How Culture Wars Delay Herd Immunity: Christian Nationalism and Anti-vaccine Attitudes

Abstract

Prior research demonstrates that a number of cultural factors—including politics and religion—are significantly associated with anti-vaccine attitudes. This is consequential because herd immunity is compromised when large portions of a population resist vaccination. Using a nationally representative sample of American adults that contains a battery of questions exploring views about vaccines, the authors demonstrate how a pervasive ideology that rejects scientific authority and promotes allegiance to conservative political leaders—what we and others call Christian nationalism—is consistently one of the two strongest predictors of anti-vaccine attitudes, stronger than political or religious characteristics considered separately. Results suggest that as Americans evaluate decisions to vaccinate themselves or their children, those who strongly embrace Christian nationalism—close to a quarter of the population—will be much more likely to abstain, potentially prolonging the threat of certain illnesses. The authors conclude by discussing the immediate implications of these findings for a possible coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine.

Vaccine Refusal in the Czech Republic Is Associated with Being Spiritual but Not Religiously Affiliated

“…Our findings of no associations between beliefs in RCT and religiosity are in contrast to studies of Marchlewska et al [ 56 ] or Sturm and Albrecht [ 29 ]. These studies were conducted in countries with the predominant Christian religion, such as Poland [ 56 ] or the USA [ 29 ], nevertheless, their research focus was either not connected to vaccination but focused on the foundations of the Christian faith and morals, i.e., RCT about gender and marriage [ 56 ], or used narratives specific to Christian narratives, i.e., apocalyptical or millennial [ 29 ]. Thus, we can suppose that the affiliated respondents did not see the RCT beliefs around COVID-19 vaccination as threatening their religious identity, interfering with the teachings of the church [ 39 , 56 ], or as a sign of the end of the world.…”

“…Fundamentalism has been associated with a devotion to strict religious interpretations and practices that provide clear rules for living, leaning towards dogma, distinctions between the secular and the religious, antimodernism, and to a sense that individuals’ lives are sanctioned and supported by God [ 27 , 28 ]. This ideology of religious exclusivity was found to be connected to general anti-vaccine attitudes [ 18 , 24 ] and attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination [ 29 , 30 ]. Thus, it can represent a potential barrier to vaccine uptake [ 31 ] and be a source of hesitancy [ 1 ].…”

COVID-19 First Responders: The Gayatri Pariwar and the Immune Ritual Body

“…A number of charismatic leaders of evangelical congregations contextualized COVID-19 as a venue for “spiritual warfare,” and they urged their followers to flaunt social distancing mandates as a means of rejecting fear and expressing the power of their faith ( Gagné 2020 ). Others interpreted the apparent global unraveling as a sign of imminent rapture or insisted that their own communities belonged to a divine elect and that the end that would not be the end, at least not for them ( Kirby et al 2020 ; Whitehead and Perry 2020 ). Courtney Bender and Todne Thomas refer to this type of thought as an “escape hatch” by which people who understand themselves to be exempt from the finality of the imminent end can avoid “confronting demands for doing things now, joining with others now, and asking each other how .…”

Vaccine nationalism: contested relationships between COVID-19 and globalization

“…The rise of nationalism in higher-and lower-income countries alike, climaxed in 2016 with Trump's election in the US and the UK's Brexit referendum. In these two countries the intersection of nationalism and anti-vaccine attitudes and movements is also apparent in the context of COVID-19, inhibiting their pursuit of 'herd immunity' despite the availability of vaccines (Foster & Feldman, 2021;Whitehead & Perry, 2020).…”