Christian Nationalism Divided: Exploring the Transferability of an American Concept to Secularized European Multi-Party Democracies

Christian nationalism (CN) has emerged as a significant concept in discussions concerning politics and religion in the United States. While the theoretical relevance of the concept has been much discussed in American sociology of religion, its applicability to other contexts remains mostly unexplored. We aim to address this gap by examining the transferability of CN to a European case study. Using a representative sample from Finland, we refine the measurement proposed in the earlier American discussions of CN and augment it with additional questions. We explore the relationship between CN and attitudes towards religious pluralism and show that while CN cannot be applied to the Finnish context unmodified, it nonetheless has explanatory value. We identify two forms of CN: state and identity-oriented CN (SICN), and culturally diffuse CN (CDCN). CDCN is associated with positive attitudes towards religious diversity, whereas SICN correlates with negative attitudes towards non-Christians. We argue that in the multi-party European context, where church and state are historically closely intertwined, Christian Nationalism takes at least these two forms.