Is so-called white Christian nationalism really a threat to democracy, or is it a catch-phrase/concept meant to undervalue Christianity in general?
The Brookings Institute, a Democrat think tank based in Washington D.C., is hosting a February symposium called, “Understanding the Threat of White Christian Nationalism to American Democracy Today.”
Speakers include the quasi-conservative Peter Wehner, whose hatred of Donald Trump parallels the obsessive, anti-Trump tirades of late night “comedian” Jimmy Kimmel. Also on deck will be leftwing academic Anthea Butler from the University of Pennsylvania, author of the book, White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America. Butler also writes for The Guardian and is a commentator on MSNBC.
In 2015, Butler, who is black, received pushback from conservatives when she criticized Ben Carson (then a presidential candidate) for his views on the display of the Confederate battle flag at NASCAR races.
“Ben Carson,” Butler wrote on Twitter, “deserves the Coon of the Year award.” She was able to get away with that remark because she was criticizing a conservative black man.
In one of Butler’s video-recorded lectures, she’s speaking before an audience composed mostly of older, white, suburban liberal women. She opens her talk with commentary about her home state of Texas, suggesting that what Texas really needs is an influx of blue stream voters, the kind that made California what it is today.
She then segues into Texas’ penchant for banning books. But not “real” books mind you, classic works of literature like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that liberals like to ban, but leftist polemics about Critical Race Theory (CRT) written for toddlers and grammar school students.
Butler mentions LGBTQ books without explaining that these books, like the CRT material, are written for young children and are meant to be mainstreamed — force fed — into the school curriculum. Butler neglects to mention that the LGBTQ books are not pleas for tolerance as such but go to extremes in promoting transgender ideology for children (Dick, Jane and Spot have a right to change their pronouns, etc.)
One might say that the originator of the “there’s a white Christian nationalist threat to democracy” movement is Philip S. Gorski, co-author with Samuel L. Perry of the book, White Christianity and the Threat to American Democracy.
“What is replacing traditional religion?” Gorski asks, then answers, “Civil religion—or the proper relationship between religion and politics.”
What does he mean, exactly?
In an interview with Yale News, Gorski stated:
There are very startling commonalities between Buddhist religious nationalism, Islamic nationalism, and Christian nationalism. For one thing, they tend to have an apocalyptic view of history. They tend to think about history as a cosmic showdown between good and evil — in which, of course, they are on the side of good and everyone else is on the side of evil.
Gorski is intentionally ambiguous and careful to tow a moderate line in calling for an equal balance between politics and religion. But what he really wants is the creation of a wall between the two so that, going forward, religion will “know its place” whenever “politics” creates a powerful controversial moral issue that may rock the boat in some religious quarters.
In its press release for the February symposium, the Brookings Institute promises to reveal the results of a survey of more than 6,000 Americans regarding “the underpinnings of white Christian nationalism.”
The survey, the Institute states, will examine “how Christian nationalist views intersect with white identity, anti-Black sentiment, patriarchy, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim sentiments, anti-immigrant attitudes, authoritarianism, and support for violence.”
If this all sounds like typical leftwing psychobabble, that’s because it is.
The word “patriarchy” is a red flag here, indicating disapproval of traditional Judeo-Christian values (like rules against the ordination of women in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy). “Anti-Muslim sentiments,” another red flag, is a relative construct, since the Left considers any criticism of Islam as Islamophobic. The same can be said about CRT: if you’re against it, you’re anti-black and racist. Let’s not forget that the “anti-immigrant” label has been perverted to mean any commonsense criticism of illegal immigration and/or open borders.
Recently Yale News elaborated on the white nationalist Christian threat to democracy when it stated:
The protestors [referring to January 6] erected a large wooden cross and gallows. Some waved Rebel battle flags; others the Stars and Stripes. Some carried signs declaring that ‘Jesus Saves’ while others wore sweatshirts bearing white supremacist slogans. The men who invaded the Senate chamber — some clad in body armor, one wearing a horned headdress — invoked Christ’s name as they bowed heads and prayed.
But who hasn’t seen the Christian Left, a far more egregious problem than the Christian Right, thwart and invert the teachings of Jesus to suit the Left’s political agenda?
Lucas Miles, author of the book, The Christian Left: How Liberal Thought Has Hijacked the Church, writes how Critical Race Theory and liberation theology are being pushed in many Christian denominations. “The Gospel is not something that’s legalistic, and it’s important that we not fall into fundamentalism, either. But if we begin to downgrade Scripture to something other than the Word of God, Christianity begins to erode,” he writes.
“The Christian Left,” Miles writes, is “really good at hijacking terminology in order to ooze their way into being recognized” as Christian. One way they do this is by increasingly pushing for a “Christian Universalism” that says all paths lead to Christ:
I live in a red state and blue county, and there are probably four or five churches right around me that are flying a Marxist Black Lives Matter flag or Christian socialism symbol or a rainbow flag, and they’re flying those higher than the cross. I think it says a lot about where the churches in America are right now.
“Flying those higher than the cross” pretty much says it all when it comes to the Christian Left’s priorities.
In my own Russian Orthodox parish in Philadelphia, there are liberal elements at work to “Christian universalize” the Church, especially when it comes to feminist causes like the ordination of women. Although there’s absolutely no hope of forming a viable women’s ordination movement within Orthodoxy, there has been a small push by one or two of the women there towards setting a stage for the eventual establishment of a female deaconate sometime in the future.
Realizing that even this is nearly close to impossible, these feminist stalwarts push for a fuller participation by women in the Divine Liturgy, but not in a general way that would lend grace and substance to the service but in very specific goals like forcing the pastor to accept women readers of the Sunday epistle, traditionally a role only for tonsured Orthodox males, technically the first level of clergy in the Orthodox Church.
The Boston Globe attempted to flesh out the evils of white Christian nationalism in a November 2022 story on Arkansas’ state gubernatorial candidates, Chris Jones (Democrat) and Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Republican). (Sanders went on to become the first woman governor of that state).
“Sanders represents White Christian nationalism,” the newspaper stated in a matter-of-fact way, as if it listing the ingredients of a recipe for winter oatmeal. “Not only are Sanders and Jones in opposing parties, their professed faiths work themselves out very differently in the political realm.”
The story continues: “Sanders is White. She has a bachelor’s degree in mass communication from a small Christian college called Ouachita Baptist College, and has long been active as an adviser and campaign manager for Republican candidates.”
The article goes on to say that Sanders grew up going to Southern Baptist Convention churches, and explains that as the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, that organization can trace its origins to pro-slavery sentiments responsible for a split from Northern Baptists prior to the Civil War. The article also added a caveat: “The denomination previously made the news recently for devastating reports of widespread sexual abuse in its churches.”
The Globe then sinks into a partisan cesspool when it proclaims, “While one of the Ten Commandments says, ‘thou shalt not bear false witness,’ Sanders earned a reputation as press secretary for evasion and outright lying.”
The article devolves from there into glorifying leftwing Christianity as a champion of social justice causes like Black Lives Matter, while condemning “white right-wing Christianity” as leading “to violence to meet political ends.”
The Globe piece alone is an indication that leftist Christianity’s aim is nothing less than a “cosmic showdown between good and evil,” the good being the woke cavalcade of secular values, the bad being anything that harks back to (patriarchal) Judeo-Christian roots.
Every once in a while our woke pastor will blurt out something about white Christian Nationalism. Now considering the congregation is almost 100% white and older, and from the upper midwest, (upright and uptight Lutheran) it is unlikely they have ever heard of Christian Nationalism. They just sit there and accept whatever woke garbage is dispensed without giving it a second thought.
Whenever one of the pasters starts straying into the Leftist agenda I always tell them “How about a little more God and a little less woke”. I get the same blank stare from the pastors, as if they can’t imagine that they are insulting 50% of the congregation.
Sounds like you don’t go to a legit Christian Church if you have to constantly advise pastors to be less woke. Maybe you should find a new church? Yet, you stay there.
The ELCA is one of the largest Lutheran orgs in the country. So it is legit. It’s getting harder and harder to find a church that hasn’t been infiltrated.
I joined the church to play music there. The organist/pianist is one of the best musicians I have ever worked with in my life. So I will stay. She is remarkably free of leftist contamination. And that is why I stay.
And I didn’t say constantly. So presume to put words in my mouth. Do some research before you start blathering.
You reminded me of a news story from some time ago that speaks volumes regarding where the ELCA “Church” has gone astray. Here is the link: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-tornado-the-lutherans-and-homosexuality
It’s a shame but I try not to get involved in the politics of the ELCA. Apparently the Missouri Synod has also gone woke.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1616893656723587075.html
“Whenever one of the pasters starts straying into the Leftist agenda”
This indicates it happens often and not an isolated incident. Those are your words.
You go to church for the organist?
Boy, are you lost. You are not a Christian.
You just don’t get it do you. And I really don’t have to explain myself to you at all. But I’ll try. People go to church for different reasons. I would hate to go to the church you go to if you are an example of the congregation that marches in lockstep.
We had a nutbag clown on this comment board for a long time named Sumsrent. He didn’t like the fact that I played music at a church either and simply assumed a lot of things about me too, without knowing me at all.
So for you to say I am lost because I love playing music with her shows you to be pretty self-involved, shallow and judgmental. Perhaps a little soul searching on your part is in order.
As for my comment ““Whenever one of the pastors starts straying into the Leftist agenda” doesn’t indicate anything other than when they do that. It doesn’t indicate how often they do it. That’s something you simply made up.
So enjoy the bizarre world of Sebastion.
Judeo Christian is totally and completely anti history.
Look at Romes expansion into once Greek colonies in the levant, Macedonian expansion of colonies and the expansion of European colonies inbthe Mediterranean.
Mary the Mother of God came from a Roman city that was founded by Greeks.
The Roman coins had faces upon them, no Jew could use those currencies.
Christ rebuked the Pharisees and led folks to his Father speaking arahmaic, a persian language used for trade by Macedonian folk which became the only written language in the Med basin.
Judeo Christian is a lie at worst, ignorance at best.
The first Christian Church in Rome was from Britannia in the first century.
Look deeper
There are two camps that want to bring Haven to earth. One is generally the old line Denominations, the second is an errant branch of evangelicalism. The first is not Christian at all but rather Universalist and a rebirth of the twenty century “Social gospel.” The second is generally “Word of faith” (We are all little gods and can speak reality into existence,) not a Christian doctrine, and politically conservative. Haven will come to earth, but only after Jesus returns and destroys all evil.
Faith in, and loyalty to ,God and to one’s family are the competitors to state primacy and control. Both have to be devalued and ultimately destroyed for the secular utopia to be realized. The key battlefield for this struggle is in the realm of language. The secularists redefine words with new, corrupted meanings. i.e. love, marriage, woman, man, family etc. They then challenge people from their own religious and family orientation with arguments like, ” we are supposed to love everyone” or ” there are lots of different kinds of family” or ” my truth” or ” your truth”. The superficial thinker, when challenged by these, gets confused by the rhetorical games and can’t see that the secular definitions underneath the word have shifted. The result is being rhetorically fooled, step by step down a path to accepting ideas that are the complete opposite of their original beliefs.
Wrong. Those people believe in a false religion called Marxism where man is god. “Once saved always saved “ is an orthodox Christian doctrine.
We have incorruptible seed.
We also have crowns & rewards that are not secure; they are earned, and can be squandered faster than Democrats squander the budget.
The level of biblical ignorance in many of the comments to this story is stunning. Perhaps you should read it before you comment.
You have no idea what you are talking about, everything you write Is not true just made up jibberish.
Absolutely wrong. Wrong on all counts. Theologically wrong, analytically wrong… go do some research.
Christianity when practiced seriously inexorably leads to a Christian theocracy. The brutal history of Christianity is proof enough. Theocracy is a form of tyranny, tyranny is by definition Leftism. The Christians on the Left are the logically consistent Christians, the Christians who actually understand that the logic of Christianity demands the sacrifice of freedom and liberty to the brutality of theocracy. The Christians on the Right who think that Christianity actually endorses and leads to freedom, liberty, and capitalism are the Christians that are actually delusional.
“Religion versus America” – Leonard Peikoff
“Holy Scripture and the Welfare State” – Richard M. Salsman
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardsalsman/2011/04/28/holy-scripture-and-the-welfare-state/?sh=7038f62024f2
Obviously you are a proponent of the Big Lie……Goebbels favorite tactic. Repeat the lie often enough until it becomes the truth.
“Christianity when practiced seriously inexorably leads to a Christian theocracy.”
As if you can ever accuse anyone of practicing Christianity seriously. Fortunately for Christians your lie will never take hold. Among Leftists it has already taken hold which is why you are one. You simply hide behind the skirts of your religion’s founder.
The Communist Party’s 45 Goals to Destroy the United States:2 # 7. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”
# 28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
The other 43 have also been pretty much accomplished.
I’ve heard of “Christian Nationalism” but *white* Christian Nationalism?
That’s not how Stephan Wolfe describes it.
Christianity is weakened when people try to import Marxism into the church. Marx had all sorts of prejudices against Christian values like the family, Judaism and traditions. We can see that Marxism leads to totalitarianism. Likewise a certain religion of peace. Jesus spoke out against practices like stoning women for adultery or treating people unequally. Or hating one’s neighbor. Quite different from communism or other totalitarian ideologies.
A few years ago some Antifa youth was ranting on about the Racists Christians and their Racists Cross after the idiot did the commie salute he crossed a road and was struck and injured by a small Pick-Up because the moron didn’t bother to look both ways before crossing
GOOD HEADS UP MR. NICHELS. God knows his flocks, and they know the Good Shepherd. John said in 14:26. The Holy Spirit will teach you all things. and John 16:13. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. That means those that are really believers and have the Holy Spirit, are not fooled by deception.
Ephesians 6:12 tells us the battle in unavoidable, and the enemy is invisible. Satan is not God’s peer or counterpart. Only God is omnipresent, all knowing, all caring, and has the power to save. What you need to know: Satan means adversary of God. The enemy is antagonistic to the plans and purposes of God. He will always seek to misconstrue and malign the character of God and to thwart the purposes of God and His people. Satan is the “Father of Lies” his character contains NO TRUTH OR LIGHT. He seeks to falsify and deceive and he uses his disciples to blatantly misconstrue the truth and reality. WE SEE THIS EVERYDAY IN OUR LIVES NOW. Put on the Spiritual Body Armor of God. The Truth, breastplate of Righteousness, the Gospel of Peace, Shield of Faith, and Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the WORD OF GOD.
None of us know who goes to heaven. Only God knows a man’s heart. He is the judge.
The Globalists like Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab as well as the WHO, and Gain of Function funding from the US to create a virus from Wuhan China, they created a global crisis and pandemic to get people to take a destructive vaccine. They are all secular and atheists.