"Christian Nationalism Is Making The Nation That You Are In Love, Worship, Obey Jesus"
Mama must be SO proud
The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.
Thomas Paine
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
C. S. Lewis
Let’s dispense with the niceties from the beginning- Jarrin Jackson is a Grade A, top-shelf, first-class, number one, USDA Prime, top-rated asshole. He’s also as much a Christian as I am the walking, talking reincarnation of Greta Garbo. Somehow, he’s combined the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Mein Kampf into a toxic recipe for catapulting kill-’em-and-grill-’em American Taliban Christians into power.
When he says, “I believe Christians are supposed to have power. I believe Christians are supposed to use power,” nothing in those words has ANYTHING to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If anything, Jackson has fallen back on the Old Testament, but if he’s going to do that, I’d have to ask him if he’s eating shellfish and wearing clothes of mixed fibers.
Dude, you don’t get to cherry-pick and demand to be taken seriously, knowhutimean?
Tyranny comes in many forms. In this case, it’s carrying a Bible, wearing a cross around its neck and claiming, “I believe Christians are supposed to have power. I believe Christians are supposed to use power.”
The one thing the Afghan and American Taliban have in common is the worship of absolute temporal political power- even if they have to corrupt and bastardize their “faith” to do it. Because if your faith comes from the barrel of a gun, you have no real faith. You live in fear and enforce your version of “power” through the threat of violence.
Exactly as God commands, no?
If you watch the 35 seconds of Jackson’s monologue, one thing you won’t see from him is a smile. There’s no hint of happiness or joy; if memory serves, Christianity is supposed to be a religious tradition that sparks joy. Instead, Jarrin Jackson looks like he had an “accident” and desperately needs to change his shorts.
Jackson lives in a world where White Conservative Christian heterosexual males are the ultimate authority figures, and all others need not apply. Women- especially “feminists” (those who don’t accept second-class status)- are to be hated and suppressed.
He also seems unable and unwilling to accept the separation of Church and State. Thankfully, even those in his native Oklahoma (whose collective intelligence one can never underestimate) were unwilling to take a chance on him.
There can be no “strategic mission” for Jackson to “use his position to spread Christianity. First, his brand of Christianity is as much about Jesus Christ and His Gospel of love, tolerance, and inclusion as Nazi Germany was about spreading the acceptance and understanding of Judaism.
Jackson’s American Taliban theology is oriented far more around temporal political power than saving souls for Jesus Christ. If it comes down to it, any “saving” of souls will be done at the business end of a rifle or a bayonet. Convincing non-Christians to accept Jesus Christ as their person savior won’t be presented as an option, but rather as the only way to save their homes, livelihoods, and perhaps if their lives.
This is about creating a bastardized version of Christianity that can be used to justify seizing political power. That piety can then be used to countenance the violent maintenance of that power as the political class in power lives protected lives of sin, immorality, and corruption behind the scene.
As much as I hate to fall back on Margaret Atwood’s Gilead as an example of what America could easily turn in, it’s difficult to argue that we’re not heading down that path.
What American Taliban stalwarts like Jarrin Jackson refuse to understand is that temporal political power and living a Christ-like life are mutually incompatible pursuits. This is particularly true in a country in which secular governance is not only part of the Constitution, but also established legal tradition.
You can believe that people need to know about Jesus. You can even think that people of faith belong into politics; but you can’t have both. Not even someone as self-righteous as Jarrin Jackson has the right to breach the wall separating Church from State.
Secular governance, don’tchaknow??
Then again, I hear Iran and Saudi Arabia are beautiful this time of year….
