Christian Nationalists Love What God Lets Them Get Away With.

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.

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 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 so dangerous. It uses the credibility of genuine faith as camouflage for something that has nothing to do with faith.

The script makes a point that the research confirms in detail. The stated values of Christianity and the measured values of Christian nationalism are in direct opposition.

Jesus said feed the poor. Christian nationalists support cutting food assistance programs.

Jesus said love your enemy. Christian nationalists want to deport their neighbors.

Jesus said turn the other cheek. Christian nationalists elected a man who mocked a disabled reporter on national television and cheered when he did it.

Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers. Christian nationalists support authoritarian violence against people they consider outsiders.

Jesus said the last shall be first. Christian nationalists believe they should be first in everything, permanently, by law.

This is not a case of imperfect people struggling to live up to high ideals. The research shows that the ideology itself is structured around dominance, not devotion. Christian nationalism does not fail to meet the standards of Christianity. It replaces those standards with something else entirely and keeps the label.

One of the most consistent patterns in Christian nationalism research is the weaponization of victimhood.

Christian nationalists routinely claim they are being persecuted. They claim that their religious freedom is under attack. They claim that secular America is trying to silence them.

But the research tells a different story. What they describe as persecution is almost always a loss of privilege. When a school stops leading students in Christian prayer, that is not persecution. That is equality. When a business is told it cannot refuse service to gay customers, that is not an attack on religious freedom. That is the law applying equally to everyone.

The research consistently shows that Christian nationalists define religious freedom not as the right to practice their own faith, but as the right to impose their faith on others. When that imposition is challenged, they experience the challenge as persecution.

This is the same mechanism that shows up in every authoritarian movement. The dominant group frames any reduction in its dominance as an attack. They are not losing power. They are losing the ability to use power unchecked. And they describe that loss as oppression.

They start trouble. They force their beliefs on people who did not ask for them. When someone pushes back, they cry religious persecution. They are the bully who punches you in the face and runs to the teacher crying when you push back.

Christian nationalism is not a faith. It is a costume.

It gives authoritarian people a moral vocabulary they did not earn. It gives racist people a divine justification they do not deserve. It gives abusive people a shield that nobody in America feels comfortable challenging.

Because the costume is a cross. And in American culture, questioning someone’s relationship with God makes you the bad guy. That is the entire strategy. That is why it works.

They use God as a shield. They use the Bible as a bat. And they use the word Christian to make you feel guilty for fighting back.

The researchers proved it. This has nothing to do with Jesus. These are authoritarian, prejudiced people wearing a cross because it is the one costume nobody in America is allowed to question.

But questioning it is exactly what needs to happen. Because the research is unambiguous. The more someone pushes Christian nationalism, the less their behavior has to do with Christianity. And the more it has to do with power, control, and dominance dressed up in the language of God.

They do not love God. They love what God lets them get away with.

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Whitehead, A. L., & Perry, S. L. (2020). Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. Oxford University Press.

Perry, S. L., & Whitehead, A. L. (2015). Christian Nationalism and White Racial Boundaries: Examining Whites’ Opposition to Interracial Marriage. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(10), 1671-1689.

Perry, S. L., Whitehead, A. L., & Davis, J. T. (2019). God’s Country in Black and Blue: How Christian Nationalism Shapes Americans’ Views About Police (Mis)Treatment of Blacks. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 5(1), 130-146.

Perry, S. L., Whitehead, A. L., & Grubbs, J. B. (2021). Prejudice and Pandemic in the Promised Land: How White Christian Nationalism Shapes Americans’ Racist and Xenophobic Views of COVID-19. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 44(5), 759-772.

Perry, S. L., & Whitehead, A. L. (2022). The Role of Christian Nationalism on January 6 and After: What National Survey Data Tell Us. Expert Testimony Submitted to the United States House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

Whitehead, A. L., & Perry, S. L. (2020). How Culture Wars Delay Herd Immunity: Christian Nationalism and Anti-Vaccine Attitudes. Socius, 6, 1-12.

Perry, S. L., Cobb, R. J., Whitehead, A. L., & Grubbs, J. B. (2022). Divided by Faith (in Christian America): Christian Nationalism, Race, and Divergent Perceptions of Racial Injustice. Social Forces, 101(2), 913-942.