Conservative Christian Persecution Discourse and Support for Political Violence: Experimental Evidence from the United States

Abstract

International Relations scholarship on religious freedom points to religious persecution as a major driver of political violence around the globe. If correct, the perceived persecution of conservative Christians in the United States (U.S.) may contribute to the radicalization of individuals who self-identify as conservative and Christian. Yet, in focusing on country-level indicators, previous empirical research on the “religious freedom peace” is generally silent on the role of individual-level perceptions in the formation and mobilization of grievances. This article represents a first attempt to fill this gap. As such, it asks if the religious freedom discourse articulated in conservative American media contributes to the radicalization of its domestic consumers through the cultivation of perceptions of persecution that are divorced from the generally high levels of religious freedom otherwise experienced in the U.S. Although the results of an original online survey experiment demonstrate that persecution discourse does indeed shape perceptions of threat to religious liberty, I find no support for the idea that it also leads to increased support for political violence, either directly or indirectly through misperceptions of persecution.

Christ, Country, and Conspiracies? Christian Nationalism, Biblical Literalism, and Belief in Conspiracy Theories

“…Moreover, many important cultural institutions—such as the media, higher education, and the entertainment industry—do not promote the ideas of the Religious Right, leaving many Christians to feel that their values have been rejected by the country and that they have become a persecuted minority. The belief that Christians are persecuted in the United States has become commonplace, so much so that 57 percent of Evangelical Christians agreed that Christians face a lot of discrimination, and that Christians face more discrimination than any other religious group (Cox and Jones 2017; Gorski and Perry 2022; Herrington 2021). To the extent that Christian nationalists feel under attack, they may be more likely to adopt conspiracy thinking.…”