Christian Nationalism- The Belief That America Is Of, By, And For White Conservative Christians

All others need not apply, because God loves White folks the most

In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.

• Eugene Victor Debs

For too many America, “God”- the concept- is the protector of all things and prerogatives White, Conservative, heterosexual, and cisgender…for those who believe in this flavor of God. America, and, by extension, the rest of the world, is the property and playground of White Conservative Christian heterosexuals.

All others need not apply, ‘cuz there’s no room for you at the adult’s table.

God created America as a homeland for White Conservative Christian heterosexuals, and God meant for it to be administered by them. How do White Conservative Christian heterosexuals know this? It’s certainly not written anywhere.

They just know.

They know it because that’s the legend handed down from generation to generation and because White Conservative Christian heterosexuals have had the monopoly on money and firepower for lo, those many generations. When you have the money AND the guns, you can exert power over those who don’t have those things.

You can also pretend that God ordains your power and dominance.

CASPER, Wyo. — I first saw it while working the rope line at a monster-truck rally during the 2016 campaign by my husband, Tim, for Wyoming’s lone congressional seat. As Tim and I and our boys made our way down the line, shaking hands and passing out campaign material, a burly man wearing a “God bless America” T-shirt and a cross around his neck said something like, “He’s got my vote if he keeps those [epithet] out of office,” using a racial slur. What followed was an uncomfortable master class in racism and xenophobia as the man decanted the reasons our country is going down the tubes. God bless America.

I now understand the ugliness I heard was part of a current of Christian nationalism fomenting beneath the surface. It had been there all the time. The rope line rant was a mission statement for the disaffected, the overlooked, the frightened. It was also an expression of solidarity with a candidate like Donald Trump who gave a name to a perceived enemy: people who do not look like us or share our beliefs. Immigrants are taking our guns. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. You are not safe in your home. Religious freedom is on the gallows. Vote for me.

The messages worked. And in large part, it’s my faith community — white, rural and conservative — that got them there. I am a white conservative woman in rural America. Raised Catholic, I found that my faith deepened after I married and joined an evangelical church. As my faith grew, so did Tim’s political career in the Wyoming Legislature. (He served in the House from 2008 to 2017.) I’ve straddled both worlds, faith and politics, my entire adult life. Often there was very little daylight between the two, one informing the other.

That’s what Christian Nationalism is- the belief that America is the rightful property and playground of White Conservative Christian heterosexuals because God has ordained that it ever be thus. Because, as any good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexual will tell you, the Good Lord loves them more than anyone else.

You can believe that when you’ve convinced yourself you’re the Chosen One.

And, in places like Wyoming, where you don’t see a lot of people who aren’t White Conservative Christian heterosexuals, it’s easy to believe you sit at the top of the food chain and to fear those who don’t.

What’s changed is the rise of Christian nationalism — the belief, as recently described by the Georgetown University professor and author Paul D. Miller, that “America is a ‘Christian nation’ and that the government should keep it that way.” Gone are the days when a lawmaker might be circumspect about using his or her faith as a vehicle to garner votes. It’s been a drastic and destructive departure from the boring, substantive lawmaking to which I was accustomed. Christian nationalists have hijacked both my Republican Party and my faith community by blurring the lines between church and government and in the process rebranding our state’s identity.

Wyoming is a “you do you” state. When it’s a blinding snowstorm, the tractor’s in a ditch and we need a neighbor with a winch, our differences disappear. We don’t care what you look like or who you love. Keep a clean fence line and show up during calving season, and we’re good.

But new sheriffs in town are very much up in their neighbor’s beeswax. Legislation they have proposed seems intent on stripping us of our autonomy and our ability to make decisions for ourselves, all in the name of morality, the definition of which is unclear.

Rural states are particularly vulnerable to the promise of Christian nationalism. In Wyoming, we are white (more than 92 percent) and love God (71 percent identified as Christian in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center) and Mr. Trump (seven in 10 voters picked him in 2020).

Because of its demographic makeup, Wyoming exists in a racial/religious/ideological vacuum. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) aren’t big things in a state where White Conservative Christian heterosexuals are an overwhelming majority. In a place where 70% of voters went for The Former Guy in 2020, it’s not difficult to discern which way the political/ideological winds blow.

Wait…Jesus was a Marine??

It’s also a state in which “you do you” and “live and let live” have become decidedly less of a theme and where more people are becoming increasingly more concerned with what others are doing with their lives and in the privacy of their homes.

Concerns about “morality,” whatever that might mean, are becoming more impactful. This means more folks are willing to enforce their definition of “morality” on others.

The result is bad church and bad law. “God, guns and Trump” is an omnipresent bumper sticker here, the new trinity. The evangelical church has proved to be a supplicating audience for the Christian nationalist roadshow. Indeed, it is unclear to me many Sundays whether we are hearing a sermon or a stump speech.

Christians electing candidates who reflect godly values is a good thing. Tim, who ran against Liz Cheney in the 2016 Republican primary, has no doubt been a recipient of votes from our friends in the faith community. Yet Christian nationalism has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with control.

This is not to condemn the faith community as uniformly bad, but too often, the Evangelical church has fed Christian Nationalist fervor and vice-versa. Both see no reason to respect the separation of Church and State because both believe they should be the one and the same.

Yet Ms. Stubson is correct when she says, “Christian Nationalism has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with control.” It’s about political power and social control, whether in the mold of Seven Mountains Dominionism or a similar belief system. In such a belief system, political power flows directly from one’s Christian faith.

In the system envisioned by the Founding Fathers, God has no place in American governance, just as American governance has no place in the pulpit. That truism is perhaps the most significant reason America is as robust as it is 247 years on. With each side staying in its lane, any conflict has been minimized…though certainly not from lack of effort from religious figures over the years.

In last year’s elections, candidates running on a Christian nationalist platform used fear plus the promise of power to attract votes. Their ads warned about government overreach, religious persecution, mask mandates, threats from immigrants and election fraud. A candidate for secretary of state, an election denier named Chuck Gray, hosted at least one free screening in a church of the roundly debunked film “2,000 Mules,” about alleged voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. (He won the general election unopposed and is now next in line to the governorship.)

None of those concerns were real. Our schools largely remained open during the pandemic. Businesses remained open. The border is an almost 1,000-mile drive from my home in Casper, and the foreign-born population in the state is only 3 percent. Wyoming’s violent crime rate is the lowest of any state in the West. Wyoming’s electoral process is incredibly safe. So what are we afraid of?

What are we afraid of? It’s not about what’s out there to be afraid of. No, it’s far more about what sheeple can be manipulated into believing is worthy of fearing. A low crime rate doesn’t mean Wyoming residents can’t be convinced that roaming bands of gangs aren’t terrorizing their state. Or that violent crime is rampant…even when it’s not.

It’s not about what’s real but what sheeple can be propagandized into believing is real. And as Conservative as Wyoming is, you can imagine which point of view carries the day in any discussion.

Yet fear (and loathing for Ms. Cheney, who voted to impeach Mr. Trump and dared to call him “unfit for office”) led to a record voter turnout in the August primary. The Trumpist candidate, Harriet Hageman, trounced Ms. Cheney. Almost half of the Wyoming House members were new. At least one-third of them align with the Freedom Caucus, a noisy group unafraid to manipulate Scripture for political gain under a banner of preserving a godly nation.

The impact of this new breed of lawmakers has been swift. Wyomingites got a very real preview this past legislative session of the hazards of one-size-fits-all nationalized policies that ignore the nuances of our state. ‌Last year, maternity wards closed in two sparsely populated communities, further expanding our maternity desert. Yet in debating a bill to provide some relief to new moms by extending Medicaid’s postpartum coverage, a freshman member of the State House, Jeanette Ward, invoked a brutally narrow view of the Bible. “Cain commented to God, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” she said. “The obvious answer is no. No, I am not my brother’s keeper. But just don’t kill him.”

This confusing ‌mash-up‌ of Scripture (Ms. Ward got it wrong: The answer is yes, I am my brother’s keeper) is emblematic of a Christian nationalist who weaponizes God’s word to promote the agenda du jour. We should expect candidates who identify as followers of Christ to model some concern for other people.

Truthfully, the Freedom Caucus doesn’t give a damn about “preserving a godly nation.” Nor are they concerned in the slightest about “freedom.” They’re chaos agents with no agenda or ideas save for wanting to throw a spanner in the gears of government and drawing attention.

The Freedom Caucus lives to raise Hell, kick ass, and take names. Beyond that, they’re the political/ideological equivalent of a Potemkin village, or as we used to say when I lived in Texas, “all hat and no cattle.”

They willfully weaponize Scripture they understand barely enough to manipulate for their own advantage. As Ms. Stubson says, it’s about weaponizing “God’s word to promote the agenda du jour.” They could generally care less about the true meaning of the Scripture they’re bastardizing because they don’t understand it any better than their audience.

The sad thing is that those within the Christian faith community with the courage to recognize where modern Christianity has gone wrong have suffered consequences for telling the truth. Those who’ve questioned why Christians serve political parties and false idols instead of God are being ostracized as heretics, even though they’re correct in their assessment.

Ms. Stubson laments the increase in idolatry (such as the worship of The Former Guy) and the decline in foundational principles like humility, kindness, compassion, inclusion, love, and tolerance. Too many Christians quickly exclude and reject those unlike them, even as they embrace White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexuals.

Little known fact: God is a registered Republican

When pastors extol the virtues of The Former Guy from the pulpit and rail against the LGBTQ community, one has to wonder what foundational Christian principles are being taught. Or is it merely about confirmation bias and telling White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexuals they’re on the right track when they’re most certainly not?

The reality, of course, is that Christian nationalism is “Christianity” in name only. It’s more about hatred, anti-semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, transphobia, and hatred of immigrants- precisely the opposite of what Jesus Christ, for whom Christianity is named, taught His followers. It’s about elevating White Conservative Christian cisgender heterosexuals to a place at the top of the food chain that’s undeserved and unjustified based on the teachings of their religion.

Then again, it’s never been about Christianity, except insofar as Scripture can be twisted and bastardized to justify their self-importance and need for validation.

You can’t serve The Former Guy AND Jesus Christ unless you want to be known as a flaming hypocrite. Pick one or the other, but you can’t have both. The two have nothing in common, though The Former Guy would have us believe God ordained him.

In his wet dreams.

(All of my posts are now public. Any reader financial support will be considered pledges- support that’s greatly appreciated but not required to get to all of my work. I’ll leave it to my readers to determine if my work is worthy of their monetary support and at what level. To those who do offer their support, thank you. It means more than you know.)