We are experiencing America’s struggle for identity. This is Part 5 of our journey in the series, “Democracy in Crisis: We’ve Been Headed Here for Decades.” A coming overthrow was predictable at least thirty years ago, unless we instituted a major course change. How could we have seen this and how can we save democracy?
To help understand this and save democracy, we must explore the four cabals trying to destroy democracy. This article begins coverage of the first cabal — Christian nationalists, their ideology, and the struggle of America’s identity. Christian nationalism and its beliefs nearly destroyed the country in the past, and we are experiencing it once again.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | …
In the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the majority of insurrectionists were well-off professionals, who were also far-right Christians — not really surprising to those of us who have been watching this oligarchic cabal for more than a decade. In the New York Times article ‘The Capitol Insurrection Was as Christian Nationalist as It Gets,’ author Thomas Edsall quotes Philip Gorski, a professor of sociology at Yale and the author of the book American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion From the Puritans to the Present:
Many observers commented on the jarring mixture of Christian, nationalist and racist symbolism amongst the insurrectionists: there were Christian crosses and Jesus Saves banners, Trump flags and American flags, fascist insignia and a ‘Camp Auschwitz’ hoodie. Some saw apples and oranges. But it was really a fruit cocktail: White Christian Nationalism.
While the insurrectionists were mostly White, it’s important to note that Christian nationalists include some people of color, too, and not all White Christians are nationalists, racists or anti-Semites.
However, Christian nationalism is, unquestionably, intertwined with racism and anti-Semitism and operates as a cover up of White supremacy.
How Does Christian Nationalism Differ from Christianity?
In transcript highlights of the Quick to Listen podcast titled, “Christian Nationalism Is Worse Than You Think,” guest, Paul D. Miller, professor and research fellow with the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said,
It’s easiest to define Christian nationalism by contrasting it with Christianity. Christianity is a religion. It’s a set of beliefs about ultimate things: most importantly, about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's drawn from the Bible, from the Nicene Creed, and the Apostles’ Creed.
Christian nationalism is a political ideology about American identity. It is a set of policy prescriptions for what the nationalists believe the American government should do. It’s not drawn from the Bible. It draws political theory from secular philosophy and their own version of history as well. Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry wrote a great book last year about Christian nationalism called Taking America Back for God. They say Christian nationalism is a cultural framework, a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems.
It idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life. That's a great way of understanding it. Christian nationalism believes that the American nation is defined by Christianity and that the government should take steps to keep it that way to sustain and maintain our Christian heritage. It’s not merely an observation about American history. It is a prescription for what America should do in the future. We should sustain and continue our identity as a Christian nation. That’s Christian nationalism.
The bottom line is that Christian nationalism is about power and identity, and those espousing this ideology believe that the United States was created to privilege Christianity and their version of it.
On the Manipulation of Christianity
On prominent website ChristianityToday.com, the article “We Worship with the Magi, Not MAGA” says of the insurrection:
While what happened at the Capitol yesterday is tragic, it is not surprising. For more than four years, Trump has shown that he is more than willing to say any lie, ignore any standard of decency, and bring any amount of violence and division to shore up his own power. Through manipulative disinformation, he incited an insurrection. Like [King] Herod [in the Bible], he is happy to use religious leaders as pawns.
She continues,
So for me, the worst part of yesterday’s insurrection is how it represents an utter failure in the American church. This anti-epiphany reveals the horrid outgrowths of Christian nationalism, faulty spiritual formation, false teaching, political idolatry, and overriding ignorance.
Though it saddens me deeply, it must be clearly admitted: Yesterday’s atrocity was in large part brought to us by the white, evangelical church in America.
Indeed, churches need to look at what they are preaching or even their silence on important matters, such as racism and nationalism.
It’s important to note that many have manipulated Christianity — and continue to do so — for their own purposes. These include the oligarchs of which we are speaking — a selfish, greedy, corrupt few who are driven to control others. They call themselves Christians but are solely focused on maintaining power. They have invented the “Big Lie” to cherry-pick the Bible to justify their beliefs and fully comprehend the difference between Jesus’s message of social justice and the message they are delivering. Regardless, these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” lead astray millions who count themselves as Christians believing that their God wants them to be submissive to these prominent preachers.
Christian Nationalism & America’s Longtime Struggle with Identity
Christian nationalism is older and more pervasive than most people realize, and it’s rising again from America’s past.
Christianity of the Confederacy
As Jared Yates Sexton, professor and author, points out in his latest book, American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People, White Christian nationalism is basically religious identity coupled with the ideology of the Southern planter class — which was the basis of the Confederacy. The Civil War wasn’t just fought to end slavery. Since White supremacy was baked into the DNA of American Christianity as practiced by many, the war included, among other things, a struggle over the soul of American identity on a Christian level.
Sexton, who grew up in a White evangelical church, said the deeply religious Confederacy believed “in a white supremacist God who demanded slavery and a stark separation between whites and blacks. Their churches were a main organ of societal control and preached obedience.” And they believed God was on their side, exemplified in the Confederate motto, Deo vindice, meaning, “With God as our defender/protector.”
Calling some of the radicals on the far-right “neo-Confederates,” Sexton details how oligarchs have come to rule America today through what he calls the “American Myth.” They adopt a revisionist history dating back to the time of colonization through slavery and beyond. As they purport, their version of the Christian God grants America special status — exceptionalism.
The “American Myth” has kept Americans from seeing the ugly truth of history, including genocide, slavery, the South’s and North’s roles in these atrocities, a more accurate view of Abraham Lincoln, etc.
Lincoln’s Assassination & Effect on Our Nation
President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on Good Friday of 1865 added to the American Myth, and, as Sexton wrote, it “forever changed America by knotting national identity and religion and hiding our toxic racism.” Wanting to believe Lincoln’s death was the price to reunite the country and wash away the sins of slavery, many preachers addressed his death as martyrdom on what came to be known as “Black Easter” Sunday.
Satisfying calls for unity, countless people, including nonclergy, drew parallels to the Bible. Some saw Lincoln as a “second Messiah” who died for the nation’s sins, while other saw him as a “second Moses.” Still others, for example, drew biblical comparisons between Christ’s church and Lincoln’s nation. A Philadelphia newspaper is purported to have editorialized, “The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. So, the blood of the noble martyr to the cause of freedom will be the seed to the great blessing of this nation.” And General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant on Palm Sunday only one week before the assassination only added to what millions viewed as confirmation of the Christian connection to Lincoln’s murder as sacrifice.
Lack of Accountability & Long-Term Effects
Regardless of the biblical comparisons used, the effect was that the nation, and especially the South, was not held accountable for the sins of slavery. Lack of accountability has, in fact, allowed the Christianity of the Confederacy to proliferate to this present day.
As a nation we must atone for our past; set the record straight on the real, ugly history of our sins against our people and make reparations. Without doing so, nations are likely to repeat atrocities. The United Nations explains the necessity of accountability for atrocities to prevent more.
The links between justice and peace are strong. Properly pursued, accountability for atrocity crimes can serve not only as a strong deterrent, it is also key to successful reconciliation processes and the consolidation of peace in post-conflict societies. Impunity destroys the social fabric of societies and perpetuates mistrust among communities or towards the State, consequently undermining a lasting peace.
Look at Germany in the aftermath of World War II to see the provisions that the German people put into place to prevent another rise of a fascist tyrant. Today, the U.S. must also, at a minimum, take into account the countless atrocities of our government, including those that Trump and his administration permitted during the pandemic, in the immigrant concentration camps, and at our nation’s Capitol during the insurrection.
Today’s Christian Nationalist Movement
In the absence of accountability, it is no wonder that we are relitigating the struggle over America’s identity — and that so much of the symbolism of the Confederacy is rising again.
It’s fascist in nature since Christian nationalists see laissez-faire capitalism (hands-off government) as the God-ordained economic system. This version of capitalism is what slavery was based on.
The current Christian nationalist movement is massive, much broader than most people realize, and it rejects diversity of people and philosophies. Far-right Christians seek to turn America into a theocracy under which their own version of Christianity would prevail.
On her website, Katherine Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, says,
The real power of the movement lies in a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations, embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances with likeminded, anti-democratic religious nationalists around the world, including Russia. She follows the money behind the movement and traces much of it to a group of super-wealthy, ultraconservative donors and family foundations.
Indeed, concerned about the increasing violent rhetoric of far-right Christians, I spoke in 2019 to an expert, who, fearing for his life, insisted on remaining anonymous about the Christian nationalist movement. He said, “They are the Christian counterpart of ISIS, having similar goals to unite Christians and turn the world into a theocracy ruled by strict biblical law.”
The Ideology of Dominionism
Christian Nationalists believe God has ordained them, personally, to impose their totalitarian form of Christianity — total control over everyone’s lives. This is the doctrine of “Dominionism.” It’s derived from Genesis 1:28; the New International Version says,
God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’
Indeed, these so-called Christians intend to control all earthly institutions while awaiting Jesus’s return and to help bring about the ultimate biblical battle of “good” vs. “evil.”
According to the article “Dominionism Rising: A Theocratic Movement Hiding in Plain Sight,”
Dominionism arose from the swirls and eddies of American evangelicalism to animate the Christian Right, and become a defining feature of modern politics and culture.
However, Dominionism is quickly growing among Protestants and Catholics around the globe. U.S. oligarchs have been exporting American fascism and Christian Dominionism for decades. As a result, Dominionism today is a worldwide danger.
It’s important to note there are “soft” and “hard” Dominionists. “Soft” Dominionists believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and oppose the separation of Church and State, while "hard" Dominionists want to convert the world to fundamentalist Christian theocracies.
Fundamentalism
At the heart of “hard” Dominionism is Christian fundamentalism. It requires purity tests (or loyalty oaths) based on literalist readings of religious doctrines and their own interpretations. Fundamentalists long to return to a previously established ideal — real or imaginary — in which they carry out what they perceive to be God’s will. They view themselves as martyrs, persecuted by everyone else for Christ’s sake. And it is this persecution complex that is integral to Donald Trump's victimhood politics.
There is a range of Christian history and law that these extremist 21st-century Christian groups want to return to. For example, some consider themselves to be pre-Constantine Christians, in other words, pre-Bible, referring to the period known as “Early Christianity” (c.33-324 A.D.).
The fundamentalist organization called Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) defines as a hate group — trains its followers to infiltrate government and impose Christian law from the distant past. Amy Coney Barrett (associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and a Catholic) is personally affiliated with this group. ADF developed Blackstone Legal Fellowship to train lawyers in fundamentalist Christian law. SPLC’s website page on ADF states (bolding not mine),
Alliance Defending Freedom seeks to recover the robust Christendomic theology of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries. This is catholic, universal orthodoxy and it is desperately crucial for cultural renewal. Christians must strive to build glorious cultural cathedrals, rather than shanty tin sheds. – Blackstone Legal Fellowship website, 2014
Notice that these beliefs blur the lines between Protestant and Catholics. In fact, many fundamentalist Catholics are now, for example, speaking in tongues.
Fundamentalism & Literalism Breed Violence
Most fundamentalists fear anything and everything that they cannot control, such as music, books, media, other religions, a secular and pluralistic society, and all people who are unlike themselves in race and beliefs. They believe these differences amount to evil at work and even perversions of God’s will. They include as enemies of righteousness even the various denominations of mainstream Christianity, seeking to destroy them.
Fundamentalist beliefs promote dangerous and violent tendencies in the name of God. They are a cult, which developed its own altered reality long ago. Allowed to increase in power, fundamentalists have become an existential threat. As Dr. Bandy Lee – forensic psychiatrist and expert on global violence prevention – tweeted out:
Literalism and fundamentalism, by the way, are highly prone to violence. You may notice that many terrorists adhere to fundamentalism. Having a more literal SCOTUS will no doubt encourage a culture of violence.
– Bandy X Lee, MD, MDiv (@BandyXLee1) 7:40 AM · Oct 25, 2020
(“Literalism” is a strict interpretation of the Bible or other documents, rejecting any symbolic or metaphorical readings.)
Originalism Is a Form of Fundamentalism
During the Congressional hearing for Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination, we heard quite a bit about “originalism.” The whole notion of fundamentalism — purity, literalism, and longing to return to the past — comes into play in the concept of “originalism.” This is the assertion that the U.S. Constitution “must be interpreted based on the original understanding ‘at the time it was adopted’.” Originalists believe that the Constitution is not a living document; therefore, if certain human rights, for example, weren’t granted in the original document, they should not be granted now or in the future.
The American Political Science Review article “’Clocks Must Always Be Turned Back’: Brown v. Board of Education and the Racial Origins of Constitutional Originalism” traces its history. This concept further developed in the 1980s, during Reagan’s presidency.
Concerns of originalism are one reason why Supreme Court Bar member James Dannenberg sent a resignation letter to Chief Justice John Roberts. He details the reasons he lost faith in the court in this must-read letter. Here is an excerpt:
I believe that the Court majority, under your leadership, has become little more than a result-oriented extension of the right wing of the Republican Party, as vetted by the Federalist Society. Yes, politics has always been a factor in the Court’s history, but not to today’s extent. Even routine rules of statutory construction get subverted or ignored to achieve transparently political goals. The rationales of “textualism” and “originalism” are mere fig leaves masking right wing political goals; sheer casuistry.
Two paragraphs later, Judge Dannenberg basically tells us the rights we may have under originalism (bolding my emphasis):
The only constitutional freedoms ultimately recognized may soon be limited to those useful to wealthy, Republican, White, straight, Christian, and armed males— and the corporations they control.
Indeed. I’ve spoken to a couple of other Supreme Court Bar members who echoed the concerns Judge Dannenberg expressed.
A fundamentalist view of the Constitution reflects who our Founding Fathers were — a wealthy, White patriarchy ruling minority. However, they did not all claim to be evangelical Christians. Some were actually Deists, believing in God through reason and observation of the natural world, not from revelations found in Holy books.
Reprobation
One other belief that many fundamentalists have is reprobation, meaning the poor and sick are sinners and deserve what they get, predestined to damnation. We see this with the pandemic and masks. Many fundamentalists aren’t concerned with masks or vaccines. If people get sick and die, it’s God’s will.
The Widening Chasm within American Christianity
Since America’s colonization and founding, certain events contributed to a widening gap within American Christianity. While the Civil War was one of those events, this chasm has roots in the Age of Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries).
Religious colonies had already taken root in America when ideas that originated in Europe were changing about the roles of government and its relationship with the Church, including the concepts of a constitutional government and the separation of Church and State. These ideas also encompassed a new understanding of science, liberty, progress, toleration, and fraternity. Additionally, Deism, which swept through Europe during this time, arose from the Age of Enlightenment and its principles of reason and reliance on evidence of the senses.
These new ideas, which Founders like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson championed, rejected fundamentalist assertions of God as head of the government. Enlightenment thinking also nudged governments away from “survival of the fittest” ideas that feudalistic European societies had adhered to. However, not all the Founders accepted Englightenment values of liberty and toleration for all people, of course.
In the 20th century, further widening the chasm in American Christianity was Charles Darwin’s concept of evolution and the Scopes “Monkey” Trial of July 1925. Earlier that year, Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which made it unlawful in any state-funded school to teach human evolution, a scientific concept that challenged the fundamentalist view of the Bible as being the truth of God, thereby taking precedence over all human knowledge. High school teacher, John T. Scopes, was the first person prosecuted for violating this law.
Not only did the Butler Act and numerous others like it escalate the conflict between creationists and evolutionists, but nearly one hundred years later, these laws and fundamentalism continue to threaten the Age of Enlightenment principles that our representative government is based on. Since human knowledge, reason, and science are integral to these principles, is it any wonder then that Christian nationalism seeks to take us back to pre-Enlightenment thinking?
Lessons from Hitler’s Connection to Christian Nationalism
If we are to save democracy, we must recognize the aims of Christian nationalism and its massive radicalization which is taking place in America and abroad. Even if we can get dark money under control, which helps to fund this movement, Christian nationalism will not go away. Churches, especially, must confront these issues.
We have but to look at the connection between Hitler and Germany’s Christian nationalist movement to understand the dangers. Hitler secretly loathed Christianity but exploited Christians in his plot to take control of Germany. This was no different than Trump’s efforts today, as the Salon article, “What he really thinks: Trump mocks Christians, calls them ‘fools’ and ‘schmucks’,” effectively points out.
German rhetoric promoted a notion that Hitler was the “Chosen one” — a mirror of what many Christian nationalists believe today about Trump. Hitler presented himself as the Christ, the warrior, while, at the same time, he regarded the crucified Jesus as weak and disgusting. And millions of Germans became convinced that Hitler was their “Messiah,” come to save Germany from the terrible conditions caused by the Great Depression and the heavy post-World War I reparations they were forced to make to other countries for Germany’s role in the war. Many Germans bought into the “Big Lie” — that the Jews caused all of their misery.
The Jewish Telegraph Agency’s February 26, 1934, article titled “Hitler Regarded As Messiah by Germans; Says Economist” sheds light on the thinking of American Christian nationalists today and how they view Trumpism. This article states,
Even though Nazi Germany’s financial condition is becoming more and more serious, the German people will continue to regard their leader as a messiah and savior, Max Winkler, economist and statistician, declared yesterday in an interview.
‘The German always desires to follow some leader, even when the leader cannot lead well,’ Dr. Winkler explained. ‘Hitlerism is looked upon as a religious affair. Hitler is the savior and the messiah. Therefore, even if economic and financial [sic] conditions becomes [sic] worse “God wills it!”’
The article continues,
Discussing the effect of Hitlerism on the outside world, Dr. Winkler maintained that dictatorships inevitably have meant war. History as recorded gives ample proof of the accuracy of this statement. Sooner or later, he declared, what happened before will happen again.
Dr. Winkler was right; history repeatedly shows us that authoritarianism brings war. Beyond that, they lead to massive genocides of people whose race or beliefs or other attributes do not fit the ideal. World War II began a mere five and a half years later. More than 11 million people died in the Holocaust.
This will be our future if we don’t curtail religious radicalization and confront White supremacy, Christian nationalism, and the pernicious ideologies that they advance.
Coming Up…
In the next article, we will begin to examine a dangerous attraction that has infected society like a virulent virus and corrupted Christianity.
Next article in series >