Religion Is Sometimes Raced: Christian Nationalism as In-Group Protection

Popular narratives suggest that the effects of Christian nationalism should be more heavily concentrated among white Americans. The academic literature on Christian nationalism largely reflects this take, often asserting that it is effectively white Christian nationalism. We question such pronouncements, as they have come without systematic analysis across the broad range of issue areas needed to justify subgroup segmentations. Utilizing national oversamples of Black and Latino Christians (alongside white Christians), we assess the relationship between standard measures of Christian nationalism and attitudes toward policies that vary in their degree of racialization. Our findings qualify typical narratives: consistent with a theory of Christian nationalism as sacralized in-group protection, we find effects that diverge by racial groups on racialized issues but otherwise converge. We close by discussing the implications of these findings and offering suggestions for future work linking race with Christian nationalism.