Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Christian Nationalism

One remarks, with considerable chagrin, the advent of leftist anti-Semitism. In colleges and universities, in newsrooms, on America’s streets, people who hate Jews are out in force, threatening, abusing and harassing.

At the least, we should emphasize that the war against Israel, which is what it is, is not being led by Christians. It is not being led by Christian white supremacists. 


The people who despise Israel and who thrilled to the October 7 massacre were not Christians.  In truth, Christians often took the lead in supporting Israel.


This suggests that the current frenzy about Christian nationalism was designed to cover up the anti-Americanism of certain other groups. Similarly, the frenzy about January 6 was designed to cover up the riotous insurrection mounted against the country in the Spring and Summer of 2020. The BLM insurrectionists were not Christian white supremacists.


Someone somewhere has pointed out that the opposite of Christian nationalists is pagan internationalists. Nicely put. For the record God said this to Abram:

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.


Also, in the book of Exodus Moses led his people out of the empire called pharaonic Egypt, to found a new community based on one set of rules, not on adulation of a human idol. 


The opposite of nationalism is internationalism. At a time when the current administration refuses to close its borders, presumably because it considers all people to be citizens of the world, internationalism is ruling policy. 


One notes that the hordes who are invading the country are invariably not Christian white supremacists. Surely, for people who resent the white race, that is the point. 


True enough, Trump was a nationalist, though considering him a representative of Christian nationalism is a bit of a stretch. Those who trot out the presumed slander mean to emphasize abortion policy, recently become more salient thanks to an absurd decision by a court in Alabama. 


Dare we say that white Christians, in Europe and America, have produced a great civilization. Dare we add that those who were not white Christians resent them bitterly for having done so. It is precisely analogous to the situation in Israel, where white Europeans produced a great nation while Muslim have produced nothing of consequence. 


In today’s America’s the living symbol of American achievement is a builder named Donald Trump. Those who are incapable of building anything are hard at work trying to destroy what Trump built, and have blamed it on white supremacy. 


As I have pointed out before, Israeli success has made Palestinians look bad. It has shamed them. Rather than emulate the Israelis they have chosen the pathway of destruction-- destroying what others have built.


Those who see the ghost of Christian nationalism riding over the landscape believe that certain Christian groups want to take over the world, to impose their values and their religion on the nation.


That this has never been the case in a highly secular America does not bother them. The important point is much simpler, if you ask which religion wants to impose itself on all others, the immediate answer would not be Christianity; it would be Islam. 


Dare we mention that the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, has an Islamist wing, a group that is working hard to impose itself on the nation. 


Lest we forget, the armies of atheism are alive and well in America. They control the media and even the academy. They are constantly maligning the achievements of American Christians and Israeli Jews. Theirs is a defamation factory.


By their warped reasoning Israel has never achieved anything. It is a colonial power, an illegitimate imposter that has succeeded because it has oppressed Palestinian peoples.


This absurd mythology has occupied the minds of far too many otherwise intelligent people.


So, Islam, in particular, along with the totalitarian political movements that wreaked so much havoc during the twentieth century, are hard at work discrediting white civilization, discrediting free enterprise and the Industrial Revolution-- the better to make themselves feel better for having failed.


Evidently, they are horrified that Israel is fighting back against their slanders. Similarly, many American Christians, tired of seeing their culture maligned and defamed, are fighting back. 


In political terms, Democrats are associating Christian nationalism with abortion politics. Surely, they would prefer to make abortion central to the upcoming campaign, not immigration.


As noted, anti-Semitism is alive and well on the American left. It has pride of place in today’s Democratic Party.


True enough, Donald Trump is being supported by certain Christian groups. Most, if not all of them are full-throated supporters of Israel.


It is worth recalling that half of Trump’s family is Jewish and that he was a strong supporter of the state of Israel. At a time when the Biden administration has denounced Israeli West Bank settlements, Trump embraced them.


Besides, speaking of Abraham and of the Abrahamic religions, with Trump we had the Abraham Accords. With Biden we had piles of dead Jews on October 7.


With Trump we had a series of alliances wherein Muslim nations recognized the legitimacy of the state of Israel. With Joe Biden we had the October 7 massacre, followed by a war where the Biden administration has tried to play both ends against the middle.


Please subscribe to my Substack, for free or preferably for a fee.

1 comment:

Walt said...

“Christian nationalists” seems to be the new coinage of the week and is just the new variant of “extreme MAGA Republicans” or in other words “deplorables.”