The Sickness of Christian Politics & Christian Nationalism

[goldenvalley]

Oct 18, 2022 19:57:09 GMT LFC said:

I'll point out, yet again, that Mike Flynn was promoted to the rank of general and was given access to the most sensitive data the U.S. government has. And he's nuckin' futs.

The Associated Press has a new piece out today as part of an investigative series it’s producing with PBS’ “Frontline” focused on former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his ongoing descent into extremism and Christian nationalism. The investigative series will roll out alongside a documentary tomorrow night called “Michael Flynn’s Holy War.”

The new AP piece is a fascinating look at The Hollow, a bunker-like, Christian nationalist, far-right community site in Sarasota County, Florida that has become a MAGAworld meeting center and incubator for some of Flynn’s efforts to weave Trump grievances into politics at a hyper-local level. The Hollow has all the markings of a militia-community — even though the founder maintains it’s anything but that — that hosts events sponsored by Proud Boys family members, offers “Biblical citizenship” classes and is home to a gun range that offers classes to children as young as six. Flynn reportedly has visited the site multiple times this past year and financially supports the organization.

During one such visit in October of last year, Flynn gave a speech at a Halloween event that was put together by members of the Proud Boys and their wives. During his remarks, Flynn essentially encouraged those in the crowd to sign up to help run elections. Per the AP:


The piece is loaded with more bizarre details about the community and is worth read, but Flynn’s involvement with the group tracks with some of the other weird stuff he’s been doing for the past year. Most recently, Flynn has been traveling around the nation spewing lies about the 2020 election and tying various Trumpworld grievances to a spiritual revival of sorts. The “ReAwaken America” tour, in which Flynn is a participant, visited 15 different cities and towns around the U.S. in the last year, spreading a “message of a country under siege,” in the AP’s words: It’s “a traveling roadshow and recruiting tool for an ascendant Christian nationalist movement that’s wrapped itself in God, patriotism and politics and has grown in power and influence inside the Republican Party.”

The events include all the hallmarks of a Trumpian affair meant to further sow doubt in U.S. democracy, including baptisms into the “Army of God.”

For the man who once served as President Obama’s head of military intelligence, it’s been a befuddling trajectory.

Was he always this nuts or did getting sacked by a black man unleash his fury and end whatever sanity he had?  

[LFC]

Oct 19, 2022 1:24:03 GMT goldenvalley said:

Was he always this nuts or did getting sacked by a black man unleash his fury and end whatever sanity he had?  

Looking at Doug Mastriano's history I think a lot of these guys are nuts from pretty early on.

[pnwguy]

For those that didn't see the Frontline special that just aired this week:


www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/michael-flynns-holy-war

[LFC]

Nick Fuentes is "a real Christian" which is why he hates so many people.

[LFC]

Welcome to "Christianity" and it's amazing powers of logic. It really has to be watched to be appreciated.

[Bact PhD]

Oct 28, 2022 21:24:10 GMT LFC said:

Welcome to "Christianity" and it's amazing powers of logic. It really has to be watched to be appreciated.

These folks are past masters at creating sh*t out of whole cloth. These folks were also behind the “backward masking” hysteria in the late 1970s/early 1980s. The gullibility is bottomless.

[indy]

Oct 28, 2022 21:24:10 GMT LFC said:

Welcome to "Christianity" and it's amazing powers of logic. It really has to be watched to be appreciated.

In the words of Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth: 'I don't want to live on this planet anymore.'

[LFC]

As is always the case when it comes to zealotry, they're now separating themselves into ever smaller groups. Time to weed out the impure from their ranks.

When Tennessee Pastor Greg Locke took the stage at the ReAwaken America Tour in Pennsylvania over the weekend, the throngs who had come out to hear conspiracy theories and inflammatory rhetoric about Democratic candidates instead heard Locke aim some of his sharpest criticism at a surprising target: Pope Francis.

“If you trust anybody but Jesus to get you to heaven, you ain’t going,” Locke said, his voice rising. “You say, ‘Well what about the pope?’ He ain’t a pope, he’s a pimp … He has prostituted the church.”

It was an odd note to strike at a rally where perhaps the biggest name on the speaker’s roster was retired Gen. Michael Flynn, a Catholic who later made it a point to mention his faith while voicing support for Christian nationalism. “I’m a Christian — I’m a Catholic, by the way,” said Flynn.

Locke had aired his anti-Catholic position a few days before in a Facebook post advocating for burning rosaries and “Catholic statues.” When another user urged him to abandon the anti-Catholic rhetoric, Locke doubled down. “Catholicism is idolatry 100%” he wrote. “I will not be silent whether you follow or not. It’s a false pagan religion and so filled with perversity it’s ridiculous.”

Anti-Catholic rhetoric has long been a theme in nativist American thought, which includes some forms of extremist Protestant Christian agitators such as the Ku Klux Klan. But in the current Christian nationalist surge that fuels the ReAwaken gatherings and others like it, the ideology has served more as a glue holding together a wide range of right-wing coalitions. Locke’s remarks injected an uneasy tension, raising the prospect that what was once a unifying force is now prone to causing potential divisions in right-wing ranks.

If Trump runs for reelection in 2024, it’s likely many who trumpet Christian nationalism will simply set their differences aside — just as they did the last two times he ran for office.

But with many on the extreme right distancing themselves from Trump, and the pandemic and COVID-19 vaccinations no longer making the headlines they once were, the faithful who are drawn to rallies such as ReAwaken America may encounter new fissures as they debate new causes to rally behind — or against. Some Christian nationalist voices, such as Jeffress, have already peeled off. “There is no legitimate faith-based reason for refusing to take the vaccine,” the pastor told the Associated Press last year. He also declined to argue that the 2020 election was “stolen,” a common refrain among many right-wing Christian nationalists.

And even if attendees and speakers at the ReAwaken America tour write off pastors like Jeffress, a question remains: How long will Catholics like Flynn abide attacks on their faith from even their most stalwart Protestant collaborators?

[goldenvalley]

Oct 31, 2022 18:48:12 GMT LFC said:

As is always the case when it comes to zealotry, they're now separating themselves into ever smaller groups. Time to weed out the impure from their ranks.

When my family moved to Tennessee in 1977 I was surprised to hear that Catholics were not Christians. Some folks weren't too sure what a Protestant was either.  They just wanted to know, Baptist? Church of Christ? Church of God?

[andydp]

Oct 31, 2022 21:13:08 GMT goldenvalley said:

Oct 31, 2022 18:48:12 GMT LFC said:

As is always the case when it comes to zealotry, they're now separating themselves into ever smaller groups. Time to weed out the impure from their ranks.

When my family moved to Tennessee in 1977 I was surprised to hear that Catholics were not Christians. Some folks weren't too sure what a Protestant was either.  They just wanted to know, Baptist? Church of Christ? Church of God?

I keep telling my friends who are embracing the usual issues:  Do you think for a minute you'll be accepted under their wing ?  Catholics are an "idol worshipping cult".  

[Bact PhD]

Oct 31, 2022 22:20:55 GMT andydp said:

Oct 31, 2022 21:13:08 GMT goldenvalley said:

When my family moved to Tennessee in 1977 I was surprised to hear that Catholics were not Christians. Some folks weren't too sure what a Protestant was either.  They just wanted to know, Baptist? Church of Christ? Church of God?

I keep telling my friends who are embracing the usual issues:  Do you think for a minute you'll be accepted under their wing ?  Catholics are an "idol worshipping cult".  

GV, I heard the same tripe from no less than…That Jerk and his family, back in the 1980s. Amazing I still married the guy…

Andy, agreed. I’ve said on more than one occasion that the Catholics who have gotten into political bed with these cuckoos because, ya know, PRO-LIFE!!!, are going to live to regret it BIG TIME if they ever do get the Christian Nation they claim they want, ‘cuz they will be among the first to be kicked to the curb/relegated to “minority” status.

[LFC]

The mainstreaming of white Christian nationalism continues with another major religious figure backing the lies, incompetence, corruption, and cruelty of Ron DeSatanist to the hilt.

The same weekend Ron DeSantis released a campaign video saying he had been sent to Florida directly by God on the eighth day of creation, a prominent Southern Baptist pastor offered an invocation at a DeSantis campaign rally and then tweeted a video of it with the assessment: “God has blessed the state of Florida by placing him in this office as his (God’s) servant for our good.”

While DeSantis is hugely popular with his evangelical Christian base, he has presided over some of the most cruel political and social policies in the state’s history, from blocking efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19, to targeting transgender and gay children, to kidnapping immigrants from another state and shipping them to a third state as an act of political theater.

David Lurie, writing for the Daily Beast, said of the Florida governor: “What has differentiated DeSantis from others in the GOP has not been so much his policy positions, but, rather, the extent to which cruelty and humiliation have been central to his governance and political activities.”

That also has been the character of Florida pastor Tom Ascol, de facto leader of the most conservative wing of the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. Ascol ran for SBC president last year and lost — but not by as large a margin as one might imagine for a man who wants to expel from the SBC any church that doesn’t toe the narrow theological line of him and his younger TheoBros.

This is the man who showed up at a weekend DeSantis rally — which one is not made clear — to offer an invocation that in itself was an establishment of religion, something forbidden of government officials by the First Amendment.

The words of Ascol’s prayer associated the DeSantis campaign and therefore the state of Florida as part of the sectarian domain of evangelical Christianity.

[LFC]

The Black Robe Regiment, coming for democracy near you.

Days before the midterm elections, Pastor David MacLellan was ready to preach far-right politics through Bible verses to his small congregation. MacLellan, a hulking man with a long, grizzled black beard, isn’t an ordinary pastor. He proudly identifies himself as a far-right, extremist pastor and a Christian nationalist, someone who believes American politics should reflect fundamentalist Christian values.

And he’s part of a growing national religious political movement called the Black Robe Regiment, a modern-day group inspired by a myth of a group of militant pastors during the American Revolution who took up arms to lead their flock into battle against the British. The movement, imbued with support from far-right political activists like Michael Flynn, wants pastors to play a central role in not only preaching politics from the pulpit but also actively getting their congregations to rise up and claim election fraud by weaving myths about the American Revolution together with modern-day conspiracy theories and hard-line Christianity. These pastors believe they’re saving democracy, though what they’re really doing is encouraging supporters to undermine the democratic process.

And MacLellan plans to take an active role: He’s convinced that the 2020 election was stolen and that fraud has already been committed in the 2022 midterms. He wants his congregants to fight back.

“This Tuesday, I'll be taking some of our seniors to the polling station,” MacLellan announced at the beginning of his service, held in the living room of his home in Mesa, Arizona. That day, he wore a tweed jacket over a black shirt, and a bolo tie. His hands are gnarled with faded tattoos—a nod, he says, to his Scottish heritage and a holdover from a past life when he played in punk bands in New York and was a “heathen biker.”

His sermon mixed Bible verses with remarks about evolution, made claims of violence against anti-abortion groups, and described Jewish people as a “wealthy group of people who didn’t believe in heaven or hell, didn’t believe in angels, and they had political control over everything.”

“Interesting, huh?” he said, as an aside to the congregation crowded into his living room, who responded with knowing sounds.

MacLellan is one of many pastors across the United States who are seeking to revive the Black Robe Regiment movement and take advantage of the rise in support for Christian nationalism. But while MacLellan is working on his own to spread the message, others are coordinating to bring the movement to a national stage.
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Flynn, the disgraced former national security adviser-turned-de facto leader of the nationwide election denial movement, is one of the regiment’s biggest supporters.

“You cannot preach the Bible without the United States Constitution. Period,” Flynn announced to a crowded hall on stage of the QAnon-infused evangelical “ReAwaken America” July tour stop in Virginia Beach. Thousands were in attendance, and Flynn’s speech was full of fire and brimstone, espousing a Christian nationalist ideology about how the church should be at the heart of all aspects of American society.

During Flynn’s speech, dozens of pastors stood right behind him; in total, 150 pastors had just signed a pledge to become part of the regiment. Flynn’s group was founded by Virginia pastor William Cook with the aim of putting a Black Robe pastor in every single constituency in the United States. This new iteration of the group wants pastors to preach the gospel of Trump, actively spread conspiracies about COVID vaccines and stolen elections, and get more involved in local politics. Many of the pastors aligned with the movement were involved in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, including several who encouraged their flocks to take part in the protest and then traveled to D.C. themselves. And experts worry that their incendiary language about spiritual warfare could incite real-world violence.

[goldenvalley]

Seems like there is a teensy bit of buyer's remorse happening. The first part of the article is worth reading but the below really struck me.

In an essay sent to The Washington Post earlier this month, Mike Evans, a former member of the evangelical advisory board, said he would not vote for Trump again and recalled how he once left a Trump rally “in tears because I saw Bible believers glorifying Donald Trump like he was an idol.”

“All of us knew that Trump had character flaws, but we considered our relationship with him transactional,” wrote Evans, a Texas author and Christian Zionist who raises money for outreach and support in Israel. “We wanted Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade. We wanted his support of our biblical values. We all wanted his support for the State of Israel. Donald Trump indeed kept and exceeded his promises to us.”

However, Evans said Trump had done damage by turning “the pulpit that we preach from” into a political platform.

“Donald Trump can’t save America. He can’t even save himself. He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans wrote. “I cannot do that anymore.”

But hey, a transactional relationship to get what you want as a Christian is totally ok, right?  And you get what you want and then dump on the guy who arranged it for you.  We were supposed to be using him, not the other way around!

[LFC]

Nov 18, 2022 16:37:51 GMT goldenvalley said:

But hey, a transactional relationship to get what you want as a Christian is totally ok, right?  And you get what you want and then dump on the guy who arranged it for you.  We were supposed to be using him, not the other way around!

Exactly. The problem isn't trading moral authority for power, it's the guy they went into business with.

[LFC]

[LFC]

Scratch a Christian nationalist, find a racist.

The headmaster of a private classical Christian academy is out of his job after revelations he wrote racist comments under a pseudonym.

Thomas Achord, an author, podcaster, and the former headmaster of Sequitur Classical Academy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, parted ways with the school Nov. 23, Achord said in a Nov. 25 statement.

In that statement, Achord denied responsibility for the racist comments made under the name “Tulius Aadland.” But Achord retracted his denial Monday in a follow-up statement, acknowledging that the Tulius Aadland account on Twitter was indeed his.

The Roys Report has accessed the Twitter account but is not linking to it because of the offensive nature of its content. Some tweets supported racially segregated schools; indicated a refusal to patronize stores or restaurants where white people aren’t the majority on staff; made derogatory claims about black men’s natures; and claimed white people are “standard humans.”

More details here. This guy is a real piece of work.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 30, 2022 22:08:35 GMT LFC said:

Scratch a Christian nationalist, find a racist.

The headmaster of a private classical Christian academy is out of his job after revelations he wrote racist comments under a pseudonym.

Thomas Achord, an author, podcaster, and the former headmaster of Sequitur Classical Academy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, parted ways with the school Nov. 23, Achord said in a Nov. 25 statement.

In that statement, Achord denied responsibility for the racist comments made under the name “Tulius Aadland.” But Achord retracted his denial Monday in a follow-up statement, acknowledging that the Tulius Aadland account on Twitter was indeed his.

The Roys Report has accessed the Twitter account but is not linking to it because of the offensive nature of its content. Some tweets supported racially segregated schools; indicated a refusal to patronize stores or restaurants where white people aren’t the majority on staff; made derogatory claims about black men’s natures; and claimed white people are “standard humans.”

More details here. This guy is a real piece of work.

I was curious about what a classical Christian academy is and found this:

The modern Classical-Christian educational movement has its roots in the mid to late twentieth century. Its popularity grew considerably when Douglas Wilson published "The Lost Tools of Learning". In it he expanded on a paper written by Dorothy Sayers by the same title.[6] She lamented that the “great defect of our education" was that schools taught information, but did not teach students how to think. Wilson described an educational model based on the child's developmental capabilities and natural inclinations.

From birth, the child learns language and about itself.

From about age 2 to age 4, the child develops social skills and gains mobility and dexterity

The Grammar stage begins around age 5. In this stage, the child is in a "parrot" stage of repeating what they are told. This phase sees them enjoying simple songs over and over, so songs, rhymes and memory aid teach the basics of reading, writing, numbers and math, and observational science. Many schools begin Latin language training in 3rd grade. Some schools will also teach a Christian Catechism while students are in this phase, as foundation for intensive study of the texts and structures of the Bible.

The Logic stage begins in 6th grade. At this age, students naturally develop an argumentative behavior, and are equipped with tools of logic and how to formulate a defense for an idea. This provides the foundation for Sayers' 'teaching them to think' model.

The Rhetoric phase happens during high school, blending the prior learning with specialized knowledge, generally in a college preparatory curriculum.

[LFC]

Nov 30, 2022 22:27:19 GMT goldenvalley said:

The Logic stage begins in 6th grade. At this age, students naturally develop an argumentative behavior, and are equipped with tools of logic and how to formulate a defense for an idea. This provides the foundation for Sayers' 'teaching them to think' model.

Two things:

a) It's interesting predictable that they feel the need to drill religion into them before this. It's important to skew their frame of reference in advance of "teaching them to think."

b) This age aligns perfectly with Catholic sacrament of Confirmation. Get 'em to say they believe before they develop the power of logical thought, amiright?

[LFC]

Trinity Broadcasting, a "Christian" network, is tapping previous Faux and OAN "talent" in a bid to become more toxic.

“Catch me filling in on Center Point tonight and tomorrow at 7:30 EST on @tbn What a facility and what a crew. It will be a great show! #stinchfieldsarmy,” former Newsmax star Grant Stinchfield posted to his Instagram account late last month.

Stinchfield’s guest spot as a news anchor for Trinity Broadcasting Network was just the latest instance of this Christian television network turning to Fox News and Newsmax alumni to fill out its roster as it looks to expand its viewership with right-wing news and “lifestyle” programming.

TBN, which claims to be the largest global Christian broadcasting network, made a concerted pivot to news broadcasting this past spring when it launched Centerpoint, a weeknight news show headed by ex-Fox News staffers.

The half-hour program, which airs at 7:30 pm ET, is anchored by veteran Fox News correspondent Doug McKelway, who “retired” in 2020, and produced by Michael Clemente, a former Newsmax CEO who was once right-hand man to Roger Ailes back at Fox News.

TBN has said that there are plans to expand Centerpoint to a full hour. And according to network CEO Bob Fopma, TBN felt it necessary to provide its audience with a nightly news show for perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic and the social-justice protests that emerged after the 2020 police murder of George Floyd.

“In March of 2020, the world changed so much,” Fopma told The Washington Times back in the spring. “Suddenly we realized that people were really thirsting for content that was relevant to what was going on in the world. And so we pivoted, very quickly.”

Clemente, who joined the network full-time earlier this year, also told Axios that the show “will cover news of the day and other top stories.” The network suggested at the time that the “programming isn't meant to be politically biased” but would “lean into Christian values.”

While Centerpoint may not mean “to be politically biased,” a quick perusal of the show’s guests and focal points reveal a program leaning hard into conservative culture war battles and Republican red-meat issues. The program, for instance, has repeatedly turned to far-right conspiracist Dinesh D’Souza to discuss “election integrity,” citing his widely debunked election-fraud fantasy film 2000 Mules.

That this is the route Centerpoint has taken, though, shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.

[LFC]

Yes, they'll support their fallen idol again ... if they think he can win and hand them more power. White evangelicalism is now an immoral, unchristian, cesspool. (Web Archive link if you get blocked by the NYT paywall.)

The Washington Post last month quoted a self-pitying essay by Mike Evans, a former member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, who wrote: “He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us.” Religion News Service reported that David Lane, the leader of a group devoted to getting conservative Christian pastors into office, recently sent out an email criticizing Trump for subordinating his MAGA vision “to personal grievances and self-importance.” On Monday, Semafor quoted Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent Christian conservative activist in Iowa, saying that evangelicals weren’t sure that Trump could win.

Even Robert Jeffress, a Dallas televangelist whom Texas Monthly once described as “Trump’s Apostle,” is holding off on endorsing him again, telling Newsweek that he doesn’t want to be part of a Republican civil war.

Because I see the ex-president as a uniquely catastrophic figure — more likely to lose in 2024 than the current elite Republican favorite Ron DeSantis, but also more likely to destroy the country if he prevails — I’ve eagerly followed the fracturing of his evangelical support. But Russell Moore, the editor in chief of Christianity Today, told me he doesn’t yet take evangelical distancing from Trump seriously. After all, he pointed out, we’ve been in a similar place before.

At the start of Trump’s first campaign for president, few important evangelical figures backed him. “What changed was an increase in the number of grass-roots evangelical voters who started to support Donald Trump,” Moore said. “It’s not that the leaders embrace a candidate and therefore their followers do. It’s really the reverse.”

Moore is the rare evangelical leader who has consistently opposed Trump, a stance that nearly cost him his former job as president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. (He left the Convention in 2021 over its handling of sexual abuse and white nationalism in the church.) Moore suspects that if the base of the Christian right, which over the last six years has forged a quasi-mystical connection with the profane ex-president, decides to stick with Trump, the qualms of their would-be leaders will evaporate. “I just don’t read a lot into reluctance anymore, because I’ve seen reluctance that immediately bounces back, after ‘Access Hollywood,’ for instance, or after Jan. 6,” said Moore.

As I've noted often, contrary to Dreher's hand-wringing, young people are leaving because they're lazy or want guilt-free sex. They're leaving because they're looking at what Christianity has become and are horrified.

Meanwhile, said Moore, some of those inspired by Jesus’ radical compassion are leaving the church. There have always been evangelicals who become disillusioned, said Moore, often because they “didn’t believe in the supernatural anymore, or couldn’t accept moral teachings of the church anymore.” But now, he said, “I find more and more young evangelicals who think the church itself is immoral.” Speaking of the new, pro-Trump recruits to evangelicalism, Moore said, “If the trade-off is getting more of them and losing some of the really best of our young people because they’re associating Jesus with this, that’s not a good trade.”

The trade, of course, is much like the one the Republican Party made in choosing to subordinate itself to Trump. Contrary to Evans’s lament, no one had to close his mouth and eyes. The Republicans chose to because they wanted power, and their critique now is largely about power lost.

Here's how Evangelicals voted in 2020. Nothing he did could shake their faith in God(tm)'s "flawed instrument."

[LFC]

Completely f***ed up or basic grifter?

I always find the odd, stilted speech pattern and cadence these people affect to be a huge, neon warning.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 12, 2022 18:24:53 GMT LFC said:

Completely f***ed up or basic grifter?

I always find the odd, stilted speech pattern and cadence these people affect to be a huge, neon warning.

So maybe that's the way God speaks?  

I am in the wrong line of work.  I should have become a prophet.  I can make up things and talk in a stilted speech pattern.  

[andydp]

Dec 12, 2022 19:27:46 GMT goldenvalley said:

Dec 12, 2022 18:24:53 GMT LFC said:

Completely f***ed up or basic grifter?

I always find the odd, stilted speech pattern and cadence these people affect to be a huge, neon warning.

So maybe that's the way God speaks?   

I am in the wrong line of work.  I should have become a prophet.  I can make up things and talk in a stilted speech pattern.  

To do that, you need to start your talks with "Behold !!"

[LFC]

Preach, girl! Nice to see that some real Christians are ready to stand up to defend both their faith and an America that allows them, and everybody else, to practice or not practice as they see fit.