Building on the Foundation of the Christo-MAGA Shift

https://religiondispatches.org/inside-natcon-the-elite-movement-laying-the-foundation-for-a-maga-that-will-outlast-trump-and-remake-america-part-i/

This article doesn't reveal anything that I haven't already read in numerous books and articles that have appeared over the past twenty years. Every few years reports emerge of some new conference or gathering that reveals the direction that these political movements are headed. They represent the nexus of Christian-Right activism, academia, and the political order. It's always changing but always the same.

There are a few noteworthy exceptions and points worth highlighting in the case of this article.

While many within the American Right have wrestled with reconciling their political values and goals within the framework of Classical Liberalism (that of the Founders), many contemporary operatives and activists seem to be quite open about their break with the Liberal tradition and in some cases even openly despise it. 

How they reconcile this with their notions of flag-waving patriotism and supposed Constitutional Originalism are not yet clear. In many cases, I don't think they've worked this out themselves. Their thinking is reaching a logical conclusion but the end result will be a break with American ideology – or it will require a recasting of it in revisionist terms. We've seen this with some of the more deliberate Theonomic groups and even some Roman Catholics, but now it's hitting the mainstream.

It will also be interesting to see how the Right responds to Trump's recent call for the setting aside of the US Constitution in order for him to declare victory in the 2020 presidential election. A spoiled brat and overgrown baby, he cannot admit that he lost and is willing to bring everything down and destroy all in his path so that he can promote the real Big Lie – that he won the election.

And yet, few on the Right have been willing to go on the record and condemn his treasonous statements. How many in fact would support such a move?

The article also contained some interesting material with regard to the post-Trump landscape. Regardless of his 2024 status, the party and the larger movement is already thinking ahead. The Trump era will end before the decade is over regardless of whether or not he wins in 2024. So much has been uprooted and destroyed that a few of the intellectuals have realized that they must even now look beyond Trump and start building a political and ideological infrastructure that will survive his tenure. They don't want an Obamacare Repeal repeat a la 2017. After voting against the initiative dozens of times and promising to replace it, the GOP fell flat on its face when they finally had the opportunity to do so in early 2017. They had no plan and now that entire discussion has been flushed down the memory hole. No one wants to talk about it, but at the same time the movement's leaders want to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.

Listening to the Right-wing ideologues, one notes the disturbing parallels to Christian ideas and ethics - at certain points anyway. But the assumptions and outworking of these ideas are never rooted in the same kind or actual categories of thought. In other words, the foundation of their thinking is not Scripture – but culture and politics. The common veneer has provided grounds or a matrix for problematic alliances and cross fertilization. These non-Christian thinkers can almost sound Christian at times, and as such they can exert a great deal of influence on naive and uncritical Christians – especially Evangelical types who don't have a lot of depth to begin with.

Once again, the hireling shepherds stand condemned. While they talk of Christian Worldview and cash paychecks, they are leading their sheep to the spiritual slaughter.

One is constantly struck by the widespread realization of social and cultural decay. Everyone senses something is wrong. Things are falling apart. But what is most striking is that nothing is learned from history. Everyone is floundering, attempting to interpret these events and yet in almost every case their interpretations fail. One tires of the constant repetitious patterns of question begging – the appeals to a myth-narrative regarding America's past or even Western Civilisation in broader terms. With this comes a continued reliance upon false and imposed narratives regarding neo-Marxism and the like. In most cases they are combating revisionism with their own revisionism. It's something of a sad spectacle.

The article turns to the inevitable conversation regarding Florida's Ron DeSantis and the 2024 presidential contest. As I've repeatedly said, he's as bad as Trump in many respects. Corrupt, power-mad, and immoral and yet he's not quite as buffoonish and certainly his thoughts, actions, and communication are more coherent. Less of a loose cannon, he seems a more sound and stable choice and yet in some respects because of this – he's worse.

It never occurs to these people that there's something really wrong with your Christianity and your Christian politicking when someone like Peter Thiel is excited about you. What does that say? How Christian can your thought and ideology possibly be?

And then there are the think-tanks. Heritage itself is misnamed. The name implies tradition and conservatism and yet the now forty-plus year legacy of this unfortunate organisation reveals it to be not so much conservative as right-wing – a continuous and rapacious promoter of the US capitalist empire. Capitalism itself is necessarily dynamic and Heritage likewise shifts and pivots, riding those winds. It's clear that little actual principle is involved. It's a mouthpiece for powerful monied interests, a tool of the power-brokers and a power-broker in its own right. It often masquerades as Christian but the organisation is all about mammon and its nationalist hands are blood-soaked.

In a grand display of question begging – the Christian element to this story simply assumes the theological framework of Dominionism (or Integralism for Catholics). If that theological thesis is proven false, what then? Everything they are turns to dust and evaporates. Their entire conception of Christianity is eliminated. And let's just say, it's pretty easy to demonstrate on a Biblical basis why this theology is erroneous. It doesn't rest on a Biblical foundation – but a cultural and philosophical one. And needless to say it tickles ears, pulls at heartstrings, spins webs of romanticised myths, and to put it more bluntly – it feeds lusts.

And that explains the impetus behind these alliances and the willingness on the part of professed to Christians to strengthen the hands of those that do evil, and to embrace consequentialism – and consequently to functionally reject the Christ of the New Testament, his teachings, and the teachings of the apostles. Repeatedly glorying in their shame, they think they serve Christ but instead these conferences trumpet but one thing – a growing functional apostasy. They don't openly deny Christ. They redefine him. They hate the Christ of the New Testament and the Kingdom He established and so they replace them with idols of their own making and in their own image. It's just as much a form of apostasy as if they had openly repudiated Him. In the Old Testament, the reign of Saul typifies this, as does the sad story of the Northern Kingdom. They had Jehovah's name on their lips but He was far from their hearts. And a tree is known by its fruit.

The Jewish angle to religious Trumpism is of less interest to me – apart from Evangelical Dispensationalism's relationship with Netanyahu, Likud, and the Settler movement in the West Bank. This has ethical and geopolitical ramifications, and given that the ideology is rooted in gross Biblical error – we must at least take note of these events, even if they can be summarily dismissed as being way beyond the pale of any kind of serious Biblical inquiry. Regardless, its adherents believe wholeheartedly that their Judaized theology and the ethics that flow from it are in complete accord with Scripture.

A major blind spot for this movement and perhaps this Religion Dispatches piece, is the divide between an increasingly authoritarian anti-liberalism and the libertarian wings of the movement. They have a common enemy in the DNC and the so-called American Left, but their alliance is itself built on sand.

Well do I remember the Theonomists of the 1990's railing against libertarianism, but with the advent of figures like Glenn Beck in the early 2000's, the ideology gained traction and today represents a major force within the American Right. The popularity of a John Birch-style libertarian like Tucker Carlson also testifies to the change.

Interestingly, the article touches on a tribalist element which (while nebulous and unelaborated) does resonate with some Evangelicals and hence we see a willingness to flirt with White nationalism. These Evangelicals are not as likely to sign on and become card-carrying members as it were, but they're happy to listen, attend, and in some cases quietly support these elements. The motivations can range from viewing them as useful to actual sympathy. And I think the number of Evangelicals willing to openly affiliate with these groups is on the rise.

Another missing dimension to this reporting is the revival of the John Birch Society. Still around and recruiting (even within churches) during the 1990's, the far-right organisation has undergone something of a revival, and now has momentum, and having carved out a substantial niche within the larger movement, it is now flexing its muscles. Still spouting much of the same misguided and misconstrued rubbish of an earlier generation, it now aggressively promotes The Great Reset and other ridiculous Covid conspiracies. The JBS has a long track record of promoting medical disinformation and Covid has given it a new lease on life. Let's just say the organisation that said Eisenhower and Kennedy were communists has not improved with age. If anything it has simply become more savvy and insidious – but it's still just as absurd.

To broaden the discussion, the foreign element to this growing Pan-Right movement has whitewashed not only World War II history but that of the Cold War and the role some of the fascist movements played during that period. The promotion of Boer nationalism isn't all the surprising but I'm sure the overwhelming majority of the folk in attendance at these conferences know nothing about the Boers and the actual history of South Africa – or even Southern Africa for that matter. One is reminded of the promotion and myth-appeal of Rhodesia a generation ago as the now defunct nation fought for its survival – a White 'Christian' nation fighting against Black communists no less, or at least that's how it was marketed.

And speaking of white-washing, the antagonism between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism (even in the context of US history) has been suppressed and set aside – a bright and shiny but utterly poisonous fruit, the husbandry and harvest of Evangelicalism's ecumenical wing. The cobelligerence of Francis Schaeffer took root and through the efforts of Evangelical Kuyperianism, the dreams and visions of activists like Charles Colson have borne fruit. Sharp and existential doctrinal divisions have been flattened and replaced by a counterfeit kingdom, a revisionist project that seeks to revive and recast Western Christendom – necessarily defined in broad and nebulous terms.

I did have to chuckle reading about the anti-immigrant banter. In truth, it's even more complicated than these folks or even the mainstream media can conceive. My area of Pennsylvania seems to have received an influx of folk from New Jersey. They're leaving for different reasons but they mostly seem to be economic. I know real estate costs and property taxes come up a lot. But to demonstrate the complexity with regard to immigrants, I offer the following – I know of a lesbian woman who has relocated to my area which while not exactly rich in terms of gay culture, is nevertheless tolerant. I think this is especially true with the women as there seem to be a fair number of tobacco chewing butch types around. More could be said about the area's shift from conservative working class values to Right-wingish Libertarianism, but that's for another time.

Anyway, she too complains about the immigrants in New Jersey, namely all the Muslims and people from the Indian subcontinent. I have this information second hand from someone I know well who is a friend to this woman – who I have also met more than once. One of the grievances is that these cultures are backwards, intolerant, and from the perspective of a liberal feminist homosexual woman – creepy.

For my part, I have long enjoyed interacting with immigrants and foreigners and do so at almost every opportunity. I frequently approach people in stores and malls and strike up a conversation about where they are from. Since I often know a bit about the geography, history, and culture of where they've come from, they are often very friendly and eager to talk. It's an opportunity to learn and meet interesting people. I have long lamented that my area is so homogeneous. We have almost no minorities where I live. The only bit of exotica or subculture is found with the Amish.

I always think about the Right's hatred of immigrants and how they don't share 'our' values as they would have it. But in almost every case these people are more culturally conservative than not just American culture in general, but even most American conservatives. True, they're less likely to buy into the Plymouth Rock or Norman Rockwell overlays to American history, but they're usually not what you would call liberal types. Of course if their children attend public schools that transformation will certainly begin to take place, but if anything these people usually hold to very traditionalist views of money, sex, family, ethics, and the like and while the Left champions these people – more often than not they're in love with the idea and the potential – what the children and grandchildren may become. They want them to leave behind the ethics and values of wherever they came from – a point the Right also often makes, and yet this pattern of affiliation and condemnation has always seemed backwards to me. And you certainly see it in some instances when you have successful or rather financially prosperous immigrants who decide to take an interest in politics. More often than not – as business owners and possessors of capital they tend to affiliate with the GOP.

The article was an interesting read. Like I said I've read so many like it and they're always eye-opening to a certain extent. I like to keep tabs on the shifts within the movement and how they are interpreted by journalists. It's disturbing to be sure, but hardly surprising. Once again, the response is a call to prayer and vigilance as the enemy is clearly at work within the confines of the Church. It is sad to see so many deceived, giving their lives and energies to chasing after vapor, after counterfeit kingdoms, that for all their claims, rhetoric, and symbolism are built by and rooted in mammon and sin – and are therefore opposed to the Kingdom of Christ.