Many are asking why the United States is having such a hard time curtailing the coronavirus within its borders. An equally perplexing point of discussion is why adherence to things like social distancing measures, designed to slow the spread of the virus, have become politicized in the U.S. According to a new study, Christian nationalism may give us some insight into both of these questions. The study, published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, proposes that Christian nationalists are the ones most likely to eschew precautionary measures and engage in “incautious” activity, thus “potentially worsening the pandemic.”
“We find Christian nationalism was the leading predictor that Americans engaged in incautious behavior like eating in restaurants, visiting family/friends, or gathering with 10+ persons (though not attending church), and was the second strongest predictor that Americans took fewer precautions like wearing a mask or sanitizing/washing one’s hands,” the authors of the study write. In other words, Christian nationalists are less likely to do the things that scientists and government officials have proposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus and are more likely to engage in activities that spread it.
Furthermore, the study proposes that what prompts this incautious response is Christian nationalists’ beliefs. Namely, “belief in divine protection, distrust of scientists and the news media, and devotion to Trump.” Read More
Also See:
Culture Wars and COVID‐19 Conduct: Christian Nationalism, Religiosity, and Americans’ Behavior During the Coronavirus Pandemic - Original Article
Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States
Americans with Christian Nationalist Views More Likely to Flout COVID-19 Precautions: Study - Interview with Prof. Samuel Perry
This study appears to corroborate what has been the observation of a number of people that a correlation exists between the political and religious views of a particular segment of the US population and their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I find that it is interesting that those who were surveyed in this study believe that public confession of "immorality" will resolve the pandemic since they look for leadership to an individual whose attitudes and behaviors do not meet Biblical standards of morality in a number of key areas such as marital fidelity, truth-telling, and forgiveness. The belief that the United States is God's chosen nation is traceable to the nineteenth century doctrine of manifest destiny which was used to justify US expansionism in the final decades of the nineteenth century and has no basis in Scripture.
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