Christo-Fascism

It’s Time to Talk About Violent Christian Extremism

Christian Nationalism's Role In The Insurrection Was Four Decades In The Making

The Heresy of Christian Nationalism

 

‘The Capitol Insurrection Was as Christian Nationalist as It Gets.’

 

The Growing Anti-Democratic Threat of Christian Nationalism in the U.S.

 

“Death throws of old power” Hopefully !

 

It's certainly shocking to think that 20% of Americans might be antidemocratic. Who are these people? The bylines say "Christian nationalists". The casual reader might think that these are Christians who happen to be nationalists, or vice versa. But as the Time article puts it well, "this is something more than the orthodox Christianity of ancient creeds; it is more of an ethnic Christian-ism." "Nation" is often used interchangeably with "country", but it actually describes an extended ethnic group or perceived ethnic group--a large group of people who perceive that they have in common shared culture and values that bind them together as a community. Christian nationalists are claiming that Christian values and culture bind them together as a national community, or that the heritage and culture of the United States are and/or should be fundamentally Christian. Of course, that runs afoul of the First Amendment Establishment clause, which immediately requires some fancy footwork to explain that the Founding Fathers didn't really mean that the Christian religion shouldn't be privileged or favored over others. We're off and running on another path to "alternative facts": the Founding Fathers weren't the secular Deists the librul historians say they are

Specifically, what kinds of "Christians" believe that? Not anyone whom Jesus would recognize as a follower. More like something Latter Day Pharisees and false Prophets dreamed up. The pool of Christians who are into Trump is relatively small and shallow--a subset of Evangelicals,who themselves account for about 36% of Christians and 25% of the U.S. population. And not all of these are the problem. I think there are actually three broad categories to distinguish: (1) the separationist, (identitarian, exclusivist) wing (about 3-5% of Americans),who want to exclude Jews, Catholics and non-whites from the national community; (2) the dominionists (about 5-7% of Americans), who think Christians should be dominant in political and cultural spheres; and (3) others who just want to advance the interests of their brand of Christianity.

The oldest and most notorious of the separationist/identitarian groups is the KKK, now estimated at 3,000 to 8,000 members in 42 klaverns active in 21 mostly southern states. Others are spiritual descendants of the Christian Nationalist Party of Pastor Gerald L.K Smith, who was a virulent anti-Semite and pro-Nazi during the 40s. The Christian Identity Movement, exemplified by Idaho-based American Promise Ministries and Arkansas-based Kingdom Identity Ministries, claims to be "God's Covenant People" who are rightful heirs to the Hebrew Patriarchs, while Jews are Satanic and non-whites are "mud people". The recently formed Divine Truth Ministries and its "political arm," the Nation of True Israel are similar claimants to being Anti-Semites and the successors to the Jews..

The Christian Dominionists are more mainstream. They represent the "postmillenial" wing of the Evangelical movement which believes Christ will not come again until Christians have taken their rightful control of our political and cultural institutions. Some are 7M adherents, especially strong among Pentecostals and New Apostolic Reformation members who think that Christians must take control of seven "Mountains" (aspects of society):government, religion, business, the media, education, the media, an entertainment. Others, called Reconstructionists, latter day Puritans of Calvinist persuasion, are followers of the late R.J. Rushnoody, who sought to establish a theocracy along Old Testament biblical lines based on Mosaic law. The Dominionists were previously the base of Ted Cruz, but many have switched allegiance to Trump out of expediency, believing that God sometimes works through flawed leaders like Cyrus the Great and King David in the Bible. (With Trump and Cruz, how more flawed can you get?)

The remaining Christian nationalists are mostly premillenial dispensationalists who think that Christians will soon be raptured before the Tribulation, but meanwhile seek to bring as many into the Christian fold as possible, while reshaping government in a Christian direction. These are the remnants of Rev. Fallwell's Moral Majority, Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and the "family values" followers of Rev. John C. Dobson.

Altogether, the three components of Christian Nationalism make up a political force which is non-rational if not irrational in pursuing political objectives at variance with logic and evidence. In the face of extremism, though, there is always the possibility of backlash. Christianity is rapidly losing adherents, despite or perhaps because of, its association with the political Right. Still, this is a vocal but minority component of Christianity--another cross to bear!

 

Indiana is full of Klaverns. They have more than 8000 in this state alone. They might have 8000 members in Marion alone!

 

Yeah; the Klan's a thing here, too.

 

'Allergic reaction to US religious right' fueling decline of religion, experts say

 

Of course, the Klan being secret, it's hard to get an accurate estimate of numbers. I was going by figures from the American Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. By all reports, Klan membership has been falling off. while newer AltRight hate groups. Hate groups grow more popular even as Ku Klux Klan membership plummets: Report Indiana does have quite a history as a hotbed of Klan activity, and seems now to be hosting some 30 Racist Skinead, White Nationalist and Neo-Nazi groups in addition to the Klan. Indiana Hate Groups: Map Shows Active Racist Organizations

 

That is right Tishomingo. They do call themselves The Invisible Empire. I have always examined what they stand for. And today I see the GOP stands for exactly the same principles of the old KKK. We could say the 80 million who voted for Trump are Invisible Klansmen? Ask your self if we'd be far off from the Law of Probability?

 

I left out Catholics in my overview of Christian Nationalism. Catholics are split on Trump, and only a small (but influential) minority can be classified as Christian nationalists. Historically, Catholics have tended to vote Democrat, but the Democrat embrace of pro-choice has made a difference. In 2016, Trump won 64 percent of white Catholics and Clinton won 31 percent, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of voters.How the faithful voted: A preliminary 2016 analysis Among white Catholics voting in 2020, 57 percent backed Trump and 42 percent backed Biden (who is Catholic), according to VoteCast.Trump wins white evangelicals, Catholics split Surveys show that the Trump supporters tend to be Catholics who self-identify as being "devout". Finding the Catholic Vote - EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll #2 Much of it can be ascribed to the abortion issue. My sister, who is a devout Catholic, threw her vote away on some bogus write in candidate rather than support Hillary and abortion, much to her subsequent regret. Of course, right to life is not the only issue salient to the Church and Catholics. There are also the Church's teachings on social justice and humane immigration policies that Retrumplican Catholics have to hold their noses and overlook.

There is a hard core of ultraconservative Catholics--in a sense more Catholic than the Pope, at least since Vatican II--who may be described as "Christian nationalists". I don't know if any were involved in the Capitol siege in January, but they certainly were active and influential in getting their conservative co-religionists onto the federal courts. A majority of the Supreme Court is now Catholic, although Justice Sotomayor is no conservative. One Catholic who helped bring that about was Leonard Leo, executive Vice President of the conservative legal association the Federalist Society and also on the board of directors of the Catholic Information Society of the ultra-conservative Opus Dei--the organization portrayed as fanatical villains in the DaVinci Code. Leo represents a movement in Catholicism called "Integralism", which basically is a Catholic version of Dominionism, only with Catholics instead of Calvinists running the show. Integralists believe that Christian (read Catholic) values should permeate American life, and that government has a duty to make that happen. Integralists oppose secularism and the separation of church and state, and favor government accommodation of religion on matters like religious monuments and displays on public property and religious ceremonies in schools and at public events. As Co-Chair of Catholic Outreach for the RNC, Leo was reportedly a key advisor to the Trump Administration in making appointments to the judiciary, as well as selecting conservative Catholic Bill Barr as Attorney General. Notable Catholic Integralist academicians include Professors Patrick Deneen, Notre Dame; Adrian Vermeule, Harvard Law Schoool (how did that happen?), Gladden Pappin, University of Dallas; Alan Fimster, Saint John Viannery Theological Seminary, Denver, CO. Timothy Busch, founder and CEO of Napa Institute and the Catholic business elite organization Legatus, provides a link to corporate donors.

There are also the Catholic charismatics, curious hybrids of Catholics and Pentecostals, who tend to lean Trumpward. One of their notorious adherents, Justice Amy Comey Barrett, was a member of People of Praise, given to speaking in tongues and receiving Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Given that they are a minority of a minority religion, it's doubtful that they'll succeed in establishing a Catholic-led Christian nation, but they can do a lot of damage in the meantime.

 

‘How Theocracies Are Born’: Experts Warn of ‘Trump’s Jesus Fascists’ After Report on Christian GOP Churches

 

They'll be facing an uphill battle trying to impose views like that on the great majority of the American population. My hunch is this will not go well for them. I hope Progressive Christians will eventually stand up to them, too. They are Latter Day Pharisees masquerading as Christians while worshiping their corrupt cult leader and crime boss, the Great Orange One. Jesus said we could tell the false prophets by their fruits and theirs are as bitter as wormwood.

 

Of course they're anti-democratic; they're only 14% of the population. However, they control the 25% of the population that are Republican, and the 73,781,603 people of the MAGA Cult, at least 30% of which believe that ‘true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country.' That's a bit over 2.2 million '"Christian Soldiers" who approve of domestic terrorism in the name of God; they are the Taliban.
Our politics have fallen victim to the primal scream of once-dominant White evangelicals. Having failed to capture the hearts, minds and souls of a majority of Americans, they have turned against democracy and embraced a militant white-supremacist Christo-Fascism. They are fighting to impose an authoritarian theocracy to rule over to a multiracial society in which they are a racial minority. They are a very real threat to our democracy.

']']Why are White evangelicals embracing an anti-democratic movement?

 

very simple, christo-fascism is the real anti-christ and the real taking of the name very much in vain, of a man who willing died fighting against exactly what they are.
goodness and the desire to be feared are absolute binary opposites, whatever anything is believed, disbelieved, exists or otherwise.

they can call themselves a bowl of oatmeal, but not as a free pass to rob others of their honest perspectives by trying to tell them what to believe,
especially trying to tell them that there is any goodness whatsoever in the desire to be feared.

evil in the name of good is evil twice, and they are very much the dawning place and exemplars of precisely that.

 

I have probably had a little too much to drink tonight. I am dealing with my horrible Christian sister who is quickly taking away all the freedom of my mom, now that my dad has passed on, under the pretense that she is growing senile and has to take her up to Washington to take care of her (She is not a senile elderly person who is unable to function by herself and should have all freedom taken away). And I am a horrible leech off of everyone, and a dirty hippie who probably uses foul drugs which the family doesn't even know about, and I am a horrible sinner who many decades ago divorced my loving first wife, who apparently must be my only true wife in God's eyes (regardless of how cruel she was), and I married my mistress, who is likewise a terrible sinner like me, and because I don't cut my hair I disgrace the whole family. I mean, she apparently must know all this about me because she constantly studies the Bible and the devil has tricked me with his dark arts so that I follow some savage Native magic. And all of this is happening while good Christian folk continue to walk freely as our Nation's lawmakers despite obviously having participated in a terrorist attack on our capital perpetrated by good Christian patriots. So I probably shouldn't respond at this time, but I will.

My sister, bless her heart, has inspired me to come up with the 3 pillars of Christianity: J. H. C. or, Judgement, Hate, Control.

Now I can hear the protests already. Jesus didn't preach that and clearly this is not how a good Christian is. These aren't Christian values!

But seriously, someone has to ask---Is the church today different from the church that tortured and put to death millions and millions of innocent people during the inquisitions? Is it really any different than the church that slaughtered countless Native men, women, and children, because they believe god wanted them to have the land in the Americas----manifest destiny. The good Christian settlers who went to church daily and then locked up whole villages in their longhouses and burned them down, and then celebrated a Thanksgiving for the Lord giving the cleared fields and village, possibly even with fields ripe for harvest to these Christian settlers, and that Thanksgivings were becoming so common that it was affecting the National GDP, so Abraham Lincoln had to establish one thanksgiving celebration a year. Is Christianity different today? Is the church any different today from the one that ran boarding schools in Canada, where, as of now 1,323 bodies of Native children have been found buried on the grounds of these schools, and you know that we will find the same thing in American boarding schools---because I have heard for years terrible stories of punishment and torture, cruelty, sexual assault, and death from Natives who actually lived in these schools------let me repeat that---I have heard the stories from people who have actually lived in these horrible institutions----they are living today and I know them.

Is the church any different from the one that forced my friend who is younger than me, to be adopted into a Christian family, because she was the daughter of a medicine ,man. She wasn't put up for adoption, the family was not drug addicts or broken or even impoverished----her father was a medicine man so she was taken from them and forced into adoption. Her Christian family taped her mouth shut until she learned to speak English. This didn't happen 100 years ago---this happened in the 1960's and she is younger than me. She was forced to go to church and she did not even know what her heritage was or who she was until a family member found her.

I told that story to my sister, because I introduced this friend to my parents and she help organize and coordinate the ceremony for my dad, which my sister---well that is another story... But my sister's response to this was, that family was not true Christians, that is not Christian love. But now she is stripping my mom of much of her possessions and taking away all her freedoms.

Seriously, how different is the church today as it sends missionaries out to indigenous people around the world, teaching that their ways are evil and stripping them of traditions, culture, their connection to their ancestors, and even their language. Christianity is a big force in the destruction of so many languages.

Look at the Pro-Life movement----that is so Christian and good and out to save the little baby fetuses, but it shames and demeans mothers in need of help, and it gets violent. What kind of religious movement sets out to kill doctors, and nurses and people visiting clinics? The Christian Pro-Life movement!

Is it just me? Or does anyone else feel that if they were a part of a movement that advocated violence and actually murdered people that I would immediately disassociate myself from it and not support it at all? You can't argue that---oh its just a radical arm of the movement, that is not what we are about----No! It is! And look what is happening, now they are getting the courts and lawmakers to put anyone in prison for longer than murderers and rapists and probably to death, for exercising a woman's bodily autonomy.

For the longest time I too would have argued that the church is different---it is more woke today-----but look at the past 4 years. Look at January 6th!

Now if you were to say, but the congregation I go to speaks out against such things. Well that's good but what are they really doing to stop this fascist crap? And sure, if you are a good Christian that believes and strives to practice the words of Jesus---and Jesus said not to judge others, and to love everyone, etc. then that is good. that is wonderful and I know there are Christians like that. And that's what it should be about.

But the church is about J. H. C.

 

Does your sister have your mother's power of attorney? If not, is there any way of getting that for yourself? How does your mother feel about being taken to Washington under your sister's care? Would you be in a position to take over that responsibility yourself? Can you afford legal counsel? You might challenge your sister's efforts to take control before it's too late. How does your mother feel about all of this?

Unfortunately, anybody can call herself a Christian, and the people most vocal in doing so are the ones who most resemble the Pharisees whom Jesus opposed. What kind of community is your mother living in? Are the folks around Evangelical Christians who would give your sister credence?If so, you may be facing an uphill battle.

I doubt that railing against Christianity will do you much good, although it may feel good. Christianity has been around for a long time and is the largest religion in the world. But it's hardly a monolith, and even Christians are able to understand the hypocrisy of other Christians. As somebody said, this country might have been a lot better off if, instead of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock had landed on the Pilgrims. But that's water over the dam. I'm both a Christian and a Native American. My people were moved off of our land and dumped here in Oklahoma cuz the white settlers wanted it. The Puritans read their Bibles and had themselves pegged as God's chosen people and us as the Canaanites, whom God despised for our heathen ways. What can you do with that level of irrationality? Nothing much, except don't let it eat away at you and trust in God. These people are not Christians, not real Christians anyhow, no matter what they might think. Eventually their evil will catch up with them.

 

As far as I know the only power of attorney is with my youngest brother who is also executor of the estate. My mother understands what she is getting into but she also knows that she can go to any one of her children's houses, and even my son has a room for her. I never really thought that my sister was evangelical, but I certainly wonder now. She certainly lives in a small conservative Christian community and they certainly give credence to her. My mom complained even last year when my sister was planning this that she didn't like the way she tries to control. And she has certainly been feeling it in the last month or two. My sister wanted her to get rid of many of her clothes, and I am hoping to take them so that they will be here in Colorado when she comes back.

I expected you would answer about my railing against Christianity. My sister would say the same thing if she did not know her part in this post, that they are not real Christians. But you, certainly more so than her, have the right to refer to who real Christians are. From what I understand of your beliefs and perceptions of the faith, I would say that you are one of the few worthy to say who real Christians are.

I look back at my own church that I grew up in. It was fairly progressive and there were theologians within the church that encouraged to explore and run with my ideas as I questioned the church and even as I looked into other religions and looked elsewhere for truth. I thought that if there was true Christian love and non-judgement, that certainly that would be the church that has it. But many years later, after years spent abroad, and after finding my spiritual home, I returned occasionally with my parents, especially when there was an adult Sunday school class that were reading a book that taught that everyone has their own spiritual path whether it is Christian or other.

But I found so much judgement and hate---the first time, I just wanted to open their minds a little so I handed out mushrooms. Boy you should have seen their eyes! The next time I apologized and served them tea as a peace offering. But then when I started explaining that it was a sacred sacrament---peyote tea, man they were like...! (OK this paragraph did not happen! I'm joking!)

But, seriously, people's true colors showed through in the class. They tried, but... There was also this thing they do before the actual church service on Sundays. They call it Caring and Sharing, I think. You would hear about things happening among church members or whatever. You would hear about people winning awards, or something good that happened, but then you would hear about a tragedy or illness or someone dying. It was during this time that you would catch glimpses of people's judgement, hate, and their attempts at control.

Of course, this is every religion. As a teenager I realized that the problem for me was the institution. But that doesn't excuse the belief system. The institution is what programs the people's beliefs.

I would be lying if I said that you don't find this in Native spirituality. Most of the Dine' I know are very uncomfortable with the fact that I, a white man, go to ceremony. And I don't blame them one bit, since the white man turned their ceremonies into a circus act for tourists. More than once I have been accused of cultural appropriation by members of certain nations, over simple things like, smudging, and I cant blame them either. And there is, of course, a lot of drama and it can be connected to traditions and so forth. Some of this drama comes from the impact of Western society, for example, the ongoing battle to resist change in the ceremonies. There is an attempt to keep things true to how it was taught by spirit--and this can get confusing. For example many believe that a yuwipi ceremony must be done in complete darkness, or the spirits will get angry. Yet there are medicine people out there who have learned from elders that the original yuwipis were not done in complete darkness, that this only became part of the ceremony because, being illegal prior to the 1970's, these ceremonies were done in secret. Anyway, the big difference is that this drama and exclusion and so forth is not grounded in the beliefs. Indigenous beliefs world wide avoid the dualism of religion, and instead they see the world as multiplistic. You therefore don't have the constant battle of good over evil and the separation of reality into two opposing halves all the way up to a grand cosmic scale.

It may not do any good to rail against Christianity, and that really is against my way anyway, where I try to be accepting and supportive of everyone's religious or spiritual beliefs. But there is a problem when we are moving away from the separation of church and state, and a handmaiden gets pushed into the supreme court and our capital is attacked.

On a cultural basis, I think the logical end conclusion of Christianity, or the Judeo-Christian tradition is the materialism of the modern age (and for those not familiar with materialism as a philosophy, I do not mean consumerism and focusing on material wealth, I mean belief in a reality that is fully contained in the physical or material world and that there is nothing else, no god, no spirits, nothing but the physical). The history of philosophical thought shows how that progression works. But this does not mean that everyone should be atheist. But perhaps it is time for a deconstruction of Christianity if it is to make sense in a future world after this postmodern era of nihilism and decadence.

How amazing and truly faithful would it be for a Christian, having stripped his/her religion of all the incentive of belief based on fear and exploitation, stripped of original sin, and the duality of good and evil, and the fear of fire and brimstone, and the judgement and control, and the self-righteous hate, to still believe in God and Jesus because of the teachings of love and peace, and because materialism doesn't explain the deepest questions and problems. That would be true faith.

 

When I call myself a Christian, I do so mainly because I'm inspired by the teachings and example of Jesus, which I take to be unconditional love of God and neighbor, especially society's rejects and least advantaged. Peace, love and understanding, that's my motto. One challenge Christians face is figuring out what Jesus did and said, since our only sources are gospels written down by anonymous writers several decades after He died. (I'm not including Paul, who claims to have gotten His knowledge from visions after Jesus' death). How do we "know" what Jesus said and did? We probably don't, but I tend to follow the methodology of most Jesus scholars which seems reasonable and the best we can do, using the criteria:early attestation, multiple independent attestation, dissimilarity and embarrassment, historical congruence, and coherence. Since I think the core teachings and actions attributed to Jesus are self-evident truths, it doesn't matter that much who said them and did them.

But you say the real values are Judgment, Hate, and Control. Obviously the people you're talking about aren't real Christians, regardless of what they call themselves--this regardless of whether 80, 90, or 100% of so-called Christians say it. Jesus said we could tell the false prophets from the real ones by their fruits. Values like the ones you've identified would yield bitter fruits of pure wormwood. As you mentioned, Jesus said we should be non-judgmental and love our neighbors.Those who do the opposite and call themselves Christian are being Pharisaical. I think a large part of the problem is that organized Christianity or the "church" went off the rails early on. I attribute the first misstep to Paul who made Christianity not about Jesus' life and teachings but about His death and resurrection, and salvation not about right conduct but about right belief. Paul was in competition with an alternative brand of Christianity that saw it as a sect of Judaism and stressed keeping Torah. This faction, the Jerusalem Church, was led successively by Jesus' brothers, and it's possible that if Jesus had lived longer he'd be in the same camp.In defense of Paul, if his opponents had prevailed, Christianity would probably have remained a fringe sect of Judaism and would probably have disappeared. The Christian Judaizers did disappear after the Romans sacked Jerusalem and caused them to flee to other parts of Palestine. The next misstep to Constantine, who made the Prince of Peace into General Jesus. Success can be corrupting, and after the Church became the Establishment things tended to go downhill. But I don't think Christianity is the Church. The Church is about creed, code, cultus (ritual), and community. I enjoy mainly the community. But the Methodist church I attend is facing a crisis over the gay issue, which is the subject of church politics. The Church has been a victim of its own success. Our missionary activities in Africa were so successful that now the Africans are a dominant voice in the Church and they tend to be homophobic. The issue has come to a head, and schism is inevitable--the big issue being who gets the building and the property. To me, the issue is, or should be, peripheral to what Christianity is about, which would seem to favor acceptance and love. I tend to go by what Jesus said about the matter, which is absolutely nothing. The bible thumper approach of citing proof texts--"it says here in Leviticus, and Paul said...."--is not my thing. So I'll go with the progressives when push comes to shove. I think we'll get along just fine.

I must say, I appreciate your interest in Native American spirituality, and hope you won't be out off unduly by the cold shoulder and comments about "cultural appropriation." This illustrates that Native Americans, like other humans, can be assholes, too. I've carried over the traditional sense of the Spirit as a pervasive force in nature. But universality wasn't one of our strengths. My people were warlike, took our Choctaw brothers as slaves, and tortured our enemies--"warts" that might be overlooked by uncritical admirers. I'm basically a believer in the "perennial philosophy" that finds elements of the divine in all religious traditions, but I also agree with Stephen Prothero that the differences are important, too.

 

I was sloppy here. My approach to the "clobber passages" commonly used by Christians to attack homosexuality is set forth in a recent post on the thread "Homosexuality, Christianity, and the Theory of Anachronism"... Post #5. What I do is look at these passages in historical context. Why were they written and what did they mean to the people who wrote them. Were they talking about the same-sex homosexual relationships we're dealing with today? The gang rapists of Sodom, the temple prostitutes of Deuteronomy, the lustful promiscuity of Corinth and Rome, etc.Unlike the "inerrantists", I don't regard the Bible as God giving dictation to be binding on all peoples for all time regardless of circumstances. I think of it as the words of men seeking God, written at different times for different purposes. "Out of context" passages have little or no meaning for me. Adam Hamilton, Making Sense of the Bible, chp.29, has a good discussion of the issue I pretty much agree with.