Every now and then, I envy Bobby Ross, Jr.
Why? He has such a knack for writing short, crisp introductions to punchy posts.
You know, posts that open with a few blunt sentences.
Then they jump to a headline and a URL, like this: “Poll: A third of Americans are Christian nationalists and most are white evangelicals.”
Then Ross is off and running.
What comes next? Frequently, he embeds several relevant tweets on the topic. That’s helpful, since it shows readers who is saying what.
That’s that.
So let’s try that with a very complicated Twitter storm linked to that Religion News Service headline mentioned earlier. This report is built on the results of a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution: “A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture.”
This story led to some fascinating discussions on Twitter — including links to information about the funding for the RNS project to expose Christian nationalism.
Try to write something short and punchy about that. Ah, but I can point to the Twitter sources.
First, here is the top of that RNS story:
(RNS) — A new survey finds that fewer than a third of Americans, or 29%, qualify as Christian nationalists, and of those, two-thirds define themselves as white evangelicals.
The survey of 6,212 Americans by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution is the largest yet to gauge the size and scope of Christian nationalist beliefs. It finds that 10% of Americans are avowed Christian nationalists, what the survey calls “adherents,” while an additional 19% are sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideals.
Among white evangelical Protestants, nearly two-thirds are either white Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers. Support for Christian nationalism is significantly smaller among Asian American, mixed race, Black and Hispanic Protestants. Majorities of white mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, members of other non-Christian faiths and unaffiliated Americans, on the other hand, reject or mostly reject Christian nationalism. (The survey calls them “skeptics” and “rejecters.”)
The report ends with this clear attribution:
(This story was was reported with support from the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.)
Also, there was this correction:
This story has been updated. An earlier version misstated the the percentage of white evangelicals who are Christian nationalist adherents or sympathizers and the percentage of Americans with a four-year degree that are skeptical or reject Christian nationalism. RNS regrets the error.
This brings us to a remarkable Twitter storm — an essay, almost — focusing on PRRI survey and the way its contents were framed in the RNS report.
This Twitter thread didn’t come from the Religious Right. It was written by Michael Wear, the president and CEO of the Center for Christianity & Public Life (@ccpubliclife) — who is best known for his work as faith-outreach director for Barack Obama's 2012 campaign and his service on Obama's White House staff.
I am way too old and tech-challenged to find a way to create a quick visual overview of this thread and it’s important to read it all. So here is the whole thing — note the intro embedded at the top of this post — cut into a flowing text, with tweet language unedited:
First, the headline: "Survey: A third of Americans are Christian nationalists..." The opening line of the article: "A new survey finds that fewer than a third of Americans, or 29%, qualify as Christian nationalists."
Second, "qualify as Christian nationalists" sounds pretty official. Do all of these people identify as Christian nationalists? Do they all know what Christian nationalism is? No and no.
Christian nationalism, a box that is constituted of whatever PRRI wants it to be--in this case, five statements designed by PRRI of varying levels of clarity, meaning and relevance to the political narratives around Christian nationalism.
It's odd, for instance, that a question about "dominion over all areas of society" is included, but not the common survey statement regarding whether the Bible should guide policymakers or one's own politics.
Moving on...So, wow, surely this third of Americans (sorry, less than 3 out of ten) must all be really gung-ho about these five made up statements which they themselves have no idea constitute an entire political ideology that PRRI is ascribing to them. Nope!
Turns out, only 10% of Americans are Christian nationalist "adherents," a made up distinction that is determined by PRRI because a majority of this group at least mostly agrees with the five statements.
(One would think "Christian nationalists" and "Christian nationalist adherents" would refer to the same group...no again)
Here's how this works out: according to PRRI's own survey, on their own made up statements, only 50% of their own made up definition of Christian nationalist adherents completely agree with one of their five statements (Christians should have dominion over all areas of society.)
That's 5% of the public. I think you'd get a higher % of Americans willing to say that Taylor Swift ought to have dominion over all areas of society (no shade to Swifties here, what a benevolent government that would be)
The other 19% of Americans that constitute the third of Americans that are Christian nationalists according to PRRI's press release and this RNS story (hold up...ten plus nineteen is only 29%, my bad), are Christian Nationalist "sympathizers." Why are they categorized this way?
Why are they categorized this way? Get this: a majority of this group express some level of agreement with a majority of the five statements.
Friends, less than 20% of "Christian nationalist sympathizers" completely agree with 4 of the 5 questions that PRRI made up for the purpose of identifying Christian nationalists. A plurality of Christian nationalist "sympathizers" have never heard the term "Christian nationalist
Do we know, does PRRI tell us, anything about how the Sympathizers would describe why they don't completely agree? Might it be irresponsible to ask vague, academic questions to people who are unaware of the context, & categorize them on their not completely affirmative responses?
(By the way...the RNS article does not that the categories are highly correlated with education...only 18% of what PRRI calls Christian nationalist adherents have a four-year college degree. That's interesting!)
Remember, I'm only talking about the headline and opening lines of this article. Last thing: the article (not the headline) says 29% are Christian nationalists, "two-thirds define themselves as white evangelicals." Now I may be wrong here, but I can't find this stat anywhere.
I do see that, in PRRI's own analysis, "nearly two thirds of white e protestants" qualify as Christian nationalists (big surprise: more qualify as "sympathizers" than as "adherents.") That's diff from 2/3 of Christian nationalists being white e's. Again, maybe I'm wrong here.
According to the RNS article, support for Christian nationalism is "significantly smaller" among other categories. You won't read in the article that PRRI has categorized 52% of Protestants of color are also "adherents" of "Christian nationalist ideology."
I'll write more on this, in a more formal setting soon. But a few of my general thoughts on the topic: 1) There are far-right Christian political actors and ideologies that are harmful to a healthy pluralism (like some other ideologies) and that harm should be taken seriously.
2) It is also not new, but pretending like it is helps people seem like they're not criticizing the thing they've always criticized, or that the need to criticize it just recently emerged.
3) Careless definitions, and conflating Christians who have undeveloped but vague notions that their faith matters with, for instance, the QAnon Shaman is not helpful and counter-productive.
One of the most counter-productive things pro-democracy, pro-pluralism advocates could do is to make the dividing line here between those who believe Christians can bring their faith into politics and those who believe that is inherently harmful.
Dig in the weeds, and many of the academics involved in this discussion are careful to parse that out, but greater responsibility has to be taken for how this conversation actually reaches the public.
I have great respect for Melissa Deckman. I've spoken to her class before, & think she's a stellar academic. Many friends have worked at PRRI over the years, & much of their research has been helpful. This isn't personal. This research is misguided in its construction & its use.
I'll end the thread with a report I co-authored with Amy Black on Christianity and Pluralism in the United States.
Yes, that’s a lot of material. Short and punchy, it ain’t.
I cannot chase all of the Twitter threads linked to that stream.
However, journalist Kevin J. Jones of the conservative Catholic News Agency did have this to say:
Discuss?
That’s all for now. Please let me know if you have seen other relevant social-media threads linked to this important topic.
Please keep your remarks concise and kind. Of course, URLs will be appreciated.