Christian nationalism, race, and contingent support for law enforcement: Results from two survey experiments

Abstract

Research in the United States shows a strong link between right-wing Christianity and support for law enforcement. Yet, it remains unclear whether this support extends uniformly across contexts, which has important implications for our understanding of public attitudes about police. Integrating insights from group identity theory with research on Christian nationalism, we theorize that the Christian right’s support for law enforcement is contingent on the assumption that police control ethnoracial or cultural out-groups. Consequently, we expect support to be amplified when out-group valence is amplified and reversed if police are coded as threatening an in-group. Analyzing two national surveys with embedded question-wording experiments, we find a modest, positive association between Christian nationalism and favorability toward “the police.” However, in 2022, Christian nationalism had a strong, negative association with favorability toward “the U.S. Capitol police” and, in 2025, a strong, positive association with favorability toward “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.” These associations are most pronounced among White Americans, though racial group differences are not statistically significant. We argue that right-wing Christian support for law enforcement stems not from a commitment to “law and order” but from the use of state authority to privilege conservative Christians and control out-group threats.