By Brooklyn Walker and Don Haider-Markel

The appropriate role of religion, namely Christianity, in public life has long been debated in the United States. In the case of civil religion, religious references shared by many Americans were used to bridge ethnic divides, promoting a more inclusive vision of what the United States could be. But more recently, Christian nationalism, or the conflation of Christian and national identity and culture, has received widespread attention as a bid to maintain divisive racial and ethnic boundaries. 

In the American experience, Christianity’s development has been influenced by America’s racial divisions. By the 1800s, Christianity was used by White slaveholders to sustain racial supremacy, and, over one hundred years later, White Christians were some of the most vocal opponents of the Civil Rights Movement. For many White Christians, America’s character and its future success depended on values associated with Whiteness. 

There have been some significant changes to America and American Christianity in the years since. The United States has become more racially diverse and BIPOC Americans are better represented in politics, the arts, and media than they have been in generations past. Within Christian spaces, major White Christian institutions have made concerted efforts to attract and integrate Black members. In 1995, the Southern Baptist Convention – initially founded to defend the institution of slavery – approved a resolution confessing to the SBC’s role in opposing civil rights and committing to racial reconciliation. Thousands of churches adopted racial justice ministries and hired BIPOC pastors and, over time, churches did experience some racial integration. 

Are public expressions of religion – Christian nationalism and civil religion – linked to racism? If so, how? And is civil religion inherently more tolerance-promoting? In our new piece out at Politics and Religion, we explore exactly these questions. 

But researching racial attitudes can be tricky. Being labeled as racist can feel personally devastating and have social and professional implications. Consequently, very few people will openly claim (and often are not even aware) that race impacts the way they view the world. One way to get at racial attitudes is through a process called implicit racial priming. Instead of making racial references in an experiment clear and explicit, implicit racial priming uses racialized words or pictures. These primes activate racial considerations in a person’s brain but are subtle enough that the person doesn’t become consciously aware of them. 

We used this racial priming technique to explore the role of racism in Christian nationalism and civil religion support among non-Hispanic White Americans. We randomly divided our sample into two groups. Everyone was asked about their agreement with the same four statements about Christian nationalism and civil religion – our first two statements capture Christian nationalism, and the last two have been used by other scholars to capture different aspects of civil religion. But one group’s statements were accompanied with pictures of White people while the other group’s statements featured pictures of Black people. The pictures are the racial prime – the respondents will subconsciously notice the race of the people in the pictures and then, if Christian nationalism and civil religion are racialized concepts, racial considerations should come into play in respondents’ feelings about the statements. 

And, sure enough, that’s what we find. White people who saw the Black racial primes express stronger support for each statement, compared to people who saw the White racial primes. This is true not just for Christian nationalism (which has been linked repeatedly with racism and racialized attitudes), but also for civil religion (which has been purported to be racially inclusive). 

But there is an alternative explanation for these findings – maybe respondents with racially-inclusive attitudes are endorsing Christian nationalism and civil religion when they see the Black racial primes because they see racial equality as a Christian American value. Fortunately, we also asked our respondents to assess whether Black people are characteristic Americans. Respondents’ answers to this question directly tap into the extent to which they see Black Americans as belonging within the United States. And here is where we get confirmation that Christian nationalism and civil religion are indeed associated with anti-Black animus. In the White racial prime condition, support for any of these statements is about the same, regardless of how respondents feel about Black Americans. But in the Black racial prime group, it’s respondents who feel that Black Americans don’t really belong (Black inclusion is low) who become supportive of Christian nationalism and of seeing divine intervention in America’s historical experiences. Our other measure of civil religion – that freedom comes from God – isn’t affected by Black national inclusion. 

Figure 1  – Black Racial Priming Boosts Christian Nationalism

Figure 2  – Black Racial Priming Boosts Sacralizing American History

Figure 3  –  Black Racial Priming Has No Effect on Civil Religion

We offer a few key takeaways. First, race and views toward public religion are linked, especially for White Americans with racial animus. Second, civil religion may not be a racially-inclusive alternative to Christian nationalism – the effect of racial attitudes on civil religion support in Figure 2 is nearly identical to the pattern shown in Figure 1’s Christian nationalism. The additional bad news is that anti-Black racial attitudes are common across the United States and resistant to change – for those White Americans with anti-Black animus, the mere presence of Black Americans raises exclusionary boundaries. But for those White Americans with less anti-Black animus, the siren call of public religion is less enticing. This work provides further evidence that addressing America’s racial divides is fundamental to the task of forging an inclusive country. 

Brooklyn Walker is an Instructor of Political Science at Hutchinson Community College. Her work focuses on religion and politics, public opinion, and political psychology, with a focus on Christian nationalism. To learn more, visit brooklynevannwalker.com or follow her on Twitter @brooklynevann.

Donald P. Haider-Markel is Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas. His research and teaching are focused on the representation of group interests in politics and policy, and the dynamics between public opinion, political behavior, and public policy (see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Donald_Haider-Markel); follow on twitter @dhmarkel.