Making Sense of the Christian Nationalist's Genuine Belief in God's Righteous Plan

For paid subscribers, I invite feedback on this first draft of an academic style paper that looks to explain how Genuine Belief in God's Righteous Plan is central to Christian Nationalist claims.

In this first draft of an academic style paper, my first one in 15 years, I look to explain why progressives should consider Genuine Belief in God's Righteous Plan to form the root of Christian Nationalist claims, despite the fact that Christian Nationalists maintain political commitments to such insidious ideologies as White Supremacy and Patriarchal Misogyny. Subscriber feedback is welcome, whether by e-mail or in the comments below.

In this paper I argue that those who are ostensibly leading the opposition to Christian Nationalism, which I call 'progressives,' don't understand that Genuine Belief in God's Righteous Plan (GB-GRP) epistemologically precedes every other commitment, including insidious beliefs like White Supremacy (WS) and Patriarchal Misogyny (PM). When progressives attack CNists through the lens of WS or PM, they have their glasses on backwards. The problem, as I see it, is that it's both pragmatic, and often far more urgent to go after WS and PM, if only because we can quantify harms from WS and PM. But going after WS and PM and calling it going after CNism is like cutting down a strong tree but leaving the roots intact. It has an immediate felt impact, but leaves GB-GRP in the ground, ready to provide support for the next generation of WS and PM saplings to come up. If progressives want to tackle CNism, they have to figure out how to understand, quantify, and eliminate the roots of CN: Genuine Belief in God's Righteous Plan.

To help make my case, I borrow some concepts from Michael Lynch, who asks if people actually believe memes they share online. He makes distinctions between the beliefs held by an individual and their political commitments, and then again between held political commitments and the political meaning of a particular shared vehicle. In short, I argue that while the CNist politically communicates WS and PM, his beliefs actually reside with GRP. Following Lynch, then, just as any given political commitment can come undone from the political meaning of a communicated idea, which in turn can be distinct from actual held beliefs, I argue that treating WS and PM as constitutive parts of CN treats them as if they were the root of the CNist tree, and not its strong and visually imposing trunk; until progressives understand that WS and PM, as political commitments, are distinct from and come after GB-GRP, which are hidden beliefs, they will continue to fail at excavating the rotten roots of Christian Nationalism.