Katherine Stewart is an expert on Christian Nationalism who has researched its history, attends their conferences, and writes about their determination to destroy our freedoms. Read her recent book “The Power Worshippers.”
Her latest article in The New York Times reports on their recent dramatic gains.
She writes:
The shape of the Christian nationalist movement in the post-Roe future is coming into view, and it should terrify anyone concerned for the future of constitutional democracy.
The Supreme Court’s decision to rescind the reproductive rights that American women have enjoyed over the past half-century will not lead America’s homegrown religious authoritarians to retire from the culture wars and enjoy a sweet moment of triumph. On the contrary, movement leaders are already preparing for a new and more brutal phase of their assault on individual rights and democratic self-governance. Breaking American democracy isn’t an unintended side effect of Christian nationalism. It is the point of the project.
A good place to gauge the spirit and intentions of the movement that brought us the radical majority on the Supreme Court is the annual Road to Majority Policy Conference. At this year’s event, which took place last month in Nashville, three clear trends were in evidence. First, the rhetoric of violence among movement leaders appeared to have increased significantly from the already alarming levels I had observed in previous years. Second, the theology of dominionism — that is, the belief that “right-thinking” Christians have a biblically derived mandate to take control of all aspects of government and society — is now explicitly embraced. And third, the movement’s key strategists were giddy about the legal arsenal that the Supreme Court had laid at their feet as they anticipated the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
They intend to use that arsenal — together with additional weaponry collected in cases like Carson v. Makin, which requires state funding of religious schools if private, secular schools are also being funded; and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which licenses religious proselytizing by public school officials — to prosecute a war on individual rights, not merely in so-called red state legislatures but throughout the nation.
Although metaphors of battle are common enough in political gatherings, this year’s rhetoric appeared more violent, more graphic and more tightly focused on fellow Americans, rather than on geopolitical foes.
“The greatest danger to America is not our enemies from the outside, as powerful as they may be,” said former President Donald Trump, who delivered the keynote address at the event. “The greatest danger to America is the destruction of our nation from the people from within. And you know the people I’m talking about.”
Speakers at the conference vied to outdo one another in their denigration of the people that Mr. Trump was evidently talking about. Democrats, they said, are “evil,” “tyrannical” and “the enemy within,” engaged in “a war against the truth.”
“The backlash is coming,” warned Senator Rick Scott of Florida. “Just mount up and ride to the sounds of the guns, and they are all over this country. It is time to take this country back.”
Citing the fight against Nazi Germany during the Battle of the Bulge, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina said, “We find ourselves in a pitched battle to literally save this nation.” Referencing a passage from Ephesians that Christian nationalists often use to signal their militancy, he added, “I don’t know about you, but I got my pack on, I got my boots on, I got my helmet on, I’ve got on the whole armor.”
It is not a stretch to link this rise in verbal aggression to the disinformation campaign to indoctrinate the Christian nationalist base in the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, along with what we’re learning from the Jan. 6 hearings. The movement is preparing “patriots” for the continuation of the assault on democracy in 2022 and 2024.
The intensification of verbal warfare is connected to shifts in the Christian nationalist movement’s messaging and outreach, which were very much in evidence at the Nashville conference. Seven Mountains Dominionism — the belief that “biblical” Christians should seek to dominate the seven key “mountains” or “molders” of American society, including the government — was once considered a fringe doctrine, even among representatives of the religious right. At last year’s Road to Majority conference, however, there was a breakout session devoted to the topic. This year, there were two sessions, and the once arcane language of the Seven Mountains creed was on multiple speakers’ lips.
The hunger for dominion that appears to motivate the leadership of the movement is the essential context for making sense of its strategy and intentions in the post-Roe world. The end of abortion rights is the beginning of a new and much more personal attack on individual rights.
And indeed it is personal. Much of the rhetoric on the right invokes visions of vigilante justice. This is about “good guys with guns” — or neighbors with good eavesdropping skills — heroically taking on the pernicious behavior of their fellow citizens. Among the principal battlefields will be the fallopian tubes and uteruses of women.
At a breakout session called “Life Is on the Line: What Does the Future of the Pro-Life Movement Look Like From Here?” Chelsey Youman, the Texas state director and national legislative adviser to Human Coalition Action, a Texas-based anti-abortion organization with a national strategic focus, described the connection between vigilantes and abortion rights.
Instead of the state regulating abortion providers, she explained, “You and me as citizens of Texas or this country or wherever we can pass this bill, can instead sue the abortion provider.” Mrs. Youman, as it happens, played a role in promoting the Texas law Senate Bill 8, which passed in May 2021 and allows private citizens to sue abortion providers and anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion. She was exultant over the likely passage of similar laws across the nation. “We have legislation ready to roll out for every single state you live in to protect life regardless of the Supreme Court, regardless of your circuit court.” To be sure, Christian nationalists are also pushing for a federal ban. But the struggle for the present will center on state-level enforcement mechanisms.
Movement leaders have also made it clear that the target of their ongoing offensive is not just in-state abortion providers, but what they call “abortion trafficking” — that is, women crossing state lines to access legal abortions, along with people who provide those women with services or support, like cars and taxis. Mrs. Youman hailed the development of a new “long-arm jurisdiction” bill that offers a mechanism for targeting out-of-state abortion providers. “It creates a wrongful death cause of action,” she said, “so we’re excited about that.”
The National Right to Life Committee’s model legislation for the post-Roe era includes broad criminal enforcement as well as civil enforcement mechanisms. “The model law also reaches well beyond the actual performance of an illegal abortion,” according to text on the organization’s website. It also includes “aiding or abetting an illegal abortion,” targeting people who provide “instructions over the telephone, the internet, or any other medium of communication.”
Mrs. Youman further made clear that Christian nationalists will target the pills used for medication abortions. “Our next big bill is going to make the Heartbeat Act look tame, you guys; they’re going to freak out!” she said. “It’s designed specifically to siphon off these illegal pills.”
Americans who stand outside the movement have consistently underestimated its radicalism. But this movement has been explicitly antidemocratic and anti-American for a long time.
It is also a mistake to imagine that Christian nationalism is a social movement arising from the grassroots and aiming to satisfy the real needs of its base. It isn’t. This is a leader-driven movement. The leaders set the agenda, and their main goals are power and access to public money. They aren’t serving the interests of their base; they are exploiting their base as a means of exploiting the rest of us.
Christian nationalism isn’t a route to the future. Its purpose is to hollow out democracy until nothing is left but a thin cover for rule by a supposedly right-thinking elite, bubble-wrapped in sanctimony and insulated from any real democratic check on its power.
We can understand from the article, “Noted Mental Health Expert…”, Raw Story, 7-11-2022, why Christian Nationalism is winning, The expert examines the ineffective communication of Democratic spokespersons when confronted with narcissists and bullies. A few critical points the expert makes, narcissists are declarative rather than explanatory. They don’t care about contradicting themselves. Narcissists can not be partially narcissistic. They push you to the limits of what you can tolerate emotionally. When they see a person restraining him or herself, they push harder. The advice offered by the expert, (1) never expect them to act differently (2) never expect them to be decent and, (3) always hold a bit of yourself back so you’re not off balance.
Greg, thanks for providing a response example for me to follow in the future. It took the article above to wake me up. The cause I believe in was hindered by my failure to make the right replies to some commenters sooner. In a defense that appears lame even to me who is offering it, I let a mixed message like when Biden defends Mitch McConnell or some other win-at-all costs authoritarian throw me off..
About two thousand years ago, a radical rabbit from a tiny village showed up in the big city of Jerusalem with a following that he had attracted on the way. He taught that the existing order would soon be overthrown. A Messianic character called the Son of Man was going to show up within the lifetimes of those then living and would overthrow the existing order and establish a New Jerusalem on earth in which the lowest people would be the highest and the highest would be the lowest (the last shall be first, and the first shall be last). Ofc, the authorities rapidly arrested the guy, mocked him as “King of the Jews,” and crucified him.
Flash forward three hundred years and a bunch of cults with differing beliefs had arisen around the stories told about this rabbi. One of these cults received the official imprimatur of the Roman Emperor Constantine. But it taught a very different message than the one originally preached by Rabbi Yeshua, one that involved not the creation of an Earthly Paradise of brotherly love but one involving pie in the sky when you die in a distant, far-off heaven, and a complete rejection of Earthly things (a Contemptus Mundi) as lower and evil. The new version of the religion was perfect for command and control because it handed to the Church and the Crown control over the keys to that kingdom to come AND taught submission in this life. And the Church that emerged from this was extremely authoritarian. It was all about hierarchy and the infallibility of an almighty, centralized authority.
And now, here we are in the 21st century, and the inheritors of this second tradition–we might call them the Theocons–want to create a theocratic government in keeping with that tradition. Call it dominionism or Catholic integralism or just plain old theocracy, but it is fundamentally undemocratic.
cx: A radical rabbi
(not rabbit, lol)
I thought that was hilarious: leave it be 🙂
Thanks for the reference to Catholic integralism. I was unfamiliar with the term.
” a radical rabbit “?
Like this?
A wadical wabbit
EXACTLY — great connection
Christian nationalism is a nice way to say they are fascists, and these theofascists will bring back the inquisition if they get the power they want. They will also wage modern day crusades against anyone that doesn’t tow the line.
Estimates of the number killed by the Spanish Inquisition, which Sixtus IV authorised in a papal bull in 1478, have ranged from 30,000 to 300,000. Some historians are convinced that millions died.
https://thecripplegate.com/how-many-people-died-in-the-inquisition/
And I wouldn’t be surprised if their theofascist leaders would pull off what happened in France when one Pope sent armies to wipe out the Christian Cathars in southern France, because they were having too much fun. At least 200,000 to at most 1,000,000 Christian Cathars were killed for not living life exactly as Pope Innocent the 3rd mandated.”
“The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229; French: Croisade des albigeois, Occitan: Crosada dels albigeses) was a 20-year military campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, in southern France.”
Which gave us the Christian motto, “Kill them all. God will sort them out.”
We need to change the official motto of the United States (and of Flor-uh-dah) away from In God We Trust to In One of the Thousands of Invisible Friends That Different People around the World Believe in We Trust
catchy, huh?
Fox News, 7-11-2022
“Catholic Vote Launches $3 Mil Midterm Ad Campaign Aimed at Kicking Catholic Dems Out of Office.”
Catholic Vote really likes Hungary’s strongman, Orban.
No more tax exemptions for religion’s authoritarians who plot to destroy democracy.