Originally published at: A great primer on the rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States | Boing Boing
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this brilliant book by Kristin Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
She sounds brilliant indeed on this topic, and I look forward to finding the book.
As the book’s title implies, shouldn’t “Christian Nationalism” instead be called something like White Christian Nationalism?
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It seems to me that claiming your own sect is the only real Christianity is a thing that’s been going on for at least 1800 years.
And leads to this wonderful joke from Emo Phillips: Emo Phillips - Golden Gate Bridge - YouTube
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I want to know about the other 26 gods.
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Thanks for pointing out this book, Jennifer. I will read it in 2023.
I watched the entire linked interview Prof Du Mez gave on PBS, and felt an acute psychic sympathetic pain when she tells us that she started doing the research, thinking, I can explain this; I can do something about this, only to realize this ideology is so deeply embedded that she could merely “document” it. I suspect many of us have had similar feelings…
George Lakoff has written extensively about different ideologies and their “cognitive policies”: how they seek to literally change neural circuitry in the brains of their adherents. Du Mez’s book seems to be along these lines, but from an historian’s perspective.
This - Jesus and John Wayne - seems to get at (or near) the heart of what I’ve long seen as “christian fascism” in the US. I grew up all around it, yet was a pagan who never went to church and only read the Bible on my own in my late teens, 'cuz I wanted to understand what all the shouting was about. I remember thinking, after reading the New Testament, that Jesus seemed like a proto-Marxist to me, so where did all these xtian a-holes I grew up with get their dipshittery?
(Later, I read French radical Catholic Jacques Ellul’s book Anarchy and Christianity, which made sense to me. Alas, the violent anti-intellectual xtian dipshits I grew up with will NEVER see their “faith” in any way close to the way I see it. And anyway, my “spirituality” couldn’t possibly be further from theirs. Note to the NSA: yea, I know Kaczynski loved Ellul’s The Technological Society; I’m for nonviolence, dudes!)
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Just added to my reading list. Thanks!
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I’ve posted about this before:
“When THEY succeed in changing the nation’s designation to The United Christian States of America, your freedoms are toast~”
I once pissed off a judge when I refused to swear an oath on a bible. I made him use
the U.S. constitution. It will be humans who punish me, not some mythical superpower.
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Read the kindle excerpt; came out with the uneasy feeling that her argument may be too good to be true. Certainly it aligns fully with my prejudices about Trump and the religious right.
free to read
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Maybe, but can you think of a case where this kind of religious nationalism isn’t tied to race in some way? The modern concept of nationalism is often about producing the nation, and that ties in intimately with ethnic or racial identity…
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Hmmm, how are say, the Taliban tied to race? They certainly have a religion-based “nationalist” vision and such. I’d say it’s more connectable to ethnicity, maybe.
At any rate, I say “white” should be added in this case because it largely is such an avowedly white supremacist movement. Why not mark that as well as the Christian element?
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Call them “nationalist Christians” – Nat-Cs for short.
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The future Empty-G advocates for would have her pregnant, barefoot, and relegated to the kitchen, with no interest in her opinion what-so-freaking-ever.
Her unawareness of this irony is the only amusement i can find.
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In the end, even the leopards’ faces get eaten.
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Well, I was talking specifically about the concept of national identity, which is a primary driver of nationalism historically speaking (if not the only one)… but the taliban certainly prioritize their own ethnic group (the Pashtun) over others. Remember when we hear about them here, it’s specifically through the prism of the “war on terror” which seeks to simplify what such groups are doing and why and push the single narrative of religious oppression by Muslims. They’re certainly driven by their interpretation of religion, but also by their desire to “defend” the Pashtun people and what they see as their “proper” way of life.
I agree with that, I’m just arguing that this current wave of Christian nationalism is also associated with White supremacy. I think they are indistinguishable at this point, so it seems a bit redundant.
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Only to wise ones such as yourself who are in the know.
Whiteness is still a de facto, taken for granted norm in so many situations in the U.S., so I generally think it should be marked more often, but especially in an insidious case like this one. YMMV, as we know.
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Maybe.
Yeah, good point!
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Once you’re that far out, you’re looking at things like Christian Identity rather than stock Christian Nationalism. I find two useful tools for sorting the two groups is their relationship to the state and the degree of their white supremacy. If they view the state as a tool to weld to their political views, probably Christian Nationalist, if they view the state as unsalvageable, more likely heading towards Identity. Do they just have a general centering of whiteness, or do they believe other ethnic groups are literally demonic animals? The more salvation is a strictly whites only affair, the more they fall in the Identity camp.
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