Good News, Bad News in New Study on Christian Nationalism
Some Christian nationalists support pluralism and democratic norms while others are a threat to our democracy.
A new report by Neighborly Faith, "Christian Nationalism: A New Approach," sought to fine tune previous research on Christian Nationalism (CN) by adding more questions to previously used scales of CN. Among the positive findings, the report found a willingness among a high number of Christian Nationalists to work with other faiths in the political sphere. On the other hand, consistent with previous research, the report found strong anti-democratic views among majorities of those scoring highest on the CN scale.
Among the CN Adherents (those who scored highest on the CN scale, which were 11% of the sample), 65% said Democrats "are downright evil."
Even more disturbing, over half of them, 54%, agreed with the statement that Democrats "lack the traits to be considered fully human — they behave like animals."
Additionally, 37% of CN Adherents support "having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections," and 49% want "America's Judeo-Christian founding explicitly established in the Constitution."
Another important contribution this report makes to the body of research on Christian Nationalism is to identify political extremism on the far left. A category the report calls "Zealous Separationists," who scored low on CN but also low on measures of pluralism, scored as high or almost as high as the CN Adherents on many of the questions related to democratic norms.
For more on this report, here's an article from Religion News Service, and here is an op-ed from one of the scholars who assisted with the report.
Events
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When Conspiracies Divide Us: Confronting Misinformation
When Crises of Faith Divide Us: Confronting Deconstruction
When Journalism Divides Us: Confronting Our Media Consumption Habits
When Polarization Divides Us: Confronting the Perception Gap
When Politics Divides Us: Confronting Political Idolatry
When Social Media Divides Us: Confronting Our Internet Habits
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What Else We're Reading
CBS News: “Teens struggle to identify misinformation about Israel-Hamas conflict — the world's second ‘social media war’“
A CBS News investigation revealed how quickly mis- and disinformation is reaching teenage accounts on social media. In an experiment, a team of journalists set up three different profiles on Instagram and TikTok.
One account searched simple terms on Israel; another searched simple Palestinian terms; and the last account searched both. Each alias also followed several accounts with more than 1,000 followers and "liked" a handful of posts for each one.
While the faux-teen accounts were initially fed typical teenage content, like posts about getting ready for high school and makeup tutorials, on TikTok and Instagram, the algorithms also took into account the searches. Not long after the search terms were entered, each feed was flooded with war-related content, including misinformation.
Rolling Stone: “Trump Vows to Amp Up the Hitler Talk”
IN THE DAYS following Donald Trump’s remarks that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” the 2024 GOP frontrunner was met with a wave of Democratic and media criticism, likening his speech to Nazi rhetoric. In response to the Adolf Hitler comparisons, Trump has privately vowed to further amp up the volume on his extreme, anti-immigrant messaging, according to two sources who’ve spoken to him since his rally in New Hampshire last weekend.
“He wants the media to choke on his words,” one of these sources says. “The [former] president said he’s going to keep doing it, he’s going to keep saying they’re poisoning the blood of the nation and destroying and killing the country … He says it’s a ‘great line.’” (Trump has been publicly using this specific phrase since at least September.)
According to the second source, Trump said in recent days that he was being “too nice” about the “animals” and alleged gang members who cross the southern border, whom Trump routinely accuses of flooding the United States with drugs, diseases, and violent crime. This person relays to Rolling Stone that Trump also said he and his campaign will be rolling out newer, even “tougher” policy proposals on immigration in 2024, and that his supporters should look out for them because they’ll be “very happy.”
Study: Online searches to evaluate misinformation can increase its perceived veracity
Abstract
Considerable scholarly attention has been paid to understanding belief in online misinformation with a particular focus on social networks. However, the dominant role of search engines in the information environment remains underexplored, even though the use of online search to evaluate the veracity of information is a central component of media literacy interventions. Although conventional wisdom suggests that searching online when evaluating misinformation would reduce belief in it, there is little empirical evidence to evaluate this claim. Here, across five experiments, we present consistent evidence that online search to evaluate the truthfulness of false news articles actually increases the probability of believing them. To shed light on this relationship, we combine survey data with digital trace data collected using a custom browser extension. We find that the search effect is concentrated among individuals for whom search engines return lower-quality information. Our results indicate that those who search online to evaluate misinformation risk falling into data voids, or informational spaces in which there is corroborating evidence from low-quality sources. We also find consistent evidence that searching online to evaluate news increases belief in true news from low-quality sources, but inconsistent evidence that it increases belief in true news from mainstream sources. Our findings highlight the need for media literacy programmes to ground their recommendations in empirically tested strategies and for search engines to invest in solutions to the challenges identified here.
Study: Christian nationalism, religious struggles, and the structural amplification of emotional distress
Abstract
Objective
Although studies have linked Christian nationalist beliefs with greater emotional distress, little is known about the potential underlying mechanisms or subgroup variations. Informed by the strain-struggles-distress model and the concept of structural amplification, we tested whether religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles mediate and moderate the association between Christian nationalist beliefs and emotional distress.
Methods
Regression models were conducted on national survey data collected in 2021 (n = 1704).
Results
Results suggested that respondents who reported stronger Christian nationalist beliefs also tended to report higher levels of R/S struggles, anger, and psychological distress. Mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects of Christian nationalist beliefs on emotional distress through R/S struggles. Moderation analyses also indicated that the effects of Christian nationalist beliefs on emotional distress were amplified at higher levels of R/S struggles.
Conclusion
In support of the strain-struggles-distress and structural amplification models, we find that the adverse emotional impacts Christian nationalism are explained and intensified by the cognitive vulnerabilities of R/S struggles.
What We're Watching
How some evangelical leaders are combating political radicalization in their congregations
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Great job. Thank you!