27 Oct 2022

45% of Americans Say U.S. Should Be a ‘Christian Nation’

by | posted in: Church and State, Uncategorized | 0

But they hold differing opinions about what that phrase means, and two-thirds of U.S. adults say churches should keep out of politics

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Oct. 27, 2022) – Most U.S. adults believe America’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation, and many say they think it should be a Christian nation today, according to a new Pew Research Center survey designed to explore Americans’ views on the topic. But the survey also finds widely differing opinions about what it means to be a “Christian nation” and to support “Christian nationalism.”

For instance, many supporters of Christian nationhood define the concept in broad terms, as the idea that the country is guided by Christian values. Those who say the United States should not be a Christian nation, on the other hand, are much more inclined to define a Christian nation as one where the laws explicitly enshrine religious teachings.

Overall, six-in-ten U.S. adults – including nearly seven-in-ten Christians – say they believe the founders “originally intended” for the U.S. to be a Christian nation. And 45% of U.S. adults – including about six-in-ten Christians – say they think the country “should be” a Christian nation. A third say the U.S. “is now” a Christian nation.

At the same time, a large majority of the public expresses some reservations about intermingling religion and government. For example, about three-quarters of U.S. adults (77%) say that churches and other houses of worship should not endorse candidates for political offices. Two-thirds (67%) say that religious institutions should keep out of political matters rather than expressing their views on day-to-day social or political questions. And the new survey – along with other recent Center research – makes clear that there is far more support for the idea of separation of church and state than opposition to it among Americans overall.

This raises the question: What do people mean when they say the U.S. should be a “Christian nation”? While some people who say the U.S. should be a Christian nation define the concept as one where a nation’s laws are based on Christian tenets and the nation’s leaders are Christian, it is much more common for people in this category to see a Christian nation as one where people are more broadly guided by Christian values or a belief in God, even if its laws are not explicitly Christian and its leaders can have a variety of faiths or no faith at all.

Among those who say the U.S. should be a Christian nation, roughly three-in-ten (28%) said in a March 2021 survey that “the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation,” while half (52%) said the federal government “should never declare any particular religion as the official religion of the United States.” Similarly, among those who say in the new survey that the U.S. should be a Christian nation, only about a quarter (24%) said in the prior survey that the federal government should advocate Christian religious values. About twice as many (52%) said the government should “advocate moral values that are shared by people of many faiths.”

At the same time, however, people who believe the U.S. should be a Christian nation are far more inclined than those who think it should not be a Christian nation to favor officially declaring Christianity to be the nation’s religion and to support government advocacy of Christian values. Furthermore, the new survey finds that nearly eight-in-ten people who say the U.S. should be a Christian nation also say the Bible should have at least some influence on U.S. laws, including slightly more than half (54%) who say that when the Bible conflicts with the will of the people, the Bible should prevail.

Cumulatively, though, the survey’s results suggest that most people who say the U.S. should be a Christian nation are thinking of some definition of the term other than a government-imposed theocracy.

In response to a question that gave respondents a chance to describe, in their own words, what the phrase “Christian nation” means to them, nearly half (48%) of those who say the U.S. should be a Christian nation define that phrase as the general guidance of Christian beliefs and values in society, such as that a Christian nation is one where the population has faith in God or Jesus Christ, specifically. Fewer people who say the U.S. should be a Christian nation explain that they mean the country’s laws should be based on Christianity (6%).

Those who say the U.S. should not be a Christian nation are much more likely than those who say it should be one to say that being a Christian nation would entail religion-based laws and policies (30% vs. 6%). Others who oppose Christian nationhood use negative words to describe the concept, such as that a Christian nation would be “strict,” “controlling,” “racist,” “bigoted” or “exclusionary” toward people of other faiths (21%).

In addition to the questions that asked about being a “Christian nation,” the survey asked other respondents about their familiarity with the term “Christian nationalism.” Overall, the survey indicates that more than half of U.S. adults (54%) have heard nothing at all about Christian nationalism, while 14% say they have heard a little, 17% have heard some, 9% have heard quite a bit and 5% have heard a great deal about it.

Altogether, 45% say they have heard at least a little about Christian nationalism. These respondents received a follow-up question asking whether they have a favorable or unfavorable view of Christian nationalism. Far more people express an unfavorable opinion than a favorable one (24% vs. 5%), though even among respondents who say they have heard at least a little about Christian nationalism, many don’t express an opinion or say they don’t know enough to take a stance.

In an open-ended question asking about the meaning of “Christian nationalism,” upward of one-in-ten Americans say the term implies some form of institutionalization or official dominance of Christianity, such as theocratic rule or a formal declaration that the U.S. is a Christian nation with Christian inhabitants. At the same time, many Americans who say they hold a favorable view of Christian nationalism describe it in ways that suggest it promotes morality and faith without necessarily being in a position of formal, legal dominance. Overall, however, Americans’ descriptions of Christian nationalism – especially among those who have an unfavorable opinion of it – are more negative than positive.

These are among the key findings of a new Pew Research Center survey, conducted Sept. 13-18, 2022, among 10,588 respondents who are part of the Center’s American Trends Panel. The survey is the latest entry in the Center’s long-running effort to gauge the public’s perceptions and attitudes related to religion in public life – including their views about how much influence religion has in American society and how much it ought to have. The survey also contained several questions about religion and the Supreme Court.

The new survey finds a big jump in the share of Americans who say they think the Supreme Court is friendly toward religion. Today, roughly a third of U.S. adults (35%) say the court is friendly to religion, up sharply from 18% who said this in 2019, when the Center last asked this question.

About four-in-ten U.S. adults (42%) say the Supreme Court’s recent decisions have helped the interests of Christians in the United States, compared with 15% who say they have hurt Christians. And 44% of U.S. adults say Supreme Court justices have relied on their religious beliefs too much in their recent decisions, versus 13% who say they have relied on these beliefs too little. Both of these questions were asked for the first time as part of the new survey.

For more information or to arrange an interview with the lead researchers, please contact Achsah Callahan at acallahan@pewresearch.org or 202-419-3609.

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