The Cross and the Flag: Christian Nationalism and the Corruption of History
The Cross and the Flag: Christian Nationalism and the Corruption of History
The Right's most dangerous weapon is an intentional warping of our past
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Where this has all been heading has been so clear for so very long.
The Republican Party’s incessant reliance on evangelical Christianity as a worldview has given the game away, revealing that the rollback of the progress of the 20th century would be achieved using the faith as the means and rationale. Eventually, with enough momentum, the usefulness of evangelicalism would mix with the political project and give rise to Christian Nationalism.
And so, here we are. After years of the GOP embracing Trumpism, during which the white evangelical community doted on Donald Trump and treated him as an agent of God or an impure messiah, we have reached a moment where the political divide is now considered a holy conflict between Good and Evil. Some of us have been warning about this for years because we watched it grow and foment all the way back in the 1980’s and knew what to look for. Others are still trying to wrap their heads around the problem or simply denying it exists at all
The crux of Christian Nationalism as an existential threat is this: by embracing a politicized faith, the wielders are able to justify any action, any oppression, any act of violence. Christianity, as is the case with all monotheistic faiths, posits that there is only one true belief that is constantly and relentlessly under threat, meaning it has an absolute mandate to defend itself via any means necessary.
St. Augustine, one of the foundational thinkers and leaders of the church, called this “righteous persecution.” The concept holds that when the one and true church persecutes others in order to further its rightful ends, then it is justifiable and necessary. When the church is persecuted, however, that is not only wrong but certain to lead the world astray from God’s plan and directly into the hand’s of waiting Evil.
This apocalyptic narrative is incredibly useful. It places, in the believer, an unchallengable agenda that, if opposed, will only lead to ensured destruction. As this is a conflict between “revealed” (information handed down from God in the form of revelation or dictate) and empirical knowledge (measurable, objective information), even the most obvious facts and figures are rendered moot in comparison. It is, to put it mildly, an airtight and absolute power.
Simply put, you can rollback reproductive rights. Because God wants it.
You can destroy all protections for gay and queer Americans. Because God wants it.
You can literally reverse any and all progress, eliminate civil liberties and civil rights, change the entirety of everything simply because you claim that “God” told you to. This includes representative government, culture, open society itself. Because it is deemed “his will.”
It is a story that makes a new political reality possible, and the more people who believe that story, and it is gaining traction, and the more people willing to lay their lives and fortunes on the line for that story, and there are many, the more chance there is that the story itself will make significant changes not just possible but likely.
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At the heart of the story of Christian Nationalism is a simple and easily disproven lie. To claim ownership of the United State of America, the Right must twist and pervert history, turning the Founding of the nation into something it never was.
Many Republicans and evangelicals claim America was explicitly founded as a Christian nation, but this is wildly untrue. The purpose of the lie is to express ownership of the country since the beginning, a twisted version of the stories white supremacists have used since stealing and appropriating the land of Native Americans. In both cases, the fabrication is beyond flimsy.
What doesn’t get taught in conventional history is that the Founders, in addition to creating a system explicitly to protect their wealth and power, also fashioned the beginnings of liberal democracy as an antidote to religious-based society. The revolt against the monarch - itself an institution firmly founded on power through divine right - was part of an ongoing effort to sever the secular from the religious. In fact, the architects of the revolution, here and elsewhere, labored for years in the shadows, forming secret societies where they could openly discuss the need to move beyond fundamentalist systems.
These radicals recognized the dangers all too well. The split between Catholicism and Protestantism resulted in widespread chaos and political instability. Millions upon millions were killed in affiliated wars. Massacres became commonplace. Civil wars, violence in the streets. A literal Hell on Earth.
Even the American colonies couldn’t escape the pull. In addition to the witch hunts and persecution we’ve all become familiar with, religious-based conspiracy theories created bizarre scenarios where true believers carried out calamitous plots, including the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1689, where Protestants in Maryland overthrew Catholic leadership in an outright coup.
For all of the Founders’ faults, and there are many, one of their true achievements was recognizing the danger of religious-based politics and offering an alternative. Liberal democracy, with its laws and institutions, was explicitly intended to replace this old and dangerous system, putting in place something that could move religion from the public sphere.
This is about more than just the separation of church and state as a principle. This is the entire basis of liberal democracy as we know it, which is why the Right is looking to destroy it entirely.
This new push for Christian Nationalism echoes previous moments in our history, including the evangelical drive in the 1980’s that partnered with Ronald Reagan to radically transform the nation. This iteration, however, is playing for all the marbles.
What ideologues are interested in isn’t just a Christian regime, but what the story and mythology of Christianity can accomplish. For some, this is about true belief. There are evangelicals who believe, without question and with full faith, that a Christian-based America is necessary should we not descend into a hellish, apocalyptic existence. And then there are others, including wealthy donors obsessed with destroying the “scourge” of democracy itself, who see the faith and its assorted features as incredibly useful in preparing a base of supporters to accept any and all reactionary options.
So far what we have seen is this: a Republican Party that has used weaponized conspiracy theories and Christian apocalypticism to seed radicalism within its base and make possible preemptive violence, oppression, and a range of antidemocratic actions. By using the stories, they can explain a stolen Supreme Court, they can explain rigged elections, they can explain the kind of widespread action necessary to make these regressive plans a reality. And, in the long run, the rolling back of the clock from the start of liberal democracy, which largely began here, to the days of religious-based systems of power in which democracy has been neutralized and entrenched wealth rules over an unquestioned hierarchy.
Stories are useful, incredibly so, and hardly any has ever been so useful as Christianity, which has been co-opted and weaponized for centuries. To ignore this now is to turn the other way as this project continues on, and it is absolutely continuing on. That we have arrived here, with open calls for Christian Nationalism, for Christian Nationalist churches to sprout from nearly every corner of the country, for the name alone to be a rallying cry, is an indicator of where we are and where we are going.
Question: A lot of Christian Nationalism seems to start from Catholic sources. But is it more fair to say that this push to overthrow democracy is arising more or less equally from all branches of Christianity? And are their non-Christian sources of this ideology?
It's so disheartening to see all this time and effort put into instutitionalizing opression. This energy and focus could improve so much about our society. It never ceases to amaze me that groups will stake their identity to making things that much more awful. On purpose. I understand intellectually that people want to be part of a group and exclusion is an easy shortcut to this. Emotionally, I can't grasp it.