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White Christian nationalism and the false consensus effect

“False consensus effect” is a term sociologists use to describe “when people tend to wrongly think their own views are held by the majority.”

An article by two sociology professors in Time magazine says (here), “This happens most often when people are surrounded only by those who agree with them. That is certainly likely to be the case among right-wing leaders and groups who trust few media sources beyond those catering to their views.”

And when you add religion to the mix, you also get people believing that “victory is in God’s hands and thus is assured.” After all, God is all-powerful and infallible, is She not?

Therefore, it’s not surprising that “Americans who subscribe to white Christian nationalism see themselves as representing ‘the nation,’ and ‘the real Americans’ over and against a corrupt ‘regime’ of elites who would take away their rights and plunge the nation further into decadence.” And thinking they’re bigger and more important than they actually are makes them more aggressive.

There are problems with this. Big problems! First, America is a melting pot of many races, ethnicities, and religions. While it’s still majority-white, over 42% of Americans are non-white, and that proportion is growing; and while 70% identify as Christians, 30% do not, and Americans overall are becoming less religious. Christian nationalists are a small — and shrinking — subset of the Christian group, which includes Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons.

Despite the fact 90% of Americans are religious in some way, the U.S. has a secular government. This is necessary to accommodate religious diversity. The Constitution was written that way because many of America’s founding immigrants were refugees from Europe’s religious persecutions and wars, and didn’t want that to happen here. That problem arises when a group believes theirs is the only true way, and breeds intolerance in a country where we all need to get along and sometimes struggle to do so.

Mixing religion with politics is also a recipe for demagoguery. Politicians who contend “God is on their side in a divinely inspired fight against evil” often also demonize their opponents and portray them as enemies who must not only be defeated but also destroyed.

A major failing of the so-called “religious right” is they latched onto Trump; to everyone else, this looks like selling their souls to the devil. It’s ridiculous to say, or believe, that Trump was “sent or inspired by God,” but that’s what they say and believe, which puts a serious dent in their credibility. This puts them in the position of having to explain why God would send a liar and adulterer to carry out a “mission from God.”

ABC News says, “Although the full extent of the movement is unclear, experts who spoke with ABC News warned that the ideology of Christian nationalism threatens American democracy.” (Read story here.) Those experts worry that if Christian nationalists were in power, they would enact policies that “chip away at religious freedom, at freedom of speech, at a lot of the democratic freedoms that everybody in America cherishes right now.”

That includes the right to vote. Defeated candidate Doug Mastriano, who doesn’t call himself a Christian nationalist, but ascribes to many its beliefs and held campaign rallies that resembled religious revival meetings — from which reporters were excluded — said if he were elected Pennsylvania’s governor he would de-register every voter in the state.

It’s one thing for government policies to reflect citizens’ religious-based values (e.g., generosity to the poor); it’s another for people to impose their personal values on strangers (e.g., denying marriage rights to gays, based on a Bible-based belief that “marriage is between one man and one woman”)

As Rev. Meriah Tigner of Indiana told ABC News, “I’m seeing … conservative Christian values … being proposed to be passed as law. So that ‘my values, everyone has to follow’ because they would be codified” as enforceable laws. They might, for example, pass laws restricting discussion of transgender people because their faith “doesn’t make space for it.”

That would violate the First Amendment, but constitutional rights aren’t self-enforcing, and political pressures could overpower them, especially now that we have a Supreme Court which can’t be trusted to protect rights. And it’s not only free speech and religious freedom that are at risk. Eric McDaniel, a Texas political scientist, has found that Christian nationalists “are more supportive of authoritarian regimes” and “more open to autocratic rule” — provided the ruler shares and enforces their beliefs.

And their beliefs say that if you don’t look and think like them, you don’t belong in this country.

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