Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
by
by
BlackOxford's review
really liked it
bookshelves: american, history, church, philosophy-theology, sociology The Apocalypse Is Nigh... No Really, It Is
Sometime in 2009, I heard a radio broadcast from the US which claimed that the culture wars which had been bubbling up since the 1970’s were finally at a end. The commentator, whose name I have mercifully forgotten, opined that the recent financial crash had brought Americans back to their senses. The real political issues, he said, are and always have been economic. Only half listening, I did feel a sense of relief that perhaps indeed American politics were becoming, if not more rational, at least more comprehensible.
How arrogantly ignorant was that commentator; and how utterly naive was I. Perhaps it was because a liberal, intelligent, engaging black man was in the White House. Perhaps it was because the fundamental problems of financial capitalism could finally be observed fully. Perhaps it was because the consummate stupidity of American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan had yet to be fully revealed. But whatever the reasons, it was simply not possible to be any more wrong about what had happened, and what would continue to happen to American political sentiment.
While the big news stories were about the usual raft of scandals in the Catholic Church, lies about military progress, and the search for someone to blame for recent economic misery, the real news lay largely unreported and even unnoticed. A coup had already taken place within American government, not in the palaces of the president or the governors (well, maybe a few of these), but in the school boards, county executives, local sheriffs and judges, and most importantly in the activists and delegates of the Republican Party.
Somewhere around 40% of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, that is they believe in things like Creationism, the Second Coming, the eternal damnation of the unbaptised, and the sinfulness of many sexual practices. Many of these folk also regard the ills of society, from criminality to mental illness to bad government to be the result of the failure of Americans generally to respect and live up to what they perceive as the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And they desire to bring the country back to God through a re-Christianised law of the land.
But it is a mistake to attribute the political fervour of Christian evangelicals to faith, just as it is a mistake to attribute the equal fervour of Muslim activists to faith. In the first instance, most enthusiastic religious followers have little idea of the content much less meaning of the doctrines on which their political interpretations are grounded. As in all of history, they rely on theological leaders - local pastors, media preachers, and activist acquaintances - to inform them of correct opinion. As the leadership changes, so orthodox opinion also changes, sometimes even the beliefs themselves (Mormon racism is but one example). Credal attestations are but passwords to community.
The solidity of religious opinion in America depends overwhelmingly on one thing: community. Even before the country’s foundation, the church - initially the Congregational non-conformism of New England, then the Methodist and Baptist preachers of the expanding frontier - provided the principal social glue. Subsequently, the political structure of the country - states, counties, and municipalities that are independent of each other as well as of the national government relied almost exclusively on the churches to maintain whatever unity they had created across political boundaries.
This has always been the case. The only recognised relationship, for example between the government of a state and that of the federal government or that of a county or municipality is through the law. The State of Florida recently lost an important suit against the state of Georgia about farmers in the latter killing off oyster beds in the Gulf. There was no other way to mediate the dispute. The small community of Cedar Key, Florida (population 724 in 2018, where I once had a summer cottage), on the other hand, has ten active church congregations. Each of these is part of a regional or national ecclesiastical organisation. Even the independent Pentecostal congregations (of which there are three), have long-standing direct ties with sImilar groups around the country, organising exchanges, youth camps, and revivals.
It is the church which, whether recognised or not, has provided the social matrix of America as it has grown. In the 1960’s and 70’s it appeared as if this matrix was in political as well as religious decline. Liberal America, largely urban, largely educated, had devised a different form of communal organisation: the sit-in, the protest march, the mass rally. Churchmen like Martin Luther King and the Catholic Berrigan brothers were involved in these sorts of events, but as representatives of the church not in its name. When political goals were achieved - wars ended, racial prejudice outted, equality laws passed, and perceived wrongs made right - the organisations behind these events either evaporated (who remembers the SDS?) or just lost widespread support as representative of American society (the NAACP?).
Meanwhile the churches embarked on a massive guerrilla war, largely below the radar of the Liberal establishment. They quietly (well not entirely, the television preachers are notably boisterous) encouraged increasing participation by their members in local politics. By the turn of the 21st century, a generation or so after the great Liberal triumphs, the evangelicals had taken over the Republican Party at every level. They had played the long game, and they won it. Unlike their Liberal rivals, they’re not going to disappear with their victories. They want more. And they have the traditionally most powerful tool of social cohesion and change in America to get what they want: the church.
History is on the side of the church-going Right-wing in America. The Left has nothing like the grassroots network of the Christian Church. Liberal politicians continue to express hope that the electorate will wake up to the imbecility of Conservative politicians and their fundamentalist beliefs, that somehow Trump’s mendacity and obvious self-serving activities will undermine their faith. This hope is misdirected. The power of evangelical Christianity comes not from belief or faith but from its ability to create community. This has always been its primary role in America.
Christianity has recovered from its mid-century setbacks with remarkable speed. As Goldberg points out: “This is Christianity as a total ideology.” Like all ideologies, this one appears vulnerable, incoherent, and often silly from the outside. But such perception misses the point. Christian ideologues, like every other sort, want friendship, emotional support, confirmation of their personal value, and a ‘place’ in society. They are needy, but now they are also powerful. They get their needs met not by abstract beliefs but by the very real people around them... even, most bizarrely, by Donald Trump. Goldberg doesn’t entirely get this despite her otherwise excellent rapportage. This gives her an inordinate hope for the future.
I, on the other hand, am just listening attentively for the first trumpet to sound. Merry Christmas.
Sometime in 2009, I heard a radio broadcast from the US which claimed that the culture wars which had been bubbling up since the 1970’s were finally at a end. The commentator, whose name I have mercifully forgotten, opined that the recent financial crash had brought Americans back to their senses. The real political issues, he said, are and always have been economic. Only half listening, I did feel a sense of relief that perhaps indeed American politics were becoming, if not more rational, at least more comprehensible.
How arrogantly ignorant was that commentator; and how utterly naive was I. Perhaps it was because a liberal, intelligent, engaging black man was in the White House. Perhaps it was because the fundamental problems of financial capitalism could finally be observed fully. Perhaps it was because the consummate stupidity of American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan had yet to be fully revealed. But whatever the reasons, it was simply not possible to be any more wrong about what had happened, and what would continue to happen to American political sentiment.
While the big news stories were about the usual raft of scandals in the Catholic Church, lies about military progress, and the search for someone to blame for recent economic misery, the real news lay largely unreported and even unnoticed. A coup had already taken place within American government, not in the palaces of the president or the governors (well, maybe a few of these), but in the school boards, county executives, local sheriffs and judges, and most importantly in the activists and delegates of the Republican Party.
Somewhere around 40% of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, that is they believe in things like Creationism, the Second Coming, the eternal damnation of the unbaptised, and the sinfulness of many sexual practices. Many of these folk also regard the ills of society, from criminality to mental illness to bad government to be the result of the failure of Americans generally to respect and live up to what they perceive as the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And they desire to bring the country back to God through a re-Christianised law of the land.
But it is a mistake to attribute the political fervour of Christian evangelicals to faith, just as it is a mistake to attribute the equal fervour of Muslim activists to faith. In the first instance, most enthusiastic religious followers have little idea of the content much less meaning of the doctrines on which their political interpretations are grounded. As in all of history, they rely on theological leaders - local pastors, media preachers, and activist acquaintances - to inform them of correct opinion. As the leadership changes, so orthodox opinion also changes, sometimes even the beliefs themselves (Mormon racism is but one example). Credal attestations are but passwords to community.
The solidity of religious opinion in America depends overwhelmingly on one thing: community. Even before the country’s foundation, the church - initially the Congregational non-conformism of New England, then the Methodist and Baptist preachers of the expanding frontier - provided the principal social glue. Subsequently, the political structure of the country - states, counties, and municipalities that are independent of each other as well as of the national government relied almost exclusively on the churches to maintain whatever unity they had created across political boundaries.
This has always been the case. The only recognised relationship, for example between the government of a state and that of the federal government or that of a county or municipality is through the law. The State of Florida recently lost an important suit against the state of Georgia about farmers in the latter killing off oyster beds in the Gulf. There was no other way to mediate the dispute. The small community of Cedar Key, Florida (population 724 in 2018, where I once had a summer cottage), on the other hand, has ten active church congregations. Each of these is part of a regional or national ecclesiastical organisation. Even the independent Pentecostal congregations (of which there are three), have long-standing direct ties with sImilar groups around the country, organising exchanges, youth camps, and revivals.
It is the church which, whether recognised or not, has provided the social matrix of America as it has grown. In the 1960’s and 70’s it appeared as if this matrix was in political as well as religious decline. Liberal America, largely urban, largely educated, had devised a different form of communal organisation: the sit-in, the protest march, the mass rally. Churchmen like Martin Luther King and the Catholic Berrigan brothers were involved in these sorts of events, but as representatives of the church not in its name. When political goals were achieved - wars ended, racial prejudice outted, equality laws passed, and perceived wrongs made right - the organisations behind these events either evaporated (who remembers the SDS?) or just lost widespread support as representative of American society (the NAACP?).
Meanwhile the churches embarked on a massive guerrilla war, largely below the radar of the Liberal establishment. They quietly (well not entirely, the television preachers are notably boisterous) encouraged increasing participation by their members in local politics. By the turn of the 21st century, a generation or so after the great Liberal triumphs, the evangelicals had taken over the Republican Party at every level. They had played the long game, and they won it. Unlike their Liberal rivals, they’re not going to disappear with their victories. They want more. And they have the traditionally most powerful tool of social cohesion and change in America to get what they want: the church.
History is on the side of the church-going Right-wing in America. The Left has nothing like the grassroots network of the Christian Church. Liberal politicians continue to express hope that the electorate will wake up to the imbecility of Conservative politicians and their fundamentalist beliefs, that somehow Trump’s mendacity and obvious self-serving activities will undermine their faith. This hope is misdirected. The power of evangelical Christianity comes not from belief or faith but from its ability to create community. This has always been its primary role in America.
Christianity has recovered from its mid-century setbacks with remarkable speed. As Goldberg points out: “This is Christianity as a total ideology.” Like all ideologies, this one appears vulnerable, incoherent, and often silly from the outside. But such perception misses the point. Christian ideologues, like every other sort, want friendship, emotional support, confirmation of their personal value, and a ‘place’ in society. They are needy, but now they are also powerful. They get their needs met not by abstract beliefs but by the very real people around them... even, most bizarrely, by Donald Trump. Goldberg doesn’t entirely get this despite her otherwise excellent rapportage. This gives her an inordinate hope for the future.
I, on the other hand, am just listening attentively for the first trumpet to sound. Merry Christmas.
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ December 24, 2019
0 Comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home