Christian Nationalism, Fear, and Threat

New research shows Christian nationalism resides in a constellation of social fears about ethno-racial purity and the perceived loss of individual autonomy

Fear and a sense of threat are incredibly powerful, especially for creating strong in-group ties and motivating group members toward a particular goal. The quickest way to know who “we” are is to know who “we” are not, and the reasons why “we” should oppose “them.”

Cultivating a sense of fear and threat of “them” has been a go-to political move for politicians and religious leaders in the United States for centuries. This is particularly true for leaders who consider(ed) the United States a “Christian nation.” Over and over they point(ed) to the necessity of Americans defending our Christian heritage in order to save this nation from certain demise and destruction.

These messages take the form of what scholars call “jeremiads,” which are political devices that lament a lost, idyllic past, usually due to the sins and waywardness of the people, and then pointing to a possible future of rebirth and restoration—if, and only if, the people shape up and begin to live up to the correct standards. These standards align with a particular expression of Christianity and demand they be closely fused with American civic life, national identity, and that the government defend and preserve this fusion.¹

Fear and anxiety are ever-present in jeremiads. It calls listeners to fear the present state of affairs. It calls listeners to fear the mistakes that led to the crisis of today. It call listeners to “do the right thing” based on these fears of what would happen to our nation in the future if they do not listen, repent, and return to faithfulness.

In American Idolatry I write how fear is a central idol of Christian nationalism and the role fear and threat play in the history of Christianity in the United States, and in particular the religious right in the last 40-50 years.

In a newly published article I wrote with Joseph Baker, we are able to further underscore this point empirically. We examine national survey data to show how Americans who embrace Christian nationalism have fears that generally coalesce around at least two main areas: fear of ethno-racial “others” and a fear of losing individual autonomy and agency.

Fear of Ethno-Racial “Others”

Xenophobia

Research consistently shows Americans who embrace Christian nationalism tend to have more negative views of immigrants and refugees, no matter their religion. Some leaders on the religious right have even gone so far as to connect fear of refugees and immigrants with the United States turning its back on God and diminishing our “culture.”

One example is a letter James Dobson—founder of the incredibly influential conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family—wrote after visiting the border. He wrote,

“I can only report that without an overhaul of the law and the allocation of resources, millions of illegal immigrants will continue flooding to this great land from around the world. Many of them have no marketable skills. They are illiterate and unhealthy. Some are violent criminals. Their numbers will soon overwhelm the culture as we have known it, and it could bankrupt the nation. America has been a wonderfully generous and caring country since its founding. That is our Christian nature. But in this instance, we have met a worldwide wave of poverty that will take us down if we don't deal with it. And it won't take long for the inevitable consequences to happen.”² (Italics added)

What do we find in national survey data? Americans who strongly embrace Christian nationalism are more likely to agree with various fears concerning immigrants, supporting statements like:

• ‘Immigrants are more likely to commit crime than U.S. citizens’;

• ‘Recent immigrants are more reluctant to assimilate than previous immigrants’;

• ‘Immigrants are a drain on the economy’;

• ‘Immigrants bring diseases to the United States’;

• ‘Police should be allowed to raid businesses and homes in order to find undocumented workers’;

• ‘Deportation is a good solution to immigration issues’; and

• ‘Creating a ‘pathway to citizenship’ will encourage illegal immigration.’

When we create a scale combining responses to the statements above, it’s relationship to Christian nationalism, even after accounting for other possible religious, political, and demographic explanations, looks like this:

Christian nationalism is the strongest predictor in the model and the relationship is clear—Americans who embrace Christian nationalism report much more fear of immigrants.

Islamophobia

Closely related to fear of immigrants is fear of Muslims (and other non-Christian groups). Here again, prior research clearly shows Christian nationalism is linked to Islamophobia. Islamophobia was supercharged after 9/11. During the first Trump administration it came to the forefront of our national discourse again. Religious leaders like Franklin Graham, son of famed 20th century evangelist Billy Graham, routinely incite fear of Islam and Muslims by saying things like, “We are under attack by Muslims at home and abroad. We should stop all immigration of Muslims to the U.S. until this threat with Islam has been settled. Every Muslim that comes into this country has the potential to be radicalized―and they do their killing to honor their religion and Muhammad.”

We examined Christian nationalism alongside Americans’ responses to the following questions about Muslims:

• ‘I think it is OK for Muslims to receive extra screening at the airport’;

• ‘Muslims are more likely to engage in terrorist activity than non-Muslims’;

• ‘Muslim values are at odds with American values and way of life’;

• ‘I would have a problem with my child marrying a Muslim’; and

• ‘I would be comfortable with having a mosque (a place of worship for Muslims) in my neighborhood.’³

Here’s what we found:

Yet again, a linear relationship between our fear of Muslims scale and Christian nationalism.

Fear of Racial Replacement

Religion in the United States is “racialized,” meaning it is inextricably tied to race, racism, and racial categories. One of the most consistent findings in the broader Christian nationalism literature is its association with racial attitudes—opposing interracial marriage, opposing transracial adoption, doubting racial inequality in policing, blaming racial inequality on the individual capabilities of racial minorities, more tolerance for racists. You get the idea.

As

Robert P. Jones

shows in his excellent book White Too Long, there are plenty of historical examples of white Christians linking the fate of our nation to maintaining racial inequality and opposing any form of racial diversity or integration. Like what a Mississippi state attorney general and deacon of First Baptist Church in Jackson once said during Jim Crow: “The facts of history make it plain that the development of civilization and of Christianity itself has rested in the hands of the white race,” and that integration, “will result in driving the white race from the earth forever, never to return.”

When we examined a question that asked Americans, “How afraid are you of the following events? Whites no longer being the majority in the U.S.,” we found that Christian nationalism is again one of the the strongest predictors of feeling any sort of fear about a coming time when whites are no longer a majority in the US.

Taken together—fear of immigrants, Muslims, of whites no longer being the majority—we can see that fear of ethno-racial “others” (i.e. nonwhites) is intimately intertwined with Christian nationalism.

Fear of Losing Perceived Agency and Autonomy

Fear of Socialism, Communism, and Globalism

When considering the history of Christian nationalism, particularly through the 20th century, fear of socialism, communism, and globalism make appearances again and again.

Kevin M. Kruse

’s book One Nation Under God shows how fears of “creeping socialism” around the New Deal pushed business leaders to go all in on supporting religions leaders (like Billy Graham) who were willing to tie together faithfulness to the Christian God with full-fledged support for pro-business capitalism and disdain toward “socialism.”

A bit later, in the 1950s, communism was the new threat to our Christian American and so we put “In God we Trust” on our bills and adopted it as our national motto and placed “under God” in our pledge. Billy Graham was yet again a key figure in laying out the stakes for American Christians. We either oppose communism and the atheism it contains or our (Christian) nation will fall.

After the Red Scare, globalism was adopted as a new threat…do you see the trend? As

Kristin Du Mez

points out in Jesus and John Wayne, conservative Christianity and Christian nationalism has always been predicated on finding a new enemy. It demands a new threat to define itself against.

When we measure how afraid Americans are of “socialism,” “communism,” and “globalism” and combine them into a scale, Christian nationalism is the second strongest predictor behind political conservatism.

Fear of Gun Control

Finally, we looked at fear of governmental regulations of guns as a last measure of threat to individual agency and autonomy. Prior work demonstrates Americans who embrace Christian nationalism are most likely to oppose gun control because they believe gun violence is an individual problem and it is only through individual-level remedies—like getting people saved and protecting individual rights—that we can end gun violence.

Here again Christian nationalism is significantly associated with having any fear about the federal government placing restrictions on firearms and ammunition. In fact, moving from rejecting Christian nationalism up to strongly embracing it results in an increase in the odds of reporting fear by about a factor of 4.

What does all this mean?

Fear has and will continue to be a strong motivating force in American politics, particularly once we account for the presence and influence of Christian nationalism. The Christian Right that largely embraced and magnified Christian nationalism fomented these (and other) fears in order to rally the faithful together and successfully motivate them to fight back.

Fear-based rhetoric and dis- or misinformation around racial and ethnic minorities, including immigrants and religious minorities who are racialized as non-white, will continue to resonate with a substantial portion of the American public.

Fear-based rhetoric and dis- or misinformation around the loss of individual agency and autonomy will continue to resonate with a substantial portion of the American public.

Christian nationalism supercharges those fears and threats in how it locates these struggles in a cosmic battle between good and evil, God and Satan, those who would protect the United States and those who would try to tear it down. It is hard to imagine a more motivating message. As we all know, it is incredibly hard to counter.

Groups that are working to oppose Christian nationalism will need to deal directly with the feelings of fear and threat some Americans report if they hope to combat the influence of Christian nationalism on our civic life.

When we talk about Christian nationalism in the United States and what it means for us politically and religiously, we have to consider the role that fear plays. Christian nationalism and fear inspire millions of Americans to be politically active in order to defend a Christian United States that is ethnically pure, economically free, and well-armed.

1. Sound familiar? It’s Christian nationalism: “Christian nationalism is a cultural framework—a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems—that idealizes and advocates a fusion of a particular expression of Christianity with American civic life. It holds that this version of Christianity should be the principal and undisputed cultural framework in the United States and that the government should vigorously preserve that cultural framework.”

2. This is cited from American Idolatry on page 87.

3. We reverse coded the responses to this last question, such that folks who strongly disagreed with this statement were given higher scores on our fear of Muslims scale.