More than 60% of the Republicans in the U.S. support declaring the U.S. a Christian nation, a new study shows.
The American Public Attitudes on Race, Ethnicity, and Religion study by the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll says 61% of Republicans agree with "officially declaring the United States to be a Christian nation."
The study was conducted between May 6-16, 2022, and involved 2,091 respondents from a nationally representative sampling pool provided by Nielsen Scarborough's probability-based panel.
This particular study by the Critical Issues Poll was fielded as part of a more extensive survey about foreign and domestic issues.
The study asked two polarizing questions regarding religiosity and the constitution.
The first question asked participants if they "think the U.S. Constitution would or would not allow the U.S. government to declare the United States a Christian nation."
An overwhelming majority, 70%, of the respondents think that the U.S. Constitution will not allow the declaration of the U.S. as a Christian nation.
New polling shows that most Republicans say Christian Nationalism a belief that the U.S. was founded as a white, Christian nation and that there is no separation b/w church and state is unconstitutional. But they still support it.https://t.co/sIfAGp5kgx
— POLITICO (@politico) September 21, 2022
The remaining 30%, who think otherwise, were mostly Republicans at 43%, while 28% of the independents and only 19% of Democrats agree that the constitution can declare the U.S. a Christian nation.
The second question asked if they favor or oppose a declaration of the U.S. as a Christian nation; 61%of the Republican respondents said they would.
In an Op-Ed in Politico, Shibley Telhami, the poll's director, and Stella Rouse, associate director of the Critical Issue Poll, said Christian Nationalism is gaining momentum with the Republican voters.
Telhami and Rouse cited several prominent Republican figures who made Christian nationalism "critical to their message to voters in the 2022 midterm elections."
Marjorie Taylor-Greene (MTG), the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, doubled down on her rhetoric, embracing Christian Nationalism, which has made the idea more mainstream.
Despite the backlash from more than 12,000 Christians condemning MTG, Christian Nationalism has made its way closer to mainstream politics.
If Jesus wanted a Christian nation, he would have established one, but he didn’t. He established the church.
Whenever we Christians forsake our call to be the church for a “Christian empire,” the results are always catastrophic.
We are called to be the church, not an empire.— Rev. Benjamin Cremer (@Brcremer) June 28, 2022
"Not surprisingly, much of the support for declaring the U.S. a Christian nation comes from Republicans who identify themselves as Evangelical or born-again Christians," Telhami and Rouse explained.
The study also identified "white grievance" as a highly related factor to Republicans supporting Christian Nationalism.;
"White respondents who say that members of their race have faced more discrimination than others are most likely to embrace a Christian America," the study added.
