When I saw that Chris Arnzen was going to cover the topic of Why America Hates Biblical Christianity, I decided to listen. I wondered if his guest would peel back all the layers of ideology, history, and obfuscation and touch on some of the core and foundational problems with the American mindset. Well, that just turned out to be wishful thinking.
My hopes were quickly dashed as his guest, David Harrell simply echoed so many of the same right-wing talking points we've all grown used to hearing. He attacked the 'woke' and they had a ridiculous conversation about socialism and communism which only demonstrated they don't have a clue as to what they're talking about or what someone like Mamdani, Sanders, or Ocasio-Cortez actually represent. They are not trying to emulate Stalin or even Marx. Rather, they're advocates of social democracy, hoping for something more like contemporary Sweden. None of them are fundamentally challenging the pillars of the American system or its economic order. Sweden is still very much a Western liberal capitalist country - but of a different order than what we find in the United States.
This is not to say that I want to live in Sweden - nor do I (for even a moment) endorse the American model either.
Sadly, the impression I got was that Harrell seems to think Biblical Christianity is Capitalist, Gun-toting, and Nationalistic. In the end this simply reveals he's as deceived and in as much spiritual peril as those he critiques. I think he's sincere and there's much he says that I appreciate but it's all out of focus and thus the end result is erroneous.
We can certainly agree that much of Christianity is nominal and compromised. We must wholeheartedly condemn homosexuality, fornication, and abortion - but I will continue to argue the Christian Right is not pro-life either. Their stances on economics, nationalism, the military, guns, health care, and the like are not pro-life - not even close.
The thing is - Mamdani and Sanders are no threats to me or the Church. Let them build their Babel. Watch them fail.
But Arnzen and Harrell are a threat because they promote false forms of Christianity under the guise of being Biblical. They lead people into thinking Right-wing filth is somehow compatible with New Testament faith. They speak of the prevalent myths in in our culture but are blind to the many Evangelical (and Confessional) myths regarding the American Founding, and it's so-called Christian (and even Reformational) roots - not to mention the whole Judeo-Christian nonsense. One moment Harrell seems to deny the whole notion of a Christian nation but then in the next breath speaks in terms of America once being Christian. Does he (rightly) see a problem with the concept, or is he like so many others simply lamenting the fact that America didn't go the way they hoped?
And for the record when they speak of Leftists hating America, they are mistaken. They believe in America far more than the bitter partisans of the Christian Right. The Left believes wholeheartedly in the values and Classic Liberal ideals that America was built on. They lament that it has so often failed to follow through and live up to those ideals and yet (in blind defiance) insist that they can still transform this nation and cultivate its full potential. I think they're delusional but I don't think they hate the country. Pelosi, Schumer, and even Sanders are patriots. As a Christian I am not and believe all patriotism to be idolatry and thus incompatible with the faith.
The Right for its part is divided. There are those who embrace romanticised myths about what America once was and others who in some respects are more honest (not to their credit) and celebrate its ugliness, calling for a radical return and perhaps advocate for an even more reactionary vision.
So why does American hate Biblical Christianity? It's in its genes. The nation was born of sin - and Christians continue to celebrate the ungodly and disobedient rebellion of 1776. The history of the nation is not Christian. The founding documents are not Christian and in fact the ideals they present - the Classical Liberal notions of individual rights and the social contract are not only absent from Scripture they are opposed to the ethics of the New Testament. Until Christians are willing to denounce the US experiment and divorce themselves from its ideology - and take down their accursed flags, they will continue to emulate and apply its values and forge a Christianity that simply falls into recurring patterns of apostasy.
They're critical of Hannity on abortion. Why are you even listening to a corrupt buffoon like Sean Hannity to begin with? He's a shill, an operative for the Trump machine. At so many points this interview just left me baffled.
Why don't you tell your congregations to turn of FOX and Newsmax, to throw away their Glenn Beck books, and burn anything Mark Levine ever wrote?
Why do they allow themselves to be steered by the false binary - it's either the Left or the Right? Reject them both. Reject the premise. The Right by the way has gone off the cliff and they've got rampant fascism on the loose within their movement. Reject all of them and their assumptions. Live and think as citizens of Zion - not America/Babylon.
So much of what they confuse with Leftist ideology is really just American decadence and American ideology gone to seed. Individualism is destructive, especially when absolutized. The New Testament knows nothing of rights. And most of all the American system has (since its inception) been given over to mammonism. It is the enshrined national religion with its own set of Christ-hating ethics. Unfortunately this is the very ideology espoused by 'conservative' Christian leaders. These are the ethics they live by and so it's no wonder that when I look at at the landscape of Christian America I see two groups both racing (seemingly trying to outdo each other) in order to cross the finish line labeled 'apostasy'.
Capitalism and its mammon ethics of materialism, exploitation, covetousness (and its many traps attached to supposed values) is the cancer that has rotted America from within, and is like a cancer wasting away the Church. The Modernist-Theologically Liberal Churches embrace the values of Liberalism and while they might pay lip service to anti-Capitalist rhetoric, nine times out of ten one finds that all they're really advocating is a greater programme of largesse.
The Right and the so-called conservative Churches are wholly given over to its values and various forms of prosperity gospel which are tied in with not only self-advancement and affirmation but the Lamech-like individualist ethics that hold all others in contempt and are without hesitation ready to resort to violence in order to defend what is theirs and their supposed honour - both of individual and nation. The whole thing is vile and anti-Christian.
I wanted to like this episode and benefit from it but in the end it's worse than an irony - it's tragic.
Why does American hate Biblical Christianity? It's clear that neither Arnzen or Harrell has the answer.
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