Christian nationalists more likely to support 'all forms of authoritarianism': report

Many Democratic critics of Christian nationalism have been quick to note their own religious views, carefully drawing a distinction between an ideology they consider extreme and the more mainstream non-fundamentalist strains of Catholic and Mainline Protestant Christianity.

According to Religion News' Jack Jenkins, a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) shows that "Americans who hold Christian nationalist views are also likely to express support for forms of authoritarianism."

PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman told Religion News, "While most Americans do not espouse authoritarian views, our study demonstrates that such views are disproportionately held by Christian nationalists, who we know in our past research have been more prone to accept political violence and more likely to hold antidemocratic attitudes than other Americans."

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The survey, Jenkins notes, asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with statements like "What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path" — and those identified as Christian nationalists were the most likely to agree.

"Such questions were based on two well-known rubrics to measure authoritarian leanings: the Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale, which was developed in 1950 by a group of scholars at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Child-Rearing Authoritarianism Scale, which social scientists use to measure similar trends with child-rearing preferences as a framework," Jenkins explains. "Researchers found striking connections in the responses. A large majority of Christian nationalism supporters (namely, Adherents and Sympathizers) also scored high on both the RWAS (74 percent) and CRAS (61 percent) — significantly more than Christian nationalism Skeptics and Rejecters (30 percent and 31 percent, respectively)."

Jenkins continues, "In addition, about half (51 percent) of those who scored high on the RWAS also qualified as Christian nationalism supporters. The reverse was true among those with low RWAS scores: only 7 percent could be classified as Christian nationalism supporters."

PRRI found that only 34 percent of respondents on the whole agreed that the United States needs a "strong leader who is willing to break some rules." But that statement was supported by 55 percent of Christian nationalism supporters and 59 percent of Americans who scored high on the RWAS."

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Read the full Religion News Service article at this link.