Christian nationalism splits into two ideals measured on acceptance spectrums rather than discrete classes

Evidence

In contrast with Davis’s and Smith and Aldler’s, our assumption on numbers and meanings of latent CN dimensions will not change as the sample of analysis is different. Our method assumes there are two ideals of CN, CS and RT. Each ideal is not only theoretically meaningful but conceptualized as different realities in American popular nationalism. In addition, each ideal can be measured using a latent ideology acceptance spectrum. In contrast, dividing people into several latent classes as Smith and Aldler’s can be less intuitive. Take their differentiation between “secular civic republicans” and “pluralist civic republicans” for example—neither answering patterns nor class membership compositions are obviously different from each other (see figures 1 and 2 in Smith and Adler 2022). — Ruiqian Li and Paul Froese, The Duality of American Christian…, 94

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s purpose: factor-analytic treatment of Christian nationalism as continuous dimenions vs latent-class approaches. — connects to: Latent class counts for Christian nationalism items are unstable across samples — Ruiqian Li and Paul Froese, The Duality of American Christian…, 92; The two Christian nationalism dimensions are diverging cognitively over time — Ruiqian Li and Paul Froese, The Duality of American Christian…, 118; Distinguishes ‘full fusion’ nationalisms from mere religiously-inflected ones by whether religion defines the nationalism — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 102 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The two Christian nationalism dimensions are diverging cognitively over time #expands (0.85) — Ruiqian Li and Paul Froese, The Duality of American Christian…, 118
• Distinguishes ‘full fusion’ nationalisms from mere religiously-inflected ones by whether religion defines the nationalism #complicates (0.72) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 102