The Christian Nationalism Scale and what it means

7 min readAug 29, 2021

Christian nationalism is a term that has been utilized broadly, especially since January 6th, 2021. How do you define Christian nationalism? And how do you know if someone is Christian nationalist?

Lucky for all of us, there are experts out there doing the analysis and creating the path for the rest of us to follow. I’m not one of those experts, but I do what I can to share what I’ve found from two of the best: Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry. They’ve written a book called Taking America Back For God and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Please, go buy it.

Defining Christian nationalism

First, a definition of Christian nationalism from their book:

Christian nationalism (CN) is 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
Christianity here is NOT a general, meta-category including all expressions of orthodox Christian theology
The “Christianity” of CN represents something more than religion
It includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism.
It is as ethnic and political as religious
CN contends that America has been and should be distinctively “Christian” from top to bottom — in its self-identity, interpretations of its own history, symbols, values, and public policies — and aims to keep it that way.

6 Questions

Whitehead and Perry’s research has led them to establishing a Christian nationalism scale, built around 6 questions from the Baylor Religion Study. Let’s find out where you land and what it means.

Answer the following 6 questions with:

Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Unsure
Agree
Strongly Agree

The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation
The federal government should advocate Christian values
The federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state
The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces
The success of the United States is part of God’s plan
The federal government should allow prayer in public schools

Now that you answered the 6 questions above, here is how you score each question. For questions 1, 2, 4, 5, 6: 0 — Strongly Disagree, 1 — Disagree, 2 — Unsure, 3 — Agree, 4 — Strongly Agree

Question 3 (the Separation of Church and State one) is reverse scored, so it is: 4 — Strongly Disagree 3 — Disagree 2 — Unsure 1 — Agree 0 — Strongly Agree

Add up your scores above and see where you landed on the scale: 0–5 Rejecter 6–11 Resister 12–17 Accomodator 18–24 Ambassador

What follows are my summations from some of the data Whitehead and Perry lay out in their book. Again, please go buy Taking America Back For God and read it. There is way more detail than I’m going to drop in this post.

Rejecters (a zero to 5 score)

21.5% of the US population and believe there should be no connection between Christianity and politics, that the wall of seperation between church and state is high and impenetrable, or at least is should be.

Resisters (6 to 11 score)

26.6% of the US population and may disagree prayer should be instituted in public schools and believe government should not officially declare the US a Christian nation, but may be undecided on display of religious symbols.

They lean toward rejecting CN.

Accomodators (12 to 17 score)

32.1% of the US population and are somewhat undecided toward CN, but lean toward accepting it. Generally comfortable with the idea of America’s Christian foundations and amenable to the idea of a society where Christianity is conspicuous, but don’t fully favor Christianity alone in the public sphere.

Ambassadors (18 to 24 score)

19.8% of the US population and are wholly supportive of Christian nationalism. The 19.8% is across the country on the whole. Where you live, the percentage could be much much higher (looking at myself on that one).

Christian nationalist beliefs

Where you landed on the 6 simple questions, where your overall score put you, it is the primary predictor on a whole host of other issues. What I find truly interesting is there is no single demographic profile for a Christian nationalist Ambassador. You find them across a whole host of religious affiliations (granted at different levels), by region of the country, and by education levels. So you can’t just say “all of this group are Christian nationalists”. But…

…there are common Christian nationalist (CN) ambassador beliefs. Once someone has answered the 6 questions and landed in the Ambassador space, they very likely ALSO believe:

The Founders were establishing a Christian nation and merely refrained from choosing a specific denomination
The Founders assumption was that Americans would be “Christian”
Our prosperity as a nation is tied to our heritage of obedience to God’s commandments
The US has a special relationship with God, thus the federal government should formally declare the US a Christian nation and advocate for Christian values
Most of the laws in the US, federal and state are founded on Christian principles
We should return to formal prayers in public schools and the display of religious symbols in public spaces
First Amendment is intended solely to keep the state out of the church’s business, not to keep religion from influencing politics

Christian Nationalism In Action

Those core beliefs translate into some very direct correlations to other issues, with Christian nationalist Ambassador being the strongest predictor that Americans:

Voted for Donald Trump

Oppose scientists and science education in public schools in favor of creationism
Hold prejudiced views against racial minorities and show favor toward white racists
Hold traditional gender attitudes that see women in the home and men leading at work and in politics
Hold views supporting capital punishment and the police “cracking down” on troublemakers, justifying police violence against African Americans
Hold anti-immigration views, expressing strong suspicion toward Hispanic immigrants and Muslims

Hold views in opposition to same-sex marriage or civil unions and transgender rights
Have a “victim mentality” characteristic of fascist regimes

The “predictors” above this are pulled from this article: “Christian Nationalism Talks Religion, But Walks Fascism” by Perry and Whitehead.

Those aren’t the only things being a Christian nationalist Ambassador predicts. We are in a pandemic. Want to understand people’s behavior? Know where they fall on the CN scale.

Christian nationalism is one of the strongest predictors that Americans:

are more susceptible to conspiracy theories
are skeptical towards the trustworthiness of doctors
believe our country relies too much on science over religion
are less likely to support federal intervention to solve collective action problems
will prioritize individual liberty or the economy rather than protecting the vulnerable
would be less likely to take precautionary steps to protect others from infection
have anti-vaccine attitudes
will question the efficacy and safety of COVID vaccines, believe doctors and drug companies are dishonest about vaccine risks, and it should be up to the individual to choose whether to vaccinate or not

The predictors above are pulled from this study, “How Culture Wars Delay Herd Immunity” by Whitehead and Perry.

We see it playing out every day in our communities, on social media, and on the news. When you hear it, know it is Christian nationalism.

We can run ourselves ragged fighting issue after issue that pops up all over our collective lawn. Until we realize every one of these weeds showing up are connected, we won’t stop them. The root below all of these issues is Christian nationalism.

See it, say it, fight it.

Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry are both on Twitter. I highly recommend you follow them.

I’ve tried compiling a list of books, articles, podcasts, and experts you can check out to better understand what you see happening all around us. Access it here.