Christian nationalist representatives were there when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. Warner already sees them as harbingers of civil war and a fascist theocracy.
The politicization of Christianity in the USA is not a historical novelty. Methodist Church in Freyburg, Texas.
Smiley N. Pool /Houston Chronicle / Getty
“Let’s make America pray again,” trumpeted American presidential candidate Donald Trump on his social media platform Truth Social during Holy Week. The reason: He was advertising a new “God Bless the USA” Bible – at the hefty price of $60. The royalties are probably intended to improve his tight account balance in the campaign and legal costs fund.
What was initially ridiculed as a biblical sales gimmick has a deeper dimension. Because Trump regularly adorns himself with Christian iconography. In January he transfigured himself as a messiah in the video “God Made Trump”. During the George Floyd and police violence protests in June 2020, Trump posed with a Bible in front of St. John’s Church in Washington after a riot police operation. He had previously appeared at religious prayer breakfasts and had clergy pray for him at the White House. An early campaign appearance in 2016 took him to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell.
Harmless as baseball and apple pie?
The new Trump Bible published by patriotic country singer Lee Greenwood fits into this tradition. On the leather cover there is a flowing relief of the American flag under the letters “Holy Bible”. Bonus texts from the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance make it a symbol of the fusion of state and religion. Trump is sending a clear message to his followers: that of Christian nationalism.
Christian Nationalism (CN) has been an intensively discussed subject for some time. Its meaning is correspondingly unclear. Some see this as a demand for a state that is in harmony with Christian values, others as the threatening scenario of a fascist theocracy and still others as just apple pie. This is because religion is as quintessentially American as baseball and apple pie.
Ultimately, the USA was co-colonized by Puritan pilgrims. Religious freedom was invented by the Quaker William Penn in what later became Pennsylvania and enshrined in the secular prohibition of all government interference in religious matters in the First Amendment in 1791. A country in which around 63 percent of the population professes Christianity and in which over half of the believers still go to church at least once a month can confidently be called a Christian nation.
They see themselves fighting against evil
So is the ideology of Christian nationalism just harmlessly patriotic like apple pie? Not at all, warns Oxford-trained theologian Brad Onishi, a former CN supporter and professor from San Francisco. He has written a book called “Preparing for War. The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism».
According to Onishi, radical Christians are concerned with tearing down the boundary between church and state. They see themselves in an existential battle between good and evil and therefore demand economic, social and political privileges for Christians in the USA. In order to implement these demands, groups such as the radical New Apostolic Reformation pursued a “mandate of the seven mountains”: Christians should storm the seven hills of state, family, religion, business, education, media and art/entertainment in order to conquer humanity from there to control and colonize the earth for God.
According to Onishi, CN activists can now count on the support of conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation or the Claremont Institute, but also on universities such as Liberty and political support in Washington, for example in the Freedom Caucus and other Trump sympathizers.
The Buffalo Horn Shaman’s Prayer
According to Onishi, how successful the Christian Nationals are already today is shown by the Supreme Court’s “Dobbs” ruling in 2022, according to which the right to abortion is not compatible with the constitution. Controversial judgments and legislative initiatives at the state level also show the political influence of the Christian Nationals. Last but not least, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, a Christian activist, has been in the third highest office in the country for six months. Outside his office hangs an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, an emblem of the New Apostolic Reformation (the one with the seven hills), which supposedly dates back to the Revolutionary War and a prayer by George Washington (which historians deny).
Such objects inspired Rob Reiner and Dan Partland, the makers of the documentary “God & Country” (2024). They hold the ideology of Christian nationalism partly responsible for the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. This is because Christian flags, crosses, Bibles and slogans were prominently featured in the “Make America great again” crowd. The QAnon and buffalo horn shaman Jacob Chansley even recited a prayer from the pulpit in Congress.
The attempted coup, according to Reiner and Partland, was inspired by the Old Testament fall of the walls of Jericho. Southern flags and crosses were reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, a radical Protestant racist movement that reached its peak with around 5 million members just when it placed the (burning) cross at the center of its imagery in the 1920s. The authors see the fact that posters with slogans such as “God, Guns, Trump” or “Jesus 2020” were seen on January 6, 2021 as evidence that the goal of Christian nationalists is a fascist theocracy.
Ku Klux Klansmen draping giant American flag over Capitol steps.
Bettmann / Getty
George W. Bush – cleansed of alcohol thanks to God
But the CN is a heterogeneous group, and even the definition is unclear. The Washington Pulitzer Center divides the movement into six subgroups, which include God and Fatherland conservatives and supporters of traditional family values as well as television preachers, church congregations, influencers, Kanye West or neo-right groups such as QAnon and the Proud Boys. Seen this way, the CN is more of a motley crew than a strategic organization planning civil war and seizure of power.
Furthermore, the politicization of Christianity in America is not a historical novelty. During the American Civil War, the Union coined the motto “In God We Trust” on 2-cent coins in 1864 and on silver and gold dollars in 1865 to signal the closeness of the victorious northern states to God. During the Cold War, trust in God was even more popular – on banknotes and promissory notes, in the oath of allegiance from 1954 and as the official motto of the USA from 1956.
From the 1970s onwards, a socially conservative religious right gained strength in the culture war against the left. Phyllis Schlafly and Jerry Falwell organized religious resistance against sexual revolution, abortion, feminism and same-sex love. George W. Bush, born-again Christian and, thanks to God, cleansed of alcohol, finally mobilized the evangelical voter segment in his presidential campaign. Their influence has continued to grow since then. Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2016 as “Our man, God’s man.”
Trump’s religiosity and apotheosis should therefore be read in an electoral rather than a revolutionary context. According to the independent opinion research institute PRRI, radical CN subversives are a minority. Two-thirds of Americans are skeptical of the CN or reject it entirely. Only around 10 percent are supporters, 20 percent are sympathizers – many of them white Protestants in the Bible Belt from Arkansas to North Dakota. It is questionable whether they can start a civil war and install a fascist theocracy. But what is certain is that they are important in the elections.
Charity is not on the agenda
An example of this is North Carolina: According to the TV station NBC, CN organizations such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition managed to increase voter turnout by 9 percent with data-driven election advertising and nine-figure budgets – mostly thanks to Christian voters. Since 2016, the swing state that voted for Obama in 2008 has again been part of the segment of Republican-voting states. With his Christian messages, Trump wants to mobilize CN voters nationwide. It has the makings of a radical minority group that will demand religious concessions from a possible second Trump administration.
However, Samaritan charity for socially weaker and differently-minded fellow citizens is not on the program. Votes like those of constitutional lawyer David French, according to which there is little more un-American and unconstitutional than the idea of a God-given constitution of the USA, are hardly heard. Apparently, strict Christians aren’t bothered by Trump’s sins, including false witness, divorce, sexual harassment and affairs with porn stars.
These sins have cost Trump a lot of legal costs, which he now wants to pay with the help of Bible sales. “My God, Trump!” is what some Trump opponents might say.
2024-04-20 03:34:12
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