Religious nationalism intensifies during social crises regardless of demographic religious decline
Evidence
For these reasons, there was an increase in the percentage of the population that believed being Christian is vital to being a true American in spite of a decrease in the proportion of the population that is Christian over that same time period. — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 197
Categorization
- XREF: Builds directly on Wuthnow’s restructuring thesis from paragraph 173 in this same chapter; the symbolic-boundary mechanism echoes work on in-group/out-group marking the reader studies elsewhere. — connects to: Crisis-time scapegoating of religious out-groups masks political and economic causes; Forced marketization reanimates ethnic and religious nationalism in post-Soviet societies. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 316; Political Islam’s rise depended on the collapse of secular nationalism — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 312 (+10 more)
- DEFINE: Introduces ‘symbolic boundary alignment’ as a mechanism — religious nationalism spikes when groups need to mark who is ‘in’ and ‘out’ during unrest.
Broader Connections
- Crisis-time scapegoating of religious out-groups masks political and economic causes
#complicates(0.75) - Forced marketization reanimates ethnic and religious nationalism in post-Soviet societies.
#expands(0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 316 - Political Islam’s rise depended on the collapse of secular nationalism
#qualifies(0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 312 - Islamism rose from secular nationalist failure, left weakness, and economic crises
#corroborates(0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 323