Shining a Light: Christian Nationalists in Their Own Words
The Christian far-right has become very bold in their desire to turn the United States (w/ Canada not far behind) into a theocracy, finally putting written word to long whispered thoughts.
Before I get into my roundup of Christian Nationalists in their own words, I wanted to share a piece from Kristin DuMez, author of the controversial book “Jesus and John Wayne.” In it she talks about how negative reviews helped to propel sales of her book, and acknowledges that many Christian Nationalists (CNists) today rely on backlash and negative reviews, both on Twitter and elsewhere, to drive sales and exposure of their materials. She explores the challenges found in, as I like to call it, “exposing the deeds of darkness,” but ultimately concludes that careful engagement with the material can lead to a better understanding of the problem: “As a scholar tracking the shifting Overton window,” DuMez says, “I find that having some of these conversations in the open can bring accountability and clarity. Similarly, an author’s response to criticism and push back can reveal further context for their thinking.”
My purpose in sharing the below material is two-fold:
I’m interested in the subject and fear for a future where CNists are free to rule.
I want others to be aware that CNists are not another form of benign Christian belief, but presents a real risk to the secular democratic project.
We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives - John Daniel Davidson - The Federalist
Right wing politics in North America is increasingly marked by the view that the Left - always nebulously defined - has already won the culture wars. The defeatism is a prelude to a radicalism that is marked by a distinct move away from ideology and theory and towards taking unilateral action, violence be damned. What is notable about screeds like the one below is that they are appearing in mainstream conservative publications like The Federalist Magazine, rather than simply running blogs within a far-right online ecosystem.
Put bluntly, if conservatives want to save the country they are going to have to rebuild and in a sense re-found it, and that means getting used to the idea of wielding power, not despising it. Why? Because accommodation or compromise with the left is impossible. One need only consider the speed with which the discourse shifted on gay marriage, from assuring conservatives ahead of the 2015 Obergefell decision that gay Americans were only asking for toleration, to the never-ending persecution of Jack Phillips.
The left will only stop when conservatives stop them, which means conservatives will have to discard outdated and irrelevant notions about “small government.” The government will have to become, in the hands of conservatives, an instrument of renewal in American life — and in some cases, a blunt instrument indeed.
To stop Big Tech, for example, will require using antitrust powers to break up the largest Silicon Valley firms. To stop universities from spreading poisonous ideologies will require state legislatures to starve them of public funds. To stop the disintegration of the family might require reversing the travesty of no-fault divorce, combined with generous subsidies for families with small children. Conservatives need not shy away from making these arguments because they betray some cherished libertarian fantasy about free markets and small government. It is time to clear our minds of cant.
In other contexts, wielding government power will mean a dramatic expansion of the criminal code. It will not be enough, for example, to reach an accommodation with the abortion regime, to agree on “reasonable limits” on when unborn human life can be snuffed out with impunity. As Abraham Lincoln once said of slavery, we must become all one thing or all the other. The Dobbs decision was in a sense the end of the beginning of the pro-life cause. Now comes the real fight, in state houses across the country, to outlaw completely the barbaric practice of killing the unborn.
Conservatives had better be ready for it, and Republican politicians, if they want to stay in office, had better have an answer ready when they are asked what reasonable limits to abortion restrictions they would support. The answer is: none, for the same reason they would not support reasonable limits to restrictions on premeditated murder.
On the transgender question, conservatives will have to repudiate utterly the cowardly position of people like David French, in whose malformed worldview Drag Queen Story Hour at a taxpayer-funded library is a “blessing of liberty.” Conservatives need to get comfortable saying in reply to people like French that Drag Queen Story Hour should be outlawed; that parents who take their kids to drag shows should be arrested and charged with child abuse; that doctors who perform so-called “gender-affirming” interventions should be thrown in prison and have their medical licenses revoked; and that teachers who expose their students to sexually explicit material should not just be fired but be criminally prosecuted.
If all that sounds radical, fine. It need not, at this late hour, dissuade conservatives in the least. Radicalism is precisely the approach needed now because the necessary task is nothing less than radical and revolutionary.
To those who worry that power corrupts, and that once the right seizes power it too will be corrupted, they certainly have a point. If conservatives manage to save the country and rebuild our institutions, will they ever relinquish power and go the way of Cincinnatus? It is a fair question, and we should attend to it with care after we have won the war.
The Christian Nationalist, here typified by Stephen Wolfe, author of a recently published book promoting Christian Nationalism, is not motivated by any kind of commitment to human love, decency, or equality. He is motivated by a Genuine Belief in God’s Righteous Plan (GB-GRP), which has been revealed to him through the Bible, and constitutes the blueprint for an eternal heaven right here on earth. As I have argued before, too many progressives underestimate the power of GB-GRP.
Lessons in Theocracy from Savonarola - Michael Warren Davis - The American Conservative
In this piece, Michael Warren Davis appeals to 15th century Italian Catholic theocrat Fra Savonarola, most famous for leading the so-called Bonfire of the Vanities, a mass burning of secular and 'deviant' literature and artwork in Florence in 1497.
And what’s crucial is that Savonarola never required anyone to commit their belongings to the bonfires. He couldn’t: he never held public office. His leadership was purely symbolic. Nevertheless, his pleas were so effective that hundreds of Florentines answered his call, including many of her artists. Michelangelo and Botticelli were both supporters of Savonarola. (Some modern historians claim the latter was “forced” to burn his less tasteful works. That’s a lie. In fact, Botticelli was so devastated by Savonarola’s death that he quit painting altogether.)
Savonarola’s detractors claim the friar simply had a priggish dislike for boobies and wieners in art. That’s absurd. True, we have no idea what paintings Botticelli destroyed. But we know he kept the Birth of Venus. Michelangelo never disowned his David. In fact, he painted the Sistine Chapel under the friar’s influence.
Honestly, there are few people who know less about art or history than an art historian. Tune them out. Let Savonarola speak for himself. It’s easy to see how a true artist might not only agree with his sermons, but draw inspiration from them. For instance:
“Beauty is transfiguration, it is light. Essential beauty, in its perfection, must therefore be looked for beyond the sphere of visible objects.... The more creatures approach and participate in the beauty of God, the more are they themselves beautiful, just as the beauty of the body is in proportion to the beauty of the soul. For, if you were to take two women of this audience, equally beautiful in body, it would be the holier one that would excite the most admiration amongst the beholders, and the palm would assuredly be given to her even by worldly men.”
Fra Girolamo believed that good art should be celebrated, bad art should not, and pornography should be destroyed, because it debases the beauty of the human form. This is Savonarola’s legacy. He was the greatest curator of Renaissance art the world has ever known.
What makes Savonarola unique among history’s theocrats is that he never sought out the job. He wasn’t angling for regime change. He only wanted to save souls.
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