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A THREAD on the political links between religious liberty and nationalism. In public opinion there are clear nationalist links to religious liberty, suggesting that impulses are often about the preservation of cultural status. But certainly all advocacy isn't nationalistic.
Let me be clear: conservative religious freedom claims are not simply cover for nationalism. There are real issues at stake, and some are complicated. But the politics of religious liberty often have links to Christian and white nationalism. This legal/political dynamic matters.
The data is coming - I promise.
Bit of background: This week, the discussion started with the @AlexMorrisNY article in @rollingstone about Trump and Evangelicals: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/christian-right-worships-donald-trump-915381/
In the article, @greg_thornbury, evangelical writer and former college president, said that religious liberty under Trump is code for white, Western cultural heritage.
These arguments have been around for awhile, like in this piece from @guardian. But @greg_thornbury brought them to light again. It’s especially striking coming from a white evangelical. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/14/christian-nationalists-bills-religious-freedom-project-blitz
Thornury’s quote facilitated responses from conservative Christians, notably @roddreher in this @amconmag article, claiming that it’s crazy to link religious liberty to white nationalism: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/religious-liberty-and-white-nationalism/.
Following that, there was a sharp back-and-forth between @JonathanMerritt, @dandarling, and others. See: https://twitter.com/dandarling/status/1201890963045732354
What’s at stake: Is religious liberty an inclusive human right, or is it a mechanism to promote and preserve traditionalism?
Importantly, if it often functions as the latter, does it hamper the former?
Importantly, if it often functions as the latter, does it hamper the former?
One way to look at this: are current religious freedom battles more about legal principles or political tactics? Politics looms large for how we understand the legal arguments, but this is often downplayed.
Much could be said about Christian legal advocacy groups and how some promote inclusive religious liberty for everyone, while others have a tendency (and even an orientation) toward exclusive religious freedom rights only for Christians.
If you're interested in religious freedom legal advocacy, I'd point you to the work by @BennettDaniel, @HollisBrusky, @jcwilson98, @kdendulk, etc. (and me, I guess).
But less is known about religious liberty and public opinion, in part because the data is limited. Even rarer is having data that tracks both nationalism and religious freedom.
Two things to note. Among the mass public, evidence suggests:
1) there are connections between religious freedom and both Christian and white nationalism - I have more data on Christian nationalism
2) this linkage is not new
1) there are connections between religious freedom and both Christian and white nationalism - I have more data on Christian nationalism
2) this linkage is not new
In 2018, I fielded a survey (via Qualtrics) that measured Christian nationalism using multiple survey items – drawing on the measures employed by @ndrewwhitehead, @socofthesacred, and @ParadoxOfBelief. Here's their article: https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article/79/2/147/4825283
Also - just a side note that not all Christian nationalism is the same. There certainly are benign, inclusive types. But there's also a history of it being more exclusive and antagonistic.
I am working on a religious freedom book, so I asked a couple religious freedom questions.
1) Rank order your most important constitutional rights - including religious freedom
2) Do you support people claiming a religious right to not serve gays and lesbians
1) Rank order your most important constitutional rights - including religious freedom
2) Do you support people claiming a religious right to not serve gays and lesbians
The evidence is clear. There's a correlation with Christian nationalist views and ranking religious freedom more highly in a list of constitutional rights.
And the correlation is especially prominent regarding support the religious freedom to deny services to gays and lesbians.
This link between Christian nationalism and religious freedom is not new. For Southern Baptist pastors from 1988-2008, there is a strong relationship between agreeing that the U.S. as a Christian nation and that religious freedom is threatened in the U.S.
And it is not just Christian nationalism. Forms of white nationalism are also linked to religious freedom. The 2016 @electionstudies has several questions that tap white power and anti-Muslim bias.
I put these items into separate white nationalist indices, following Jim Guth’s work here: http://www2.furman.edu/academics/politics-and-international-affairs/meet-our-faculty/Documents/Publications/Guth-Are%20White%20Evangelicals%20Populists%20The%20View%20from%20the%202016%20American%20National%20Election%20Study.pdf
Those with more Muslim bias and a stronger sense of white power are more supportive of religious freedom claims to deny services for same-sex weddings.
The results are similar for evangelicals and non-evangelicals. Evangelicals don't have less nationalist religious liberty views. (FYI: evangelicals by denom. affiliation)
Back to the 2018 data – In statistical models, higher levels of Christian nationalism predict stronger support for LGBT service refusals. This goes for everyone - evangelicals, Republicans, Democrats, etc. (FYI: evang by identity here - very similar by affiliation).
Higher levels of Christian nationalism are linked to ranking religious freedom as a greater constitutional value – especially for non-evangelicals. Christian nationalism helps them catch-up to white evangelicals.
I also ran an experiment in 2017 and 2018 (Qualtrics again), where I exposed part of the sample to a news story about a Muslim (2017) and a Hindu (2018) making a religious freedom claim in the workplace. It’s based on this story: https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/10-22-15b.cfm
What’s striking is that when white evangelicals are exposed to the Muslim (and Hindu) story, their ranking of religious freedom decreases significantly.
At the same time, it is interesting to note that Christian nationalism has different effects by partisanship in this scenario. For Democrats, it may prime religious affinity.
Christian nationalism does not enhance the effects among Republicans, but for Democrats it actually makes them more supportive of religious freedom when exposed to the Muslim/Hindu story.
So, in public opinion, religious freedom is largely focused on in-group rights, but not extending rights to others. This likely suggests that religious freedom has a strong tie to cultural preservation, especially as it has become a partisan, culture war project.
But there are tensions here, because as I discuss in my last book, as conservative Christians have become more focused on rights there has been movement to defend the rights of others. See: https://www.amazon.com/Rights-Turn-Conservative-Christian-Politics-dp-1108405606/dp/1108405606/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=
Here's a religious freedom example. Evangelicals are more tolerant of atheists now than they have been in the past, closing much of the gap with non-evangelicals. (sorry for the non-updated figure.)
In the legal world, there is more movement toward broad rights, with some prominent groups defending religious freedom for all. Nationalism is also less explicit. But, the message of religious liberty surely primes nationalist sentiments among Republicans and white evangelicals.
Thus, the structure of public opinion is likely why some of these groups and leaders face blowback when they defend Muslims. For example: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/february/southern-baptists-back-away-from-backing-mosques-imb-erlc.html
What does this mean: it probably means that the politics of religious freedom are shrouding the legal principles, helping to magnify polarization on religious liberty. It certainly has up-ended the late-20th century religious freedom consensus.
By ignoring or rejecting these nationalist links and impulses, religious liberty activists could be fostering polarization. Based on some of my other research, the better approach may be to reject nationalism and promote a culture of inclusive religious liberty.
