A Tale of Two Nations, Under God: Race, Religion, and Nationalism Shaping Xenophobia

• In Event: 20468 - Global Voices, Shifting Views: Exploring Trends in Public Opinion

Abstract

There are numerous examples of religious involvement in welcoming immigrants and refugees to the United States, including Christian organizations that provide services to and advocacy for immigrant communities. At the same time, anti-immigrant sentiment has increasingly centered Christian nationalist sentiment—the idea that the US is a Christian nation that should be organized around Christian principles to the exclusion of outsiders—an idea that racializes immigrants as non-white and re-defines Christianity as whiteness to justify anti-immigrant policies (Whitehead and Perry 2020). This centering explains a robust empirical pattern of white Christians expressing more xenophobia than other groups. So how do we square this frequently identified pattern of xenophobia with the involvement of white Christians in immigrant and refugee assistance and advocacy? Using 2024 survey data from the state of Michigan, we demonstrate that the common understanding that whites and Christians are more xenophobic than people of color and non-Christians (particularly people with no religious affiliation) is far more complex. We argue that it is beliefs about the nation and national belonging that are contributing to the relationship between race, religion and xenophobia. After accounting for nationalism, a different pattern emerges in which white non-nationalists espouse more receptivity towards immigrants and immigration than many non-white groups, with Christian affiliation dampening the effects of nationalism on xenophobia. We suggest that these fundings indicate diverging understandings of immigration and nation among white Christians.

Authors

• Stephanie J. Nawyn, Michigan State University

• Breanne L Grace, University of South Carolina-Columbia

• Farzin Rasoulyan, Michigan State University