigrant or refugee—as fellow travelers deserving of any privileges our American citizenship might provide.

Only then can we stop betraying and begin to fulfill the gospel command to love our neighbors. All our neighbors.