Christian nationalism behind Trump

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It is not a social or cultural movement. It is a political movement, and its ultimate goal is power. It does not seek to add another voice to America’s pluralistic democracy but to replace our foundational democratic principles and institutions with a state grounded on a particular version of Christianity answering to what some adherents call a “biblical worldview” that also happens to serve the interests of its plutocratic funders and allied political leaders…This is not a “culture war.” It is a political war over the future of democracy.

When it comes to that “biblical worldview,” we often hear about the fact that Christian nationalists oppose abortion and LGBT rights. But as Stewart explains, the movement is actually based on the idea that “the Bible is very clear about the right answers to the political issues American voters face in the twenty-first century.” For example, they also believe that the Bible:

• opposes public assistance to the poor as a matter of principle—unless the money passes through church coffers;
  
• opposes environmentalism and, as a matter of theology, denies the science that human contributions to greenhouse gases causes global warning;
  
• opposes gun regulation;
  
• supports strong national borders;
  
• favors the privatization of schools;
  
• favors a gender hierarchy in both the home and church, with women being submissive to men;
  
• favors the use of corporal punishment when discipling children;
  
• favors government deregulation of business and minimal workers rights; and
  
• favors capitalism and property rights.
  

‘Authoritarian, paranoid, and patriarchal’: The dark roots of Christian nationalism gave us Trump – Alternet.org

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Paula White, a prosperity gospel minister who serves as President Donald Trump’s “spiritual adviser,” apparently believes her followers should live in the dark to help keep the lights on at her church. A lengthy report on White by Mother Jones reveals that the Trump-loving preacher recently told followers at her Supernatural Ministry School in Miami that they could secure God’s favor by sending her church as much money as possible — even if that meant skipping their monthly electric bills.

Trump ‘spiritual adviser’ tells followers to skip paying monthly electric bills so they can send her church more cash – Alternet.org

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Barr’s speech was sponsored by the nonprofit group Save the Persecuted Christians, which is headed by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. — a far-right conspiracy theorist and Islamophobe who has claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to infiltrate the U.S. government and impose sharia law. Before Barr spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, Gaffney stressed that he was not sponsoring a panel that would be held later and feature attorney Asma Uddin (who he smeared as a “sharia supremacist”).

During his speech, Barr (who is a Catholic, not a Protestant evangelical) railed against secularism in the United States — telling the crowd, “While most everyone agrees that we must have separation of church and state, this does not require that we drive religion from the public square and affirmatively use government power to promote a culture of disbelief.” Barr also made the tired claim that liberals and progressives want to encourage dependency on the government — even though, truth to be told, there is a difference between giving someone a hand up (as Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren recommend) and giving someone a handout. “The tacit goal of this project is to convert all of us into 25-year-olds living in the government’s basement, focusing our energies on obtaining a larger allowance rather than getting a job, and moving out and taking responsibility for ourselves,” Barr told the crowd.

AG Barr and Betsy DeVos rail against secularism and a ‘culture of disbelief’ at religious broadcasters convention – Alternet.org

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A senior official for Donald Trump has bizarrely claimed that the president was sent by God. Rick Perry, the US secretary of energy, was defending Trump on Fox News after he was mocked earlier this year for saying he was the “chosen one” to take on China. The president later said he was joking with the comment. However, Perry seems to have taken it more seriously and is now insisting that Trump was picked by God to save America.

Rick Perry says Trump is ‘the chosen one’ sent by God | indy100

On November 21, evangelist Franklin Graham (son of the late Rev. Billy Graham and a strident Trump supporter) discussed impeachment when he appeared on fellow wingnut Eric Metaxas’ radio show. Graham told Metaxas that it’s “almost a demonic power that is trying” to remove Trump from office — to which Metaxas responded, “I would disagree. It’s not almost demonic. You know and I know, at the heart, it’s a spiritual battle.” When far-right evangelicals speak of a “spiritual battle,” they typically mean one between God and Satan — and clearly, Graham and Metaxas believe that Trump is working for God, while his political opponents are working for Satan. Republican Rick Perry, secretary of energy in the Trump Administration and former governor of Texas, has also claimed that Trump is on a mission from God. Perry, during a recent appearance on Fox News, described Trump as “the chosen one” and claimed he has been “sent by God to do great things.”

Far-right white evangelicals — despite impeachment and the Ukraine scandal — still see Trump as ‘the Chosen One’ – Alternet.org

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Pompeo and Pence reportedly were the top officials pushing Trump to kill Soleimani. They’re also devout evangelicals and major allies of CUFI. This is not a coincidence. While the organization is best known for its unflagging “support” for Israel—that is, for Israel’s expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and protracted erasure of the possibility of a future Palestinian state—it has, since its founding in 2006, depicted Iran as an existential threat to Israel. The group opposed President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, denouncing it as “dangerous for Israel, the United States and the entire world,” and in the Trump administration, CUFI has found hope for a more bellicose posture.

Televangelist John Hagee launched CUFI in 2006, calling for military action against Iran, then led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom Hagee compared to Hitler. At the time, Hagee had been claiming that Iran would soon “have the nuclear capability to make a bomb, a suitcase bomb, a missile head, or anything they want to do with it.” That was untrue, given contemporaneous expert assessments of Iran’s projected nuclear advances. But for Hagee, a more militaristic approach was necessary in order to avert “an American Hiroshima.” He urged his supporters to take a stand, as they were meant to “for a time such as this,” a common evangelical reference to Queen Esther, celebrated on the Jewish holiday of Purim, who saved the Jews from extermination at the hands of Haman, the genocidal adviser to the Persian king.

The Evangelicals Who Pray for War With Iran | The New Republic

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Evangelical pastor Rodney Howard-Browne lashed out at former White House national security adviser John Bolton this week in a series of tweets after reports emerged that the former Trump administration official’s upcoming book contains details about the president's relationship with Ukraine.  “You are a slime ball of the highest order .... I should have knocked your sorry butt through the door of the Oval Office into the rose garden when I saw you. I would have gladly been arrested .... what a Benedict Arnold ..... I am glad you were fired !!!!!” Howard-Browne tweeted Monday.  “I have no respect for someone who is disloyal to the President and loyal to deep state !!! No respect! No respect at all ...... what a globalist sellout!” he added.

Conservative pastor: Jesus would have 'beat the crap' out of John Bolton | TheHill

Televangelist Paula White, who also serves as President Trump's spiritual adviser, took to Twitter to clarify remarks she made in a sermon calling for “all satanic pregnancies to miscarry” after a portion of her address went viral and sparked backlash. “I don't normally respond but clearly this has been taken out of context. I was praying Eph 6:12 that we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” she tweeted on Sunday. “Anything that has been conceived by demonic plans, for it to be cancelled and not prevail in your life, that is- any plans to hurt people.” In a follow-up tweet, White also accused some critics of taking her remarks "out of context for political gain."

Trump's spiritual adviser responds to backlash after sermon calling for 'all satanic pregnancies to miscarry' goes viral | TheHill

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It’s one of the most enduring conundrums of the Donald Trump era: How is it that the Christian right, the self-appointed monitors of American morality, have come to so enthusiastically back a thrice-married chronic adulterer who lies as easily as he breathes? Author Katherine Stewart has the answer: Because the true god these folks worship is power. In her book, “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,” Stewart details how she traveled around the country, getting to know the various Christian conservative figures that are whipping support for Trump and his agenda. She deems the “Christian nationalists” and demonstrates how their supposedly Christian values always come second to their endless quest for power.

Rise of a ‘shadow political party’: How Christian nationalists worship power — and why they love Trump – Alternet.org

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A Louisiana pastor was put on the spot on Sunday morning by CNN’s Victor Blackwell for his plan to load up his buses and haul worshipers to his planned Sunday service at a time when the highly-c0ntagious COVID-19 pandemic has claimed thousands of lives throughout the country. Speaking with the CNN host, Life Tabernacle Church pastor Tony Spell said he was ignoring advice from local officials to not host the service because it would endanger the health of his followers. Asked whether he planned to go forward despite warnings, the pastor replied, “This morning, yes, sir, 10:00 AM. We will actually run our buses. We have 27 buses that we cover in a 50-mile radius of our city. We bring people into the house of God, feed them natural food and spiritual food and then we go right back into our respective places. It takes us about eight hours to run into service on Sunday morning and then we come back in tonight.” “How many people did you have last Sunday?” host Blackwell asked. “How many people are you expecting this Sunday?” “Last Sunday we had 1,800 in attendance. This Sunday with the fear that’s been propagated into the hearts of my people, it may have had an adverse effect with more people than last week,” the pastor replied.

Louisiana pastor grilled by CNN for plan to pack 27 buses full of worshipers and haul them to church during coronavirus crisis – Alternet.org

• This is Sunday April 5, well into the pandemic (330K+ cases) and lockdown..
  
• And then:
  

Pastor Landon Spradlin wasn't worried about coronavirus when he went to New Orleans to preach during Mardi Gras. A month later he was dead.

Coronavirus: Pastor who decried 'hysteria' dies after attending Mardi Gras - BBC News

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Pastor Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge spoke to TMZ this Wednesday, saying that if his church members die from coronavirus, they’ve done so in the name of religious freedom. Spell was charged with violating an executive order that bans churches from holding large gatherings, but showed his defiance last Tuesday by holding a service that was attended by over 1,000 people. Speaking to TMZ, Spell said that true Christians would be willing to die from coronavirus, adding that those who “prefer tyranny over freedom do not deserve freedom.”

Death looks ‘like a welcomed friend’: Pastor calls on Christians to defy coronavirus lockdown — even if it kills them – Alternet.org

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A lot of people still marvel at the devotion conservative evangelicals and charismatic Christians have shown to Trump. How could they (repeat after me) support and even worship a twice-divorced vulgarian greedhead who can’t correctly pronounce II Corinthians, can’t distinguish an offering plate from a communion plate, and appears to use the Seven Deadly Sins as a daily to-do list? Or a person who, in the present crisis, shows so little human empathy, so little evident concern for human lives and suffering?

But as the coronavirus has shown, this lingering confusion is based on an antiquated idea of what many Christian conservatives believe and value. “We still buy the line that the Christian right is just an interest group working to protect its values,” as religious journalist Katherine Stewart wrote at The New York Times in late 2018. But, as she noted, “This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself. They want it all. And in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause but satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.”

We’re constantly underestimating the centrality of Christian nationalism to Trump’s presidency. It’s true that Trump cannot spout scripture like a Mike Pence, or explain why catering Middle East policy to Israel helps speed us toward the Apocalypse like a Mike Pompeo, or cite selected verses and chapters to explain why homosexuality is marking America for God’s retribution like the White House’s Bible study pastor, Ralph Drollinger. But Trump gets these people and their brutal, zero-sum view of the world — and vice-versa. For starters, the universe is divided neatly into friends, who must constantly prove they’re really friends, and mortal enemies, who must be trampled. Also, of course, the truth that he knows, like the truth they know, is the only truth, even if it’s often subject to revision. And just as the world is out to get them, it’s out to get him. What’s often painted as a marriage of convenience between Trump and the religious right is far closer to a pure love match. When Pence fixes those doe eyes upon his president, he isn’t just kissing up; he means it.

It’s perhaps no surprise that Trump put Pence, one of the most anti-science politicians on the planet, in charge of his COVID-19 response. (Or that one of Pence’s first acts was to lead the task force in performative prayer, with cameras rolling.) The great unwritten story of Trump’s presidency is the extent to which it’s dominated by End-Times Christians. Like Secretary of State Pompeo, the vice president — along with at least four other Cabinet members and Chief of Staff-in-waiting Mark Meadows — believes we’re in the bloody final period of history before Jesus Christ returns to vanquish Satan..

Trump's Apocalyptic Administration Sees Coronavirus Differently - Rolling Stone

• A terrifying portray of Christian nationalism and Trump, more than just a marriage of convenience..