#296

The Threat Of Christian Nationalism

Knives Are Out

After the Iowa Caucus overwhelmingly supported President Donald Trump I began to see a lot of posts on my social media with the term “white Christian nationalists” in it. When news outlets literally preach about that term and say that is why Trump prevailed in Iowa I looked into it a little more and then I started to research how many times leaders in the prophetic movement started showing up on secular news sites and I wondered if there was a connection. Apparently, this is not a coincidence. A cursory internet search using Google with just the term “Christian Nationalism” turned up page after page of derisive results talking about how dangerous this movement is and how it is a greater threat to the United States than say terrorists entering our country and detonating dirty bombs in metropolitan cities. In a research paper written by Luz E. Ruiz titled Improving Intelligence To Address The Rising Threat Of White Christian Nationalist Violent Extremism In The United States we read this:

The January 6th, 2021, incident at the Capitol building was undoubtedly unprecedented.

Many individuals consider the recent occurrence to be an act of domestic terrorism.

Unsurprisingly, numerous so-called patriots expressed their disgust towards President-elect

Joseph Biden. They were influenced by conservative rhetoric from former President Donald

Trump, which many have criticized as violent. During the events at the Capitol, there were

multiple factions of domestic violent extremists (DVEs) noted to be in attendance. These groups

included militant factions, members of the Proud Boys organization, radicals inspired by QAnon

ideology, and individuals motivated by racial or ethnic biases and exhibiting violent tendencies.

The amalgam of domestic violent extremist groups present at the Capitol was a snapshot of the

broader domestic violent extremist threat facing the United States.

The 74 page document uses the abbreviation WCN so we know that she is targeting a specific group and arguing that the FBI needs to take more aggressive actions to prevent these domestic terrorists from taking over our country.

How Did Christians Get To Be So Bad?

Ruiz spends time on how simple Christians who believe the constitution and also believe that voting for moral values became terrorists. Here is a summation of what a WCN is:

White Christian Nationalism (WCN) is a movement founded on the belief that God

created the United States for Christians. The movement has its roots in the Christian identity

developed by John Wilson’s 19th-century theory of British Israelism that the lost tribes will

reunite in a new country called the United States (CTEC Staff, 2021). According to supporters of

WCN, the United States was established on Christian values and should continue to use

Christianity as the basis for creating laws, principles, and policies (Tisby, 2021). According to

Butler (2021), the beliefs of WCN portray America as a Christian nation chosen by God.

As you can tell, a lot of assumptions are being made here, however it leads to lumping all Christians who actually read history and the writings by our founding fathers and see a Biblical influence. Ruiz then moves to more current examples:

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In 1964, Barry Goldwater was able to draw on this pool of white Christian nationalism,

and as a result, the New Right, a loose alliance of American conservatives, was born. In the late

1970s, the New Right joined forces with televangelist Jerry Falwell's Religious Right, inspiring

tens of millions of people of faith in the South, Midwest, and Sunbelt to vote for Republican

presidential nominee Ronald Reagan rather than Democrat Jimmy Carter—this series of events

led to the movement's strengthening over the next decade.

During the 1980s and 1990s, there was a notable mobilization of individuals on the far

right motivated by various national concerns. These included their perception of declining

parental rights and authority, which they attributed to certain court decisions. Furthermore, the

expansion of multiculturalism was viewed as threatening their values and way of life. Finally, the

legalization of abortion was another issue that fueled their mobilization. These concerns were

significant enough to elicit a response from those on the far right, who were determined to

protect their beliefs and way of life. Worries about a perceived devaluation of the American

family and an alleged attack on their cherished Judeo-Christian values, according to Johnson

(2017).

Gee, I seem to recall living during 1980s and 1990s and I didn’t think I was a domestic terrorist. Supporting Ronald Reagan and being pro-life made me one, I guess.

Buying A Bible Makes You Suspicious

In case you missed it this week, US House Representative Jim Jordan released a letter which credit card codes assigned to specific categories were used to target potential domestic terrorists:

The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents indicating that

following January 6, 2021, FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) distributed materials to financial institutions that, among other things, outline the “typologies” of various persons of interest and provide financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement.1 These materials included a document recommending the use of generic terms like “TRUMP” and “MAGA” to “search Zelle payment messages” as well as a “prior FinCEN analysis” of “Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators.”2 According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of “extremism” indicators that include “transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,” or “the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.”3 In other words, FinCEN urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.

Did you read that phrase “the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.”? How could you possibly know that by buying that Bible or getting say, a slingshot to hunt squirrels you were a domestic terrorists suspect? Or by renting a car to visit relatives on the holidays? Yes, it has come to that apparently.

Keeping Bad Company

It wasn’t that long ago that you and I were the only people who knew the names of leading Christians who also heard from God through prophecy. Not anymore as we read in this quote from an article from The Washington Post:

This election cycle, Sean Feucht, a longhaired California prophetic figure and unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 2020, has appeared with Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.). Dan Cox, Maryland Republicans’ pick for governor, shared a stage with prophetess Julie Green. The events Wallnau attended included appearances by long-established right-wing prophetic figures including Dutch Sheets, Mario Murillo and Hank Kunneman.

The report took a jab at people who listen to prophetic teachers when they quoted Matthew Sutton, a university professor:

“For two millennia of church history, people have been claiming to be prophets,” said Matthew Sutton, a Washington State University historian of American religion who has focused on apocalyptic and charismatic Christians. “But it’s a new tactic in the United States for it to be part of waging culture war.”

“Prophecy gives comfort in the sense that it can tell us how the future will be. For these folks, it’s affirming a positive vision in which they always will triumph. It’s a way of affirming their choices and values and bringing them comfort in a world with values that are different from their own,” Sutton said.

So reading and believing prophecy in the Bible where we do in fact triumph makes us a threat to democracy in America.

We Should Be Happy

I’m certainly not advocating we violently overthrow our government and no one I know of that really and truly is a Christian is either. In spite of all the critical reporting about people who just want God to move in America, He is getting a lot of attention. When Dutch Sheets is brought up in an article from, of all places The Economist, you know something is up:

After Mr Trump lost, an apostle named Dutch Sheets went on a tour of swing states, dubbed Operation Valkyrie, to prevent Satan from “tak[ing] over the nation”. “Through late November and early December, Dutch Sheets and his travelling band of prophets build this fever pitch of charismatic anger and assurance that God is going to intervene,” recounts Mr Taylor in a podcast on the subject. Much of the rhetoric at these prayer meetings sounded like a call to arms: “the militiamen...of the kingdom of God are rising up in this hour” and “expose the neck, swing the sword, finish the job.” Hundreds of thousands of viewers watched live-streams of these rallies in late 2020.

The article went on to say this about believers who only want to help save their country:

On January 6th 2021 many heeded the call. “Christian Nationalism was the central driving force” that day, wrote Andrew Seidel, an expert, in testimony to Congress. Prophets battled the evil spirits embedded in the Capitol by praying, their voices amplified on a pa system. Protesters blew shofars, ram’s horns which they believe can summon the forces of heaven. Many protesters brandished flags emblazoned with the words “An Appeal to Heaven”, the apostles’ rallying cry for a Christian conquest of America.

The Apostle Paul was happy when people spoke about Jesus, even if they weren’t really sincere:

But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice. (Phil 1:18, NLT)

Curious people who never knew about Dutch Sheets, Mario Murillo or even Kim Clement do now. And that’s a good thing.