Tag: Christian Nationalism

An American Kingdom

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A new and rapidly growing Christian movement is openly political, wants a nation under God’s authority, and is central to Donald Trump’s GOP

FORT WORTH — The pastor was already pacing when he gave the first signal. Then he gave another, and another, until a giant video screen behind him was lit up with an enormous colored map of Fort Worth divided into four quadrants.

Greed, the map read over the west side. Competition, it said over the east side. Rebellion, it said over the north part of the city. Lust, it said over the south.

It was an hour and a half into the 11 a.m. service of a church that represents a rapidly growing kind of Christianity in the United States, one whose goal includes bringing under the authority of a biblical God every facet of life, from schools to city halls to Washington, where the pastor had traveled a month after the Jan. 6 insurrection and filmed himself in front of the U.S. Capitol saying quietly, “Father, we declare America is yours.” Continue reading.

Christian nationalism is a barrier to mass vaccination against COVID-19

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While the majority of Americans either intend to get the COVID-19 vaccine or have already received their shots, getting white evangelicals to vaccination sites may prove more of a challenge – especially those who identify as Christian nationalists.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in February found white evangelicals to be the religious group least likely to saythey’d be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Nearly half (45%) said they would not get the COVID-19 shot, compared with 30% of the general population.

Some evangelicals have even linked coronavirus vaccinations to the “mark of the beast” – a symbol of submission to the Antichrist found in biblical prophecies, Revelation 13:18. Continue reading.

Historian explains the huge mistake ‘increasingly desperate’ evangelicals make in backing Trump

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The latest Pew Research poll shows that 72% of white evangelical Protestants approved of Donald Trump’s work as president in June, and 59% strongly approved. That number was slightly lower than his approval earlier in the year. But about 82% of white evangelicals said they would vote for Trump, even higher than the proportion who voted for him in 2016. 35% say that Trump has been a “great President” and 34% say he has been “good”. No other religious subgrouprates Trump positively.

His pronounced support for the evangelical political agenda has been obvious since he became a candidate. In January 2016, he told Iowa evangelicals at Dordt University, a Christian college in Sioux Center, in his typically egotistical phrasing, “We don’t exert the power that we should have. Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else.”

Why didn’t an irreligious and publicly immoral candidate present moral difficulties to a religious group which has traditionally emphasized the close connection of faith and character? Many skilled researchers and analysts have tried to understand how people who profess such devotion to Jesus and the Bible could see Trump as their prophet. I have no better explanation than anyone else. Continue reading.

‘Authoritarian, paranoid, and patriarchal’: The dark roots of Christian nationalism gave us Trump

AlterNet logoKatherine Stewart is the writer who first introduced me to the term “Christian nationalists” almost a year ago. I had previously referred to the group that has shown unwavering support for Trump as “white evangelicals.” But that is a bit of a misnomer, primarily because, as we saw with the article in Christianity Today calling for the president’s removal from office, there are pockets of white evangelicals who aren’t part of the movement. There are also members of other religious groups that espouse the same beliefs. For example, Catholic leaders like Attorney General William Barr and Federalist Society President Leonard Leo are major players in the Christian nationalist movement.

Bringing some clarity to the make-up of the Christian nationalist movement is just one of the myths Stewart busts in her upcoming book titled: The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, set to be released on March 3rd. Equally important for us to understand is that this movement isn’t simply about culture wars.

It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity answering to what some adherents call a “biblical worldview” that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders…This is not a “culture war.” It is a political war over the future of democracy.

Continue reading.

US Christians Speak Out Against Christian Nationalism

Christian leaders in the U.S. are speaking out against Christian nationalism, joining an initiative spearheaded by BJC and signing on to a statement of opposition.

“Christian nationalism harmfully suggests that to be a good American, one must be Christian or that to be a good Christian, one must be American,” said Amanda Tyler, BJC’s executive director. “BJC recognized an urgent need for a strong response from the Christian community to denounce Christian nationalism as a gross distortion of our faith and a dangerously divisive movement for our body politic.

“Working with a number of other Christian leaders, we have developed a statement for any self-identified Christian to associate with as a way to take a stand against Christian nationalism. We hope to have a robust response from a broad diversity of Christians.”

The statement calls Christian nationalism “a persistent threat to both our religious communities and our democracy” and “a damaging political ideology,” asserting that it distorts “both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy.”

View the July 29 commentary by the EthicsDaily.com staff on their website here.

Historians of Christian Nationalism see disturbing parallels to today’s tax cut battle

The following article by Jack Jenkins was posted on the ThinkProgress website December 8, 2017:

The legacy of Christian libertarianism.

This is the fourth in a series on Christian nationalism and the religious groups supporting Donald Trump. You can read the first one here, the second one here, and the third one here.

CREDIT: DIANA OFOSU/THINKPROGRESS

As Republicans celebrated the passage of their sweeping tax reform bill last week, religious liberals were equally quick to vent their frustration. Thousands of faith leaders signed letters decrying how the bill will increase the number of Americans without health insurance by 13 million over the next eight years, and others were arrested while protesting the bill that stands to disproportionately benefit the rich.

But their outcry was dismissed by conservative voices such as blogger Erick Erickson, who insisted the bill’s critics were trying to “pass off” their “individual” Christian responsibility to the poor to the “government.” Continue reading “Historians of Christian Nationalism see disturbing parallels to today’s tax cut battle”