Survey items mentioning God without Jesus may capture civil religion rather than Christian nationalism

Evidence

On the one hand, these items address religious establishment of the American nation. On the other hand, they do not refer to Christian symbolism directly so they may also appeal to non-Christian religionists. Scholars had used similar items to measure civil religion and American religious exceptionalism (Chapp 2012; McDaniel, Nooruddin, and Shortle 2022). Therefore, they could be indicators for either or both groups. — Ruiqian Li and Paul Froese, The Duality of American Christian…, 79

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the conceptual boundary between Christian nationalism items and civil-religion items: God-language without Christ-reference may appeal beyond Christians.
• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s stated purpose of testing whether CN is a distinct schema — the God-vs-Jesus wording distinction is a measurement lever for separating nationalist religiosity from genuine Christian commitment. — connects to: Christian nationalism survey items predict racial attitudes even though they mention no race — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross: White Christian…, 91; Christian nationalist adherence is primarily political rather than religious — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 214; Christianity functions for some voters as ethnicity rather than belief system — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 661

Broader Connections

• Christian nationalism survey items predict racial attitudes even though they mention no race #expands (0.74) — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross, 91
• Christianity functions for some voters as ethnicity rather than belief system #qualifies (0.73) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 661
• Christian nationalist adherence is primarily political rather than religious #qualifies (0.72) — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 214