The untimely end of ‘Christian nationalism’

The bastardization of the Christian faith commonly regarded as “Christian nationalism” may have breathed its last. It may not be obvious right now, but it’s clearly headed for the scrapheap of history.

I say that for two reasons.

One, many of its institutional supporters are — just as in the 1980s, with the TV evangelists — victims of scandal because they wouldn’t police themselves due to their drunkenness on power. Most recently, the pastor of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo. was revealed to have abused a number of younger female members of that congregation, which has supported the heretical “seven mountains of culture” doctrine that suggests — with no biblical support — that spiritual revival will come when Christian “take dominion” over those pillars of society.

The problem, of course, is that evangelism, character development and service, the things that grow people in the faith as well as congregations, take a back seat.

The “prophetic movement” in some charismatic circles as a rule has ignored this basic truth, focusing more on outlandish predictions than a scriptural understanding of God’s intent. That’s why it’s making fools of itself and God in doing so, especially in insisting that Donald Trump was a shoo-in for reelection four years ago; and, even now, saying that he’ll return to the White House in 2025.

Which leads to another complication: The SCOTUS’ Dobbs decision obliterating Roe v. Wade.

Much political evangelicalism has believed for decades that making abortion illegal would mark another step in such revival. It never considered, however, that the pro-choice side would mobilize as never before, with six states passing laws or even ballot referendums to keep abortion legal. And rather than Trump thundering about it, he’s gone on the record calling it a “mistake” but also that it should be a matter for the states to decide.

Well, which is it? his supporters are asking. That’s the point, because one thing Trump wants is worship and a continued focus on the abortion issue threatens that. He’s now sounding like of one those mealy-mouthed politicians talking out of both sides of his mouth — indeed, one of the reasons the Christian nationalists supported him in the first place is because they believed that his anti-abortion stance was genuine (even though he’s flip-flopped on the issue). And they clearly don’t have the votes in Congress to enact a nationwide ban on their own.

Yes, the theory of “Christian nationalism” is dangerous. But as a practical matter, it never had much chance of being implemented. And God Himself would see to that.

Is the MAGA movement collapsing?

That the Donald Trump-speared “Make America Great Again” movement, inspired by a Ku Klux Klan-inspired slogan in the early 20^th Century and every bit as dangerous, has been a driving force in his campaign to retake the White House after his 2020 loss isn’t a surprise. Indeed, in certain “swing states,” including my state of Pennsylvania, he and current President Joe Biden are running neck-and-neck.

But two recent situations lead me to believe that “Trump fever” might be breaking.

The first is his walking back on an anti-abortion stance that he adopted to get conservative “Christians” to vote for him — specifically, his vow to have the Supreme Court reverse Roe v. Wade. That has, however, since backfired as numerous states have strengthened their own laws permitting abortion, whether by legislation or voter referendum. Trump has since occasionally called its repeal “a mistake,” disappointing anti-abortion activists, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who were convinced — with no evidence — that he was truly on their side.

The other is tying aid to the war effort in Ukraine to more control of the border with Mexico — or, at least, the ruse of such. You may recall that congressional Republicans were stalling on military aid to Ukraine, which had been invaded by Russia two years ago, to get an immigration bill passed (something that then-President Obama had pleaded for a decade previously). Well, President Biden eventually was able to broker such a bill but Trump, running for the presidency again, said that Republicans shouldn’t vote it because he wanted to bludgeon Democrats with the issue during the campaign, effectively killing it.

Thing is, aid to Ukraine recently passed. Why? Well, Trump of late has been distracted with the “hush money” trial in New York state court involving his alleged one-night stand with adult-film star Stormy Daniels and thus couldn’t comment on its passing; we all know that Trump, when he was president, tried to pull the United States out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, rumored to be at the behest of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long sought to destroy that alliance because it crimps his imperialistic tendencies. (Keep in mind that paying off Daniels with $130,000 to keep quiet wasn’t itself illegal; it’s that he tried to charge that money to his campaign, thereby committing business fraud under state law.)

Even more recently, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of Trump’s strongest supporters, introduced a resolution to remove Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House for working with Democrats, which went nowhere in large part because Republicans noted — correctly, in my view — that they’re now being blamed for causing chaos but getting absolutely nothing done, thus giving more power to the Democrats. One GOP congressman even responded to Greene’s move with the sarcastic Southern saying “Bless her heart.” And it’s that chaos that Trump has always brought to the political scene that led Geoff Duncan, a former Georgia lieutenant governor, to write an endorsement of Biden in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

What I suspect we’re seeing is that Trump, who has always painted himself and been regarded as an “outsider,” with his response to the abortion issue turning against him, has been reduced to one of the mealy-mouthed politicians that he has always denounced in acerbic, insulting terms. To be honest, I didn’t entirely expect that the takedown of Roe would have this effect on the abortion-rights-supporting political left. But what we’re seeing now is a man trying desperately to save his own political skin by going back on his stated position because it’s now being used against him, which is why the approval of aid to Ukraine is also important

And that threatens MAGA ideology, because it has always wanted to dominate the political process by bullying its opponents into silence.

An inside job

Recently I’ve noticed a meme on Facebook noting that evangelical Christians had been warning about an “Antichrist” for decades that but when one actually appeared on the scene they ended up voting for him.

I am of course referring to the narcissistic, arrogant Donald Trump, whom exit polls reported in 2016 as receiving an astonishing 81 percent of the votes of white evangelicals for President of the United States despite his lengthy history of corrupt business practices, racism, abuse and denigration of women — and that’s just for starters. Another meme gave specific Bible verses as to the Antichrist’s conduct and how they lined up with Trump’s words and actions. (For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that the Bible teaches about a personal Antichrist, just a spirit of such.)

The obvious question is: How could so many believers be so blind?

I have an answer to that, and it isn’t pretty: These folks never considered that it might be an inside job.

For decades, certainly with the advent of the “religious right” in the 1970s, the focus of many parachurch ministries fighting the so-called culture war became rallying the troops to fight outsiders — most notably but not limited to the “gay lobby,” abortion-rights activists, “globalists” and diversity advocates — to preserve a form of Christian hegemony. (Which is why you have the heretical “seven mountains of culture” doctrine, which started around then.)

And on top of that, many of your conservative church bodies doubled down on their commitment to “orthodoxy,” the American Protestant Episcopal and Presbyterian churches splitting and the Southern Baptist Convention purging its ranks of “moderates” for the sake of what we might consider doctrinal purity.

The trouble with all that remains that the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the heart of which has always been reconciliation, ended up being pushed aside — and that’s the one thing that the devil cannot imitate because the kind of forgiveness required to do that was never on his radar screen. And when you also consider that many Christians beginning in the 1980s ingested a steady diet of right-wing talk radio laced with bitterness and resentment toward certain targets, a couple of hours of Bible study and church attendance couldn’t compete with the hours of daily spiritual poison to which they subjected themselves.

All this led to the spirit of Antichrist mentioned in Revelation but which has slipped the consciousness of much of the church to a point to where the very words of Jesus, mentioned in especially the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 through 7, are regarded as “liberal talking points.” (And although I don’t have any empirical evidence of this, I suspect that it’s also behind much of the “deconstruction” going on today, with folks who grew up in conservative churches questioning the veracity of the Scriptures.)

Which is why, if we really want revival in this country, we Christians need to reject Trump openly — because, as things stand now, he’s in God’s way. But more importantly, we need to look inward and recognize how we got off-track because Satan almost never attacks openly, engineering small compromises so that eventually God’s intent is papered over for the sake of power.

And that is the spirit of Antichrist.