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Which civil religion? Partisanship, Christian nationalism, and the dimensions of civil religion in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2023

Abigail Vegter Open the ORCID record for Abigail Vegter [Opens in a new window] ,
Andrew R. Lewis  and
Cammie Jo Bolin
Abigail Vegter*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Berry College, Mount Berry, Georgia, USA
Andrew R. Lewis
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Cammie Jo Bolin
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University at Albany State University of New York, Albany, New York, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: avegter@berry.edu
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Abstract

Civil religion has been described as the “common elements of religious orientation that the great majority of Americans share”. In an age of partisan division, there have been calls for a revitalized civil religion, but the idea that civil religion can be unifying has been debated. In this paper, we investigate whether civil religion can be unifying, or is it fractured by partisanship? To address this, we use two strategies. First, we created a civil religion battery and deployed it on two different cross-sectional surveys. The results indicate that there are two dimensions to civil religion. These dimensions are distinct from Christian nationalism and structured along partisan lines. Second, we developed two survey experiments to understand the dimensions of civil religion and improve on the causal mechanisms that link civil religion to political behavior. Results indicate that, rather than promoting unity, civil religion is interpreted through partisan lenses.

Keywords

Civil religionChristian nationalism
Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 2023 , pp. 286 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

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