Post by ck4829 on Feb 16, 2022 18:21:01 GMT
White Christian nationalism’s Threat Has Not Gone Away
A riot. An attempted coup. God’s will. An example of “legitimate political discourse.”
As efforts to investigate or rewrite the history of the January 6th Insurrection carry on within Congress, a group of thinkers who focus upon the place of faith in the civil sphere offer other observations. Namely, the Insurrection was a violent, obvious example of the threat of white Christian nationalism, and one worth interrogating to better understand how this worldview might further impact our country.
A new report, “Christian nationalism and the January 6, 2021 Insurrection,” offers a depiction of how the religiously-coded political ideology of white Christian nationalism was primed for violence last year. Its mythology is pervasive across many U.S. churches, with an overarching will to political power braided into loose Biblical claims. Political wins for Christian conservatives are treated as God’s will. An insular narrative, assisted by certain news networks and websites, amplifies a sense of political manifest destiny for white Christian Americans.
Over recent years, that perspective also became synonymous for many with Donald Trump’s rise.
The report details the dizzying overlay of Christian nationalist rhetoric and symbolism that fed into the Capitol riot and was understood by many rioters as its justification. As one of the report’s authors, Andrew L. Seidel, a constitutional attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, notes, Christian nationalism created a permission structure that gave the Insurrectionists “the moral and mental license” to try to overturn a free election and attack our government. “The attackers told us loudly and repeatedly what they believed and why it justified the attack.” If we ignore this worldview, “we are inviting future attacks,” Seidel maintains.
At a time when many of the insurrectionists are still held up as “heroes” and “the good guys” by influential faith leaders, Seidel’s warning ought to be heeded.
White Christian nationalism is typically defined as a cultural framework with “a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, and value systems that idealize and advocate for a fusion of Christianity with American civil life,” explains Andrew Whitehead, professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. While white Christian nationalism does include certain statements of faith, “it also is really more of a conservative, ethnic, cultural political orientation,” Whitehead clarifies. Those underlying beliefs mesh with white supremacy, authoritarian tendencies, patriarchy, and militarism.
Samuel L. Perry, sociology and religious studies professor at the University of Oklahoma also contributed to the recent report. Perry notes that there is a strong correlation between white Americans who believe founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are divinely inspired, that the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation, and that it was black lives matter and antifa who started the violence on January 6, 2021. They are also most likely to believe Donald Trump was not to blame for the riots.
Katherine Stewart, journalist and author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious nationalism, notes “Trump’s coup attempt really began when he started spreading the lie about election fraud. And Christian nationalism made its contribution, even before that, by establishing the conditions on the ground that would make such an attack on the constitutional system possible in the first place.” Those conditions included: the creation of a misinformation bubble with a large block of supporters separate from facts; a sense of persecution; and a belief among the target population that the legitimacy of the United State’s government derives from a commitment to a particular religious heritage.
In this way, white Christian nationalists could style themselves as patriots fulfilling God’s will. As Stewart points out, these believers had been told repeatedly — at church, rallies, and by Trump himself, that ours is a Christian nation. They were also lied to, told over and again that their faith was under attack, that the Bible was on the verge of being outlawed.
They saw their position as divinely mandated, fighting the election results a moral obligation to protect their version of America.
American Christian nationalism is indeed white Christian nationalism. As Anthea Butler, Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of White Evangelical Racism, points out in the report that slavery in the U.S. was enabled by white Christian nationalism, “in part by using scriptural justifications to support it.” After the Civil War, the Confederate defeat was recast by some as a noble cause, one that entwined Christian themes with white supremacy. The KKK, Butler notes, “was explicitly formed as an organization that was the literal expression of white Christian nationalism. White robes, burning crosses, and rituals combined with nationalist thought and imagery to create scenes of terror throughout America.”
The entanglement between Christian nationalism and terror are made stark in the report over two sections packed with details delineated by Seidel.
Seidel describes the Million MAGA March (November 14, 2020), Jericho March’s Let the Church ROAR Rally (December 12, 2020), and Women for America First (December 12, 2020) as important precursors to the Insurrection. At these rallies, those gathered claimed they were doing the will of God. Proud Boys attended the Million MAGA March, “met in prayer, and then they later rampaged through the city burning and stabbing,” summarized Seidel.
Two federal workers who opposed Biden’s election win organized the Jericho Marches — playing on the Biblical story in which God orders his followers to march around the city of Jericho blowing shofars and carrying the Ark of the Covenant. In the Bible story, the walls of Jericho fall and God orders his followers to kill every living being inside.
In the Jericho Marches, protestors were sent to march around “the spiritual walls of this country” — the U.S. Capitol, state capitol buildings, the Supreme Court and Department of Justice. These prayer-meets-protests normalized marching on halls of power. Ads for one of the Jericho Marches, Let the Church ROAR, described the time after the 2020 election as a threat to the nation, a last stand, with language such as “we’re going to protect this president… this is our fight, this is for our freedom.” A trailer for the event described an America at a crossroads, with one path leading to a return to “founding Judeo-Christian principles” and the other to SOCIALISM, globalism and destruction. At the December Let the Church ROAR event, Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to Trump, described bringing light “inside the walls of the deep state,” saying “inside of this barricade, we’re going to knock those walls down… So be proud, be proud as Christians.”
gen.medium.com/white-christian-nationalisms-threat-has-not-gone-away-bf6021dae041
A riot. An attempted coup. God’s will. An example of “legitimate political discourse.”
As efforts to investigate or rewrite the history of the January 6th Insurrection carry on within Congress, a group of thinkers who focus upon the place of faith in the civil sphere offer other observations. Namely, the Insurrection was a violent, obvious example of the threat of white Christian nationalism, and one worth interrogating to better understand how this worldview might further impact our country.
A new report, “Christian nationalism and the January 6, 2021 Insurrection,” offers a depiction of how the religiously-coded political ideology of white Christian nationalism was primed for violence last year. Its mythology is pervasive across many U.S. churches, with an overarching will to political power braided into loose Biblical claims. Political wins for Christian conservatives are treated as God’s will. An insular narrative, assisted by certain news networks and websites, amplifies a sense of political manifest destiny for white Christian Americans.
Over recent years, that perspective also became synonymous for many with Donald Trump’s rise.
The report details the dizzying overlay of Christian nationalist rhetoric and symbolism that fed into the Capitol riot and was understood by many rioters as its justification. As one of the report’s authors, Andrew L. Seidel, a constitutional attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, notes, Christian nationalism created a permission structure that gave the Insurrectionists “the moral and mental license” to try to overturn a free election and attack our government. “The attackers told us loudly and repeatedly what they believed and why it justified the attack.” If we ignore this worldview, “we are inviting future attacks,” Seidel maintains.
At a time when many of the insurrectionists are still held up as “heroes” and “the good guys” by influential faith leaders, Seidel’s warning ought to be heeded.
White Christian nationalism is typically defined as a cultural framework with “a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, and value systems that idealize and advocate for a fusion of Christianity with American civil life,” explains Andrew Whitehead, professor of sociology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. While white Christian nationalism does include certain statements of faith, “it also is really more of a conservative, ethnic, cultural political orientation,” Whitehead clarifies. Those underlying beliefs mesh with white supremacy, authoritarian tendencies, patriarchy, and militarism.
Samuel L. Perry, sociology and religious studies professor at the University of Oklahoma also contributed to the recent report. Perry notes that there is a strong correlation between white Americans who believe founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are divinely inspired, that the federal government should declare the U.S. a Christian nation, and that it was black lives matter and antifa who started the violence on January 6, 2021. They are also most likely to believe Donald Trump was not to blame for the riots.
Katherine Stewart, journalist and author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious nationalism, notes “Trump’s coup attempt really began when he started spreading the lie about election fraud. And Christian nationalism made its contribution, even before that, by establishing the conditions on the ground that would make such an attack on the constitutional system possible in the first place.” Those conditions included: the creation of a misinformation bubble with a large block of supporters separate from facts; a sense of persecution; and a belief among the target population that the legitimacy of the United State’s government derives from a commitment to a particular religious heritage.
In this way, white Christian nationalists could style themselves as patriots fulfilling God’s will. As Stewart points out, these believers had been told repeatedly — at church, rallies, and by Trump himself, that ours is a Christian nation. They were also lied to, told over and again that their faith was under attack, that the Bible was on the verge of being outlawed.
They saw their position as divinely mandated, fighting the election results a moral obligation to protect their version of America.
American Christian nationalism is indeed white Christian nationalism. As Anthea Butler, Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of White Evangelical Racism, points out in the report that slavery in the U.S. was enabled by white Christian nationalism, “in part by using scriptural justifications to support it.” After the Civil War, the Confederate defeat was recast by some as a noble cause, one that entwined Christian themes with white supremacy. The KKK, Butler notes, “was explicitly formed as an organization that was the literal expression of white Christian nationalism. White robes, burning crosses, and rituals combined with nationalist thought and imagery to create scenes of terror throughout America.”
The entanglement between Christian nationalism and terror are made stark in the report over two sections packed with details delineated by Seidel.
Seidel describes the Million MAGA March (November 14, 2020), Jericho March’s Let the Church ROAR Rally (December 12, 2020), and Women for America First (December 12, 2020) as important precursors to the Insurrection. At these rallies, those gathered claimed they were doing the will of God. Proud Boys attended the Million MAGA March, “met in prayer, and then they later rampaged through the city burning and stabbing,” summarized Seidel.
Two federal workers who opposed Biden’s election win organized the Jericho Marches — playing on the Biblical story in which God orders his followers to march around the city of Jericho blowing shofars and carrying the Ark of the Covenant. In the Bible story, the walls of Jericho fall and God orders his followers to kill every living being inside.
In the Jericho Marches, protestors were sent to march around “the spiritual walls of this country” — the U.S. Capitol, state capitol buildings, the Supreme Court and Department of Justice. These prayer-meets-protests normalized marching on halls of power. Ads for one of the Jericho Marches, Let the Church ROAR, described the time after the 2020 election as a threat to the nation, a last stand, with language such as “we’re going to protect this president… this is our fight, this is for our freedom.” A trailer for the event described an America at a crossroads, with one path leading to a return to “founding Judeo-Christian principles” and the other to SOCIALISM, globalism and destruction. At the December Let the Church ROAR event, Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to Trump, described bringing light “inside the walls of the deep state,” saying “inside of this barricade, we’re going to knock those walls down… So be proud, be proud as Christians.”
gen.medium.com/white-christian-nationalisms-threat-has-not-gone-away-bf6021dae041