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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?

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So, there's a lot happening here. The evangelical push has been dominated by protestant denominations, including Baptists, but in recent years there's been a surge in the Catholic arena, including a lot of these ideologues converting or taking up the church's banner. In the meantime, they're kind of putting their differences aside, at least on a surface-level, to attack secularism/liberal democracy. And for sure, there are secular components of this, too. Christianity makes for a hell of an overlying ideology to secure capitalism and exploitation. Tons of these people use it as a weapon.

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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.

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Aug 3, 2022·edited Aug 3, 2022

"by embracing a politicized faith, the wielders are able to justify any action, any oppression, any act of violence."

It's like their talk of civil war, which doesn't mean literally "We're firing on Fort Sumpter next week!" but acts as justification for violence by individual actors.

Most people need exceptional circumstances to justify violence (self defense, war, a revolution to overthrow a tyrant) and the rhetoric has to check off these boxes, like a permission slip for murder.

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