According to an Axios article published Feb. 18, a Public Religion Research Institute survey revealed that 54% of Arkansan respondents qualified as Christian Nationalist “adherents” or “sympathizers.”

The article stated that the Christian nationalism ideology, “holds that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and should be governed according to strict Christian values, even as the country becomes less religious and more racially diverse.”

However, Clayton Crockett – professor and director of religious studies program – had a different definition for the publicized group.

“I think it’s sort of [a] bringing together of Christianity … and what it means to accept Jesus as the son of God and the savior of human beings, along with, and a focus, on the nation as a kind of vehicle for God’s plan to transform the world,” he said.

While Crockett does not view Christianity in a negative light, he does find that Christian nationalism has put the United States on a destructive course.

“it’s [Christian Nationalism] useful for promoting certain kinds of policies that appear to make the United States more Christian in a cultural sense… It’s destroying Christianity as a religion that has integrity and that really cares about people, and it’s destroying the United States as a country, because what it ultimately serves is money,” Crockett said. “It serves wealth and it serves multinational capitalism.”

According to the article, “‘56% of all Republicans are Christian Nationalism ‘adherents’ or ‘sympathizers,’ the survey said.”

The article also stated, “‘Only 25% of independents and just 17% of Democrats are “adherents” or “sympathizers,”’ according to the survey.”

Crockett believes that Christian nationalism’s connections to the Republican Party began in the 1980s.

“Ever since the 1980s with the rise of the Moral Majority and then the religious right, there’s been an attempt by the Republican Party to court southern white evangelicals, and by promoting certain kinds of values, certain kinds of practices, certain kinds of beliefs, and emphasizing the connection or the compatibility of Republican policies with these Christian kinds of values,” Crockett said.

The Axios article stated, “The new survey also shows that Christian nationalism strongly correlates with those who have a favorable opinion of President Trump and those who live in states with GOP-controlled state legislatures … In Arkansas and Oklahoma, for example, Republicans control roughly 80% of state legislative seats — and those states rank among the highest in Christian nationalism support.

“Blue states such as California (22%), New York (21%) and Washington (18%) report the lowest levels,” it said.

The article also stated that, “The report found that many of those who support Christian nationalism also support far-right conservative views around immigration, pluralism, and gender roles … Around 67% of adherents say immigrants are “invading” and replacing Americans’ culture, for example … Another 61% support deporting undocumented immigrants to foreign prisons without due process … 73% of adherents view Trump as a strong leader who should be given the power he needs, while majorities of skeptics call him a dangerous dictator, the survey found.”

Crockett said, “In some ways it’s [the rise of Christian nationalist] a result of the civil rights movement. And when Lyndon Johnson signed the bill for civil rights in 1964 he said, basically, we’ve lost the south to the Democratic Party for a generation … Most of these southern states that were Democrat then gradually transform and become Republican. It’s a process that takes a few decades, and Arkansas kind of lags that because there were still many conservative Democratic politicians, Bill Clinton being one who became president, but other senators and state legislators, and it wasn’t really until 2008 with the nomination the election of Barack Obama, that Arkansas wept very strongly from conservative Democrat to very strong Republican.”

Crockett believes that the future of Christian nationalism could depend on its followers.

“I don’t want to be partisan politically, and I also don’t want to be anti-Christianity as a religion. I want to be very clear about both of those things,” he said. “However, I think that this particular form has benefited from polarization of American society, politics and religion, that has been exaggerated. We’re exaggerated on both sides, as if there’s us and there’s them … And I think that the moneyed interests and the oligarchic elite have benefited from that polarization.

“But I think with the Trump second administration, there’s been the attempt to consolidate so much power in this administration … not just the executive branch, legislative branch, the Supreme Court, but then the media, the deep state, the military … A lot of the people are against it, but we don’t know if they’ve gotten so much power that it’s not going to be able to be taken back or pushed back, and I think that there are a lot of Christian nationalists who are going to be caught in the middle either having to sacrifice their humanity to support something that’s increasingly inhuman and vicious and obscene, or having to hold on to their humanity and their Christianity and distance themselves from what has become a kind of virulent nationalism that is also destroying so many of the institutions of The United States,” Crockett said.

“PRRI first developed its five-question Christian nationalism scale in 2022, measuring agreement with statements such as declaring the U.S. a Christian nation and basing laws on Christian values,” the article stated.

“PRRI conducted the survey between Feb. 18 – Dec. 8, 2025. The poll is based on a representative sample of 22,111 adults living in all 50 states.”