An Excellent Summary of Christian Nationalism

https://religionnews.com/2024/04/04/the-peril-radicalizing-some-evangelicals-goes-beyond-christian-nationalism/

This is probably one of the best summaries of Christian Nationalism I've read yet. Taylor successfully and succinctly explains the difference between the older forms of Evangelical Right-wing Christianity and its ethos of preferential pluralism and that of Christian Nationalism or as he rightly puts it - Christian Supremacy.

As I read the piece, I hoped he would touch on Dominion Theology and he didn't disappoint and in fact he rightly understood that it's fueling both ends of the movement - the Charismatic and the Calvinist, and that its origins are found in the latter.

Much more could be said of course but this was excellent in that he kept it simple. Many readers will know that Dominionism made early inroads into the post-war Evangelical movement. When the movement coalesced in the 1970's - coalesced I say in distinction who those who try and say it began at this time - it found its unity in the Republican Party. The old Southern Democrats who were Right-wing began to leave the DNC in the 1960's and migrated to the GOP. For the first time the new Evangelical movement unified to form a defined political bloc.

Enter Francis Schaeffer. He was not mainstream and while his popularity did grow, his main influence could be said to function in a top-down fashion. He influenced pastors and other thinkers and helped radicalize some in terms of their politics - especially surrounding abortion. By the 1990's his mantle had been taken up by a much lesser man but perhaps one more cunning and certainly one more politically effective. Chuck Colson knew politics and his labours bore more fruit (it could be said) then some of his predecessors. Building off Schaeffer's concept of co-belligerence, he moved Evangelicalism in the direction of ecumenicity and the 1990's were marked by extreme political polarity and acrimony - the early stages of the kind of nasty politics that have now become the norm.

While I don't share the author's fondness for American Democracy, I do find it absurd that these people claim they are the true patriots and the like even as they have abandoned the ideological foundations of the Founders and the Constitutional order. They are dangerous (in terms of both society and the Church) and because of the American Right's historical revisionism with regard to fascism, they are already falling into that chasm. The reasons for this are many and complicated but it's happening and yet the people caught in this movement are the last people that are going to see it. The lack of sophistication in American political thought, false narratives surrounding World War II and the Cold War, and a lot of cultural mythology have blended to create what can only be described as a toxic brew.

Whether America stands or falls, is weak or strong is of no importance to me. I count my American citizenship and pedigree but dung. The question for me is with regard to the Church. What do we when these people infiltrate the Church and exert influence or in other cases take it over? If the reader doesn't understand where the red lines need to be drawn, then I would encourage them to start working this out because few churches are going to escape this stuff.