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How Christian Nationalism Fueled COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy
In the 2019 Chapman University Survey of American Fears, Christian nationalism came out as the second strongest predictor of being against vaccination. Many Christian nationalists believe that receiving the COVID-19 vaccine demonstrates a lack of faith in God and that God will protect them via divine intervention. They also tend to believe that their interests take priority over others’ interests and will prioritize their individual liberty at the expense of their communities.
Christian nationalism is not synonymous with Christianity or Evangelicalism as a whole. Rather, Christian nationalism is a specific flavor of Christianity in which one believes that God favors their country or endows it with unique authority over other nations. This sort of pious patriotism encourages its participants to weave their country’s identity in with their own. Whether or not this identity reflects reality or not does not matter. To the Christian nationalist, all threats, whether material or cultural, must be thwarted.
Christian nationalists receive perceived attacks on their country’s identity as attacks on them. When COVID-19 mask mandates went into effect, many of them called these mandates an infringement on their freedoms as Americans. One Florida woman even went so far as to say that masks interfered with “God’s wonderful…
