The Gospel of Meritocracy: Christian Nationalism,Economic Position,and Americans’ Beliefs About Getting Ahead in Life

Abstract

What do Americans believe it takes to get ahead in life? We propose that viewing one’s nation as divinely favored and righteous in its foundations shapes one’s conception of our society as meritocratic, rewarding hard work rather than unearned privilege. Building on this idea, we theorize that “Christian nationalism,” a set of beliefs about America’s Christian foundations and the need to preserve those foundations, will incline Americans to endorse personal merit as essential for getting ahead and deny the importance of inherited or unfair advantage. We also theorize that this association will be stronger among higher earners as Christian nationalism sacralizes the social order from which they benefit. Data from two nationally representative surveys reveal Americans who affirm Christian nationalist views are more likely to stress the importance of hard work to getting ahead and deny the importance of luck, coming from wealth, knowing the right people, or one’s race or sex. Moreover, interactions affirm Christian nationalism’s association with meritocratic beliefs is particularly salient among middle- to higher-earning Americans. Findings suggest that beliefs about “getting ahead” are shaped in part by the intersection of religio-political ideology with economic position in a way that justifies privileges for those currently experiencing economic advantages.

Keywords

meritocracy inequality privilege Christian nationalism politics

Introduction

Quality of life in any society is shaped in part by the extent to which its citizens view that society as fair, with opportunities for advancement available and based on merit. For example, studies have found a perception of societal fairness to predict levels of subjective well-being at the individual level and in the aggregate (Bjørnskov et al. 2013; Knight and Gunatilaka 2024). And though inequality likewise predicts unhappiness, scholars find subjective well-being tied less to the inequality per se, and more to the perception of whether the inequality is fair, that is, based on merit (Bjørnskov et al. 2013; Huang 2019; Oishi et al. 2022; Schneider 2012). Given the importance of perception, this raises the question of what social and ideological inputs shape citizens’ views about what it actually takes to succeed in one’s society.

The current study examines Americans’ beliefs about what it takes to get ahead in life. Previous studies on this topic have found that Americans who are White, younger, and politically conservative are more likely to affirm factors like “hard work” are important for getting ahead, but interestingly, not necessarily indicators of economic advantage like class, employment, or economic mobility. This suggests that an important, but thus far overlooked, contributing factor might be a constellation of social factors shaping ideological commitment to a conception of America as a “meritocracy” (Reynolds and Xian 2014; Xian and Reynolds 2017; Zhu 2025).

Thus far, scholars have yet to consider how Americans’ perception of their nation as religiously special, righteous in its foundations and essence, as influencing their beliefs about the Unites States as meritocratic. Building on recent research showing “Christian nationalism” (a set of beliefs about America’s Christian foundations and the need to preserve those foundations) increases (1) Americans’ unquestioning loyalty to the nation, (2) their embrace of neoliberal, libertarian economic views, and (3) their endorsement of economic inequality, we theorize that Christian nationalism in general will incline Americans to endorse personal merit as essential for getting ahead in life and deny the importance of any unearned advantages. Yet we also theorize that this relationship is contingent on structural location. Just as previous studies have found Christian nationalism’s association with views on racial inequality to be contingent on racial identity (Perry et al. 2022; Perry and Whitehead 2019), we also extend recent work showing the link between Christian nationalism and Americans’ economic attitudes are shaped by location in the economic hierarchy. We do this by testing for the moderating influence of income.¹

Drawing on data from two national surveys, our findings largely affirm our expectations. The more strongly Americans endorse Christian nationalism, the higher they rate the importance of hard work to getting ahead and deny the importance of luck, coming from a wealthy family, knowing the right people, or one’s race or sex. Additionally, interactions reveal Christian nationalism’s association with meritocratic beliefs is often particularly salient among middle- to higher-earning Americans (those in the top two income quartiles), and virtually non-existent (or even slightly in the opposite direction) for the lowest earners. The findings of this study thus make an important contribution to our understanding of how Americans view opportunity in their own society. Though factors like partisanship or ideological conservatism inevitably shape Americans’ beliefs about getting ahead, their religio-political understanding of America’s foundations and character also matter. Specifically, holding to a conception of the United States as historically and prescriptively “Christian” inclines certain Americans—particularly those who currently experience economic advantages—to affirm a vision of the United States as fair and success as attained through hard work rather than unearned privileges.

Background and Hypotheses

Americans’ Beliefs About Getting Ahead in Life

Since the early 1980s, the General Social Survey (GSS) has asked Americans about what they believe it takes to succeed in life. GSS respondents are asked to evaluate the importance of factors like “hard work,” “coming from a wealthy family,” “knowing the right people, “race,” “sex,” and “luck” for getting ahead in life. Over the last few decades, these GSS items have consistently revealed a gap between the near-universal endorsement of “hard work” and the more contested recognition of unearned advantages (Mijs 2018; Reynolds and Xian 2014; Xian and Reynolds 2017). Reynolds and Xian (2014) show that Americans’ beliefs about getting ahead in life are shaped by demographic and ideological factors. For example, Americans who are White, younger, and politically conservative tend to emphasize personal effort over structural barriers (see also Ellis 2017; Solt et al. 2016; Torkelson et al. 2025). Though upper class Americans are slightly less likely to affirm discrimination as means of getting ahead compared to poorer Americans, Reynolds and Xian (2014) find that economic self-interest was not as strong a predictor in meritocracy as might be expected. Indeed, class background and education were less predictive of beliefs about meritocracy than race, partisanship, and ideology. This finding suggests that cultural and ideological commitments factor heavily in how Americans interpret opportunity (Ellis 2017; McCall et al. 2017; Solt et al. 2016; Torkelson et al. 2025).

Subsequent research has built on Reynold and Xian’s (2014) findings, showing that Americans’ meritocratic beliefs are not mere reflections of self-interest, but rather are culturally and ideologically conditioned (Ho 2024; Sauder, Shi, and Lynn 2024; Torkelson et al. 2025). Scholars have pointed to the “meritocracy myth,” the powerful narrative that success in America is solely the product of talent and effort (Foster and Maroto 2025; Xian and Reynolds 2017; Zhu 2025). To be sure, this myth is sustained not only by elites who stand to benefit from it, but also from ordinary citizens who see it as central to the American dream (García-Sierra 2023; Taussig 2021; Torkelson et al. 2025). On the whole, empirical work underscores how Americans cling to the belief in individual mobility even when faced with clear evidence of persistent inequality (Hiltner and Cech 2024; Wilson et al. 2022). Additional work by Reynolds, May, and Xian (2019) emphasizes the role of religion in sustaining optimism about future prospects, though one conditioned by social location.

Empirical analyses further reveal how meritocratic beliefs are often contradicted by structural realities. Intergenerational mobility in the United States has remained stagnant for decades, with economic advantages largely inherited (Chetty et al. 2014). Yet, most Americans continue to believe that upward mobility is achievable through hard work (Mijs 2018). Some research has even suggested that such perception of fairness matter more for indicators like subjective well-being than inequality itself: as long as individuals perceive that opportunities are open to all, they report greater life satisfaction (Bjørnskov et al. 2013; Huang 2019; Oishi et al. 2022; Schneider 2012; Ugur 2021). Finally, there is a strand of empirical work that suggests that beliefs about “getting ahead” are tied to symbolic dimensions of national identity. Meritocratic values serve as cultural markers of American exceptionalism and draw attention to the conviction that the United States is uniquely fair and open to all who are willing to “work hard” (Mijs 2021; Torkelson et al. 2025; Xian and Reynolds 2017). By this logic, when individuals affirm that success is a product of hard work rather than afforded to some by privilege, they are affirming an ideological commitment to the American project.

Taken together, this body of work underscores that views about getting ahead are not simply reflections of material realities but are deeply ideological and culturally embedded (Ho 2024; Sauder et al. 2024). Such beliefs about meritocracy also persist or even grow stronger across generations of Americans (Mijs 2018), often despite contradictory evidence, and are particularly salient among groups who are ideologically committed to defending the fairness of the nation. This background provides fertile ground for understanding why Christian nationalism—an ideology that sanctifies America’s founding and social order—would serve to reinforce such meritocratic beliefs.

Christian Nationalism and Idealizing the Nation

Though definitions can vary slightly, “Christian nationalism” generally refers to a religio-political ideology or set of beliefs about America’s ideal social order, rooted in a myth about national chosen-ness (McDaniel, Nooruddin, and Shortle 2022; see also: Braunstein 2021; Djupe, Lewis, and Sokhey 2023; Gorski and Perry 2022; Whitehead and Perry 2020).² This ideology is not merely about the nation’s past, but is prescriptive of how the nation should be governed and morally ordered today. Though it can be found across Christian (and even some non-Christian) groups (Gorski and Perry 2022; Whitehead and Perry 2020), it is generally rooted in a sectarian denominational and interpretative tradition that has historically cloaked America’s social hierarchies—particularly race, gender, and class hierarchies—with divine legitimacy (Sherkat, Lehman, and Julkif 2024).

Whitehead and Perry (2020) show that Christian nationalism consistently predicts support for public displays of religious and political fusion, such as expecting public officials to invoke Christian principles (see also Perry, Davis, and Grubbs 2023). But the implications of Christian nationalism extend beyond specific policy preferences; indeed, Christian nationalism establishes a moral narrative in which the United States is imagined as set apart, righteous, and therefore not in need of deep structural critique (Braunstein 2021; Gorski and Perry 2022). If the nation is divinely chosen, then its political, racial, and economic arrangements must also be broadly just (McDaniel et al. 2022; Perry et al. 2022; Perry and Schleifer 2023).

This sacralization of the nation shapes how adherents respond to social conflict or critique. Perry and Schleifer (2023) demonstrated that Christian nationalism fosters “blind patriotism,” an uncritical defense of the nation even in the face of wrongdoing. Similarly, Perry, Davis, and Grubbs (2023) find that Christian nationalism is associated with support for patriotic education that downplays the failings of America while elevating narratives of virtue and “chosen-ness” (see also Braunstein 2021). Scholars have extended this argument by showing that Christian nationalism is tied to national hubris, the belief that the United States is morally superior to all other nations and exempt from reproach (McDaniel et al. 2022:83). These findings are also echoed in public opinion research. A 2021 report by the Pew Research Center reveals that Americans who most strongly affirm Christian nationalist views are the most likely to say the United States “stands above all other countries in the world” (p. 20).

Taken together, this burgeoning literature shows how Christian nationalism operates as an ideology or meaning system that interprets social arrangements as sacred and therefore legitimate. Empirical research has also shown that Christian nationalism fuels hostility toward out-groups like immigrants (Perry et al. 2024; Stroope, Rackin, and Froese 2021) and religious minorities (Dahab and Omori 2019; Saiya and Manchanda 2025), casting them as threats to a sacred national order. Other scholars show that Christian nationalism amplifies authoritarian politics (Armaly, Buckley, and Enders 2022; Davis, Perry, and Grubbs 2024; Saiya and Manchanda 2025), opposition to racial justice efforts (Perry and Whitehead 2019; Perry et al. 2022), and punitiveness (Schmidgall, Perry, and Grubbs 2025). This should be of consequence for beliefs about meritocracy. If America is understood as righteous in its foundations, then its economic inequalities can be recast as fair outcomes of individual virtue rather than products of structural advantage. By linking the nation’s identity to God’s will and plan (Whitehead and Perry 2020), Christian nationalism likely also encourages adherents to see individual successes as deserved and failures as the product of insufficient effort. As we will argue, Christian nationalism provides both a cultural and religious frame that not only idealizes the United States as a nation but also sanctifies the very hierarchies that structure Americans’ chances of “getting ahead.”

Christian Nationalism, Economic Attitudes, and the Potential Moderating Role of Economic Position

In addition to research showing Christian nationalism sacralizes the nation itself, leading Americans to ignore systemic problems, recent scholarship also highlights Christian nationalism’s association with explicit economic attitudes. This research also elucidates how the ideology might influence Americans’ views on getting head in life. Studies find, for example, that Americans who subscribe to Christian nationalism are more likely to endorse free market ideology (Gorski and Perry 2022; Martí 2020), while condemning collective solutions to economic inequality like “socialism” (Baker and Whitehead 2026; Somashekhar and Kennedy 2025; Tebaldi and Gaddini 2024), redistributive taxation (Braunstein and Taylor 2017; Perry and Braunstein 2026), or government interventions on behalf of poorer or vulnerable populations (Gaskins 2023; Liberman, Lehman, and Kawakami 2024; Perry, Whitehead, and Grubbs 2021). This underscores Christian nationalism’s connection to libertarian, neoliberal views on economics that celebrates individual merit and rejects notions of inequality tied to unearned privilege. Based on these findings and previous research showing Christian nationalism sacralizes the nation itself, our first expectation is that:

H1: Christian nationalism will be associated with attributing greater importance to personal merit in “getting head” and less importance to forms of unearned class, racial, or gender privileges.

Yet research also leads us to expect that economic position potentially moderates the link between Christian nationalism and Americans views on getting head. A common finding in Christian nationalism studies is that racial identity (and especially being White) moderates Christian nationalism’s influence, inclining White Americans in particular to stand in solidarity with other Whites, deny that there are systemic disadvantages against non-Whites, and affirm that Whites themselves are the ones being persecuted (Baker and Whitehead 2026; Perry and Grubbs 2025; Perry and Whitehead 2019; Perry et al. 2022). This pattern also shows up in the few studies on Christian nationalism and economic attitudes with White Americans being especially more likely to affirm libertarian, neoliberal economic views as Christian nationalism increases (Gaskins 2023; Gorski and Perry 2022; Perry and Braunstein 2026).

Among non-White Americans, and particularly Black Americans, studies often show different patterns. Christian nationalism sometimes will incline Black (and sometimes Hispanic) Americans to favor their own in-group (Perry and Whitehead 2019; Perry et al. 2024; Seto and Perry 2025). However, more often it either leaves Black and Hispanic Americans unaffected or the effect similar to that for White Americans but weaker (Baker and Whitehead 2026; Gaskins 2023; Gorski and Perry 2022; Perry and Braunstein 2026; Perry et al. 2022; Seto, Schmidgall, and Perry 2025). Directly relevant to the current study, Perry and Schleifer (2023) found that Christian nationalism corresponded to endorsements of “blind patriotism” among White Americans specifically, but not Black or Hispanic Americans. Taken together, these patterns suggest that Christian nationalism may be useful for sacralizing, and thus justifying, hierarchical social arrangements for those who benefit from the inequality, while leaving those who do not benefit from inequality less affected or unaffected.

Recent work by one of the authors has applied this logic to differences in economic position, finding that when examining economic outcomes, Christian nationalism operates primarily on higher-income Americans to oppose organized labor (Perry 2026) and deny or disregard economic inequality altogether (Perry and Whitehead 2026). In contrast, the Perry (2026) finds that among lower-earning Americans, Christian nationalism can correspond to greater support for organized labor, suggesting that Christian nationalism may sacralize social economic in-groups, that is, affirming economic views that cast one’s economic in-group as righteous and advocating on its behalf. Following this argument, we would anticipate that Christian nationalism would generally be associated with endorsement of meritocracy and skepticism toward explanations of getting ahead in life based on unearned advantages, but this will be limited to higher earners (who are already slightly more likely to see America’s economic system as meritocratic; see Reynolds and Xian 2024). This is because Christian nationalism, in sacralizing American society generally, will further justify the inequality from which they currently benefit. In contrast, we anticipate that Christian nationalism’s influence would operate for lower-income Americans much like it does for Black and Hispanic Americans, that is, not leading them to consistently endorse meritocratic beliefs as necessary for getting ahead, and perhaps even influencing them in the opposite direction (see Blinded DATE).

H2: The theorized associations between Christian nationalism and Americans’ beliefs about what it takes to get ahead in life will be limited primarily to higher-income Americans and absent or reversed among lower-income Americans.

Methods

Data

Data for this study are taken from the 2021 wave of the General Social Survey (hereafter GSS) and the 2025 wave of the Baylor Religion Survey (hereafter BRS). Both surveys include both measures for multi-item indexes of Christian nationalism and a number of identical questions about Americans’ views on what factors are important for “getting ahead in life.”

The GSS is a cross-sectional survey that has been fielded annually or bi-annually since 1972. Though the GSS waves have historically been fielded with in-person interviews, because of the COVID-19 pandemic that gripped the United States in early 2020, the GSS administrators chose to adopt address-based sampling (ABS) and a mail-to-web survey, reducing the response rate (to 17.4%) and resulting in religious patterns somewhat inconsistent from previous studies (see Schnabel et al. 2024). Though potentially problematic in terms of comparing the size of various religious populations or trends with previous waves, because our focus is on associations rather than, for example, how many Americans attend church weekly, the comparison with previous survey waves gives us greater confidence in the reliability of our findings (see Liberman et al. 2024; Seto and Perry 2024). GSS weights are used in all multivariate analyses.

The Values and Beliefs of the American Public survey, also known as the BRS Wave 7, is a nationally representative survey of American adults that explores religious beliefs, practices, and values alongside social and political attitudes. Conducted between January 6 and March 26, 2025, the survey used a combination of ABS and the Gallup Panel to recruit respondents. The ABS sample was drawn from the USPS Delivery Sequence File, with surveys available by mail or web, while Gallup Panel members completed the survey online. To ensure coverage of historically underrepresented groups, the ABS sample was stratified across 12 strata and oversampled Hispanic, African American, and younger adults aged 18–34. In total, 1,812 adults participated, with response rates of 9.3% for the ABS sample and 39.2% for the Gallup Panel. Data were weighted using demographic benchmarks from the 2024 American Community Survey, resulting in a dataset representative of the U.S. adult population.

Beliefs About Getting Ahead in Life

The outcomes for this study include items in the GSS and BRS that seek to understand what Americans think it takes to “get ahead.” In the GSS, we focus on 11 items. Ten of these items ask Americans how important a given factor is “for getting ahead in life.” These factors include (1) coming from a wealthy family, (2) knowing the right people, (3) having well educated parents, (4) having a good education yourself, (5) hard work, (6) having political connections, (7) a person’s race, (8) a person’s religion, (9) being born a man or a woman, and (10) giving bribes. Responses ranged from 1 = not important at all to 5 = essential. The 2021 GSS also asked Americans a question about the role of hard work versus luck in getting ahead: “Some people say that people get ahead by their own hard work; others say that lucky breaks or help from other people are more important. Which do you think is most important? Responses included: (1) hard work most important, (2) hard work, luck equally important, and (3) luck most important. For the first 10 items, we estimate models with ordinary least squares regression. For the 3-value item, we use ordinal logistic regression.

In the BRS, we focus on six items nearly identical to the items asked in the GSS. Americans were asked “How important do you think the following are for getting ahead in life?” These include: (1) having a good education, (2) hard work, (3) coming from a wealthy family, (4) knowing the right people, (5) a person’s race, and (6) being born a man or a woman. Response options ranged from 1 = not important at all to 4 = very important. Because these outcomes have four values, we estimate models using ordinal logistic regression.

Key Predictors

Key predictor variables for this study are Christian nationalism and economic position. As research on Christian nationalism has proliferated in sociology and political science, a variety of measurements have been used, ranging from multi-item indexes (Djupe et al. 2023; Gorski and Perry 2022; McDaniel et al. 2022; Pew Research Center 2021; PRRI 2023) to two-item (Walker and Haider-Markel 2024) and single-item measures (Braunstein and Taylor 2017; Gaskins 2023; Sherkat et al. 2024). We use multi-item indexes from both the GSS and BRS.

In the 2021 wave, the GSS introduced three items to capture Christian nationalist views (Liberman et al. 2024; Perry and Braunstein 2026; Perry and Whitehead 2026; Seto and Perry 2024; Seto et al. 2024). All items are level-of-agreement questions with responses ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The first two items are commonly used in numerous studies (Armaly et al. 2022; Djupe et al. 2023; Gorski and Perry 2022; Whitehead and Perry 2020): “The federal government should advocate Christian values,” and “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.” The third item is the statement: “The U.S. would be a better country if religion had less influence.” We coded items such that higher scores indicate greater agreement with Christian nationalist views. Following precedent in previous studies (Djupe et al. 2023; Gorski and Perry 2022), including those using this particular measure (Liberman et al. 2024; Perry and Braunstein 2026; Perry and Whitehead 2026; Seto and Perry 2024; Seto et al. 2024), we added responses together to create a summative index (Cronbach’s alpha = .828), which we rescaled to range from 0 to 1.

The 2025 BRS included a number of traditional items commonly used in previous studies, but augmented slightly, along with some newer items. Unlike previous studies that used some Christian nationalism items that failed to specify “Christian” explicitly (Whitehead and Perry 2020), the BRS items clarify this in each item (see Djupe et al. 2023).³ We include seven statements: “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation,” “The federal government should advocate Christian values,” “The President of the United States should defend Christian values,” “The federal government should allow Christian prayers in public schools,” “The federal government should allow the display of Christian symbols in public spaces,” “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan,” and “The U.S. Constitution is a holy document.” Responses ranged from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree. Following previous research, we combined these items into a summative index (Cronbach’s alpha = .93), which we rescaled to range from 0 to 1.

In both the GSS and BRS, economic position is measured with income quartiles. Focusing on Americans in the GSS, we transform the “income16” GSS measure (ranging from under 1 = $1,000 to 26 = $170,000 or over) into four quartiles: (Q1) less than $30,000 per year, (Q2) $30,000 to $59,999 per year, (Q3) $60,000 to $109,999 per year, and (Q4) over $110,000 per year. We also included a category for those who did not answer this question. The first income quartile serves as the reference category. Likewise, for Americans in the BRS, we transform the income measure (ranging from 1 = $10,000 or less to 7 = $150,001 or more) into four quartiles: (Q1) Less than $50,000 per year, (Q2) $50,001 to $100,000 per year, (Q3) 100,001 to $150,000 per year, and (Q4) over $150,001 per year. The first income quartile serves as the reference category.

Controls

Multivariate analyses include a variety of political, religious, and demographic controls that previous research shows are correlated with Christian nationalism, economic position, and views on opportunity in American society (Perry and Braunstein 2026; Reynolds and Xian 2014). We sought to code our control variables for both surveys as similarly as possible to ensure that our findings were not due to novel coding for controls.

Political variables include Republican partisanship and political ideology (or ideological identity). In the GSS, Republican partisanship ranges from 1 = strong democrat to 5 = strong Republican with 3 = independent or other; in the BRS, the range is from 1 = strong democrat to 7 = strong Republican. For both surveys, political ideology is measured with seven values from 1 = extremely liberal to 7 = extremely conservative.

Religious variables include measures for religious tradition and religiosity. For religious tradition in the GSS, we use a modified version of the classification scheme proposed by Lehman and Sherkat (2018) with sectarian protestant (reference), moderate protestant, liberal protestant, Catholic, other religion, and no identification. In the BRS, we use a slightly different scheme with evangelical protestant (reference), mainline protestant, Catholic, other religion, and no identification. Religiosity is measured with frequency of religious service attendance. In the GSS, the range is from 0 = never to 8 = several times a week; in the BRS, the range is from 0 = never to 7 = several times a week.⁴

Other demographic controls for both surveys include age in years, sex (woman = 0, man = 1), racial identity (White = reference, Black, and Other Race), whether the respondent has a bachelor’s degree or higher, and region (Northeast = reference, Midwest, South, and West). For descriptive statistics for all variables included in the study from the GSS and BRS, see Supplemental Appendix Tables A1 and A2.

Plan of Analysis

The analysis proceeds as follows. Tables 1 to 3 present regression models predicting Americans’ beliefs about what is important for getting ahead in life in the 2021 GSS (Tables 1 and 2) and the 2025 BRS. Table 1 presents regression main effects models for the 11 outcomes in the GSS, while Table 2 introduces interaction terms for Christian Nationalism × Income Quartiles in order to discern how the latter potentially moderates Christian nationalism’s association with beliefs about getting ahead. Table 3 includes both main effects and interaction models for the six outcomes in the BRS. All predictor variables are rescaled to range from 0 to 1, which functionally standardizes the effects and makes comparison across surveys more intuitive. p Values are calculated with robust standard errors throughout due to the survey weights. Robust standard errors also raise the threshold for statistical significance, making our findings more conservative.

Table 1.

Regression Models Predicting Americans’ Beliefs About What Is Important for Getting Ahead in Life.

Variables	Personal merit			Relationship dynamics				Unearned privilege
Variables	Educ.	Hard work	Work vs. luck^a	Know people	Politic. contact.	Relig.	Bribes	Wealthy family	Parents’ education	Race	Sex
Christian nationalism	0.13	0.46***	1.31**	−0.24⁺	−0.11	0.19	−0.05	−0.55**	−0.01	−0.77***	−0.26
$30,000–$59,999	−0.03	0.21**	0.21	0.04	−0.03	−0.15	−0.10	−0.20*	−0.18	−0.02	−0.12
$60,000–$109,999	−0.08	0.20**	−0.00	−0.01	−0.16	−0.22*	−0.22*	−0.31**	−0.21*	−0.11	−0.02
$110,000 or more	−0.07	0.19*	0.16	−0.08	−0.19	−0.26**	−0.23*	−0.37***	−0.32***	−0.02	−0.14
Income did not report	−0.01	0.08	−0.09	0.17	−0.08	−0.19	−0.08	−0.21	−0.23	−0.07	−0.09
Republican Partisanship	−0.19*	0.03	0.19	0.01	−0.12	−0.02	0.04	−0.31*	−0.21	−0.42**	−0.11
Conservative ideology	0.03	0.36*	1.34**	−0.16	−0.24	−0.17	−0.31	−0.11	−0.24	−0.23	−0.46*
Worship attendance	−0.08	−0.16*	0.10	−0.18*	−0.06	0.61***	−0.13	−0.08	−0.03	0.15	0.15
Moderate protestant	−0.03	0.11	0.18	−0.02	−0.17	−0.21	−0.03	−0.00	0.04	0.01	−0.13
Liberal protestant	0.01	−0.08	0.07	−0.14	−0.28	−0.17	0.01	−0.30	0.03	−0.12	0.06
Catholic	0.11	0.13*	0.37	−0.08	−0.04	−0.40***	−0.04	0.01	−0.04	−0.09	−0.22
Other religion	0.09	−0.07	0.21	0.09	0.01	−0.22	0.05	−0.09	0.30	−0.11	−0.41*
No identification	−0.05	−0.03	0.12	−0.11	−0.16	−0.22	0.08	0.06	0.07	0.03	−0.27
Age	−0.06	−0.11	−0.25	−1.04***	−0.59***	−0.01	−0.41**	−0.47**	−0.24	0.14	−0.03
Male	−0.07	−0.05	−0.13	0.17***	0.18**	0.04	0.05	0.21**	0.08	0.01	−0.09
Black	0.21*	0.09	−0.04	0.53***	0.55***	0.15	0.15	0.69***	0.43***	0.47**	0.09
Hispanic	0.08	0.10	0.47	0.27**	0.45***	0.05	0.07	0.02	0.14	0.17	−0.22
Other race	0.27*	0.10	−0.22	0.32**	0.15	0.20	0.16	0.31	0.18	0.23	−0.00
Bachelors or more	0.22***	0.00	−0.22	0.01	−0.08	−0.04	−0.04	0.18**	0.11	0.24***	0.16*
Midwest	0.08	−0.01	0.35	−0.18*	−0.21	−0.00	−0.02	−0.08	−0.08	0.05	0.06
South	0.12	−0.02	0.25	−0.06	−0.22*	−0.13	−0.11	−0.04	0.04	0.05	0.11
West	0.15	−0.04	−0.11	−0.16*	−0.18	−0.05	−0.08	0.00	0.01	0.16	0.33**
Intercept	4.01***	3.87***		4.21***	3.26***	2.03***	1.99***	3.55***	3.64***	2.46***	2.64***
Cut Point 1			−1.31*
Cut Point 2			1.62**
R ²	.06	.09	.08	.20	.11	.09	.07	.15	.08	.13	.05
N	1,594	1,598	1,096	1,590	1,558	1,564	1,485	1,570	1,593	1,556	1,558

Source. 2021 General Social Survey.

Note. p Values calculated with robust standard errors. Excluded categories are less than $30,000, Sectarian Protestant, White, and New England.

Ordinal logistic regression model; all others are ordinary least squares regression.

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Table 2.

Regression Models Predicting Americans’ Beliefs About What Is Important for Getting Ahead in Life with Interaction Terms for Economic Position.

Variables	Personal merit			Relationship dynamics				Unearned privilege
Variables	Educ.	Hard work	Work vs. luck^a	Know people	Politic. contact.	Relig.	Bribes	Wealthy family	Parents’ education	Race	Sex
Christian nationalism	0.03	0.28	1.08	0.34	0.40	0.50	0.12	0.09	0.51*	−0.30	−0.18
$30,000–$59,999	−0.20	0.19	−0.26	0.43**	0.29	−0.10	−0.03	0.23	0.18	0.27	−0.14
$60,000–$109,999	−0.10	0.08	−0.06	0.29	0.08	0.00	−0.19	0.01	0.07	0.11	−0.07
$110,000 or More	−0.03	0.06	−0.20	0.27	0.23	0.01	−0.11	0.01	0.13	0.27	−0.01
Income did not report	−0.23	−0.13	1.08	0.65**	0.21	0.01	0.30	0.40	−0.21	0.47	0.14
Republican partisanship	−0.18*	0.03	0.23	0.03	−0.09	−0.01	0.04	−0.30*	−0.17	−0.42**	−0.12
Conservative ideology	0.04	0.35*	1.30**	−0.15	−0.21	−0.14	−0.30	−0.09	−0.22	−0.22	−0.44*
Worship attendance	−0.08	−0.17*	0.16	−0.17	−0.05	0.62***	−0.13	−0.06	−0.01	0.15	0.14
Moderate protestant	−0.03	0.11	0.16	−0.02	−0.16	−0.21	−0.03	0.00	0.05	0.01	−0.12
Liberal protestant	0.01	−0.09	0.03	−0.13	−0.29	−0.16	0.02	−0.29	0.02	−0.12	0.08
Catholic	0.12	0.13*	0.37	−0.08	−0.04	−0.40***	−0.03	0.01	−0.03	−0.09	−0.21
Other religion	0.09	−0.07	0.28	0.08	−0.00	−0.22	0.06	−0.09	0.28	−0.12	−0.41*
No identification	−0.04	−0.03	0.16	−0.11	−0.17	−0.22	0.09	0.05	0.06	0.03	−0.27
Age	−0.07	−0.11	−0.18	−1.03***	−0.59***	−0.02	−0.41**	−0.45**	−0.25	0.15	−0.03
Male	−0.07	−0.05	−0.18	0.17***	0.19**	0.05	0.05	0.21**	0.09	0.01	−0.09
Black	0.22*	0.09	−0.05	0.52***	0.56***	0.15	0.14	0.68***	0.44***	0.47**	0.09
Hispanic	0.07	0.09	0.53	0.26**	0.44***	0.04	0.08	0.03	0.12	0.17	−0.22
Other race	0.26*	0.10	−0.20	0.32**	0.13	0.19	0.16	0.31	0.16	0.23	−0.00
Bachelors or more	0.22***	0.00	−0.22	0.01	−0.08	−0.04	−0.04	0.18**	0.11	0.25***	0.16*
Midwest	0.07	−0.01	0.35	−0.18*	−0.21	0.00	−0.01	−0.07	−0.08	0.06	0.07
South	0.12	−0.03	0.22	−0.06	−0.22*	−0.13	−0.11	−0.04	0.04	0.05	0.12
West	0.15	−0.05	−0.12	−0.15	−0.17	−0.04	−0.07	0.02	0.02	0.18	0.34**
CN × $30,000–$59,999	0.35	0.03	1.02	−0.79**	−0.65	−0.09	−0.14	−0.89*	−0.75*	−0.60	0.06
CN × $60,000–$109,999	0.02	0.25	0.11	−0.62*	−0.49	−0.46	−0.05	−0.65	−0.57	−0.44	0.10
CN × $110,000 or More	−0.14	0.31	0.92	−0.75**	−0.96**	−0.64	−0.25	−0.81*	−1.04***	−0.61	−0.36
CN × Inc: Did not report	0.45	0.44	−2.51	−1.00**	−0.60	−0.42	−0.83	−1.29*	0.00	−1.14	−0.50
Intercept	4.05***	3.97***		3.90***	2.97***	1.86***	1.89***	3.20***	3.36***	2.20***	2.57***
Cut Point 1			−1.41*
Cut Point 2			1.54*
R ²	.06	.09	.09	.20	.12	.09	.07	.16	.09	.13	.05
N	1,594	1,598	1,096	1,590	1,558	1,564	1,485	1,570	1,593	1,556	1,558

Source. 2021 General Social Survey.

Note. p Values calculated with robust standard errors. Excluded categories are less than $30,000, Sectarian Protestant, White, and New England.

Ordinal logistic regression model; all others are ordinary least squares regression.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Table 3.

Ordinal Logistic Regression Models Predicting Americans’ Beliefs About What Is Important for Getting Ahead in Life.

Variables	Personal merit				Relationship dynamics		Unearned privilege
	Education		Hard work		Knowing people		Wealthy family		Race		Sex
	M1	M2	M1	M2	M1	M2	M1	M2	M1	M2	M1	M2
Christian nationalism	0.12	0.01	0.54	−0.57	−0.03	0.25	−1.07**	−0.48	−1.76***	−0.75	−1.37***	−0.87
$50,000–$100,000	−0.67***	−1.02**	0.14	−0.57	−0.15	0.09	−0.19	0.40	−0.13	0.49	0.08	0.37
$100,001–$150,000	−0.59**	−0.32	0.62*	−0.42	−0.36	−0.05	−0.05	0.36	−0.09	0.75*	0.20	0.64*
$150,000 or More	−0.23	−0.18	0.61*	0.14	−0.28	−0.23	−0.17	0.02	−0.32	0.25	−0.04	0.24
Republican partisanship	0.26	0.31	0.44	0.44	0.37	0.37	−0.56	−0.59	0.12	0.11	0.10	0.10
Conservative ideology	−0.90*	−0.81	2.16***	1.99***	−0.76	−0.72	−1.63**	−1.61**	−2.28***	−2.17***	−1.72***	−1.65***
Worship attendance	0.25	0.26	0.84*	0.72*	−0.15	−0.12	0.27	0.31	0.24	0.32	−0.06	−0.01
Mainline protestant	0.41	0.43*	0.25	0.18	0.14	0.16	0.11	0.13	−0.14	−0.09	0.14	0.16
Roman Catholic	0.61**	0.60**	−0.25	−0.29	0.13	0.13	0.18	0.19	0.04	0.06	0.05	0.06
Other religion	0.45	0.46	−0.34	−0.43	0.37	0.39	0.13	0.16	−0.04	−0.00	0.14	0.16
No identification	0.40	0.40	−0.17	−0.24	0.27	0.29	0.70*	0.73**	0.09	0.13	0.19	0.22
Age	1.50***	1.47***	1.47***	1.61***	−2.04***	−2.07***	−1.58***	−1.63***	0.32	0.21	0.09	0.03
Female	0.20	0.20	0.20	0.23	−0.26	−0.27	−0.46***	−0.47***	−0.08	−0.10	0.43***	0.43**
Non-binary	−1.64**	−1.59**	−0.95	−0.98*	−0.10	−0.08	−0.26	−0.28	0.74	0.82	1.47**	1.49*
White	−0.55**	−0.55**	−0.15	−0.21	−0.42*	−0.42*	−0.30	−0.28	−0.31	−0.28	−0.09	−0.06
Bachelors or more	0.93***	0.90***	0.05	0.12	0.36*	0.34*	0.34*	0.33*	0.38**	0.36*	0.40**	0.38**
Midwest	−0.32	−0.28	−0.30	−0.31	−0.17	−0.18	−0.21	−0.24	0.20	0.18	0.26	0.25
South	0.26	0.26	−0.32	−0.30	0.16	0.15	−0.10	−0.11	0.52*	0.50*	0.72***	0.71***
West	−0.13	−0.11	0.13	0.10	0.10	0.10	−0.47*	−0.49*	0.07	0.06	0.11	0.11
CN × $50,000–$100,000		0.83		1.94**		−0.54		−1.33*		−1.44*		−0.67
CN × $100,001–$150,000		−0.66		3.84***		−0.75		−0.96		−2.10**		−1.14
CN × $150,000 or More		−0.16		1.14		0.02		−0.29		−1.45*		−0.70
Cut Point 1	−4.44***	−4.43***	−3.08***	−3.64***	−4.68***	−4.54***	−4.07***	−3.80***	−2.42***	−1.94***	−1.41**	−1.15*
Cut Point 2	−2.47***	−2.46***	−1.44*	−2.00**	−2.89***	−2.75***	−2.39***	−2.11***	−0.98*	−0.47	0.03	0.31
Cut Point 3	0.16	0.18	0.96	0.41	−0.78	−0.63	−0.96	−0.68	0.61	1.12*	1.54**	1.82***
R ²	.08	.08	.11	.12	.06	.06	.08	.08	.12	.12	.10	.10
N	1,552		1,549		1,549		1,548		1,550		1,550

Source. 2025 Baylor Religion Survey.

Note. Excluded categories are less than $50,000, evangelical protestant, male, and Northeast. RSE = robust standard errors.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (two-tailed tests).

Results

Table 1 presents the main effects from regression models predicting Americans’ views on how important 11 factors are for “getting ahead in life” in the GSS. Though Christian nationalism is not significantly associated with all factors, there are a number of significant associations, and they are in our expected direction. For example, Christian nationalism is positively associated with believing that “hard work” is important for getting ahead, and in the ordinal logistic regression model predicting Americans’ views on the relative importance of hard work or luck, the more Americans subscribe to Christian nationalism, the more they attribute getting ahead to hard work over luck. Looking at how Americans factor in the importance of certain relationship dynamics, Christian nationalism is negatively associated with believing that “knowing the right people” is important for getting ahead. (Though the effect is technically marginal, the p value is .052.)

Turning to the importance of unearned privileges, Christian nationalism is negatively associated with believing that being born to wealthy parents or being the right race are important for getting ahead. And though Christian nationalism is not significantly associated with belief that parents’ education is important for getting ahead, the interactions reveal that this non-effect masks variation across economic position.

Table 2 presents identical regression models from Table 1 but introduces interaction terms for Christian Nationalism × Income Quartiles. Several of the models demonstrate statistically significant and negative interaction effects. This means that Christian nationalism is more negatively associated with stressing the importance of knowing people among higher earners compared to those at the bottom of the income distribution. Moreover, while the lower-order term for Christian nationalism in these models is non-significant, the sign has flipped in the positive direction, suggesting that among the lowest earners, Christian nationalism might even be slightly positively associated with stressing the importance of knowing people, political connections, being born into a wealthy family, or parents’ education.

Figure 1 illustrates these patterns clearly. The four panels represent marginal values predicting Americans’ belief in the importance of knowing the right people, having political connections, being born into a wealthy family, and having well-educated parents across values of Christian nationalism by income quartile. For each outcome, we see that among the lowest earners the link between Christian nationalism and stressing the importance of relationship dynamics or unearned privilege for getting ahead is flat or positive, while it is more sharply negative for the highest earners.

Figure 1.

Marginal values of Americans’ beliefs about what is important for getting ahead in life across values of Christian nationalism by income quartiles in the 2021 GSS.

How do these findings replicate in the more recent 2025 BRS data? Table 3 presents both main effects and interaction models from ordinal logistic regression models predicting Americans’ beliefs about the importance of six factors for getting ahead in life. Unlike the GSS, Christian nationalism is only significantly associated with Americans’ views on being born into wealth, race, and sex. For each of these, the association is negative, meaning that as Christian nationalism increases, Americans are less likely to view these factors as important to getting ahead in life.

Though Christian nationalism was not significantly associated with Americans’ emphasizing “hard work” as important to getting ahead, the interaction terms are significant and positive for those making between $50,001 and $150,000, and an analysis of marginal effects in Figure 2 reveals the association is positive for these Americans. Also, as we can see from marginal probabilities presented in Figure 2, the reverse is the case for Americans’ views on wealthy parents and race being important to getting ahead. As Christian nationalism increases, it is those in the higher earning categories rather than those in the lowest quartile who are less likely to view these factors as important to getting ahead.⁵

Figure 2.

Marginal probability of Americans’ beliefs about what is important for getting ahead in life across values of Christian nationalism by income quartiles in the 2025 BRS.

Discussion

This study began with the question of how American understand what it takes to “get ahead in life,” and whether and how Christian nationalism shapes beliefs about meritocracy and privilege, contingent on economic position. Drawing on nationally representative survey data from both the 2021 GSS and the 2025 BRS, our results point to several consistent patterns.

First, across both surveys, we found that Christian nationalism was associated with a greater likelihood of affirming the importance of individual merit, particularly hard work, as the key to mobility and success. This finding emerges most clearly in the GSS, where Christian nationalism predicted a stronger endorsement of hard work over luck. This association also surfaced in the BRS when considering interactions with economic position, where Christian nationalism was positively associated with emphasizing hard work among those in middle- and upper-income categories. Second, we saw consistent evidence that Christian nationalism was negatively associated with recognizing unearned privileges as shaping success—whether being born into wealth, benefiting from well-educated parents, having the right social connections, or being advantaged by race or sex. Particularly in the GSS, Christian nationalism was tied to a lower recognition of these forms of privilege. In the 2025 BRS, the clearest associations were observed with race, sex, and family wealth.

This pattern of results contributes to a growing body of scholarship that documents how Christian nationalism shapes Americans’ political and economic views. Regarding the nation itself, previous studies have shown that Christian nationalism fosters blind patriotism (Perry and Schleifer 2023), national hubris (McDaniel et al. 2022; Pew Research Center 2021), support for mandated patriotic education (Perry et al. 2023), and an uncritical defense of American virtue (Whitehead and Perry 2020). Because Christian nationalism has as its foundations belief in the United States as divinely chosen and righteous, it renders critiques of systemic injustice dubious, or even dangerous. Our findings extend this argument into the domain of economic attitudes, demonstrating that Christian nationalism not only heightens loyalty to the nation but also sacralizes its class structure. Moreover, the emphasis on “hard work” as the explanation for success resonates with a longstanding American tradition of the “Protestant ethic” (Weber [1905] 2010) in which industriousness at one’s calling evidences one’s divine election. But Christian nationalism amplifies this ethic into a political theology of meritocracy. If the United States is indeed set apart by God, then its economic outcomes must reflect divine order. As such, the fusion of nationalism and religion justifies inequality by framing it as the natural result of individual virtue or failure. In short, Christian nationalism offers an interpretive lens through which success is attributed to merit rather than unearned or inherited advantages.

Yet Christian nationalism did not do this uniformly across economic position. On the contrary, our second main pattern of findings relates to the moderating role of income. Across both datasets, many of the associations between Christian nationalism and beliefs about meritocracy are strongest among middle to high-income Americans. In some cases, Christian nationalism even had neutral or even slightly positive associations with recognizing unearned privilege among the lowest income earners, but these patterns flipped among higher earners, where we observed Christian nationalism to be associated with the denial of structural advantages and a stronger likelihood of endorsing individualist explanations.

Here, however, we must consider alternative causal explanations to what we have proposed. It is possible, for example, that Americans already inclined to affirm meritocratic economic views and discount structural advantages in getting ahead are inclined to affirm Christian nationalism. Yet this does not square well with what previous work has found about who subscribes to meritocratic views or Christian nationalism. Though higher earning and White Americans are often more likely to disregard explanations of structural advantage and endorse meritocracy (Reynolds and Xian 2014; Torkelson et al. 2025), those groups are not the strongest adherents of Christian nationalist ideology. Rather, it is lower income Americans and persons of color who often endorse Christian nationalism most faithfully (Whitehead and Perry 2020). Instead, the contingency of the relationship between Christian nationalism and Americans’ views on getting ahead provides a clue about causal direction and how Christian nationalism is operating. Rather than inclining lower-earning Americans (who often embrace Christian nationalism more on average) to affirm meritocracy and ignore structural advantages, Christian nationalism was associated with these views among middle- to higher-income Americans. Why?

Just as studies often find Christian nationalism is more strongly associated with reactionary political and economic attitudes for White Americans, and often weakly (or in the opposite direction) for racial minorities (Emerson and Bracey 2024; Gaskins 2023; Gorski and Perry 2022; Perry and Braunstein 2026), its effects are stronger for privileged classes. For those atop the economic hierarchy, Christian nationalism provides sacred legitimation and moral reassurance that their status is deserved (see also Perry 2026; Perry and Whitehead 2026). For lower earners, however, the association was less consistent and sometimes in the opposite direction, perhaps reflecting a tension between religio-political ideology and lived experience. Poor and working-class Americans may have a heightened awareness of the role of connections, luck, or systemic barriers, and thus, Christian nationalism as an ideology that sacralizes in-groups (Walker et al. 2025) including economic in-groups (Perry 2026, Perry and Whitehead 2026) can incline them to challenge the meritocratic myth. But as we move up the income ladder, Christian nationalism increasingly harmonizes with self-interest (see Supplemental Appendix Figures A1 and A2 for further illustrations). This aligns with theories of legitimation in sociology, which emphasize how dominant groups cultivate cultural narratives that rationalize their privilege (Bourdieu 1990; Lamont 1992).

The interaction between Christian nationalism and economic position provides a powerful lens for understanding how ideology and material conditions intersect. Scholars of religion and inequality have long noted that religious beliefs can both challenge and legitimate social hierarchies (Emerson and Bracey 2024; Keister and Sherkat 2014; Martí 2020; Weber [1905] 2010). We show that Christian nationalism appears to function as a legitimating ideology for those already advantaged, providing both theological and patriotic justification for their successes. This echoes Weber’s ([1905] 2010) argument that religious worldviews can reinforce existing economic structures by framing them as “divinely ordained.” Christian nationalist beliefs exemplify how this process unfolds; by linking the destiny of the United States to divine will, it equips adherents with a moral vocabulary that explains success in terms of individual striving while dismissing structural realities (Braunstein 2021; McDaniel et al. 2022).

Our findings have implications for public debates over inequality, redistribution, and social policy. Because high-earning Christian nationalists are less likely to recognize privilege, they are also more likely to resist policies aimed at redressing inequality, whether through redistributive taxation (Braunstein and Taylor 2017; Perry and Braunstein 2026) or affirmative action and social welfare (Gaskins 2023; Liberman et al. 2024). We show that these positions are not only about abstract policy but rooted in deeply held beliefs about fairness and merit. By interpreting America as already righteous, Christian nationalism provides little room for addressing systemic racism or sexism, with disparities instead reframed as outcomes of individual choices and effort. This also parallels findings that Christian nationalism predicts opposition to racial justice initiatives (Perry et al. 2022) and predicts anti-immigrant attitudes (Stroope et al. 2021) and punitive criminal justice preferences (Schmidgall et al. 2025). Through framing the United States as a Christian nation, it encourages citizens to conflate loyalty to God with loyalty to the existing social order. To challenge privilege is, in effect, to challenge not only economic interests but also a sacralized national identity.

We acknowledge several limitations of our study. First, both the GSS and BRS are cross-sectional, which precludes the establishment of causal direction. While we argued that Christian nationalism shapes beliefs about meritocracy, it is possible that individuals already inclined toward individualist explanations of success are also drawn to Christian nationalist identity. Future research could use panel data or experimental designs (e.g., that manipulate descriptions of upward mobility with race, class, or gender) to gain a clearer picture of causal ordering. Second, we acknowledge that while the patterns we document were in expected directions, they were not entirely consistent across studies, including several instances where Christian nationalism was either unrelated to the outcome, and/or economic position did not moderate the association. We must therefore be cautious not to overstate the influence of Christian nationalism here, but to stress how Christian nationalism points to the importance of religio-cultural ideology for shaping conceptions of social order, fairness, and merit. Future studies should seek to incorporate additional ideological measures to further isolate exactly the mechanism at work. Third, while our focus here was on income quartiles as a measure of socioeconomic status, other dimensions of economic position, such as wealth, occupational status, or economic precarity, could moderate the effects of Christian nationalism in a different manner. For instance, those with inherited wealth may be especially motivated to deny privilege, while those in more precarious occupations might embrace meritocracy as aspirational. Future research could continue to unpack these nuances.

All told, our study demonstrates that Christian nationalism plays a significant role in how Americans think about “getting ahead in life.” These associations are particularly pronounced among higher earners, suggesting that Christian nationalism functions to legitimate existing advantages by framing them as deserved. By elevating hard work as essential and minimizing the recognition of unearned privilege, Christian nationalism reinforces the ideology of meritocracy. In so doing, Christian nationalism not only fosters greater attachment to the American dream but also narrows the public imagination of fairness and justice. Structural inequalities rooted in wealth, race, or gender are downplayed, while individual striving is exalted. The result is an ideology that sanctifies the social order, cushions elites from critique, and likely also constrains democratic deliberation about social inequality. Understanding the role of Christian nationalism and its impact on core beliefs about opportunity and fairness is therefore essential for grappling with the persistence of inequality and the cultural obstacles to reforms. By illuminating how this religio-political ideology intersects with economic position to shape beliefs about meritocracy, this study contributes to ongoing conversations about the cultural foundations of inequality and the future of American democracy.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-scu-10.1177_23294965261457572 – Supplemental material for The Gospel of Meritocracy: Christian Nationalism, Economic Position, and Americans’ Beliefs About Getting Ahead in Life

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-scu-10.1177_23294965261457572 for The Gospel of Meritocracy: Christian Nationalism, Economic Position, and Americans’ Beliefs About Getting Ahead in Life by Samuel L. Perry and Laura Upenieks in Social Currents

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Samuel L. Perry

Laura Upenieks

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

References

Armaly

Miles T.

Buckley

David T.

Enders

Adam M.

2022. “Christian Nationalism and Political Violence: Victimhood, Racial Identity, Conspiracy, and Support for the Capitol Attacks.” Political Behavior 44(2):937–960.

Baker

Joseph O.

Whitehead

Andrew L.

2026. “Faith over Fear? Christian Nationalism and Cultural Fears in the United States.” Nations and Nationalism 32(2):426–45. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.13068

Bjørnskov

Christian

Dreher

Axel

Fischer

Justina A. V.

Schnellenbach

Jan

Gehring

Kai

. 2013. “Inequality and Happiness: When Perceived Social Mobility and Economic Reality Do Not Match.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 91:75–92.

Bourdieu

Pierre

. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Braunstein

Ruth

. 2021. “The “Right” History: Religion, Race, and Nostalgic Stories of Christian America.” Religions 12(2):95.

Braunstein

Ruth

Taylor

Malaena

. 2017. “Is the Tea Party a ‘Religious’ Movement? Religiosity in the Tea Party Versus the Religious Right.” Sociology of Religion 78(1):33–59.

Chetty

Raj

Hendren

Nathaniel

Kline

Patrick

Saez

Emmanuel

Turner

Nicholas

. 2014. “Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility.” American Economic Review 104(5):141–47.

Dahab

Ramsey

Omori

Marisa

. 2019. “Homegrown Foreigners: How Christian Nationalism and Nativist Attitudes Impact Muslim Civil Liberties.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 42(10):1727–46.

Davis

Joshua T.

Perry

Samuel L.

Grubbs

Joshua B.

2024. “Liberty for Us, Limits for Them: Christian Nationalism and Americans’ Views on Citizens’ Rights.” Sociology of Religion 85(1):60–82.

10.

Djupe

Paul A.

Lewis

Andrew R.

Sokhey

Anand E.

2023. The Full Armor of God: The Mobilization of Christian Nationalism in American Politics. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

11.

Ellis

Christopher

. 2017. “Social Class, Meritocracy, and the Geography of the ‘American Dream.’” The Forum 15(1):51–70.

12.

Emerson

Michael O.

Bracey

Glenn E.

II . 2024. The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

13.

Foster

Jordan

Maroto

Michelle

. 2025. “Nepo Babies and the Myth of Meritocracy.” The Sociological Quarterly 66(2):215–37.

14.

García-Sierra

Alicia

. 2023. “The Dark Side of Meritocratic Beliefs: Is Believing in Meritocracy Detrimental to Individuals from Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds?” Social Justice Research 36(4):385–409.

15.

Gaskins

Ben

. 2023. “Exceptional Times for an Exceptional People: How the Prosperity Gospel, Christian Nationalism, and Race Affect Americans’ Economic Attitudes and Behavior.” The Forum 21(3):385–410.

16.

Gorski

Philip S.

Perry

Samuel L.

2022. The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

17.

Hiltner

Sofia

Cech

Erin A.

2024. “The View from Above and Below: Subjective Mobility and Explanations of Class, Race, and Gender Inequality.” Social Forces 103(2):449–74.

18.

Jacqueline

. 2024. “Agentic Selves, Agentic Stories: Cultural Foundations of Beliefs about Meritocracy.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 12(3):379–409.

19.

Huang

Jiawen

. 2019. “Income Inequality, Distributive Justice Beliefs, and Happiness in China: Evidence from a Nationwide Survey.” Social Indicators Research 142(1):83–105.

20.

Keister

Lisa A.

Sherkat

Darren E.

, eds. 2014. Religion and Inequality in America: Research and Theory on Religion’s Role in Stratification. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

21.

Knight

John

Gunatilaka

Ramani

. 2024. “The Quality of Society and Happiness: Fairness, Trust, and Community in China.” Journal of Happiness Studies 25(7):92.

22.

Lamont

Michèle

. 1992. Money, Morals, and Manners: The Culture of the French and the American Upper-Middle Class. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

23.

Lehman

Derek

Sherkat

Darren E.

2018. “Measuring Religious Identification in the United States.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 57(4):779–94.

24.

Liberman

Jessica

Lehman

Derek

Kawakami

Atsuko

. 2024. “Christian Nationalism and Opposition to Reallocating Police Funding to Other Social Services.” Sociology of Religion 85(3):324–45.

25.

MacGregor-Fors

Ian

Payton

Mark E.

2013. “Contrasting Diversity Values: Statistical Inferences Based on Overlapping Confidence Intervals.” PLoS One 8(2):e56794.

26.

Martí

Gerardo

. 2020. American Blindspot: Race, Class, Religion, and the Trump Presidency. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

27.

McCall

Leslie

Burk

Derek

Laperrière

Marie

Richeson

Jennifer A.

2017. “Exposure to Rising Inequality Shapes Americans’ Opportunity Beliefs and Policy Support.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(36):9593–98.

28.

McDaniel

Eric L.

Nooruddin

Irfan

Shortle

Allyson F.

2022. The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

29.

Mijs

Jonathan J. B.

2018. “Visualizing Belief in Meritocracy, 1930–2010.” Socius 4:2378023118811805.

30.

Mijs

Jonathan J. B.

2021. “The Paradox of Inequality: Income Inequality and Belief in Meritocracy Go Hand in Hand.” Socio-Economic Review 19(1):7–35.

31.

Oishi

Shigehiro

Cha

Youngjae

Komiya

Asuka

Ono

Hiroshi

. 2022. “Money and Happiness: The Income–Happiness Correlation is Higher When Income Inequality is Higher.” PNAS Nexus 1(5):pgac224.

32.

Perry

Samuel L

. 2026. “The Christianity of Capital? Christian Nationalism, Socioeconomic Status, and Divergent Views on Organized Labor.” Sociology of Religion. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sraf040

33.

Perry

Samuel L.

Braunstein

Ruth

. 2026. “Not Paying Unto Caesar: Christian Nationalism, Politics, Race, and Opposition to Taxation.” Social Forces 104(3):1117–48. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf041

34.

Perry

Samuel L.

Cobb

Ryon J.

Whitehead

Andrew L.

Grubbs

Joshua B.

2022. “Divided by Faith (in Christian America): Christian Nationalism, Race, and Divergent Perceptions of Racial Injustice.” Social Forces 101(2):913–42.

35.

Perry

Samuel L.

Davis

Joshua T.

Grubbs

Joshua B.

2023. “Controlling the Past to Control The Future: Christian Nationalism and Mandatory Patriotic Education in Public Schools.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 62(3):694–708.

36.

Perry

Samuel L.

Grubbs

Joshua B.

2025. “The Religion of White Identity Politics: Christian Nationalism and White Racial Solidarity.” Social Forces 104(2):453–75. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf031

37.

Perry

Samuel L.

Schleifer

Cyrus

. 2023. “My Country, White or Wrong: Christian Nationalism, Race, and Blind Patriotism.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 46(7):1249–68.

38.

Perry

Samuel L.

Schleifer

Cyrus

Whitehead

Andrew L.

Frantz

Kenneth E.

2024. “Our Kind of American: Christian Nationalism, Race, and Contingent Views of Cultural Membership.” The Sociological Quarterly 65(1):126–56.

39.

Perry

Samuel L.

Whitehead

Andrew L.

2019. “Christian America in Black and White: Racial Identity, Religious-National Group Boundaries, and Explanations for Racial Inequality.” Sociology of Religion 80(3):277–98.

40.

Perry

Samuel L.

Whitehead

Andrew L.

2026. “Culture Wars and Classism: Christian Nationalism, Economic Position, and Americans’ Approval of Economic Inequality.” Social Forces. https://doi.org/10.1093/soag034

41.

Perry

Samuel L.

Whitehead

Andrew L.

Grubbs

Joshua B.

2021. “Save the Economy, Liberty, and Yourself: Christian Nationalism and Americans’ Views on Government COVID-19 Restrictions.” Sociology of Religion 82(4):426–46.

42.

Pew Research Center. 2021. “In U.S., Far More Support Than Oppose Separation of Church and State.” Retrieved September 19, 2025 (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/10/28/in-u-s-far-more-support-than-oppose-separation-of-church-and-state/).

43.

PRRI. 2023. “A Christian Nation? Understanding the Threat of Christian Nationalism to American Democracy and Culture.” Retrieved August 28, 2025 (https://prri.org/research/a-christian-nation-understanding-the-threat-of-christian-nationalism-to-american-democracy-and-culture/).

44.

Saiya

Nilay

Manchanda

Stuti

. 2025. “Christian Nationalism and Violence Against Religious Minorities in the United States: A Quantitative Analysis.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 64(1):3–18.

45.

Seto

Christopher H.

Perry

Samuel L.

2025. “Lay Down Your Sword? Christian Nationalism, Race, and Opposition to Requiring Gun Permits.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 48(10): 2035–2058.

46.

Seto

Christopher H.

Schmidgall

Darci K.

Perry

Samuel L.

2025. “Colorblind Cops in Christian America: Christian Nationalism, Race, Politics, and Beliefs About Racist Policing.” The Sociological Quarterly 66(2):382–410.

47.

Schnabel

Landon

Bock

Sean

Hout

Michael

. 2024. “Switch to Web-Based Surveys during COVID-19 Pandemic Left Out the Most Religious, Creating a False Impression of Rapid Religious Decline.” Sociology of Religion 85(4):429–53.

48.

Sherkat

Darren E.

Lehman

Derek

Julkif

Nabil Bill

. 2024. “Mooring Christian Nationalism: How Religious Institutions, Participation, and Beliefs Inform Christian Nationalism.” The Sociological Quarterly 65(2):269–88.

49.

Somashekhar

Mahesh

Kennedy

Ian

. 2025. “The Business of Christian Nationalism: Examining Retailers’ Self-Descriptions on a Conservative Christian Alternative to Amazon.com.” Sociology of Religion. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sraf014

50.

Stroope

Samuel

Rackin

Heather M.

Froese

Paul

. 2021. “Christian Nationalism and Views of Immigrants in The United States: Is the Relationship Stronger for the Religiously Inactive?.” Socius 7: 2378023120985116.

51.

Reynolds

Jeremy

Xian

. 2014. “Perceptions of Meritocracy in the Land of Opportunity.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 36:121–37.

52.

Reynolds

Jeremy

May

Matthew

Xian

. 2019. “Not by Bread Alone: Mobility Experiences, Religion, and Optimism about Future Mobility.” Socius 5:2378023119849807.

53.

Sauder

Michael

Shi

Yongren

Lynn

Freda

. 2024. “Multiple Meritocracies: A Text-Based Analysis of Personal Narratives Revealing Distinct Frames of Success.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 10(5):86–117.

54.

Schmidgall

Darci K.

Perry

Samuel L.

Grubbs

Joshua B.

2025. “Anti-Abortion and Pro-Coercion: White Christian Nationalism and Support for Arresting Women Who Have Abortions.” Social Problems. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spaf030

55.

Schneider

Simone M.

2012. “Income Inequality and Its Consequences for Life Satisfaction: What Role Do Social Cognitions Play?” Social Indicators Research 106(3):419–38.

56.

Solt

Frederick

Yue

Hudson

Kevan

Song

Jungmin

Dong “Erico”

. 2016. “Economic Inequality and Belief in Meritocracy in the United States.” Research & Politics 3(4):2053168016672101.

57.

Taussig

Doron

. 2021. What We Mean by the American Dream: Stories We Tell about Meritocracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

58.

Tebaldi

Catherine

Gaddini

Katie

. 2024. “Socialism Sucks: Campus Conservatives, Digital Media, and the Rebranding of Christian Nationalism.” Information Communication & Society 27(8):1628–49.

59.

Torkelson

Jason

Parton

Alex

Gerteis

Joseph

Gunderson

Evan

. 2025. “The Racialized American Dream: Predictors for the 21st Century.” The Sociological Quarterly 66(1):52–76.

60.

Ugur

Zeynep B.

2021. “Does Money Buy Happiness in Turkey?” Applied Research in Quality of Life 16(3):1073–1096.

61.

Walker

Brooklyn

Djupe

Paul A.

Calfano

Brian R.

Lewis

Andrew R.

Sokhey

Anand E.

2025. “Religion Is Sometimes Raced: Christian Nationalism as In-Group Protection.” Perspectives on Politics. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592725102338

62.

Walker

Brooklyn

Haider-Markel

Donald P.

2024. “A Colorblind Christian Country? How Racial Attitudes Affect Support for Christian Nationalism and Civil Religion.” Politics & Religion 17:183–202.

63.

Weber

Max

. [1905]2010. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

64.

Whitehead

Andrew L.

Perry

Samuel L.

2020. Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

65.

Wilson

George

Roscigno

Vincent

Sauer

Carsten

Petersen

Nick

. 2022. “Mobility, Inequality, and Beliefs about Distribution and Redistribution.” Social Forces 100(3):1053–1079.

66.

Xian

Reynolds

Jeremy

. 2017. “Bootstraps, Buddies, and Bribes: Perceived Meritocracy in the United States and China.” The Sociological Quarterly 58(4):622–47.

67.

Zhu

. 2025. “Meritocratic Beliefs in the United States, Finland, and China: A Multidimensional Approach Using Latent Class Analysis.” The British Journal of Sociology 76(1):153–72.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.63 MB

0.00 MB