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Christian Nationalism and the COVID-19 Pandemic
ANDREW L. WHITEHEAD, SAMUEL L. PERRY, AND JOSHUA B. GRUBBS
In the waning months of 2020, the United States added over 170,000 new COVID-19 cases and over 1,300 deaths each day. At this point the United States was entering a third upswing in its numbers, unable to maintain any substantial flattening of the curve. By then, over 14 million had been infected and over 270,000 Americans had died. The reality that this pandemic is ongoing and these numbers continue to climb so quickly makes sharing them here somewhat futile. Nevertheless, we do so to anchor just how wildly unsuccessful the United States was at limiting the spread of COVID-19 since it first appeared in the United States in early 2020. Some health experts predict the pandemic—and the need for a coordinated response—will still be with us into 2022. This suggests our exploration into the anemic response of the United States to the COVID-19 pandemic will still be applicable even if the numbers above change.
There are several reasons why the United States responded so poorly. One of the most obvious is the ineffective, and even counterproductive, efforts of then president Trump and his administration. The administration’s constant questioning of public health experts, as well as its blatant disregard for common COVID-19 precautions, drastically reduced any likelihood most Americans would unify to suppress infections. Following the lead at the federal level, another reason for the unmitigated spread of the virus was ineffectual responses at the state level, particularly in more conservative states. A third and related reason was how quickly the COVID-19 pandemic was subsumed by the culture wars, where many Americans interpreted various actions aimed at reducing the likelihood of spreading the virus through the lens of their chosen political party or religious group.
Generally, more conservative states with Republican governors were less likely to impose movement and gathering restrictions while more progressive states and Democratic governors did the opposite. Yet some Republican governors, perhaps in response to a less conservative population, did embrace social distancing and masking guidelines. In this sense, political partisanship was not the whole story. While politics were front and center regarding why many Americans took such divergent views of the pandemic, religion played an important role, too. Some faith groups were much more likely to distrust the national media and scientific professionals while others took an opposite view. Several well-known conservative evangelical religious leaders made headlines by continuing to meet in person during the pandemic—in some cases violating state, city, and local ordinances limiting gatherings of large groups—or refusing to encourage mask wearing out in public. John MacArthur, an evangelical megachurch pastor and prolific author, went so far as to claim during an in-person worship service in August 2020, “There is no pandemic.” However, many conservative evangelical congregations and leaders sought to abide by the public health guidelines. We cannot merely reduce the underlying influence of religion to religious affiliation or some other aspect of religiosity.
We make the case that a particular political theology and conception of public religion, Christian nationalism, continues to play a powerful role in understanding Americans’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. We show Christian nationalism is consistently one of the most important predictors of (1) the precautions Americans did (and did not) take to respond to the pandemic, (2) Americans’ views toward federal and local governmental response to the pandemic and their priorities, and (3) the explanations Americans embraced regarding the cause of the virus—which were often overtly xenophobic and racist—and why minority communities were being disproportionately affected. To begin, however, we first quickly define what Christian nationalism is and theorize why it is so strongly associated with behaviors and beliefs regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christian Nationalism in the United States
Defining Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalism is a cultural framework—a collection of myths, narratives, symbols, traditions, and value systems—that advocates for a close relationship between American civic life and a particular interpretation of Christianity (Whitehead and Perry 2020a). We specify “particular interpretation” because studies repeatedly find the “Christianity” of Christian nationalism brings with it assumptions about nativism, patriarchy, white supremacy, militarism, authoritarianism, and heteronormativity. In the minds of those Americans who embrace Christian nationalism, to be truly American, one must generally be white, native-born, and culturally and politically conservative. Groups outside these boundaries are identified as Other and routinely denied equal access to cultural and political power in America.
There are several ways researchers measure Christian nationalism. In most of our work, we rely on a scale consisting of a handful of questions concerning respondents’ views toward the relationship between religion and the public sphere. For instance, we ask Americans how much they agree with the following statements:
•“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 [reverse coded].”
•“The federal government should allow prayer in public schools.”
•“The federal government should allow religious symbols in public spaces.”
•“The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.”
Respondents can strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree, or state they are undecided. We then assign point values to each response and combine them to create a scale. Americans who score low on the scale mostly reject Christian nationalism, while those on the upper end of the scale wholly embrace it. See Whitehead and Perry (2020a) for a more extensive discussion of this measurement strategy.
A dynamic literature around Christian nationalism finds it is influential in understanding Americans’ attitudes toward a broad number of topics. Social scientists find Christian nationalism is consistently important when examining such topics as racial inequality (Davis and Perry 2020; Perry and Whitehead 2019), support for gun control (Whitehead, Schnabel, and Perry 2018), punitive beliefs (Davis 2018), immigration (Dahab and Omori 2019; Sherkat and Lehman 2018), gender attitudes (Whitehead and Perry 2019), same-sex marriage (Whitehead and Perry 2015), and religious minorities (Stewart, Edgell, and Delehanty 2018). There is evidence Christian nationalism has diffused across American culture (Delehanty, Edgell, and Stewart 2019; Whitehead and Perry 2020a) and is not solely located in one religious tradition or sociodemographic group. In fact, some find Christian nationalism is equally or at times even more influential outside of organized religion (Braunstein and Taylor 2017; Stroope et al. 2020).
Christian Nationalism and Epistemic Authority
A fundamental aspect of Christian nationalism is power, the ability to direct the course of the country in a particular direction despite resistance. Power, however, must be legitimized in some way. Therefore, arguments for a more “Christian” nation necessarily include claims around which sources of authority should be central. Recent work demonstrates Christian nationalism is a key mechanism explaining the ongoing perceived “conflict” between science and religion, two sources of epistemic authority some Americans view as oppositional. Christian nationalism seeks to enshrine a specific moral order based on particular interpretations of the Christian Bible. Any alternative source of authority, like science, is an epistemic threat that must be opposed. It is no surprise Baker et al. (2020a) find Christian nationalism is one of the strongest predictors of believing scientists are hostile to faith, creationism should be taught in public schools, and our country relies too much on science over religion. To achieve the desired end—asserting a dominant moral and cultural authority around conservative Christianity—only particular sources of authority are acceptable.
The relationship between Christian nationalism and science is fundamental to understanding the social and cultural divides regarding COVID-19 across the American population. Embracing Christian nationalism leads to a tribalism that denies the authority of scientists and public health experts. This has grave consequences for any coordinated effort around a public health crisis. As with many other significant social problems, Christian nationalism serves as a lens through which the pandemic—including its causes, consequences, and the proper individual and social responses to it—is refracted. Throughout the rest of this chapter, we explore some of these issues, beginning with the personal actions Americans did and did not take to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. First, a quick word on the data we use in each of the following sections.
Christian Nationalism and COVID-19 Pandemic Data
The data in each of the three sections below are from the third wave of the Public Discourse and Ethics Survey (PDES) collected in May 2020. This wave of the PDES was a supplemental wave to gather data on the experiences and interpretations of the COVID-19 crisis and followed the first wave collected in August 2019 and the second wave collected in February 2020. It is a nationally representative panel survey of American adults collected by YouGov, an international research data and analytics company. The original data collection included 2,519 respondents with 1,533 respondents in wave 3 due to sample attrition. For more information about the PDES, see Perry and Grubbs (2020).
Christian Nationalism and COVID-19 Behaviors
When COVID-19 first arrived in the United States, there was little concerted effort at the highest levels of government to send a consistent message to citizens concerning how they should respond. Public health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and other federal agencies warned of the seriousness of the COVID-19 virus and suggested Americans wear masks, limit gathering in groups outside their immediate family, and suspend much of their normal day-to-day activities, especially travel. However, then president Trump would routinely question or even downplay these and other precautionary behaviors, saying the virus would soon disappear, perhaps even on its own. While the federal government declined to make an effort to combat the spread of COVID-19, many states, businesses, and localities took drastic steps. Mask requirements, spacing guidelines, and even closing or limiting the number of people in various establishments soon gained traction. While many Americans supported taking—and in some cases even mandating—certain precautionary behaviors or limiting incautious behaviors, this support was not uniform across the population. In fact, we find Christian nationalism was a key factor in explaining the divides across the American public regarding ignoring recommended precautions and acting incautiously (Perry, Whitehead, and Grubbs 2020b).
In the PDES we asked how often in the last two weeks respondents performed the following behaviors—what many health experts labeled as incautious during the pandemic:
•ate inside a restaurant
•attended a gathering of ten or more people
•visited family or friends in person
•went shopping for nonessential items
•went to a medical appointment
•went to a place of worship
•went to a drug store
•went to work outside my home
We then also asked them how often they performed several precautionary behaviors:
•washed my hands more often than typical
•avoided touching my face
•used hand sanitizer more than usual
•wore a mask in public
When we combine each of the first eight measures into an “incautious behaviors” scale, we find even when accounting for various sociodemographic measures, politics, and religiosity, Christian nationalism was the strongest predictor in the entire model. We found Americans who embrace Christian nationalism were much more likely to report eating inside a restaurant, attend gatherings of ten or more people, visit family or friends in person, or shop for nonessential items at least weekly during one of the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Americans who embrace Christian nationalism are more likely to behave incautiously, it does not also mean they refused to take precautionary behaviors. Perhaps these Americans took precautionary measures like washing their hands more often, wearing a mask, and avoiding touching their face despite not practicing social distancing. We find, however, they did not. Embracing Christian nationalism is also significantly associated with refusing to practice precautionary behaviors. We found embracing Christian nationalism meant someone was less likely to wash their hands more often than typical and avoid touching their face. Most importantly, we found that the more Americans subscribe to Christian nationalist ideology, the more likely they were to abstain from mask wearing, even when it was highly encouraged or even mandated.
One final important finding is Christian nationalism and religious practice are not similarly associated with taking various precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Once we account for Americans’ embrace of Christian nationalism, we find those who practice their religion more regularly—attend religious services, pray, and say religion is important to them—are more likely to take precautionary measures. We explore this tendency for religious practice and Christian nationalism to work in opposing directions elsewhere (Whitehead and Perry 2020a).
It is clear that during the first national peak of the pandemic in May 2020, Christian nationalism was one of the most important ideological factors structuring Americans’ personal behaviors surrounding COVID-19. There are a number of possible explanations for this strong association. As discussed previously, Christian nationalism is strongly associated with skepticism toward science and scientists, seeing them as an alternative source of authority who should not be easily trusted (Baker et al. 2020a). Other work highlights how Christian nationalism is linked to a distrust of the mainstream news media and is a consistent predictor of support for Trump, who routinely cast doubt on the seriousness of COVID-19 and the necessity of taking precautionary behaviors (Baker, Perry, and Whitehead 2020b; Whitehead et al. 2018).
Americans’ behavioral responses to COVID-19 were and continue to be polarized. This polarization was and is powerfully shaped by Christian nationalism. The implications are clear: American lives were lost due to the inability of all citizens to mount a collective response. Despite Biden’s win in the November 2020 election and his quick promise to dramatically change the federal government’s response to the pandemic, the collective response of all Americans “will potentially remain limited as long as the recommended behaviors are connected to Americans’ fear of cultural, epistemic, and political threat” (Perry et al. 2020b). Next, we turn to how Christian nationalism is associated with Americans’ views on governmental restrictions around the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christian Nationalism and Governmental Restrictions Due to COVID-19
Americans’ views toward if and whether governmental restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were necessary or legal were as quickly polarized as the individual actions they mandated. Controversy raged over whether federal, state, or local government had the right to dictate if and where citizens had to wear a mask, how large of a group they could congregate with, or if they had to self-quarantine after potential exposure to the virus. Those on the political and religious Right were vociferous in their opposition to any governmental involvement in how Americans responded to the pandemic. Republicans were much more critical of governmental restrictions and worked to limit or lift those restrictions as soon as possible, citing concerns about the economy and the importance of individual liberty (Evans and Hargittai 2020). Former GOP presidential candidate and politically conservative cable news pundit Mike Huckabee claimed governmental restrictions were violating the U.S. Constitution by limiting Americans’ civil liberties (Nelson 2020a). The president of a conservative think tank in Wisconsin—who sued Governor Tony Evers over his mask mandate—claimed, “There is no pandemic exception to the rule of law or our Constitution” (Associated Press 2020).
Those on the religious Right echoed these concerns, especially citing fears of limitations on “religious freedom” given many congregations would not be allowed to meet with certain restrictions in place. John MacArthur, well-known pastor of a conservative evangelical megachurch in California, connected the dots regarding the importance of individual freedom and liberty in light of COVID-19 restrictions:
Just terrify people that they might die and they’ll all roll over in complete compliance. They’ll give up their freedoms, they’ll put on silly masks, they’ll put gloves on their hands, and they’ll sit in their house for as long as you tell them to sit there. You can conquer an entire nation in fear. . . . Whatever happens in terms of the future of America, we’re going to enjoy probably less and less freedoms anyway. There may be speedups to the robbing us of those freedoms coming through something like [COVID-19]. (MacArthur 2020)
He and his congregation chose to meet in person during the pandemic and ended up suing the local government over COVID restrictions. Echoing the theme of individual liberty and freedom of choice, Franklin Graham—head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—shared, “If a pastor and his congregation felt that it was important to meet, I guess that’s their business” (Janes 2020). This is notable because at the time Graham was strongly urging Americans to wear masks and practice social distancing, underscoring the seriousness of COVID-19.
The libertarianism and neoliberalism inherent within Christian nationalism help illuminate the clear overlap in these almost identical responses from both political and religious conservatives. Scholars highlight how libertarianism became coterminous with “Christian” at a particular moment in American history. Kruse (2015) and Marti (2020a, 2020b) trace their emergence during in the middle of the twentieth century as the United States began to (re)define itself as a Christian nation. Individual liberty, free-market capitalism, and fear of government overreach became intimately intertwined with a specific understanding of the United States as one favored by the Christian God and destined to shine as a light to the world.
We again turn to the PDES to explore these relationships. Respondents shared their views on various imposed social distancing restrictions embraced by many states and localities. These questions generally coalesced around whether Americans thought it was imperative to protect the economy, individual liberty, or the vulnerable. To measure “protect the economy,” we stated, “We must lift social distancing restrictions as soon as possible in order to avoid economic collapse,” and “Saving the economy by lifting social distancing restrictions is worth the health risk to older Americans.” To measure “protect liberty,” we stated, “Governments have the right to restrict our businesses and travel for the sake of minimizing COVID-19 infections,” which we reverse coded, and “Citizens have the right to expose themselves to risk if they would prefer to work and travel freely.” And finally, to measure “protect the vulnerable,” we asked for respondents’ agreement with the statements, “Those who are protesting social distancing restrictions are endangering others with their ignorance,” and “States should continue social distancing restrictions as long as necessary in order to protect the vulnerable.” Respondents could strongly disagree to strongly agree, and we averaged each pair of measures together to create scales.
There is a clear relationship between embracing Christian nationalism and whether Americans are more likely to protect the economy, liberty, or the vulnerable. As you can see in Figure 4.1, as Americans embrace Christian nationalism more strongly, they are much more likely to agree protecting the economy and protecting liberty are most important when considering social distancing restrictions. The opposite is true regarding protecting the vulnerable. Progressing higher on the Christian nationalism scale equates to a greater likelihood of disagreement that protecting the vulnerable is most important. It is important to note that the relationships depicted in the figure take into account respondents’ political views, religiosity, and sociodemographic characteristics like age, gender, and education. The underlying statistical models demonstrate Christian nationalism is not merely one factor to consider to understand these attitudes—it is consistently the most important factor to consider (Perry, Whitehead, and Grubbs 2021). Christian nationalism is powerfully associated with Americans’ propensity to prioritize protecting the economy and individual liberty during the COVID-19 pandemic over and against protecting vulnerable populations like the immune-compromised or elderly.
Yet again, we find in our statistical models that religiosity inclines Americans to be more likely to want to protect the vulnerable rather than protect the economy or individual liberty (Perry et al. 2021). While religiosity—frequency of worship service attendance or prayer—is correlated with prioritizing the economy and liberty over protecting the vulnerable, once we account for Americans’ embrace of Christian nationalism the relationship completely reverses. This suggests religious practice is not connected to libertarian values in response to COVID-19. Rather, Christian nationalism accounts for the tendency of religious Americans to espouse more libertarian ideology regarding governmental responses to the pandemic.
Figure 4.1 Christian Nationalism and Americans’ Views toward Governmental Social Distancing Restrictions. Note: Models control for race, age, gender, marital status, children, education, income, region, employment, political party, political ideology, religious affiliation, and religiosity. (Source: 2020 Public Discourse and Ethics Survey.)
The role Christian nationalism plays in making sense of Americans’ individual behavioral responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and their views toward governmental intervention regarding social distancing restrictions carries with it implications for future research on health care topics generally and health care policy in particular. Recent research demonstrates Christian nationalism is strongly associated with antivaccine attitudes (Whitehead and Perry 2020b) and plays an important role in whether Americans reject a COVID-19 vaccine (Corcoran, Scheitle, and DiGregorio 2021). Americans’ views of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) might also be related to the strength of their embrace of Christian nationalism. As portions of the ACA are still debated in various court battles, understanding public perception of the landmark health care law continues to be of consequence.
In the next section, we turn to explanations of the origins of the virus. We find among Christian nationalists such explanations are increasingly racialized.
Christian Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia Surrounding COVID-19
From the very beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, then president Trump and his coterie of supporters routinely broadcast both racist and xenophobic explanations alongside questionable solutions for limiting its spread. On multiple occasions—even in a church—Trump referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus,” the “Chinese virus,” and the “Kung flu” (Lee 2020). Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, and Kevin McCarthy joined him in this messaging (Perry, Whitehead, and Baker 2020). Charlie Kirk, cofounder of Liberty University’s now-defunct Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty, suggested a wall on the southern border of the United States was needed now more than ever. Trump agreed. While never delivering on the promise, then president Trump assured all immigration from China would be suspended: “We would’ve had thousands of people additionally die if we let people come in from heavily infected China. But we stopped it. We did a travel ban in January. . . . By closing up, we saved millions, potentially millions of lives.” In reality, more than 8,000 Chinese and foreign nationals and over 27,000 Americans arrived in the United States from China after the “restrictions” were put in place (Braun, Yen, and Woodward 2020).
The racial disparities in COVID-19 infections and deaths throughout the COVID-19 pandemic continue to be profound (Kendi 2020). By the fall of 2020, Black Americans were dying at 2.2 times the rate of white Americans, followed by American Indian or Alaska Natives, and Hispanic or Latino Americans, with rates of each group exceeding whites by 1.5 (COVID Tracking Project 2020). Infection rates for minority groups also consistently exceed white Americans. The virus continues to ravage prison populations, and the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in prison only adds to the racial disparities in COVID-19 infection rates and death (Dall 2020). The explanations for these disparities ranged from blaming personal behaviors—like Black Americans do not wash their hands enough—to the biological, that some minorities have a predisposed weakness to the virus. Some went even so far as to say prisoners did not deserve protective measures (Paxton 2020).
We find Christian nationalism is a crucial factor to understanding these various racist and xenophobic attitudes and interpretations of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior research on Christian nationalism repeatedly demonstrates its strong and enduring association with both racist and xenophobic attitudes and beliefs (Dahab and Omori 2019; Perry and Whitehead 2019; Sherkat and Lehman 2019). Christian nationalism demarcates boundary lines around American identity that highlight ethnocultural markers, including race, nativity, and religious background. Generally, Christian nationalism is interested in a “Christian nation” where white, native-born, and culturally Christian citizens enjoy privileged access to the levers of power.
We asked respondents for their level of agreement with various common racist interpretations of the originating cause of the pandemic and the reason for its continued spread:
•It is racist to refer to COVID-19 as “the Chinese virus.”
•The fact that poor, minority communities are more likely to be infected with COVID-19 is a symptom of our unjust society.
•Black Americans are being infected with COVID-19 at higher rates largely because they are not behaving responsibly.
•Some racial minority groups may have a biological susceptibility to COVID-19.
•The fact that COVID-19 is spreading rapidly among prison inmates should be the least of our concerns.
•If prison inmates are being infected with COVID-19 at higher rates, that could be a form of divine justice.
We also asked questions tapping into xenophobic views of the COVID-19 pandemic. We combined these questions into a scale measuring Americans’ belief that restricting immigration is a solution to the virus:
•Our lax immigration laws are partly to blame for the COVID-19 crisis.
•All immigration should be halted at least temporarily to protect American jobs during this time.
•One way to prevent further pandemics in the United States would be to build the wall along our southern border.
Even when accounting for a host of other possible explanations for the COVID-19 crisis—age, gender, race, education, income, political ideology, political partisanship, religiosity—in every single one of our multivariate statistical models, Christian nationalism is not only an important predictor; it is the single strongest predictor (Perry, Whitehead, and Grubbs 2020a). Interestingly, we also find the influence of Christian nationalism on racist and xenophobic interpretations of the COVID-19 pandemic differs across racial and ethnic groups, especially for white and Black Americans. Christian nationalism is particularly powerful among white Americans (see Figure 4.2). White Americans at the upper ends of the Christian nationalism scale are much more likely to disagree it is racist to call COVID-19 “the China virus” or that the higher minority infection rate is the symptom of an unjust society. These same people are much more likely to agree that restricting immigration—lax immigration laws are partly to blame, immigration should be halted to protect American jobs, and building a wall on the southern border would prevent further pandemics—is a solution to the pandemic and higher prisoner infection rates should be the least of our concerns.
Christian nationalism, embraced to some extent by over half of white Americans, clearly defines exclusionary boundaries around race and ethnicity, and this has serious implications for views surrounding the COVID-19 crisis and how to mitigate its effects. Yet again, once we account for Americans’ embrace of Christian nationalism, the effect of religiosity on each of these measures is opposite of Christian nationalism. Devout Americans who reject or resist Christian nationalism are much less likely to espouse racist or xenophobic interpretations of the COVID-19 pandemic (Perry et al. 2020a). This suggests that for researchers to understand the influence of religion on racialized explanations of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential they account for Christian nationalism.
Figure 4.2 Christian Nationalism and Racist or Xenophobic Evaluation/Interpretation of COVID-19 by Race/Ethnicity. Note: Models control for race, age, gender, marital status, children, education, income, region, political party, political ideology, religious affiliation, and religiosity. (Source: 2020 Public Discourse and Ethics Survey.)
Conclusion
As we write this chapter in late 2020, there appears to be a ray of hope on the horizon regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Two pharmaceutical companies report evidence of vaccines that are 90–95 percent effective with an estimated arrival to the public in early 2021. Of course, only time will reveal whether each vaccine lives up to these early reports to company stockholders. It could be that by the time this book reaches its readers, one or more vaccines will have been on the market for over a year. Of course, Christian nationalism significantly alters even this possibility for hope: Americans who embrace Christian nationalism are much more likely to espouse antivaccine attitudes (Whitehead and Perry 2020b). Given that over half of Americans are generally amendable to Christian nationalism, with a fifth strongly embracing it, the likelihood of their delaying or outright refusing to accept a COVID-19 vaccine is high. Recent research shows that the COVID-19 vaccine is yet another example of the polarization of the COVID-19 pandemic with Christian nationalism playing a vital role (Corcoran et al. 2021). This clearly dovetails with our findings from this chapter, which show individual behaviors, attitudes toward governmental responses, or espousing overtly racist and xenophobic explanations for the pandemic are all polarized and Christian nationalism is essential to those relationships.
It is also important to note that in each of the above sections, religious practice operates differently compared to Christian nationalism. To understand the effect of religion on Americans’ behaviors and beliefs about COVID-19, researchers must account for public expressions of religion, like Christian nationalism, alongside private expressions of religion. Once we account for Americans’ embrace of Christian nationalism, how often they attend religious services or pray tends to be significantly and powerfully associated with taking more precautionary actions and limiting incautious behaviors, wanting to protect the vulnerable rather than the economy or personal liberty, and rejecting racist and xenophobic explanations of COVID-19’s spread. This is true even when we account for political party and political ideology.
It is impossible to predict exactly how COVID-19 will continue to shape social life around the globe over the next months and even years. We can be sure, however, Christian nationalism will continue to be near the center of that story in the United States.