The weakness of anti-Christian nationalism: when religiously inclusive orientations can’t increase tolerance

Abstract Efforts to counter Christian nationalism focus on the power of ideas—that Christian nationalism is historically inaccurate, religiously heretical, or even fascist. Those efforts build upon a vast research agenda on Christian nationalism in the social sciences to argue, at least implicitly, that a Christian nationalist worldview rejects religious, racial, and political pluralism in favor of a (white) Christian-centric goal for the United States. But they may be wrong on at least one account. In a January 2024 survey of 1,500 American Christians, we piloted “anti-Christian nationalism” measures, expecting to find a robust negative relationship with established measures of Christian nationalism. Instead, we find that many Christian nationalists already hold pluralist ideas in their heads. We then explore whether anti-Christian nationalism can work to counter, moderate, or align attitudes with Christian nationalism on political tolerance. We find that Christian nationalism often overrules anti-Christian nationalism, especially when the threat is high.