A Glimpse At The Strategy That Will Be Employed Against Christians

Time Magazine has published an article, "How We Can Confront the Myths of January 6 and Intensifying Christian Nationalism" by Jared Stacy and Andrew Whitehead which suggests the strategy that will be used to persecute Christians in the United States. 

    The "myths" portion of the article is disingenuous, arguing that the release of more information concerning the events of January 6, 2021, including more of the surveillance tapes, will reinforce the "myths" held by deplorables of what happened because, I guess, it will dispute the "official truth". Presumably the recent revelation that more than 200 FBI agents (aka, agent provocateurs) participated will also perpetuate "myths" of what really happened on January 6. 

    But the more disturbing part is how Stacy and Whitehead paint broad swaths of practicing Christians in the United States as potential insurrectionists or terrorists. They write, for instance:

Recent survey data of the American public highlights the intensification of key elements associated with Christian nationalism—a political theology that idealizes and advocates for a fusion of a particular expression of Christianity with American civic life. Specifically, studies find Americans who embrace Christian nationalism post-January 6 support the use of political violence in order to “save our country,” support political leaders who are willing to “break some rules if that’s what it takes to set things right,” support for the false claim that the 2020 election was “rigged,” and a decreasing desire to prosecute rioters at the Capitol on January 6th.

They expound on this later in the article:

    All Americans, both Christian and non-Christian alike, saw the “Jesus Saves” signs and crosses at the Capitol. And yet, in the aftermath of January 6, many Christians in America opted to distance themselves from this obvious Christian influence in various ways. But no sanitizing of January 6 can erase a simple, unavoidable fact: people were praying. They prayed while the spectacle of violence raged. Those prayers and the spectacle must be held together. And it should draw attentive reflection and contrition from Christians, not denial dressed up in calculated, political expediency.

    Only contrition from Christians over January 6 will lead us to resist retribution as a political cause. As practicing Christians, one of us an ethicist and the other a sociologist, we don’t fault our fellow non-Christian Americans who are skeptical of a Christian public presence, who might tend to reject conversations about what Christians can offer American society. We believe such skepticism is often valid. It comes from observing in Christians a political will to dominate, rather than a commitment to cultivate a world where all people can flourish and where the rights of each person to engage with the political system are defended.

    The renewal of Christian civic presence in a pluralistic society begins with a reckoning. One where Christians stop confusing the power to crucify with the power of the Crucified One. This power is what David Bentley Hart calls the “anarchy of charity” — the opposite of domination. To our fellow Christians in America, we cannot sanitize or mythologize January 6. These myths do nothing but protect the power of a fast-regrouping Christian civic machine looking to install a certain vision of Christian morality through coercive force. We cannot be a reconciling presence championing the cause of retribution.

    But the incentive to forget an event like January 6 always arises from the will to power. For every “remembering” in American history there is also a “forgetting,” for every Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11, there is the Stono rebellion or Osage murders. The Lost Cause myth sustained the cultural white supremacy of Southern States in the wake of their defeat in the Civil War. It aided in the construction of Jim Crow.

    The Christian Nationalist myth of January 6 leads us down similar paths, towards more violence and retribution, in denial of the Jesus some Americans claim to follow. These myths, today, mask the intensifying of Christian Nationalist ideology, threatening our political system, and damaging a civil sphere that we hope can yet become a common ground. Reckoning with and resisting these myths through accountable politics and a more responsible Christian presence are part of the way forward.

This wordy explanation basically boils down to these points:

1. "Christian Nationalists" are bad people because: (a) are not "real" Christians, (b) are a threat to "Our Democracy", and (c) will use the coercive power of the state to enforce their mores and/or ideology; and,
2.  To be a "real" Christian you must denounce the "Christian Nationalists". 

Stacy and Whitehead do not really explain what is a "Christian Nationalist" or "Christian Nationalism" (a topic that I will explore in a later article). The vagueness is deliberate. Their intent is not to educate but to scare the audience generally and control Christian readers in particular. "Christian Nationalist" is a malleable term intended to describe those Christians that Stacy and Whitehead view as political opponents and to be used as a stick to separate "true" Christians from "Christian Nationalists" in order to reduce the power of their political opponents. And, much like the Left's favorite term "fascists", it is intended to vague and malleable so that it can continue to be used as their political opponents shift, change, as it can be expanded to include groups as needed. There is a reason that every Republican president over the past five decades has been described as a "Hitler" by Democrats.

    The only clear part of the definition is that it includes Christians (although even this might be less clear than you think) which tells us that ultimately the goal is to remove Christians completely from the public sphere. At a minimum, the authors seem to espouse shaming Christians into believing that their Christian beliefs should not inform how they vote or what policies they support. But it is easy (because we have seen this before in other countries and under other regimes) to imagine this ultimately leading to Christianity being driven underground and Christians imprisoned or killed. 

    Frankly, this anti-Christian rhetoric--and it is not limited to Stacy and Whitehead--reminds me of the talk of civil war. John Wilder, in his most recent Civil War 2.0 Weather Report, remarks:

    An article I read decades ago mentioned that couples who got divorced talked about one thing that couples who stayed married didn’t talk about:  divorce.  Civil War 2.0 is rapidly rising in our mental consciousness.

    Barack Obama recently produced a movie on Netflix® that was about a civil war.  Another one is coming out this spring.  It’s showing up in polls, and it’s in our popular culture.

    Just like couples heading for divorce talk about divorce, a people headed for civil war will talk about civil war.

And a country that is headed for religious persecution of Christians talks about Christians as enemies of the state, the people, or democracy.