Americans' views of religion in public life: The effect of three cultural models on attitudes toward religious and nonreligious groups

This paper investigates the relation between Americans’ cultural models of religion in public life, and views of religious groups in American society. We explicate how three dominant cultural models, Christian nationalism, civil religion, and liberal secularism, influence attitudes toward atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, LDS (Mormons), and Conservative Christians. Do survey respondents see each religious group as consistent with their vision of the ideal American society? Using the national survey data available in the American Mosaic Study of 2014, we find that Christian nationalism and civil religion operate in distinct ways to shape views of religious and nonreligious outgroups. We find evidence that Christian nationalists oppose Muslims, atheists, and other religious groups in public life, with the exception of conservative Christians, Jews and LDS. Civil religionists are more open to a pluralistic public square and thus have more positive views of most other religions. Liberal secularists favor atheists but are generally opposed to religious groups in their vision of American society, especially conservative Christians and Mormons.