Christian fascism?

The National Socialist Party was a global threat with a genocidal program. So what kind of image does the title: “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism evoke? Just what is Christian Nationalism supposed to be?

According to Salon.com senior writer, Michelle Goldberg, Christian Nationalism is a real threat facing America, and her purpose is evidently to warn everyone of the danger before our not-too-far-off American krystalnacht.

"Across the United States, religious activists are organizing to establish an American theocracy. A frightening look inside the growing right-wing movement."

A few days before Bush's second inauguration, The New York Times carried a story headlined "Warning from a Student of Democracy's Collapse" about Fritz Stern, a refugee from Nazi Germany, professor emeritus of history at Columbia, and scholar of fascism. It quoted a speech he had given in Germany that drew parallels between Nazism and the American religious right. "Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics," he was quoted saying of prewar Germany, "but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured [Hitler's] success, notably in Protestant areas."

It's not surprising that Stern is alarmed. Reading his forty-five-year-old book "The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology," I shivered at its contemporary resonance. "The ideologists of the conservative revolution superimposed a vision of national redemption upon their dissatisfaction with liberal culture and with the loss of authoritative faith," he wrote in the introduction. "They posed as the true champions of nationalism, and berated the socialists for their internationalism, and the liberals for their pacifism and their indifference to national greatness."

Fascism isn't imminent in America. But its language and aesthetics are distressingly common among Christian nationalists. History professor Roger Griffin described the "mobilizing vision" of fascist movements as "the national community rising Phoenix-like after a period of encroaching decadence which all but destroyed it" (his italics). The Ten Commandments has become a potent symbol of this dreamed-for resurrection on the American right. ~Salon.com

Hateful and bigotted as I apparently am, (let's not forget racist and anti-semetic too (except that my great grandfather on my mother's side was a Goldberg, oddly enough, from upstate New York--) but I digress), I still get a kick out of the kind of self-righteous and smug view that all the unwashed evangelical masses are somehow plotting to create a fascist christian state and force all the godless liberals to convert to christianity. There is some truth to that, but not, I think, in the way this author believes.

There is a definite edge to Goldberg's writing-- it's evident that this is a real fear in her mind.

What I think is highly ironic is that, incredibly, we are asked to see the threat of terrorism as a made-up war, a concocted scheme in order to create fear in the population so that they can be more easily controlled. And instead we are to believe that your next door neighbor, if they be one of these extreme fundamentalist Christians, are a kind of second-coming of Hitler-- or at least the beginning of a kind of second-coming of Hitler.

Still, it's worth noting that thousands of Americans nationwide have flocked to rallies at which military men don uniforms and pledge to seize the reins of power in America on behalf of Christianity. In many places, local religious leaders and politicians lend their support to AVIDD's cause. And at least some of the people at these rallies speak with seething resentment about the tyranny of Jews over America's Christian majority. ~Salon.com

American Theocracy?

So what would an American Theocracy look like? Well, first of all there is no such animal, I can assure you.  Even as the Michelle Goldberg's of the world explain in detail the 'scary' rise of this threat, those of us who would lead this theocracy are scratching our heads. As a self-described, "77 year old narrow-minded Conservative Christian," and retired preacher puts it:

"For the most part, true Christians would rather be left alone to do the work of the Lord and would never change our Constitutional Representative Republic.

...We will defend our faith and the right to share it, but forcing people to believe is not the Biblical way. We kindly present God’s message of Salvation in Jesus Christ as the Bible says, “to the Jew first and also to the Gentile” in love."  ~expreacherman

I think the difference in opinion about the separation of church and state can be summarized as one side believing that it is supposed to create a freemarket of ideas, and the other side believing that it proscribes that the state enforce a strict form of secularism which in itself should be considered a quasi-religion.

[H]egemonic Word count: 795

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