My Turn: Jan. 6 and the path of Christian nationalism – Concord Monitor

On Jan. 6, the white nationalist group Proud Boys assembled near the White House, bowed in prayer. Other supporters of President Donald Trump in combat gear or T-shirts saying God, guns and Trump milled about. Not long afterward, they stormed the Capitol building in an insurrection that left five people dead. Crosses, images of Trump as Jesus, and a banner reading Jesus 2020 appeared in the mob.

Violence is a long thread in American religious history. It goes back to the separatists landing in Massachusetts and the treatment of slaves brought to Virginia, the Salem witch trials, and the lynch mobs in the South that burned crosses.

Before the Gutenburg Bible put scripture into the hands of laymen, the Roman Catholic hierarchy controlled interpretation of Christian scriptures. The Protestant Reformation came about when Christians could read scripture themselves, and their varied understandings resulted in a wide spectrum of religious interpretations. Beliefs already held could be supported by texts or theories often taken out of context. This is called confirmation bias.

Once formed, such beliefs seem immune to evidence that would disprove them. Those who justified violence or cruelty with biblical references did so with certainty of their own righteousness.

Such was the case with slavery. Christians in the American South argued that biblical accounts of slavery in the Roman Empire and ancient Near East were never denounced as sinful. They also saw separation of ancient tribes as racial hierarchy, with whites at the top. Specific passages also pegged women and children as subordinate to men, and the obedience called for in the Bible required tolerance for violent acts. Pre-Civil War interpretation of biblically supported racial and gender inequality created schisms within Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian groups. Although they didnt subscribe to these interpretations, Northern evangelicals did little to stop them. Nor did emancipation.

But to paint all evangelicals with the same brush would be to deny history. The Second Great Awakening, which began in the 1820s, ushered in progressive evangelism which emphasized charity and moral conduct. The Black evangelicals, from whose churches spokesmen such as James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the late congressman John Lewis emerged, encouraged nonviolent action in service of justice and equality. They were disregarded by their white counterparts.

Sociologist Emile Durkheim posited that religion reflects, rather than shapes, the norms and values of a society. If this is so, backlash to the social, political and cultural upheavals of the late 1960s may explain the shift in evangelicals beliefs, away from a social gospel and toward alliances that created a political force that ultimately spawned todays subset of true believers: the Christian nationalist movement proclaiming itself to be the army of God.

Randall Balmer, professor of religion at Dartmouth College, said, Although abortion had emerged as a rallying cry by 1980, the real roots of the religious right lie not in the defense of a fetus, but in the defense of racial segregation.

Evangelical families educated their children in private, all-white schools, and kept them close to the church through the tumultuous Vietnam War and Civil Rights protests. But as these young people became adults, many moved away from the faith. Conservative church leaders needed a rallying cry to keep members in the fold. A 1969 lawsuit against an all-white Christian school in Holmes County, Mississippi, was settled in 1971, when Green v. Connally resulted in the decision to rescind tax exemptions for whites-only private schools.

Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, saw this as an issue that could tap into the belief that racial and gender hierarchies were biblically prescribed. In itself, this issue did not gain traction. When Bob Jones University lost its tax exemption in 1976, Weyrich and Jerry Falwell shifted the emphasis from race to religious freedom.

It was then that they attached their racial argument to another issue many congregants had ignored, or accepted quietly: abortion. Although in 1971, the South Bay Convention had come out in support of the Roe v. Wade court decision, opposition to abortion was pushed by the emergent Moral Majority, which made itself a political force during the Reagan years.

As the religious right became politicized, its views hardened. Not far below the surface, the old opposition to integration and racial justice made its way into legislatures and boardrooms. By their silence, moderate evangelicals enabled this rightward shift. The rapid growth of independent megachurches reinforced a move away from main line evangelical restraint.

It was only a matter of time before an opportunistic grifter came along to take advantage of a ready-made constituency. Donald J. Trump was never particularly religious. His reputation as a showman, womanizer, and shady real estate developer should have made him a non-starter for the 2015 Republican presidential nomination. But he saw how President Reagan had shifted his views to accommodate religious leaders, and made a similarly successful move. Promising morality and an anti-abortion Supreme Court, Trump took over the Republican Party and the country.

His rhetoric from the start appealed to those who saw violence as a reinforcement of the male-dominated white hierarchy that seemed to be slipping away since the 1960s, and his stance in favor of religious liberty and against abortion won the approval of a wider religious constituency. Again, the political zeitgeist determined their articles of faith. A relative posted on Facebook a scriptural passage she claimed predicted Trumps arrival as a God-given savior of immoral America. Such parsing of the Bible is common.

When flash-bangs, tear gas, and mounted police dispersed peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstrators on June 1, 2020, the photo-op of President Trump, Bible in hand, was a signal to those who believe white supremacy to be a biblical given. His smirk told them, Im with you. As Ed Setzer of Wheaton College said in USA Today, The evangelical movement has failed to connect [its] mission to justice and politics.

Instead, its spawned Christian nationalism, which sees religious pluralism and social equality as satanic. With this view, attachment to conspiracy theories from the likes of QAnon came easily.

Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis says that the strange mix of religion, violence and politics seen at the Capitol must be understood through the lens of Christian nationalism, which preached Stop the Steal from pulpits after Trump lost the 2020 popular and electoral votes.

Not until the dangerous tangle of moral certitude, far-right militarism, and resistance to an evolving social order is unraveled will conspiracy theories and racial division lose their appeal to churchgoers, even those who never intend to take to the streets with long guns.

As long as their tacit approval allows disruption of civic life in America, they will hear inciting messages from the pulpit. That, I believe, is reason for a long look at the threat they pose, and reconsideration of their tax exempt status.

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My Turn: Jan. 6 and the path of Christian nationalism - Concord Monitor