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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Speaking as a (liberal) boomer, white male, Roman Catholic, I can only say amen! They try to act like theirs is the definition of real Christianity.
Please, please yes this. Everyone please!
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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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Yes, historically my “sect” pretty much has the original sin in this regard. Fought wars over it even. But it does evolve. And it’s a large tent, too. I wouldn’t fit otherwise.
Christo-fascist religious perversion, unfortunately, has found increasingly fertile ground over the past 40-50 years (at least). Reasons for that are a different discussion.
But it’s absolutely being exploited for political and economic power.
[ETA from the referenced MSNBC article:]
As Tyler told lawmakers, “Christian nationalism uses the language, symbols and imagery of Christianity — in fact, it may look and sound like Christianity to the casual observer.” Meadows cited language from the New Testament to encourage a political ally to persist in overturning a democratic election on behalf of a would-be autocrat. As Tyler noted, though, “closer examination reveals that it uses the veneer of Christianity to point not to Jesus the Christ but to a political figure, party, or ideology.”
(Italics added)
Few would be persuaded whose heads are already turned. But this observation can speak precisely to the End Times theology embraced by most of the Christian Nationalists. Also to the broader group of literal fundamentalists they tend to be descended from.
It draws parallel to the Antichrist predicted to arise before the coming Rapture. But in that view it would paint Trump in the role of Antichrist.
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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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Perhaps “Aryan National Christianism”?
[ETA] (As in Germany’s “National Socialists” aka Nazis )
Oh no, I’ve done it now. Whose law is it that every internet discussion eventually devolves to somebody comparing somebody else to Hitler?
But in this case I just can’t be sorry . . . The shoe does fit.
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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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