In this week’s issue, Jeremy reports on the FlashPoint Live event held in Brownsville last week and its connection to Christian nationalism – Selling Snake Oil in the Promised Land.
To better understand Christian nationalism, The Lincoln Project’s Chief of Staff Ryan Wiggins recommends reading “Jesus and John Wayne” by Kristin Kobes Du Pez.
“It is about how the evangelical movement started and how we ended up with this Christian nationalism mindset,” said Wiggins on WCOA on Thursday. “It goes against what this country was founded on. We were separating from the Church of England, and we wanted to be able to worship how we wanted it and where we wanted and who we wanted. (Christian nationalism) slides in the face of all of that.”
She believes that Christian nationalism is harming the religion and more. “It’s running people away from Christianity, and it’s poisoning our democracy.”
She later asked, “What would you do if this was Muslim nationalism? That is what is happening over in the Middle East…The exact same thing these Christian nationalists are trying to do to this country is what the Muslim nationalists are doing to Iran…Either way, it’s an afront to human rights. And it is not our place to decide what other people have to believe.”
Thank God we are finally starting to have these conversations openly. Not talking about the Lincoln Project, which has been out there on the vanguard of calling all the strains out for what they are from the very beginning. But calling out other people’s religious practices and beliefs when they infringe on other people’s freedoms and autonomy has always been a third rail in this country, all the way back to the beginning, when Edmund Morgan’s “Visible Saints” first used a guise of religious freedom (their own) to disguise what was in reality its sinister opposite, punitive theocracy.
While the Bible Belt has always held a special place in the white supremacist and Christian nationalist honor rolls, this is by no means a Southern problem. I am sickened to see this fever taking hold in the Midwestern States, and in particular my home state of Iowa, where cultish beliefs that are far afield from benevolent religious observance and spirit are strangling the rugged individualism right out of what has always been a proud state of pragmatic and independent thinkers.
Having grown up in Catholic school in a small town in Iowa, I can honestly say that we had less religious dogma guiding how our learning and classrooms functioned–and that includes those led by the more regimental of many true Sisters of Mercy–than the current insanity in many of our public schools nationwide, and nowhere worse than Florida. (Congrats Andrade for garnering nation-wide infamy on bringing the most destructive higher education legislation the country has ever seen–hats off, sir!)
When we moved to Pensacola, although I wasn’t prepared for the degree of Pentacostal fervor in some of the churches here, I had already lived my entire adult life and much of my childhood attentive to being sensitive to religious beliefs that I didn’t share in those closest to me and in every sector of life. So I was prepared and content to hold and exhibit respect for other people’s cherished beliefs.
Then Underhill started weaving a brand of religion that I found revolting to my core into his speech and Facebook posts. And I remember looking at one of his increasingly perverse and bigoted “religious” rants, really studying it and thinking, “What the f**k IS this?” Because I had never encountered actual white nationalism in the present; I actually thought it was a relic of the past,. something that other places had done once upon a time. His racism and white supremacy were blaringly apparent, but the manner in which he was twisting Christian precepts and scripture into at first militaristic, and then over time authoritarian, bombast–recognizing that for what is actually was didn’t happen until it finally became apparent that Underhill wasn’t the perverse anomaly that those of us fighting him had thought, but merely an early adopter of practically everything that is destroying our democracy right now. Sadly–tragically–there was nothing original or special about his evil and villainy; he was actually just another sheep in the growing herd of a dangerous national cult, one who got to the party early.
The adage that God looks out for fools and madmen assumes that fools and madmen ramble in the midst of rational people. There is no tenant that assures God will look out for a society bending to a self-destructive cult tearing our social fabric, civic spirit, and system of justice to shreds.
Therefore it is WELL beyond time that the people who recognize just how dangerous a moment we have arrived at summon their courage, stop thinking that ignoring the danger will work, and start speaking out against what is happening as a result of this contagion of warped groupthink. Adults: haven’t we left *enough* disasters for our children and young adults to have to reckon with?
For those of you who understand the stakes, but continue to say nothing–what or who do you think is going to save your kids and grandkids from this? What knight on a white horse are you expecting to ride in and clear the mob from the town square?
Look at your kids, then look in the mirror. It’s not somebody else’s job to fix this.