By Brooklyn Walker, Paul A. Djupe, Brian Calfano, Anand E. Sokhey, and Andrew R. Lewis

Christian nationalism, or the idea that the United States was founded by Christians and for Christians, has become a common concept among both academics and the popular press, and is becoming increasingly familiar to the American public. Many scholars continue to connect the worldview of Christian nationalism to racial social boundaries and to White supremacy. In what we call the racialized Christian nationalism hypothesis, it was proposed that Christian nationalism is saturated with White racial meaning. For example, Grace Yukich and Penny Edgell write that, “Christian nationalism has a color, and it is White. […] Christian nationalists do not just seek a nation guided by Christian ideals—most seek a nation guided by White Christian histories and values.” This understanding has advanced to the point where some leading commentators on Christian nationalism now consistently add the adjective ‘White’ to ‘Christian nationalism’.

But we had a few questions. Does Christian nationalism lead Black and White respondents in different attitudinal directions? The empirical record was mixed, with some studies answering ‘yes’ and others ‘no’, but they have mostly considered racialized issues only. And it’s not as though ‘White’ and ‘Black’ are the only social groups in the US. Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group, they have roots in diverse faith traditions, and they occupy a middle status in the United States’ racial hierarchy. What does the racialized Christian nationalism hypothesis imply for them?

We set out to answer these questions in a new piece out at Perspectives on Politics, using a dataset that included approximately 1,500 White Christians, 1,500 Black Christians, and 1,500 Latino Christians. Having such a large oversample of Black and Latino respondents enables us to have more precise estimates of their attitudes than is possible in most surveys. And including only Christians lets us drill down into racial distinctions, instead of having to also contend with religious ones. We asked our respondents about their support for Christian nationalism using the set of questions developed by Andrew Whitehead and Sam Perry. We also asked respondents how they felt about a large number of policies, some of which we had evidence were racialized (or had explicit racial overtones), some of which were economic (with less powerful racial overtones), and some which were related to social issues and had little to no racialized overtones.

First, we confirmed what other studies have found: Christian nationalism is not a Whites-only worldview. White and Black Christians express equivalent support for Christian nationalism, and Latino Christians express modestly lower levels of support for Christian nationalism (see Figure 1 below). If Christian nationalism is as thoroughly racialized as the racialized Christian nationalism hypothesis might suggest, it’s noteworthy that Black and Latino Christians still affirm Christian nationalism’s tenets.

If support for Christian nationalism itself isn’t racialized, then maybe the content of Christian nationalism is. In other words, maybe Black, White, and Latino Christians have different visions of what a Christian America looks like. As mentioned before, the published record on this question has been ambivalent. Our large collection of policy attitude questions can help us figure out when Christian nationalism might have different effects by racial group.

On issues with strong racial overtones (teaching about race, reparations, policing, voter registration), people with higher levels of Christian nationalism were more likely to have attitudes that advanced their racial group’s interests (see Figure 2). In other words, they applied Christian nationalism in ways that sacralized their racial group. And Christian nationalism produced the greatest divergence between White and Black respondents. Reflective of their status as both racially White but ethnically Other, Latinos fell in between.

Figure 2: Christian Nationalism Bends Racial Groups’ Attitudes towards Racial Ingroup Protection on Racialized Issues

Economic issues are different. Poverty in the United States and policies to address economic equity have been racialized. But the connections between economic issues and race are more the same than different (see Figure 3). Our data shows that Christian nationalism moves Black, White, and Latino respondents in the same ways on views toward government intervention and government responsibility to care for the needy. However, Christian nationalism is linked to different views by racial groups on the minimum wage – an issue that has had racial overtones since Ronald Reagan.

Figure 3: Christian Nationalism’s Effect by Race is Less Pronounced on Economic Issues

Finally, we asked about a number of social issues, and here the racial group differences fade (see Figure 4). Many of these issues have been strongly linked to Christian identities and moral values, and people across racial groups end up applying their Christian nationalism in similar ways. For instance, there is essentially no daylight between racial groups in their greater desire to ban abortion as their between Christian nationalism grows.

Figure 4: On Social Issues, Christian Nationalism has Equivalent Effects

Our big takeaway is this: Christian nationalism can act as a way to sacralize in-group protection. When speaking about issues that are directly related to Christians’ interests, Christian nationalism supporters will often say that God intends a Christian nation to be structured in such a way that Christians’ interests are defended. But we find evidence that Christian nationalism can be flexible. On issues where racial group interests are important, Christian nationalism is leveraged in ways that would sacralize policy attitudes that advance racial group interests, even for non-White Christians. While we end up concurring with the racialized Christian nationalism hypothesis that race matters, we would caution that Christian nationalism is only sometimes racialized.

Brooklyn Walker is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Learn more about her work on Twitter, Bluesky, or at her website.

Paul A. Djupe directs the Data for Political Research program at Denison University, is an affiliated scholar with PRRI, the book series editor of Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics (Temple), and co-creator of religioninpublic.blog. Further information about his work can be found at his website and on Bluesky.

Brian R. Calfano (briancalfano@hotmail.com, United States) is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed articles on topics ranging from religion to media, urban affairs, and democratization. His published books include God Talk: Experimenting with the Religious Causes of Public Opinion (2013), A Matter of Discretion: The Politics of Catholic Priests in the United States and Ireland (2017), and The American Professor Pundit: Academics in the World of US Political Media (2021).

Andrew R. Lewis (andrew.lewis@uc.edu, United States) is an associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs. He is the author of The Rights Turn in Conservative Christian Politics: How Abortion Transformed the Culture Wars (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and a coauthor of The Full Armor of God: The Mobilization of Christian Nationalism in American Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2023). He currently serves as the coeditor in chief of the political science journal Politics and Religion.

Anand E. Sokhey (anand.sokhey@colorado.edu, United States) is professor of political science and a faculty fellow at the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is a coauthor of The Full Armor of God: The Mobilization of Christian Nationalism in American Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2023), and a coeditor of Trump, White Evangelical Christians, and American Politics: Change and Continuity (2024).