Episode Details

There is a question that never gets asked in the Christian nationalism debate.

If this movement is really about faith, why do the people who push it the hardest show the least evidence of actually practicing it?

They are not the people who pray the most. They are not the people who read the Bible the most. They are not the people who attend church the most. In many cases they have not read the Bible at all.

But they will tell you with absolute certainty what God wants for America. And what God wants always seems to line up perfectly with what they want.

Control over women. Hostility toward immigrants. Contempt for gay people. Domination over anyone who does not look, think, or worship the way they do.

That is not a coincidence. Researchers have now proven it.

What the Research Actually Found

In 2020, sociologists Andrew Whitehead at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Samuel Perry at the University of Oklahoma published the first comprehensive empirical analysis of Christian nationalism in America. Their book, Taking America Back for God, drew on multiple sources of national survey data spanning decades and included in-depth interviews with Americans across the political spectrum.

They defined Christian nationalism as 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. The key word is fusion. Christian nationalists do not simply believe that faith should play a role in public life. They believe the American government should unapologetically privilege Christianity above all other belief systems. And they believe that being a true American requires being a certain kind of Christian.

But here is what the data actually showed.

Christian nationalism does not predict devotion. It does not predict prayer. It does not predict Bible reading. It does not predict the behaviors that define a person who genuinely practices their faith.

What it predicts is something else entirely. Authoritarianism. Racism. Xenophobia. Opposition to immigration. Opposition to interracial marriage. Support for police violence against Black Americans. Anti-Muslim sentiment. Rigid enforcement of traditional gender roles. Hostility toward anyone who does not fit the template.

The people who scored highest on Christian nationalism were not the most devout. They were the most authoritarian. The most prejudiced. The most hostile toward people who were different from them.

They used the language of faith to make all of it sound holy.

The Most Devastating Finding

The most important result in the entire body of Christian nationalism research is one that most people have never heard.

When Perry and Whitehead controlled for Christian nationalism in their statistical models, something remarkable happened. The relationship between religion and prejudice reversed.

Once Christian nationalism was removed from the equation, actual religiosity, measured by how often a person attends church, how often they pray, and how often they read scripture, was negatively associated with racism and opposition to interracial families. That means the more genuinely religious a person is, the less prejudiced they are.

Read that again. Genuine faith makes people less racist. Christian nationalism makes people more racist. The two are not the same thing. They are opposites wearing the same costume.

This finding has been replicated across multiple studies. Perry and Whitehead showed it with anti-Black racism. They showed it with xenophobia. They showed it with hostility toward immigrants. The same pattern appeared every time. Strip out the nationalism and the faith itself is protective. It is the nationalism, not the Christianity, that predicts every form of bigotry the research measures.

This is what makes the movement