The Christian Nationalist Hydra: In Era of Trump, Christian Nationalism Has Many Faces - TPM – Talking Points Memo

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#21

Part of the problem here is a dumbing-down of the American public about religion generally.

It is not just in the schools, but public school teachers are (often justifiably) allergic to discussing religion in any way whatsoever. One result is that a whole swath of students grow up and have little understanding of how religion functions in societies, or how religion has shaped American institutions, reform movements, socio-economic strata, etc.

Meanwhile, seminaries all over the country continue to close as Christian church attendance declines, especially in the best-educated denominations. Sunday school has become insipid or has vanished in many places.

White Christian conservatives, meanwhile, have hitched their horses to a highly politicized version of Christianity, including the things Posner and others mention, such as megachurches, dogmatic colleges and universities, etc.

And of course much of what is happening is a massive reaction against what Robert P. Jones called “The End of White Christian America.” It might not change the end result, but it makes getting there–to a non-coercive, racially and religiously diverse nation–far more harrowing.

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#22

All of the above.

#23

I think the vanishing of Sunday School can be attributed to women working outside the home and no longer have time for UNPAID work.

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#24

What a bunch of unconstitutional bullshit. Try reading and understanding the First Amendment, yokels!

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#25

These people have been privately at this project since probably the late '60s, and publicly, with the fundie takeover of the Southern Baptists, since the 1980s. A lot of us “exvangelicals” have been screaming about the danger for decades.

But the upshot is always the same: People say, “That’s awful! Somebody ought to do something.”
And then everybody calms down, while the Christian Nationalists continue chipping away at the foundations and the whole edifice tilts a bit farther. Repeat ad nauseum. I guess it’ll have to tip over completely, and then we’ll pay attention.

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#26

I think two things need to happen. First Democrats need to re-examine and re-state to Americans the reasons for separation of Church and State in the first place. The founders had experience with the hell that Churches can inject in the body politic if they are given a role in government. They were only about 80 years removed from the Salem Witch Trials and the founders were well aware of the horror that some sects often impossed on people of other faiths both here in the US and in Europe.

More recently devout Christians massacred Latter Day Saints in Missouri and Illinois while LDS members perpetrated the Mountain Meadows Massacre a few years later. Giving good Christians guns and orders to “convert” their neighors can lead to death and destruction.

Second Democrats need to be loud and proud about the positions they take on behalf of all Americans.-- often literally “What Jesus Would Do.” The Democratic platform is far closer to the creating the kind of world Christ (Budda, Mohammed etc) envisioned than the Republican platform. Democrats need to be loud and proud about that.

The Democrats shouldn’t hide from Christian Nationalism. Instead they should confront it directly at every opportunity.

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#27

Christian Nationalism: oxymoron?

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#28

Note the qualifier.

“patriotic Christians must engage in spiritual warfare to rid America of demonic forces”

I’m not sure any Christians are safe. Allowing a Republican government – Trump or Johnson doesn’t matter – means that everybody (including church people and corporation persons) must accept scrutiny by outsiders. They must accept judgment on their conformity… by non-members.

The so-called “American experiment” is, at least in part, the story of very, very diverse people coming here for the promise of freely exercising their religious teachings of being good through the expression of love.

The demonic hunt happening in the United States right now isn’t Christianity or even religion. It’s subjugation of government and religion to the arbitrary whims of commerce and sex.

The problem is men. Mad men in power.

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#29

That’s an important piece.

Another element is the increase in youth sports and other activities taking place on Sundays, which used to be less common.

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#30

It is now the Cross of Trump.

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#31

There’s a direct historical line from the European reformations to this Christian Nationalist movement. John Calvin’s Geneva was always a problem for the larger states around it; radical Protestant groups occasionally took over town governments in the Low Countries; the Peasant Revolt in 1525 scared the crap out of the Holy Roman Empire. Luther shouted a lot about those revolting peasants.

When splinter denominations and larger institutions heard about the New World, they immediately thought, “Hey, we could move there/send the splinter groups there” to get out of trouble in Europe. This was also the era when European men got into beards as a fashion statement because it set them apart (and supposedly made them more masculine) from Native Americans.

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#32

Why did Deists write our Constitution?
Did God take time off and missed the writing or what?

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#33

If women hadn’t entered the work place, Sunday schools would still be staffed. Kids would be better indoctrinated in good old time religion. You make it sound like religious miscogyny is a good thing.

I will say that my father fought to stop his wife going into the work place but my mother did so to save her own mental health and to help the people she was called to help. My mother was right. We shouldn’t and can’t go back to the 1930s.

The good old days were not as good as a lot of religious misogynists think they were. Women obtaining equality not only helped them but also the rest of us. Political and economic equality should be society’s goal because it helps all of us.

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#34

This may be carping. But I read the following:

…right-wing and GOP figures, including Marjorie Taylor Greene and the CEO of the Daily Wire, the podcast consortium run by conservative influencer Ben Shapiro, have embraced…Nick Fuentes

as a claim that Shapiro has endorsed Fuentes, which I found shocking. I went to the TNR link, and realized it doesn’t make that claim. But only after starting to write a comment here did I realize that Posner isn’t making that claim either.

Calling out the Jewish founder by name, while eliding the name of the CEO who actually cozied up with Nazis is…unfortunate. Might I suggest changing the wording to clarify that it’s Daily Wire’s Goreing who embraced Fuentes? I really don’t like Shapiro or his politics. But suggesting that he “embraced” a Nazi is inaccurate and troubling.

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#35

Hail Hydra!

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#36

Pukalicious photo.

#37

Bingo. Christian fundamentalism is no different than all the other disparate strands that go into making up the sort of self-contradictory ideology that is modern conservatism. Like economic conservatism or libertarianism, they start out with a “just leave me alone” attitude, but once they get what they want, we find out that what they wanted all along was not independence, but domination over the rest of us.

Economic conservatism isn’t about the free market, it’s about extending serfdom to the rest of society. And, as Noam Chomsky observed, libertarianism is the peculiarly American form of authoritarianism.

So it is with religion. No belief system that posits patriarchal dominance of the family and unquestioned belief in a mystical dogma that has no basis in empirical reality, and (most important) is “evangelical,” (meaning they believe it is their duty to pester others until they convert), is ever going to be “live and let live” with the rest of society.

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#38

According to Focus on the Family right wing moron James Dobson, working mothers are the #1 reason why American society has become, in his words, a hellscape.

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#39

Funny but before the current crowd took over the Southern Baptists, the Baptists were four square against the church in the public space.

You are right, what we are seeing feels like a plot that has been playing out for decades. It is called Dominion Theology or Dominionism. It is an organized plot to change the United States to a country of Protestant Christians, by Protestatnt Christians and for Protestant Christians based on their idea of biblical law. It is anti-Catholic, anti-Islam, anti-Morman, anti-agnostic and anti-athesist. It embraces only some sorts of Protestants. If memory serves it was popular among white Christian leaders. Its first great victory was taking over several of the fundamentalist Christian seminaries.

Maybe we here at TPM ought to look deeper into this domestic threat to our country.

The first question is Christian Nationalism simply a modern branding of Dominionism or is it different.

I haven’t thought about Dominion Theology for a couple of decades.

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#40

Their violence is inevitable.

The only thing anyone needs to decide this November is whether they want them committing it with the power of the federal government as their weapon.

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