The Dog Whistle of ‘Christian Nationalism’
5th May 2023
Since Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 election, a rash of articles, surveys, and books have claimed that many—maybe even most—Americans in flyover country are “Christian nationalists.” That’s supposed to sound scary. But the term is mostly used as a smear against conservative Christians who defend the role of religion in American public life.
Sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry give the perceived threat a scholarly gloss in their recent book from Oxford University Press, Taking America Back for God. They define Christian nationalism as “an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of American civic life with a particular type of Christian identity and culture.” What’s more, it “includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism.” That’s quite a parade of horribles.
How many such people are there? In a survey conducted between 2007 and 2017, the pair found a whopping 52% support some form of Christian nationalism.