How Christian Nationalism Promotes White Supremacy: An Examination of Racial Stereotypes

Abstract

Numerous studies connect Christian nationalism with reactionary attitudes toward racial minorities. However, we know much less about Christian nationalism’s association with views toward White Americans. Moreover, because studies rarely consider identical questions across racial groups, it remains unclear how Christian nationalism might shape Americans’ views toward White and non-White Americans in comparison, an approach that would yield greater insight into Christian nationalism’s relationship to White supremacy. Given that Christian nationalism is an ideology that centers and sacralizes Anglo Protestants as the “prototypical” Americans, I theorize Christian nationalism promotes White supremacy primarily via prototypicality bias, thus elevating White Americans, more than explicitly denigrating minoritized Americans. Using two stereotype-scale measures (rating groups as intelligent vs. unintelligent, hardworking vs. lazy) in the 2021 General Social Survey (GSS), analyses of relative ratings show Christian nationalism predicts that Americans rate White Americans as more intelligent and hardworking than they do Black or Hispanic Americans. Focusing on individual group ratings, however, Christian nationalism is the strongest predictor of Americans rating White Americans as intelligent and hardworking, but unrelated to how they rate Black or Hispanic Americans on these characteristics. Importantly, none of these associations is moderated by racial, partisan, or ideological identities. Findings suggest Christian nationalism promotes White supremacy more by promoting a higher view of White Americans (the “prototypical Americans”) than promoting a lower view of racial minorities.