Are conservative Christians driven by fear?

At times, it seems like the media is obsessed with the fears conservative Christians supposedly possess. It has been argued that these fears have turned them into monsters, made them scared of women, motivated their voting, and led them to become intolerant. Such a focus can also be found among academics, as scholars have argued that conservative Christianity has created a culture of fear, called conservative Christianity the religion of fear, and claimed Christian fear of persecution can lead to support of political violence. They even accuse Christians of fearing that they are declining and thus seeking to increase their fertility. A generous amount of research documents fear as a source of nationalism, racism, ethnocentrism, bigotry, and many more negative characteristics assigned to conservatives. Whether one looks at academic research or reads media reports, there is a great deal of work on the fear supposedly possessed by political conservatives and conservative Christians.

As I studied Christianophobia and academic bias, I realized that academics have a powerful motivation to focus on negative characteristics among Christians, particularly white evangelicals. This accounts for some of the tendency of academics, and the media that uses the findings of those academics, to be fixated on the fears conservative Christians supposedly have. But this fixation is only half of the problem of bias. There is not merely negative bias but also positive bias. It is not simply that certain academics seek to portray Christians in a negative light, but it is also the fact that they are hesitant to see the same negative traits among other groups, particularly groups that they are members of. One such group many academics are members of is political progressives.

Thus, with so much focus on how the fears of conservatives can lead to poor outcomes, one should ask whether other groups are affected by fear. Most notably there seems to be little interest in how fear may affect political progressives. Yet, the efforts to replace President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris on the Democratic presidential ticket were quite noteworthy. As you listen to the voices of Democrats, when it became apparent that Biden was highly unlikely to win reelection, it was not merely the tone of disappointment, it was the sound of desperation. It was also the sound of fear.

I do not argue that there is no element of fear among many conservatives. Nor do I deny the importance of thinking through the implications of that fear. But do we truly believe that fear is largely absent in the way progressive activism has expressed itself in our society? Do we believe that those who lament about the end of democracy or worry about genocide are unaffected by the problems related to fear of their political and religious out-groups? That is a highly unrealistic assumption. The fact that academics and media personnel have not talked about how fears have affected political progressives does not mean that such progressives are free of fear or that we should be unconcerned about the effects of that fear.

What is it that political progressives fear, and how might that fear be manifested in their actions in our society? Some of my recent work points to a distinct source of the fear of political progressives: conservative Christians. Recent research of mine indicates that individuals who feel threatened by conservative Christians are more willing to support racially progressive measures even after the application of social, demographic, and political controls. In another article, I found, after the application of such controls, that among political progressives, support of progressive racial measures is tied to lower levels of disaffinity toward Christian fundamentalists. While my recent work has focused on racial political issues, I also wrote an earlier article that ties the support of sexual minorities to higher levels of affinity toward fundamentalist Christians after basic controls and controlling affinity toward sexual minorities.

I know some will say that they have every right to fear conservative Christians. A combination of experiences, stereotypes, and actual concerns will be used to justify such fears. However, given the Christianophobia I have documented among the highly educated, academia, and the media, Christians can say they have a right to fear the larger culture, as well. Ultimately, I cannot determine if the fear within progressives is higher or more consequential than the fear within Christians, but I have documented that it exists and is likely to play a role in how much progressives use their influence to shape society.

This is a consequence of academic bias. It is not simply that academics focus on negative qualities among conservative Christians. They also ignore the exploration of negative elements among political progressives and secular individuals. In doing this, they promote an image that the worst people in our society are conservative Christians. The focus on the faults of such Christians while ignoring the faults of other groups feeds the image of an exceptionally evil nature of conservative Christians.

This is part of what puts Christians at a disadvantage in the culture. We need to deal with the full effects of academic and media bias. Both forms of bias mark the landscape of our current challenge.