I'm pleased to share my review for @SORJournal of @ndrewwhitehead and @socofthesacred book on Christian Nationalism. Much has been written about the book, for good reason. I took a different angle: where does it fit into how we study religion & politics? https://academic.oup.com/socrel/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/socrel/sraa053/6067364

Whitehead & Perry have written an important book – one that captures the political moment and has made many of us think more clearly about religion & nationalism in the US. It done what few books can, “alter the trajectory of the social scientific study of religion and politics.”

Beyond elevating the importance of Christian nationalism, the book is really “arguing for a new understanding of the relationship between religion and politics in America,” as I write in my review. It is here that I think more attention is needed.

The typical approach is that religion alters politics. This is why there has been so much attention to the 3Bs – beliefs, belonging, and behavior. Others have modified this, suggesting we should focus on identities, local networks, psychology, etc to understand relig behavior.

Recently there has emerged a politicized religion approach – where politics (and partisanship) alters religion. This essentially reverses the causal arrow, altering the way many of us think about religion and politics. You see this from @MikeHoutNY & Fischer and @mfmargolis et al

Whitehead & Perry implicitly argue for a different approach – where the Christian nationalism ideology is most important for understanding religious behavior. The book claims that CN is much more important than religious characteristics and at times even partisanship.

This suggests a new approach to understanding religion & politics, though it does not tackle competing approaches head on. I would like to see more engagement with the place of CN in political behavior, in large part because CN views are so intertwined with relig & partisanship.

Some caution is likely warranted, because political science largely shows that ideology and issue attitudes are fluid and subservient to partisanship. Ex: Does CN exist outside of partisanship, or do people update their views on CN based on their partisan cues/identity?

As we move forward with the study of Christian nationalism, I would suggest a few things.

1) Be careful with attributing causality;

2) Look specifically at mechanisms that link CN views to political behavior;

3) Seek to untie the relationships between partisanship, religion, and CN;

4) Get away from using survey scales to discuss ideal types;

5) Investigate CN as a dependent variable.

(Some survey experiments could be helpful on many of these points.)

Anyway, go read this important, well-written book! I'm certain that it will “shape the conversation regarding religion and politics” for years to come. I look forward to trying to do research that builds on Whitehead and Perry’s work. https://www.amazon.com/Taking-America-Back-God-Nationalism/dp/0190057882

And thanks to the @SORJournal team, especially @jlkucinskas, for asking me to write this extended review essay.