Christian nationalism and white racial boundaries: examining whites' opposition to interracial marriage

Abstract

How does the convergence of national and religious identities potentially fortify white racial boundaries in the USA? Focusing on openness to racial exogamy as an indicator of racial boundaries, we examine the link between Christian nationalism and white Americans' views towards their hypothetical daughter marrying an African American, Latino, or Asian. Drawing on insights from social identity complexity theory, we argue that the convergence of religious and national identities serves to reinforce in-group boundaries, thereby fortifying notions of white purity, and consequently, strengthening whites' discomfort with potential race-mixing in marriage. Multivariate analyses of national survey data demonstrate that Christian nationalism is strongly associated with an increase in white Americans' discomfort with a daughter marrying any racial minority, and particularly African Americans. We demonstrate how the convergence of religious and national identities in Christian nationalism influences whites' regulating of racial boundaries (evidenced in intermarriage attitudes) above and beyond the independent effects of political conservatism or religious exclusivism.

Keywords:

• religious nationalism
• interracial marriage
• religion
• racial boundaries
• social identity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Initial analyses indicated that the three-value coding of the dependent variable violated the proportional odds assumption and thus ordinal regression was inappropriate.

2. Analyses were also run with 1 = very comfortable and 0 = somewhat/not at all comfortable, and the results were substantively the same.

3. Who are white Christian nationalists? Examining those that score in the upper quartile of the Christian nationalism measure (score of 23 or more on the scale), white Christian nationalists are more likely to be evangelical Protestants compared to the rest of the sample. They are also more likely than the rest of the sample to report having at least one close African American friend, be biblical literalists, religiously active, political conservative, Southerners, Midwesterners, less educated, earn less, have at least one child, and female. They are less likely than the rest of the sample to report having at least one close Asian friend, believe that it is not important that their children marry someone in their same religion, and be from the West and East coasts. Christian nationalists are not more or less likely to be married, older, or report having one close Hispanic friend.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samuel L. Perry

SAMUEL L. PERRY is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of Chicago.

Andrew L. Whitehead

ANDREW L. WHITEHEAD is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Clemson University.