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Article

Classroom Culture Wars: Experimental Evidence of the Influence of Religion on Educational Content Regulation and Punishment

1
Department of Political Science, Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL 61462, USA
2
Independent Researcher, Rice Lake, WI 54868, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Religions 2025, 16(8), 1016; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081016
Submission received: 22 May 2025 / Revised: 29 July 2025 / Accepted: 3 August 2025 / Published: 6 August 2025

Abstract

The intersection of religion and education in the United States dates to colonial times, as do attempts by religious institutions and individuals to regulate educational content. After a prominent retreat by religious fundamentalists following the Scopes Monkey Trial, conservative Christians have once again entered political debates about educational content in the form of modern culture wars issues. Both conservatives and liberals have attempted to punish educators for political comments made in class, but the influence of religion on individual attitudes has yet to be examined. In this article, we use an original survey experiment to examine individuals’ propensity to punish a professor who makes politically charged comments in class. We also assess whether religious individuals are more likely to punish professors for comments disparaging conservatives or liberals. We find that high-attending religious individuals, including both Evangelicals and Catholics, are more likely to support punishing the professor. However, we find that the propensity to punish is not related to the target of the professor’s comments. These findings suggest a resurgence of religious interest in education as a cultural issue at the individual, and not just institutional, level and a coalition between Evangelicals and Catholics on this issue.

1. Introduction

From the early days of the United States, religious individuals and organizations have been heavily involved in education (Fraser 2016; Smith 1987; Wood 1972). Some of the earliest universities and even primary schools were founded and operated by religious groups, following the “European pattern” of church-dominated schools (Wood 1972). Indeed, religion has long been intertwined with education, both as facilitator and occasional foe. The United States has seen consistent battles about the proper role of religion in the education system, such as debates over prayer in public schools, the teaching of evolution, and the use of voucher programs to pay for private school tuition. For these reasons, scholars have long included education in the list of “culture wars” issues (e.g., Fraser 2016; Hunter 1991; Martin 1996; Wilcox and Robinson 2011).
In recent times, education has opened up “new fronts” in the culture wars, including debates over LGBTQ+ rights, book bans, debates over whether and how to teach Critical Race Theory, sex education, civics, and “classical” education, and more (e.g., Adler 2016; Castle 2019; Coley 2017; Kaufmann 2022; Perry et al. 2023). Conservative Christians, in particular, have been active in attempts to police curricular matters. They have responded by running for school board openings (Deckman 2004; Wilcox and Robinson 2011), passing legislation or adjusting standards on curricular matters (Gibson 2004; Perry et al. 2023), and even opening their own institutions of higher learning to promote a particular agenda (e.g., Hollis-Brusky and Wilson 2020). Attempts to regulate instruction have faced political backlash, with critics believing that conservative Christians and other groups are attempting to indoctrinate children and that regulations are a violation of academic freedom (e.g., Shepard and Culver 2018; Williams 2006).
The policing of academic instruction and discourse may be deeply rooted in the psychology of conservative Christians, however. Highly conservative Christian nationalists, who make up a minor but very vocal subset of the conservative Christian coalition, including both Catholics and Protestants, draw rigid boundaries around group membership (e.g., Whitehead and Perry 2020), which shapes views about policing and discrimination (e.g., Broeren and Djupe 2024; Davis 2018; Perry et al. 2019). This predisposition to punish among conservative Christians more broadly also draws from theological commitments across the religious spectrum, such as a supernatural system to reward or punish individuals for norm-transgressing behavior (Beller et al. 2021), belief in divine retribution (Grasmick et al. 1992a), and belief in transcendent religious evil like Satan (Baker and Booth 2016), though research also suggests that there may be a link between religion and forgiveness attitudes (e.g., Applegate et al. 2000; Mullet et al. 2003). Punishment attitudes extend to educational sectors in debates over corporal punishment (Grasmick et al. 1992b) and the firing of teachers because of political debates (Natanson and Balingit 2022). However, the mechanism behind the punitive attitudes of religious groups and their relationship to political coalitions and attitudes has yet to be explored. As of yet, it is unclear whether punitive attitudes are derived more from attitudes about in-group and out-group membership or from generalized attitudes about punitive action that may come from theological doctrine, religious practices, and internal group norms.
To examine this individual-level propensity to punish in modern educational culture wars debates, we employ an original survey experiment in which a fictitious professor makes politically disparaging remarks, manipulating the target of the remarks to include Republican students, Democratic students, or students in general. We examine how religiosity and religious affiliation influence propensity to punish the professor and whether punishment attitudes are related to the boundaries of in-group and out-group targets. We find that increasing church attendance is correlated with higher propensity to punish and that both Evangelicals and Catholics are more likely than other respondents to support punishing the professor. However, punishing attitudes are not consistently higher when Republicans (the in-group) are the target of the political comments, suggesting a generalized propensity to punish that is not related to specific political content that may offend the sensibilities of religious groups; rather, punitive attitudes seem to be drawn from characteristics internal to religious traditions in the U.S. While most previous studies examine religious activism at the group level, these findings extend the literature to individual religious respondents, demonstrating the power of elite political discourse on education issues. Additionally, our findings suggest that Catholics have united with Evangelicals and other conservative Christians in these values, contrasting with the interdenominational battles of decades past (e.g., Hunter 1991; Rozell 2008; Shields 2011).

2. Religion, Education, and the Culture Wars

Although, at its founding, the U.S. was the only state that constitutionally prohibited the establishment of a state religion (Wood 1972), religion was fundamentally integrated into important social institutions, including education. Elite private institutions of higher education like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and others were founded by religious groups as seminaries for the training of ministers. For example, what was then called Harvard College was founded by Puritan colonists “dreading to leave an illiterate Ministery [sic] to the Churches” (Lee 2020). The curriculum had obvious religious influences in the study of Biblical languages and robust religious departments. Primary schools and public institutions were no stranger to religious influences either. Debates over teaching religious morality in public schools were not so much about whether to teach it, but how (Green 2012, p. 7). Prayer and Bible readings were common occurrences, but religious organizations fought to control which passages and versions of the Bible would be used (Green 2012; Hunter 1991).
Curricular matters of religious debate continued and intensified in the early 20th Century as public schools weighed how to teach theories of human evolution. Fundamentalist Christian groups, in particular, advocated against biology curricula including evolution, promoting instead the teaching of “creation science” (Darnell and Sherkat 1997; Marsden 2022). This culminated in the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 where a teacher, John T. Scopes, was put on trial and charged with teaching human evolution in violation of state law. Former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, though successful in the prosecution, was widely mocked in the national media for his fundamentalist beliefs, leading some fundamentalists to retreat from their active and public involvement in American politics (e.g., Hart 2002; Wilcox and Robinson 2011). However, the push to regulate biology curricula continued, as the courts continued addressing major questions about the teaching of “creation science” (Binder 2002).1 The issue even became an important part of how fundamentalists and other conservative Christians built boundaries around their group interests against seculars and religious liberals (Guhin 2016).
Aside from evolution, religious issues centering on schools also found their way before the courts (Green 2012). A growing Roman Catholic population gave rise to debates over funding for parochial schools. Catholics viewed public educational institutions as largely Protestant, leading Catholics to emphasize alternatives for their children and to develop their own subculture of schools (Hunter 1991; Wood 1972). Protestants, meanwhile, opposed efforts to expand support for Catholic schools and instead supported Blaine amendments to forbid aid to (especially Catholic) church-run schools (DeForrest 2003; Green 2022). Both groups also developed their own political homeschooling agendas (Rozell and Wilcox 2003) and continued debates over prayer and morality in public schools (Oldfield 1996; Martin 1996; Smith 2000). Ultimately, both religious groups wanted to regulate the types of curricular matter that wide swaths of young people would be exposed to (Shields 2011). This, too, was the goal of secular proponents of public education, who have variously cited compulsory education as necessary for good citizenship but have also been critiqued for using public education to deculturize historically marginalized populations (e.g., Cajete 2020).
Given the history of religious and cultural debates over education in the U.S., it is perhaps unsurprising that Sociologist James Davison Hunter included education as one of the “fields of conflict” in American culture wars (Hunter 1991). In the battle for the heart and soul of America, various religious groups have sought to establish their own beliefs as worthy of cultural transmission to younger generations. However, Hunter notes that the Protestant–Catholic divide that defined religious debates for decades has instead been replaced by a divide between the orthodox, who oppose “secular humanism” and “moral relativism” being taught in American schools, and the progressives, who want nonsectarianism, individual autonomy, and academic freedom (Hunter 1991, pp. 201–7). The battle for moral authority in schools leads the drive to police and punish behaviors that deviate from the religiopolitical coalition’s vision.2
In recent years, the culture wars have expanded to encompass new issues, beyond the classic issues like abortion and same-sex marriage that have defined modern moral debates for decades (e.g., Castle 2019; Putnam and Campbell 2010) or the McCarthy-era goals of rooting out communist sympathizers (Adler 2016; Wilcox and Robinson 2011). Within debates over education, orthodox and progressive camps debate how to teach issues like race, gender and sexuality, sex education, history, and more, in addition to religious issues proper (e.g., Coley 2017; Kaufmann 2022; Perry et al. 2023). Just as before, the debate tactics include regulation of teachers, textbooks, and school policies, often conducted through public debates before courts and school boards (Martin 1996). More recently, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has used funding for research grants to attempt to control how universities respond to cultural issues (e.g., Brooks and Shakil 2025), and college presidents have been called to testify before Congress, resulting in some high-profile resignations after discourse about free speech on political topics failed to satisfy critics of the educational administrators (e.g., Associated Press 2024). However, the extant literature has yet to determine how likely different (religious and non-religious) groups are to attempt to police these issues, particularly at the individual, rather than group, level (that is, among individual Americans rather than religious denominations or interest group organizations).

3. Religion, Identity, and Punitive Predispositions

The propensity to punish the behavior of others varies significantly at the individual and societal level. For example, the U.S. is one of few industrialized democracies that retains the use of capital punishment, but religious groups vary in their support for this policy and individuals within those religions vary in their acceptance of the religion’s doctrine (e.g., Bjarnason and Welch 2004; Mulligan 2006; Unnever et al. 2005). Attitudes also vary among those with different levels of religious salience in their lives (Evans and Adams 2003). As another example, religious traditions and religious individuals have conflicting attitudes when it comes to the use of torture on terrorism suspects (Malka and Soto 2011). Specific theological beliefs and religious behaviors may also vary in the population (e.g., Laurin et al. 2012). The psychology of punishment attitudes within religious and non-religious spheres is thus ripe for evaluation.
American values of retributive justice are prevalent and often rooted in Judeo-Christian religious traditions (Grasmick et al. 1992a). Fundamentalist Christians, for example, tend to be more correctional, retributive, and support harsher punishments than non-fundamentalists (Applegate et al. 2000; Evans and Adams 2003). Moreover, there is a strong predisposition from religious individuals to punish behavior outside of the mainstream and to avoid justifying antisocial behavior (e.g., Atkinson and Bourrat 2011; McKay et al. 2011), though that tendency may decrease at the highest levels of belief in powerful and intervening gods (Laurin et al. 2012) or with compassionate visions of God (Unnever et al. 2005). Religion, at a base level, defines what is sacred and profane (e.g., Durkheim 1912), and often outlines consequences for deviations from tradition. Religion has been pivotal in crime and punishment in dealing with “evils,” from witch hunts and into more modern understandings (Baker and Booth 2016; Dillinger 2004; McKay et al. 2011; Monteith 2023; Morone 2003). Religious groups themselves have engaged in “church discipline” by accusing, trying, and sometimes imposing punishments like excommunication, banishment, or other theological corrections; some scholars even correlate these historical practices with the more modern development of “cancel culture,” relevant to present debates about policing speech activities (e.g., Schelin 2021).
Religious congregations and leaders themselves also play a significant role in reinforcing punitive attitudes and behaviors. Pastors and co-religionists are influential sources for how religious groups develop their morals in this area (e.g., Bjarnason and Welch 2004; Mulligan 2006). Religious schools and family units, too, reflect punitive ideologies of various denominations. For example, American Protestants tend to favor corporal punishment more strongly than other religious groups (Beller et al. 2021; Grasmick et al. 1992b). This is especially the case for fundamentalists, who may enroll their children in schools with a fundamentalist ideology because of their belief that schools should utilize corporal punishment for students (Grasmick et al. 1992b).
Alternatively, or in tandem with the religious values that contribute to punitive attitudes outlined above, these attitudes may also be related to religious boundaries of in-group and out-group membership.3 Social identity theory (e.g., Tajfel 1981; Tajfel and Turner 1979) supposes that individuals develop their sense of self from their group memberships and identities. Even in minimally salient group identities, humans are naturally predisposed to favor their in-groups over out-groups. This is even more so in salient identities, such as religion. Kinder and Kam (2009) expand on this, with their theory of ethnocentrism, by suggesting that humans not only show favor towards their in-groups but express negative affect towards out-groups, developing a cultural hierarchy that they are willing to support through public policy or attitudes toward others. This negative affect is particularly evident in partisan polarization in the U.S. (e.g., Iyengar et al. 2019).
Christian nationalists, the aforementioned group of politically active religious individuals who make up a subset of conservative Christians, are one group that notably generate strict boundaries around American and Christian identities (e.g., Marsh 2021; Whitehead and Perry 2020). These boundaries are influential in the enforcement of legal policies and the rule of law and shape attitudes about the prevalence of discrimination in the U.S. (Broeren and Djupe 2024; Davis 2018; Monteith 2023; Perry et al. 2019). Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that Americans are self-sorting themselves into these religious traditions based on political and identity-based predispositions (e.g., Hafner and Audette 2023). Consistent with findings in social identity theory and ethnocentrism (e.g., Kinder and Kam 2009), Broeren and Djupe (2024) find that Christian nationalists do have in-group preferences but do not inherently denigrate out-groups, as this is conditioned on belief that their religious group is facing persecution and the perceived existence of threat. However, Christian nationalism is linked to a desire to dominate other worldviews (Djupe et al. 2023), which may include classroom environments. As Christian nationalists represent a politicized segment of conservative Christians, and who feature prominently in American political discourse, it is plausible that the findings related to social identity and predispositions to punish could extend to others in their political coalition, though these findings may also be tempered in less nationalistic religious traditions.4
Other psychological predispositions, too, contribute to partisan sorting and affect. For example, the personality trait of “openness to experience” is commonly associated with liberalism, while “conscientiousness” is associated with conservatism (e.g., Carney et al. 2008; Haidt 2012). If religious groups have indeed begun sorting themselves on political lines, this would lead conservative Christians to value conscientiousness and order and perhaps be more likely to punish deviations from the social order (Roberts et al. 2013). On the other hand, liberals and the non-religious would be more open to new experiences and ideas and perhaps less likely to try to punish perspectives that differ from their own.
In all, religion serves as an agent of social control, outlining specific codes of moral behavior and a system of rewards and punishment for human behavior (Durkheim 1912). It further develops group cohesion and provides legitimacy for institutional hierarchies (Durkheim 1912). Religious groups thus have a significant interest in maintaining and shaping the institutions, like educational institutions, that socialize the civic behaviors of new generations (Wuthnow 1989). In educational settings, however, it is unclear if punitive attitudes are related to the ethnocentric tendencies of religious groups. That is, does political in-group favoritism and political out-group antipathy motivate additional punitive attitudes by religious individuals? Or are punitive attitudes generalized across religious traditions, regardless of the group target of political speech?

4. Data and Methods

To examine the individual effect of religion on the propensity to punish a professor for political incivility, as well as whether this is derived from generalized punitive attitudes or from ethnocentric group biases, we conducted a survey experiment on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The survey had 1192 respondents and took respondents an average of 25 min to complete. The sample was limited to adult users in the United States who could complete the survey in English. Respondents came from 46 U.S. states. Respondents were paid a token USD0.35 to complete the survey, which was about equivalent compensation to other similar tasks available on MTurk at the time. A “long” instructional manipulation check was included to measure the attentiveness of respondents (Morren and Paas 2020; Oppenheimer et al. 2009). 70.8% of respondents “passed” the instructional manipulation check, which is a lower rate of failure than other surveys employing a similar attention check (Morren and Paas 2020). The results below include all respondents, though the results do not differ substantially when excluding those who failed the manipulation check. Moreover, there are no statistically significant demographic predictors of manipulation check failure. As such, we are cautiously confident in the quality of the sample.
The use of MTurk has become widespread across social science disciplines, including for research on religion and politics (e.g., Audette and Weaver 2015; Bleich et al. 2022; Clifford and Gaskins 2016; Lewis et al. 2020; Swank 2020). Although there are drawbacks to the convenience sample framework, some research suggests that it compares favorably to other commonly used sample types, such as college student panels (Berinsky et al. 2012). Still, the sample should not be considered fully representative of the adult U.S. population. When comparing our demographics to the American Community Survey and other national surveys, our sample tends to over-represent white Americans, women, and the well-educated, and tends to lean to the political left. The sample does include a large non-religious population but also includes a number of Christians and actually over-represents Catholics (compared to Lewis et al. 2015).5 Moreover, the randomization process was effective and biases in demographics did not statistically affect experimental results. Especially given the experimental framework, we can be relatively confident that the results represent a meaningful sample of Americans.
The experiment vignette centers on a fictitious economics professor, Charles Miller, who made disparaging comments about students’ intellect and work ethic. The full text of the vignette appears in Appendix A with the experimental manipulation in bold. Although the comments may appear harsh (that is, a strong treatment), they are similar to actual events at U.S. campuses of higher education that occur with some regularity (e.g., Phernetton 2025, reporting on a professor who flipped a table staffed by College Republicans, or Quinn 2023, reporting on a professor who referred to members of a political group as “idiots” in class). To examine whether religious groups are more sensitive to comments made about particular political groups, two experimental groups include comments made specifically about liberal Democrats or about conservative Republicans. The comments also reference the parties’ 2024 presidential candidates, Joseph Biden and Donald Trump. This follows similar research that has demonstrated the importance of partisan cues in academic and social “canceling” (e.g., Cook et al. 2021; Deither et al. 2024). To increase external validity, the professor is in the economics discipline, which has historically had greater ideological diversity than other academic disciplines but may still have reason for a professor to make comments based on political ideologies (e.g., Rothman et al. 2005).
To examine our question about group affect, the professor, in the treatment, makes comments about partisan groups. Comments disparaging partisan groups, rather than targeting specific religious groups, are likely more common and more commonly accepted in American society. While laws have protected against discrimination on religious grounds for decades, there is no federal law protecting students, workers, or other classes of people from discrimination based on political affiliation. Methodologically, this also gives us the advantage of being able to test responses to a common in-group identity, as opposed to testing responses to each individual religious affiliation, which would require a significantly larger sample (though, this would be a natural next step in the research). The extant literature supports the idea that Christians, especially those from conservative traditions, and those who attend worship services would identify the Republican Party as an in-group, while those who are non-religious and do not attend worship services would identify the Democratic Party as an in-group (e.g., Campbell et al. 2011; Claassen 2015; Hafner and Audette 2023; Patrikios 2013; Putnam and Campbell 2010). The phenomenon that religious people tend to support Republicans and non-religious people tend to support Democrats is commonly referred to as the “God gap” in American politics and is a significant contributor to culture wars debates.
The dependent variables include a series of questions about whether Miller should face disciplinary action, what type of disciplinary action he should face, whether the comments should be regarded as academic freedom, and how respondents perceive Miller after reading about his comments. They are measured either dichotomously or through a five-point Lickert scale of support or opposition. This allows us to test for a respondent’s willingness to support intervention against the professor for their comments, as well as whether punishment is contingent upon the political target of his comments.
The experimental framework of this analysis helps us to better determine factors that cause changes in the dependent variables. Across the treatment and control groups, the only non-random difference is whether the respondent is exposed to a professor who critiques students in general, Republican students, or Democratic students. As such, we can attribute changes in the dependent variables causally to the treatment effect. Moreover, by examining heterogeneous treatment effects and dividing the sample across demographic groups, we can determine whether the treatment is received differently among different religious groups, for example. While this does not tell us precisely why religious groups might differ in their reaction to the treatment (which would require a separate survey experiment), we can identify whether there are latent differences worthy of additional analysis and theoretical development.

5. Results

To begin our analysis, we first examine respondents as a whole across our three treatment groups. We do so to test a generalized propensity to punish, regardless of the target of the professor’s comments. In particular, we seek to examine whether particular religious or political traditions are more likely to want to punish the professor (and with certain disciplinary actions), as well as whether church attendance affects punishment attitudes. Because the dependent variables are non-linear, we use ordered logistic regression analyses. These results are displayed in Table 1.
The table presents four different dependent variables: the extent to which the respondent supports or opposes the professor facing disciplinary action from the university for his comments, whether they support or oppose the professor losing his job for his comments, whether they support or oppose the professor being told by the university to make a public apology for his comments, and whether they more believe that the university should punish the professor’s actions (1) or defend his actions (0).6
Notably, church attendance is positively correlated with punishing attitudes across all four dependent variables. This suggests that religious involvement may in fact promote a generalized propensity to punish, at least in this educational setting. This is consistent with sociological theories that indicate that religion as a whole, and Christianity in particular, promotes doctrines of punishment. Of course, the particular religious tradition that the respondent represents may influence these attitudes as well. Evangelical Protestants (the reference category) tend toward a greater likelihood of punishing attitudes, although interestingly, we see Catholics being significantly more likely than even Evangelicals to support the professor losing his job and being punished rather than defended by the university.
Unsurprisingly, given recent culture wars over education in the U.S., we see that Republicans across the board are more likely to support punishing the professor than Democrats. Additionally, we find that those with higher incomes are more likely to want to punish the professor, while those who hold a bachelor’s degree are less likely to want to punish the professor. Although education and income are statistically correlated, the model measures the unique effect of each variable. As such, this may reflect experiences with academic freedom or the politics of higher education among the well-educated, holding income constant, while those who are wealthy may view the university through a business model lens and be more likely to punish an employee, holding education constant.
While we find evidence of a generalized propensity to punish, this may also be related to the respondent’s evaluations of in-group and out-group members. Therefore, we next examine whether punishing attitudes are predicated on the target of the professor’s comments being associated with the respondent’s political in-group. While religion may promote a punitive ideology, that ideology may either be generalized or based on support for one’s in-group and antipathy for out-groups (e.g., Kinder and Kam 2009). Indeed, some research on Christian nationalist ideologies posits a high degree of boundary setting related to group membership (e.g., Whitehead and Perry 2020); whether to the same degree as Christian nationalists or not, punitive attitudes may be based on these ethnocentric tendencies in other conservative Christian groups. To determine whether the respondent’s willingness to punish is based on affronts to political in-groups, we turn to our survey experiment where the professor makes comments about Democrats, Republicans, or students in general. We test the four dependent variables above to determine if differences between the control group and treatment groups lead to differences in punitive attitudes, particularly based on church attendance (given the findings in Table 1 that church attendance is related to punitive attitudes).
Across multiple analyses, the results consistently demonstrate little to no effect of varying the target of the comments. Church attendees and different religious traditions are generally equally as likely to support disciplining the professor if he makes comments about Democrats, Republicans, or about students as a whole. A sample of these results are shown in Table 2 and Table 3.
In Table 2, we summarize bivariate ordered logistic regression coefficients examining the four dependent variables from the prior analysis. By and large, there are few significant differences across the categories. There is some indication that those in the highest attending category (those who attend church more than once a week) are statistically more responsive to critiques of Republicans, but this seems to be more of an outlier than a consistent trend. There is a desire among the churchgoing sample to discipline the professor and to punish him instead of defending him, but there is no general agreement about what this punishment should look like. Indeed, when the professor critiques Democratic students instead of Republicans, the sample is more likely to want him to issue an apology, which is true, too, of the control group. Moreover, when comparing the effect size differences across the groups and accounting for the standard errors, the trend washes out in all but the general desire to discipline the professor for critiquing Republican students.
This is further illustrated in Table 3, where we provide sample means for the four dependent variables across the three treatment groups for the three largest religious traditions (Evangelicals, Catholics, and the non-religious). Table 3 should be read as comparisons within like-grouped-dependent variables on the left column for a single religious tradition. For example, one would compare Evangelical Protestants across the control and two treatment groups for the “discipline” dependent variable (whether Miller should face disciplinary action), accounting for the standard errors around the means estimates.
Here, we find no significant difference across the three treatment groups for any religious tradition, considering the overlapping error measurements; the only differences are across religious traditions rather than within the tradition. Ultimately, this suggests that the propensity to punish the professor found in Table 1 is due to a generalized support for punishment rather than a specific target (Republicans or Democrats) of the comments. Thus, when examining punitive attitudes in educational culture wars debates, we should examine the attitudinal foundations of these religious groups rather than assuming that they are responding only to unique attacks against their political in-group. This further suggests that culture wars issues are deeply embedded into the political ideologies of religious groups and that attempts by conservative religious groups and individuals to regulate educational content may continue even past removing ostensibly objectionable content.

6. Discussion and Conclusions

Educational issues have always been polarized in the U.S., including along religious lines. With a recent resurgence of debates over education in contemporary culture wars skirmishes, we can likewise expect to see an increased focus on education among religious groups and their progressive counterparts. This study suggests that conservative Christians, especially conservative Catholics and Evangelicals, will lead the charge in attempting to discipline and punish educators who may deviate from social or political norms in their classroom speech. In the case of the U.S., this may at times include protected speech, coming into conflict with existing protections of academic freedom (e.g., Ben-Porath 2023). Antiliberal movements opposed to academic freedom are not unique to the U.S., however, and may be on the rise across the globe (Darian-Smith 2024). Religious groups may wish to be conscious of these movements within their ranks, particularly as some religious groups have positioned themselves as supportive of civil liberties or who wish to protect academic freedom at their own learning institutions.7 On the other hand, some religious groups have historically critiqued liberalism as antithetical to their religious doctrines, and resurgences of this form of political and religious thought may pose challenges to societies currently predicated on liberalism (for a brief review, see, for example, Wolkenstein 2025). Regardless of the political stance and involvement of religious groups, individual congregations may need to address growing polarization on these issues among their adherents (e.g., Henderson 2025).
This study also has implications for political coalitions in the U.S. As Hunter (1991) identified, historical divisions between Catholics and Protestants, including on divisive educational issues, have given way to unity on orthodox cultural issues opposing secular progressivism. This is reflected in growing support among white Catholics for Republican politicians (Smidt 2022). Educational issues like LGBTQ+ rights, Critical Race Theory, and textbook content can serve as wedge issues to reinforce group norms, and this research suggests that they are salient to individual Americans and not only at the elite or group level. While conservative Christians have likely not yet reached a level of “issue ownership” over academic regulation as a political issue (Petrocik 1996), punitive speech policies seem to be more salient to their coalition and are more likely to be part of the policy agenda of politicians sympathetic to the coalition’s cause.
Interestingly, however, these appear to be generalized punitive attitudes among Evangelicals and Catholics in particular, which may be culturally transmitted through religious participation. As the literature previously cited explores, religious groups can transmit punitive attitudes through their doctrine, practices, and framework of group norms. Our research suggests that this causal mechanism is driven more by these factors internal to these groups than by responding to criticism of one’s own political in-group by a member of the political out-group. Our model does not test the specific means through which this occurs, but we do not find evidence for the hypothesis that punitive attitudes are related to evaluations of in-groups and out-groups. Further research is needed to determine precisely why and how conservative religious groups pass on these punitive ideologies or what self-motivates individuals to join such religious traditions. Nonetheless, this is significant to understanding how different groups of Americans, and religious groups in particular, process the norms and values at conflict in the culture wars (Deither et al. 2024). Future research might also extend this to specific religious traditions and denominations, including those outside of Christianity.
While this study offers a high-level overview of punitive attitudes in one educational setting, there are many extensions that would further elucidate how religious groups engage in this culture wars issue. For example, this study was intentionally placed at what appears to be a regional state university; there may be different responses to professors at well-known research institutions or at private or religious institutions. Given the politicization of identity in the U.S., the professor’s race, ethnicity, gender, or other identity characteristics would likely affect respondents’ responses. Results may also be different in primary or secondary educational settings; indeed, we suspect that punitive attitudes would be heightened, as post-secondary students are traditionally given greater rights of expression and have fewer boundaries placed on the types of expression they may be able to receive (though Fenton 2023 suggests that this is not always the case before the law). Moreover, differences might be observed in the types of language used or if other groups, beyond partisan identities, are targeted by the expression in question, such as religious groups being the target of the remarks rather than political groups. These differences could be exacerbated further by drawing in the remarks of specific media organizations or interest groups that have a history of adding remarks like these to the public issue agenda.
In sum, we observe significant differences in how individuals from different religious and non-religious groups respond to a case of academic political incivility targeting students based on political identities. These cases are not uncommon in the U.S. educational system and may indeed be more frequent in occasion given the heightened polarization surrounding education in the U.S. As such, we encourage greater research on this topic as an issue of public opinion, public policy, and laws regarding academic freedom and rights. We also suspect that this issue may be “bundled” with other issue attitudes and identities by religious and political elites, such as gender, sexuality, abortion attitudes, and others. As such, education can serve as a culture wars issue tied to deeply held political beliefs or core values than may be easily activated by political elites hoping to reach out to religious voters, particularly among conservatives.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, B.A., C.S. and A.P.A.; methodology, B.A., C.S. and A.P.A.; investigation, B.A., C.S. and A.P.A.; resources, B.A., C.S. and A.P.A.; data curation, B.A., C.S. and A.P.A.; writing—original draft preparation, B.A., C.S. and A.P.A.; writing—review and editing, B.A., C.S. and A.P.A.; project administration, B.A., C.S. and A.P.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Monmouth College (protocol code FA23-13 on 14 November 2023).

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because the data are part of an ongoing study. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to the corresponding author. Data will be made publicly available once all research studies have been completed.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in this manuscript:
LGBTQ+Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (or Questioning), plus other self-identifications for sexuality or gender
MTurkAmazon Mechanical Turk

Appendix A

The Franklin Gazette
15 November 2023
Charles Miller, a Professor of Economics at Middle Creek State University, has come under fire for controversial comments made in class and in professional meetings.
A video caught on cell phone by an anonymous student shows Miller stating: “These [Biden snowflake, participation trophy/Trump snowflake, basement dweller/lazy] college students today just don’t know how to put in any real intellectual effort. I ought to fail every one of them, but I don’t only because then the bigwigs from the university will be breathing down my neck.”
In another statement, Miller reportedly said, “I hate teaching real economics to all these idiotic [liberal/conservative] students. There’s no thought put into it. They are going to seriously destroy our country. Come talk to me when you have real problems to solve and you’re not just repeating some low-intelligence conspiracy your roommate told you.”
More students at MCSU are sharing comments made in class by Miller about [liberal/conservative] students [and Democrats/Republicans] on social media.
Paul Langston, the president of the mid-sized university, said that Miller’s comments do not reflect the values of the institution, especially as it tries to support students and promote critical dialogue in its programs.
Due to the rising number of complaints, Miller is on a temporary leave of absence as the university’s personnel committee reviews his statements.
Note: In the vignette treatment above, the bracketed text is randomly assigned to the respondent. The “Democrat critique” treatment group includes the phrases “Biden snowflake, participation trophy,” “liberal,” “liberal,” and “and Democrats.” The “Republican critique” treatment group includes the phrases “Trump snowflake, basement dweller,” “conservative,” “conservative,” and “and Republicans.” The control group includes the phrase “lazy” and omits the emboldened and bracketed words.

Notes

1
Also see, for example, U.S. Supreme Court (1987), where the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana creationism law was intended to advance religion in violation of the Establishment Clause, or U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (2005), which found that “creation science” was inherently religion and not science.
2
In popular media, one could examine religious groups’ rhetoric in comparing William F. Buckley’s (1951) God and Man at Yale and the 2014 film God’s Not Dead, both of which center on professors attempting to challenge students’ religious beliefs and favoring moral relativism.
3
An example of generalized punitive attitudes working in tandem with in-group and out-group attitudes is the belief that the “elect,” or members of one’s own religious tradition, deserve special or exclusive reward, while those outside of the tradition deserve less. See, for example, Disley (1991).
4
Scholars have identified different names for and subgroups of conservative Christians. Referenced here are fundamentalists, Evangelicals, and Christian nationalists. Fundamentalists tend to be more militant in their opposition to the forces of modernity than other Evangelical Protestants. Most fundamentalists would be considered Evangelical Protestants, but not all Evangelical Protestants are fundamentalists. Similarly, Christian nationalists are a modern movement that emphasizes Christian dominance in matters of governance. Christian nationalists come from many different religious traditions, among whom there are several prominent Evangelical Protestants and Catholics. However, not all Christian nationalists are Evangelical Protestants or Catholics. These groups are nonetheless salient for discussing the history of conservative Christianity as they are among the more prominent and vocal adherents to and proponents of conservative Christianity (e.g., Wilcox and Robinson 2011; Whitehead and Perry 2020).
5
For example, the sample is predominantly white (97.8%), and thus we are limited to making inferences about white Americans. It over-represents women (69.2%), those with a bachelor’s degree (83.8%), and Democrats (71.5%), as well as Catholics (78.9%). Other demographic variables are more representative. The average age of our sample is 35 and the modal household income is $50,000–$75,000. While the results should not be viewed as representative of the U.S. population, research suggests that a convenience sample like this one is considerably similar to effects produced by national population surveys (e.g., Mullinix et al. 2015) and that causal inference can still be made even when using non-representative samples (e.g., Mutz and Kim 2020).
6
Results for a fifth dependent variable, the professor being told by the university to attend sensitivity training, are not significant and not displayed here. This may reflect attitudes about sensitivity training as a whole among conservative groups, who may view the training as ineffective (e.g., Thurman 2021) or promoting a “woke” agenda in conflict with their values and beliefs (Madigan 2023).
7
For example, in one of his first public comments after being elected the leader of the global Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV proclaimed the virtues of free speech and his hopes that societies would protect the “precious gift of free speech and the press” (Winfield 2025).

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Table 1. Religion, church attendance, and propensity to punish.
Table 1. Religion, church attendance, and propensity to punish.
DisciplineLose JobApologyPunish (vs. Defend)
Church Attendance0.08 *
(0.04)
0.09 *
(0.04)
0.10 **
(0.04)
0.16 **
(0.06)
Catholic−0.64 **
(0.25)
0.51 **
(0.24)
0.22
(0.24)
0.85 **
(0.34)
Mainline Protestant−1.71
(1.13)
−0.57
(1.13)
−1.61
(1.22)
1.70
(1.49)
Non-religious−0.71 *
(0.37)
0.02
(0.35)
0.38
(0.36)
−1.02
(0.69)
Atheist−0.16
(0.41)
0.07
(0.42)
−0.13
(0.41)
0.32
(0.57)
Republican0.40 **
(0.15)
0.48 **
(0.15)
0.53 **
(0.15)
0.30 *
(0.18)
Independent−0.20
(0.23)
0.01
(0.22)
0.45 **
(0.22)
−0.77 **
(0.35)
Man−0.05
(0.12)
0.04
(0.13)
0.03
(0.12)
0.29 *
(0.16)
White−0.70 *
(0.37)
0.52
(0.37)
−0.76 **
(0.38)
1.16 *
(0.64)
Age−0.02 **
(0.01)
−0.01 **
(0.01)
−0.01
(0.01)
0.01
(0.01)
Income0.14 **
(0.07)
0.10
(0.06)
0.15 **
(0.07)
0.18 **
(0.09)
Bachelor’s Degree−0.66 **
(0.17)
−0.40 **
(0.17)
−0.30 *
(0.16)
0.61 **
(0.23)
Pseudo R20.030.020.020.05
N1099110510981081
* p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05. The reference category is Evangelical/Born Again Protestants. Other religious groups included in model but omitted from table. Results are ordered logistic regression coefficients with robust standard errors.
Table 2. Experimental bivariate regression coefficient summary.
Table 2. Experimental bivariate regression coefficient summary.
DisciplineLose JobApologyPunish (vs. Defend)
Attend—
control
−0.03
(0.07)
0.05
(0.07)
0.17 **
(0.07)
0.17 *
(0.10)
Attend—
Republican critique
0.29 **
(0.07)
0.08
(0.07)
0.08
(0.07)
0.23 **
(0.09)
Attend—
Democrat critique
0.02
(0.07)
0.09
(0.07)
0.14 **
(0.07)
0.12
(0.09)
* p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05. Results are ordered logistic regression coefficients with robust standard errors.
Table 3. Sample means for religious traditions by treatment group.
Table 3. Sample means for religious traditions by treatment group.
EvangelicalCatholicNon-Religious
Discipline—control3.11
(0.19)
2.70
(0.05)
2.88
(0.18)
Discipline—Republican critique3.09
(0.22)
2.75
(0.05)
2.86
(0.16)
Discipline—Democrat critique2.89
(0.20)
2.75
(0.05)
2.77
(0.18)
Lose job—control2.41
(0.19)
2.64
(0.05)
2.44
(0.21)
Lose job—Republican critique2.54
(0.29)
2.73
(0.05)
2.55
(0.20)
Lose job—Democrat critique2.22
(0.18)
2.71
(0.05)
2.23
(0.18)
Apology—control 2.82
(0.18)
2.63
(0.06)
2.72
(0.19)
Apology—Republican critique2.43
(0.26)
2.66
(0.05)
3.07
(0.16)
Apology—Democrat critique2.30
(0.24)
2.69
(0.05)
2.27
(0.18)
Punish—control0.07
(0.05)
0.28
(0.03)
0.04
(0.04)
Punish—Republican critique0.19
(0.09)
0.34
(0.03)
0.14
(0.06)
Punish—Democrat critique0.22
(0.08)
0.30
(0.03)
0.20
(0.09)
Results are experimental means with robust standard errors.
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Arrenius, B.; Shook, C.; Audette, A.P. Classroom Culture Wars: Experimental Evidence of the Influence of Religion on Educational Content Regulation and Punishment. Religions 2025, 16, 1016. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081016

AMA Style

Arrenius B, Shook C, Audette AP. Classroom Culture Wars: Experimental Evidence of the Influence of Religion on Educational Content Regulation and Punishment. Religions. 2025; 16(8):1016. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081016

Chicago/Turabian Style

Arrenius, Brady, Cameron Shook, and Andre P. Audette. 2025. "Classroom Culture Wars: Experimental Evidence of the Influence of Religion on Educational Content Regulation and Punishment" Religions 16, no. 8: 1016. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081016

APA Style

Arrenius, B., Shook, C., & Audette, A. P. (2025). Classroom Culture Wars: Experimental Evidence of the Influence of Religion on Educational Content Regulation and Punishment. Religions, 16(8), 1016. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16081016

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