God is a gun-toting, white American guy. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“The state should not infringe on the church — that’s what the First Amendment says,” thundered Pastor Ken Peters to his congregation at the Patriot Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, last Sunday, as well as those watching at home on Facebook. “But it’s a one-way wall. It’s like the wall should be the wall on the southern border. It’s one way — so they cannot keep us out of the state.”
Peters is one of a growing number of “MAGA-preachers” who use the pulpit to deliver hellfire warnings about the state of the nation. A rising star in the amped-up evangelical world, the founder of the Patriot Church became infamous as one of the preachers who addressed angry protesters in Washington D.C. on January 5, 2021. Convinced that President Trump had the election stolen from him — from them — these protesters would go on the next day to storm the Capitol.
The January 6 committee has already heard that the attack was the “culmination of an attempted coup”. While the congressional hearings are covering a lot we already knew — President Trump became detached from the reality of his election loss and surrounded himself with yes men; his key adviser Rudy Giuliani was hammered on election night — they have featured harrowing new testimony from people at the riot about the level of organisation and violence on display.
One police officer attacked by the rioters told the committee that the building was a “war zone” and said that she was “slipping in people’s blood”. Footage and testimony from a filmmaker on the scene said he saw hundreds of far-Right Proud Boys walking away from President Trump’s speech towards the Capitol, with the committee inferring that they may have been scoping out security weaknesses for an organised attack. This would imply that January 6 was not the result of the spontaneous actions of lone wolves — nor a false flag operation — as Trump supporters would have us believe.
On the surface, the storming of the Capitol might show how a man nakedly obsessed with winning chose to incite his febrile supporter base and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. But on closer inspection, the events of that day tell the story of the troubling rise of Christian Nationalism that is gaining pace in the United States.
Christian Nationalism is the idea that America is defined by Christianity. This idea has been around as long as America itself, but until the mid-20th century, many evangelicals saw themselves as being above, or at least separate to, mainstream society. The desire to penetrate politics has steadily picked up pace since the Fifties, with the dial being firmly turned in the Reagan-era and again since the 2008 financial crisis and election of Barack Obama.
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SubscribeI was not expecting something more unhinged than a Vox or Slate article. Really, they are the ones trying to impose their will on the rest of the country? I don’t know if you have noticed but we now have drag queens in elementary schools, the cancelation of people who point out basic biology, pride flags and BLM signs on almost every corporate twitter account, and pop culture going more and more woke every year. What major acts of violence has been committed by these people? Oh and please don’t try to go back to January 6th where the official story has changed about five times already (officer Sicknick anyone?) or the Gretchen Whitmer plot (twice as many feds as plotters). I remember an entire summer of violent rioting. There was a recent assassination attempt against Justice Kavanaugh. Portland is still Portland. Finally there is a surge of vandalism, arson, and violence against churches across this country. Concerned parents are literally treated as domestic terrorists by the United States Justice Department. The author acts as if it is shocking that these people are starting to mobilize to push back. It would be more shocking if they did not.
I’m so glad that yours was the first comment I read! I was almost in shock as this lady kept laying it on thicker and thicker. My jaw dropped as I read this unhinged screed against the American constitutional republic (electoral college and Senate are the way Republicans sneak past the Uber-left Democrats??!) This lady seems to want to undo America so she can banish Christians and wallow in her materialist, secular fantasies.
What I’m starting to wonder is WHY UnHerd is increasingly cramming this sort of thing into valuable reading time? Yesterday or the day before it was the guy who gave a Marxist conspiracy analysis about inflation as intentionally inflicted on the poor to take away their rights. How many of these left-wing-crank screeds can UnHerd publish before the magazine begins to sound more like the NYT than an alternative reading source (thank God for Mary Harrington).
Spot on- I’m starting to wonder if it is worth continuing my subscription when Unherd is publishing this drivel.
Cancel if you wish, but you will then miss the outstanding and varied articles. Perhaps you should consider that ant publication that manages to map precisely on to your beliefs will only become an echo chamber.
True, but challenging my beliefs requires a good argument from a coherent writer.
Spot on Alan. I don’t read Unherd to get confirmation of my views; and I expect the comments to be equally challenging too. Otherwise it’s pointless having a mind to consider alternative viewpoints, and formulate more refined opposing views.
Matt has reacted by quoting the extreme nasties done by the left/woke, but that’s not addressing the issue of the religious extremists in the article.
It’s worth reading sane stuff and the insane stuff in one place, though. Saves time by not having to read the Guardian.
So you’d prefer it to be an echo chamber? Why, precisely, is the article drivel?
Well The UnHerd choose its name for a reason. I can’t say I like reading stuff like this, but I like the openness that is the UnHerd. This article shows an ideologically revealing perspective, even if it the writer’s rather than the subject. It’s good to here a purist speak. It reminds me of the points of view out their to be ready to debate, or take on as Mr. Hindman aptly does. Again.
The spam attacks on our holy shrine of comments are becoming a real pest! The days are gone when we could frolic in the perfect world of Unherd without being harassed by job offers from dubious sources. The war of ideologies is being overshadowed by bots that want to infiltrate our perfect biosphere and ruin it with offerings off illusionary wages while doing nothing! All we want is to further our intellect and not be harassed by trash!
Is that a job offer?
But no one is buying the woke liberals. It’s a small, vocal group which cannot create a unified movement when at its heart they preach diversity. They are exclusionary and offer no vision. Christianity has already proven itself to be both inclusive and has a vision people find attractive when faced with liberalism.
I’ve written for several years that America was heading for a form of Christian Nationalism. Europe is more than likely heading for Islamic Nationalism. I’m not the first to recognise it.
I was amazed at the glib assumption that the US is not, “a fair, democratic system.” It was fair enough to resist Trump’s mob’s attempted coup and his own pressure on officials. I suggest that nothing damages democracy more than low turnout.
I agree with your point about the excesses of the Left, but we don’t have to accept a polarised ‘either or’ narrative. Some of these people sound pretty weird to me, and I expect, you, and are at least talking about violence. The way to fight back is to mobilise politically and persuade your fellow citizens. In any case, their programme has almost no chance at all of doing this.
This reads like a classic of Twitter-based journalism. Lots of links to disconnected outrage pieces, that are then woven together with some right-on TDS-based political narrative. Nothing from talking to real people on the ground about what they actually believe. No counter-balance as to why Americans might be distrusting of elections or concerned over the moral direction of the country. ‘They are bad’, look my Twitter feed is full of bad stories about ‘them.’ Tinsel words – shiny and glittery – but lacking depth or insight.
Christianity underpins liberal democracies’ individual rights and duties, equality before the law, the concept of right over might, and freedoms of conscience, speech, and bodily autonomy. As the writer must surely know well, it helped to serve to keep the flame of liberty and free-thinking alive in the Soviet Union and elsewhere under communist rule. Nationalism, or more accurately patriotism, in a liberal democracy serves to bind disparate groups of people together to serve a common cause that politically unites them against those who do not share their liberal democratic, Christian-heritage values.
So it is should come as little surprise that “Christian nationalism” is on the rise. Many Christians, and genuinely liberal atheistic folk who have inherited the metaphorical truths underpinning Christian liberal values, perceive their values, rights, and culture to be under attack.
They do so because they see large tech, pharma, and other corporations effectively merging with arms of their government in public private partnerships that serve the interests of a tiny, materially wealthy minority without regard to anyone else.
They see their own, compromised and no longer representative governments enmeshing themselves, bilaterally and through corrupted international organisations, with godless, authoritarian governments whose political tradition is one of brutal, unreformed Caesaresque anti-individualism.
They see in their own country the death of independent, courageous journalism and original art and culture, swallowed up by corporate behemoths and replaced by deluded narrative-pushers, dim wits all regurgitating or re-presenting the same tired lies, half-truths and irrelevances.
They see the lure of materialism, Gnosticism, and unfettered utopian transhumanism dragging their children and young adults away into unrealities where there are no unchosen obligations, where there is no suffering, no injustice, nothing to challenge or overcome or creative anew, just unceasing consumption and “happiness” where everyone is the same and has the same, and where everyone merges into one inclusive mush.
They see what the more far-sighted Russian liberals of 1900s saw: that this, like the surging Bolshevism of that time, will lead to mass misery, persecution, and cruelty.
And they see the infiltration of their own churches by (well-meaning but hopelessly misguided) globalist fantasists, tempted by a satanic narrative that the solution to the world’s ills lies not in putting one’s trust in unknowable spiritual faith in something bigger than ourselves, but rather in men becoming gods and, therefore, the end of politics as we know it, the dissolution of national and class interests, and a subordination of every we hold dear to an ill-conceived common purpose. They see that this is a virulent pathogen or a knotweed that, if left unchecked, invades family spaces, collapses boundaries between individuals and genders, and erodes the very notion of the sanctity of individual men and women created by God in his own image.
So please, Elle Hardy, before you lament the rise of the “radical right” and the “rot” of “hate-filled” preachers who simply have a perspective that you don’t share, please check yourself. And ask whether you may also be seeing the shadows of demons. You might discover that the people you so malign and fear are very much like you than you might think – they just happen to see things a bit differently to the way you see them.
Andrew, oh my god that was a brilliant retort and I’ll be saving it. Well done!
Thanks for reminding me I’m not alone.
My pleasure, Russ, and thank you. You are not alone, far from it. They fear us far more than we fear them.
An extremely one-sided article, written by someone who appears to have made little to no attempt to understand the views and values of Christians in the US (or anywhere probably), those who disagree with her, nor to see much value in doing so. I see she’s written a book about how “Pentecostal Christianity” is “taking over the world”, but I don’t think I’d trust anything from her on that subject on this evidence. Viewing your opponents as a bunch of dangerous weirdos rarely leads to much in the way of intelligent or constructive analysis.
It’s strange btw that a movement can simultaneously be “taking over the world” (or the US), and yet apparently have already “lost the democratic battle and the demographic battle”. Also, my jaw dropped when I read that “Republican power in the United States is largely gained through archaic, unrepresentative institutions such as the Electoral College and Senate, political appointments to the courts, and the gerrymandering of electorates. In a fair, democratic system, they aren’t winning, and would be forced to moderate their ideas to appeal to a wider slice of the electorate.” … wow. Even to the extent there’s any truth in that statement, how does it not apply at least equally to the Democrats? Pot, kettle, black?
… actually, are we still allowed to day “pot, kettle, black”? I’ve a feeling the opponents of “Christian Nationalism” – you know, the people busy supressing views they don’t like and imposing their ideologies on everyone they can, definitely not excluding children – would probably say not.
Well stated. As a conservative American Christian, I’m amazed that she didn’t throw in the now-obligatory reference to us yearning for “The Handmaid’s Tale” to become reality.
And I will happily admit that I’m thankful for archaic institutions like the US Electoral College and Senate. And a republic as opposed to a pure democracy.
Okay, maybe. But one thing I would say is the unifying ideology of the current Democrats is to be anti straight Gentile male. So kind of similar. I cannot think of anything else the Democrats would all agree on.
Jeepers! Harry Potter is cancelled for being demonic and his creator, JK Rowling is cancelled for being transphobic. I guess viciously zealous Muggles come in both left-handed and right-handed versions.
Oh well, if the Evangelicals were the geniuses who planned the “insurrection”, they must be about the most inept insurrectionists in all of human history.
It’s a darn good thing the authoritarian left is equally inept and stupid.
And Jeffery Epstein did NOT commit suicide. His airplane had right and left wings too.
Ms. Hardy should immediately check out the book “Danger on the Right” by Forster and Epstein. It meticulously details the groups, personalities and connections of the conservative right and fundamentalist religious leaders that threaten American democracy.
It was published in 1964.
Tremendous.
Thanks.
Want to know what made me a conservative, Tom?
I was living in Dallas, Texas in 1963 when a communist sympathizer who had defected to the Soviet Union shot the President of the US.
James Reston of The NY Times blamed the assassination on the “climate of right wing hate” in Dallas.
And he wasn’t the only one who did.
I can imagine. 1933’s been just around the corner since 1946.
(For some reason no-one ever talks about 1917).
I did think I had experienced this sort of illogical debate many years ago, thanks. Elements have been successful in driving religious views out of society leaving a huge hole in people’s moral compass since 1964. We can see the resultant carnage in our lives. Relativism damages people; they need principles common to humanity if society is to survive.
CS Lewis laid it out in his “the abolition of man.” Men without chests indeed.
As a Tennessean and Christian, I find Ms. Hardy’s caricatures as weird and unfamiliar as, well, her.
Recently I would say that the quality of writing in The Post far out shines the feature articles.
I think Unherd tries to provide a broad range of opinions, including those that are solidly left of center. The current article certainly captures a certain point of view, although not one I agree with.
I do, however, totally agree with your comment about The Post outshining the feature articles (with a few notable exceptions). I’m not sure why that is although I’ve noticed many feature articles are directed to what I would regard as the fringes of popular culture whereas The Post seems to deal with issues that matter to most people.
I find that these days the feature articles are almost exclusively Guardian writes, bar the occasional Mary Haddington or Douglas Murray.
Very, very different from when it first started.
Yep, you can tell which articles are by Guardian writers before even searching their name… and what they’ll have on their twitter feed. Predictable little carbon copies of each other, absolutely no diversity of thought allowed.
The only positive thing I can say about the article is that it spawned some good commentary.
What a completely absurd and laughably alarmist load of nonsense. Clearly the author is from the so called ‘be kind’ brigade, yet her loathing of “gas-guzzling, straight, white, native-born kinda guys”(traits that perfectly reasonable and decent people have) is pretty evident. Those who sanctimoniously pen such articles using such terminology are the real ‘haters’ that they themselves endlessly bang on about. The ‘be kind’ mask kinda slipped there unfortunately!
Shades of The Orangemen…. So these Christians dislike Catholicism too? However, better Christian than not, and given Americas pilgrim father roots and history, the simple low church does work for them, and has been the backbone of such immense success as a country that was never going to have culture and philosophy to fall back on.
Absolute bullshit.
I was actually considering subscribing – but this batshit crazy shrill nonsense has made me think twice.
The editors seem to want to poke us awake. Not the usual article. See the 1964 comment. Not sure why it has returned.
What a load of tosh
.
Ms. Hardy blames “Christian Nationalism” as her enemy, but then goes on to mention a host of people and groups that don’t claim to be Christian. The only Evangelical I know of at the Capitol on Jan. 6th was Mike Pence.
It’s true that our Founders chose Christianity and the teachings of Jesus as the moral foundation on which a people would be given the privilege of self governance. Today’s left is supporting every behavior that opposes that foundation.
As an Evangelical myself, I’d like to assure Ms. Hardy that we have no intention of taking over this country aside from our right to vote as citizens. And the fact that our nation is running as fast as it can from God is no surprise to us. It’s a fulfillment of prophecy and you will get your wish. You will inherit not only a godless nation, but a godless world. We say, “as in the days of Noah.”
The only way out is to put your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sin and reconciliation with God. What’s coming is not going to be good.
“One police officer attacked by the rioters told the committee that the building was a “war zone” and said that she was “slipping in people’s blood”. Footage and testimony from a filmmaker on the scene said he saw hundreds of far-Right Proud Boys walking away from President Trump’s speech towards the Capitol, with the committee inferring that they may have been scoping out security weaknesses for an organised attack. This would imply that January 6 was not the result of the spontaneous actions of lone wolves — nor a false flag operation — as Trump supporters would have us believe.”
I stopped bothering to read about this hysterical drivel. If I wanted this sort of take I’d invest in Buzzfeed stock.
The ballot box is the source of power. But it is not the source of authority. All over the world people are remembering that.
Elle Hardy obviously has an axe to grind, and she is grinding away in this article.
First of all, the term “evangelical” is a vague and loosely defined religious term, which she uses carelessly, as an epithet. Some definitions are in order.
I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I practice in the Reformed tradition. Many people would ( wrongly ) lump me into the so-called “evangelical” camp. Yet the events of January 6th, and Donald Trump sicken me, as they should anyone serious about following Christ.
I early on described “Trumpism” as Christian Nationlism. I erred. It is neither Christian – in the tradional sense – nor a formal of legitimate patriotic fervor. It is a gross perversion of both, an amalgam of sentiments which, were they sincere, might be beneficial. As it is, they are inauthentic representations and highly toxic.
But I think Ms. Hart exaggerates their importance on the political landscape. Yes, there are many right wing people who feel threatened – and should be – by the insanities of progressive governance, globalism and “wokeness”. And yes, many of them see their country as a modern version of Weimar Germany. Who can blame them? Finally, many of these people are drawn to the strong man thuggery of a man like Trump to save them. This is decidedly NOT a Christian perspective.
Most thinking Christians know that there are moderate conservative arguments and leaders who could address some of these social ills constructively.
The hinge on which all of this turns is the two- party system, a system which is broken, perhaps beyond repair. The Democrats are sold out to radical social engineering and make little bones about their disdain for tradition and faith. The GOP is timid and tiptoes around the obvious problem named Donald J. Trump. If the GOP fails to sideline him, he will be the spoiler, just like Ross Perot was. And the American people will be faced again by an electoral dilemma of even greater magnitude than the last three we’ve endured.
God have mercy on us!
Good response. The Trump movement and the coming of a more militant Christian ideology betray many core principles of Christianity. I do not understand the theology of many of these movements as Christ so clearly said his kingdom is not of this world. Mankind has always sought to establish heaven on earth and has failed spectacularly and tragically each time. This will be no different.
It’s just maddening to watch it all unfold. I hope the GOP can get its sense but I fear they missed the golden opportunity afforded by Jan 6th to banish Trump from holding office in the future. The Dems are painfully weak, bereft of any truly unifying leader. 2024 might herald dark times.
I see that most Unherd readers have objected to this disagreeable piece. I would add that the statistical reference “29% of Americans who believe that the federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation” is risible when one considers that barely that amount actually attend Christian churches with any regularity.
Addtionally, the statement that “in a fair, democratic system, they aren’t winning” is laughable considered against so much recent speculation of Republican landslides in the fall elections.
I do think it’s an issue that Rs have won just one popular vote with the presidential election since 1992. At some point and I don’t know when that is, the system no longer represents the will of the people. Trump lost to Hillary by 3 mn and to Biden by 7 mn. Those aren’t small figures.
If Rs continue to win the electoral college without the popular vote, then it takes a very strained logic to claim the electoral college is a fair and just representation of the will of the people.
It’s been a minute since I had to pass Civics class to graduate from high school (which, given present company, no one should be surprised is no longer a required course) but isn’t the example of popular vote losses/electoral victories a testament to the wisdom of our founders and their rather ingenious bulwark against the tyranny of the majority? Look at a county map of the US, Red and Blue for Repubs and Dems respectively. What you’ll see is that cities – from Pittsburgh to Jackson, MS – are Blue. Overwhelmingly, the rest of the country is Red. The anti-electoral college Leftists think the people in rural counties don’t deserve representation. Those are exactly the kind of people I don’t want representing me.
That’s a bad fallacy to use. Go look at a map that adjusts for population and blue areas matter far more. Furthermore, the US first implemented the Articles of Confederation that handed far too much power to smaller states as most amendments required unanimous approval. The Founders in that case recognized their errors and corrected it.
Finally, consider county unit systems that systematically suppressed minority votes in the Jim Crow era in Mississippi where candidates were required to win both the popular vote and the majority of counties. These aren’t representative solutions. The tyranny of the minority is as bad as an absolute tyranny of the majority.
But the risk of a tyranny of the minority is counterbalanced by having popular elections for congressional districts. It is congress’s duty to make laws, not the president’s.
The president is elected by the states not by the people. The people direct their states electors how to vote.
I see that the DNC has shills submitting articles at UnHerd these days.
It’s hard not interpret this piece (which is really just an Australian Leftist flogging American straw men in the last smart internet magazine on earth) as progressive misery-sublimation and trolling. I’m sure Elle is a polite, decent person. But, my goodness, she sure writes like someone whose fanatical droning you’d make a lame excuse to get away from at a party.
Conquest’s second law of politics: any organisation not explicitly right wing sooner or later becomes left wing.
Drivel
Wouldn’t the burning of Harry Potter books please both sides of this yawning divide? Or must we, like proto-Orthodox heretic hunters, first ascertain the motive?
These people are attacking the elected State directly. The woke left is invading the other sources of authority – the corporations, the universities, and the non-elected administrative parts of the State. Neither must be allowed to succeed, or democracy ends.
No, no, no! You’ve not been listening. We have to have a hard-left one-party state in order to *save* our democracy!
Are Unherd commenters expecting a right wing echo chamber?
I’ve been reading this sort of stuff since the 1980s and days the ‘moral majority’. The USA is permanently on the verge of some kind of theocratic purge of secular society. But the country still functions, albeit with the ever present tension between state and federal govt. Yes, China is catching up, but the USA is still the world leader for its economy, tech, culture and politics (each for good or ill).
Still I guess it makes good copy!
Wow! This was by a giant margin the most out-of-touch / ivory tower / inside the beltway / intoxicated by the smell of my own farts piece I’ve ever seen on Unherd.
Not to mention particularly ill-timed. I wonder if the author has any thoughts on the “family friendly” “pride” events that have been popping up in places like Texas and Idaho. “It’s not gonna lick itself” as grampa used to say. I miss they.
Did I accidentally type in http://www.theatlantic.com when I was trying to read UnHerd?
The “Moral Majority” or Evangelical Right was 40 years ago and with Neocon assistance, served up multiple wedge issues for America in the 80s.
The Neoconservatives (Progressives) are replaying the tactic from the 80s to associate Evangelicals with Nationalism, which they redefined as Ultranationalism (never mind that there are no Judeo Christian actions to dismantle the Constitution).
We shouldn’t take the bait, particularly in the face of existential threats to our economy and national security.
As most of the Founding Fathers were deists, the USA must have somehow departed from the 18th century model.
And was Jesus really meek and mild? Overturning the tables of the money changers and declaring elsewhere, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword…”
Reading this article almost a year after publication is very telling. The authoress’ premise is shown to be false. Her left wing tropes are not holding up. There is no movement to impose Christianity by force in the USA. The left has pushed its radical ideology to the point that they are will to teach sexual perversion in school. People who acknowledge a divine order revealed through scripture and time tested reason, are rejecting the state imposed perversion and are waking up and speaking up. Pluralism at its best.
The author’s premise that Christian Nationalists and their fellow traveler right-wing zealots are a distinct existential threat to democracy has many adherents, myself included. I don’t think the danger is so much in the content of their beliefs as in their willingness to act on them in future. We have seen minority movements punch far above their weight in the past.
The Bolsheviks were at the fringes of a tiny intelligentsia that existed in Russia leading up to October 1917; but such was Lenin and his follower’s – particularly Trotsky’s – ruthlessness and savagery that they swept all before them, leading the way to Stalin, murderer of millions and one of the great monsters of history.
The Nazis in Germany came to power in the Weimar Republic legitimately, but never commanded a clear majority in any election. They won just enough seats in the Reichstag in 1932 to bully and manipulate their way to the enabling act and absolute power in 1933. Within months the first concentration camp was established at Dachau and the way was open to the Holocaust.
The opposition in both cases – Mensheviks and Social Democrats – were leaderless, weak, and disorganized; too “civilized” to counter minorities that were energized by ideologies and a level of fanatical certainty that prepared them to do literally anything to gain absolute power.
I find some solace in the realization that adherents to the author’s premise often sound more like they’re pitching a screenplay than selling a theory they would stake their reputation on.
If you close your eyes you won’t be able to see the “QAnon Shaman”, and you’ll be able to pretend all the 6th January protesters were happy-clappy Ned Flanders-types. You won’t be able to see the “blood” and the “violence” either, but don’t worry. No one else can either – except in his mind.
At last someone in the media has recognised where America is headed. I suspect it will be even worse. There is every likelihood that Christian Nationalists will join with the Greens. I can see the “off grid” movement dovetailing with the environmentalists.
Leonard Peikoff predicted this would be the fate of America in his book “The Ominous Parallels” and his thesis “The DIM hypothesis”.
What do you mean “At last”? The loonie left has been on this kick since at least the days of Sinclair Lewis (b.1885).