Trump Soft Soaps American Evangelicals

 soft-soap

 verb

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\ ˈsȯf(t)-ˈsōp  \

soft-soaped; soft-soaping; soft-soaps

Definition of soft-soap

 (Entry 1 of 2)

transitive verb

: to soothe or persuade with flattery or blarney

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Judging from the following article taken from Premier Christian News Donald Trump is soft-soaping American evangelicalism and in some quarters it appears to be working:

Former US president, Donald Trump has spoken of the importance of Jesus Christ to the American people, as part of a Christmas message to Christians in Dallas.

 The 45th President addressed the 4,000 strong crowd at First Baptist Church, Dallas on 19th December.

 Speaking as part of the church's Christmas worship service, Trump said:

 "More than 2,000 years ago, an angel of the Lord appeared to humble shepherds and proclaimed the reason for our Christmas joy. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 

"Our country needs a Saviour right now. And our country has a Saviour - and it's not me," he continued.

 "That's somebody else much higher up than me. Much higher."

 In the ten-minute 'Christmas greeting' Trump also aired his political concerns on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, immigration and inflation as he warned that the United States was "in great trouble" under it's current "dark cloud" of leadership.

 Trump went on credit key moments in history to the Church and Jesus' example:

 "The life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ forever changed the world," he declared.

 "And it's impossible to think of the life of our own country without the influence of His example and of His teachings.

 "Our miraculous founding, overcoming civil war, abolishing slavery, defeating communism and fascism, reaching boundless heights of science and discovery, so many incredible things.

 "None of this could have ever happened without Jesus Christ and his followers and his Church. None of it.

 "And we have to remember that Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of our strength and of our hope and here and everywhere and for all time."

 Following his speech, Trump was met with a standing ovation by members of the evangelical congregation, while lead pastor Robert Jeffress referred to Trump as one of his "closest friends" and "a great friend to Christians everywhere" as he praised the former president for his "pro-life, pro-religious liberty and pro-Israel" political stances.

 Many social media users have criticised Trump for using his Christmas message to 'push his politics'.

 One Twitter user said: "The evangelicals can open up the churches so Trump and others can go and deliver speeches instead of worshipping our Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ."

 Another commented: "There was flagrant political content. Church should lose its tax-exempt status."

***

I don't buy any of that from Trump; in my opinion it's likely to be a counterfeit expression. Given what I've seen of Trump-evangelicalism Trump's primary aim is to secure the votes and support of his right-wing evangelical constituency. The probable long term effect of getting Trump or his ultra-right successor into power is that of destabilizing the democratic status quo & turning America into a right-wing dictatorship. 

It looks as though many evangelicals are swallowing Trumpism because Trump knows what they want to hear. But they are not the only ones Trump has soft soaped: He also gave positive signals to professional Christian conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and the QAnon theorists, many of whom are Christians. (See here and here). Although to be fair to Alex Jones he eventually twigged that he had be sold down the river by Trump. 

Left and Right Extremism

The Trump inspired  attack on American Democracy 6/1/2021

US Republican Margorie Taylor Greene is currently a member of the house of representatives and an avid Trump supporter. According to Wikipedia Greene promotes a profusion of bizarre notions related to conspiracy theorism and the far right. For example: The Stolen 2021 election theory, White supremacism, QAnon, The white genocide conspiracy, Pizzagate, and Covid vaccination as Biden's Mark of the Beast, among others. She's rich pickings for every crackpot idea peddled by the far-right and fundamentalist Christianity.

Now, I'm sure that Barry Arrington, supremo of the de facto Intelligent Design web site Uncommon Descent, can't be anywhere near as crazy Greene and yet such is the political polarization in America it is likely that he identifies himself with the same far-right political interest group that Greene identifies with. This is made clear in a post on Uncommon Descent with title "Can we Endure?".  Like Greene Arrington depicts America as in a pitched battle against those Marxist ogres under the bed, or not so under the bed given that the far right points the finger at movements like Black Lives Matter and even the very mildly liberal conservative and Catholic Joe Biden as uncompromising agents of the far left, perhaps even emissaries of Satan. 

Shades of grey appear not to exist in US right-wing perceptions.  In casting the current strife very much as a dark vs light battle against those neo-reds-under-bed (nowadays more like reds-on-the-bed) Arrington believes the opposition's values are irreconcilable with what he portrays as the banner holders of true American freedom. He traces cancel culture back to far-left commentators like the Frankfurt school's neo-Marxist Herbert Marcuse.

It is true, however, that the far left has it's own clutch of extremists who would want to overthrow society in favour of their vision of a socialist "dictatorship of the proletariat". But we know where that would end up - a shift to an old fashioned dictatorship; the far left status quo would then stop just there with no further evolution to the idyllic government-less libertarian communism of their fantasy world - that's a pipe dream given what we know about human nature (the constraints of human nature on the social dynamic is a concept which the critical theory of the Frankfurt school is unlikely to accept). 

It is ironic that both the far left and the far right have the aim of overthrowing the established order and its government in the name of a similar vision of liberty. Both  perceive the status quo as malign & evil  and deserving of merciless destruction. They also have a comparable end game goal of a libertarian small-government society (envisaged as "free trade" by the right wing and "communism" by Marxists). It's no surprise that left winger Nikole Hannah Jones (who Arrington mentions) has also been tempted to see the world through conspiracy theorism as a way of besmirching the establishment and enhancing dissent. 

Given human nature's blend of good & bad the actual situation is far more complex than either the far right or the far left libertarians imagine in their simplistic fairy-tale fantasy of a goodies vs. baddies battle*. In this connection Arrington needs to look at some of the extremists that he is effectively aligning himself with - for example Margorie Taylor Greene: As with the extreme left the extreme right, after trying to promote disaffection from the establishment of Western democracies, will then seek to install a "libertarian" dictatorship. The current God-father who demands allegiance & sows disaffection toward American democracy, a move which conveniently enhances his chances of absolute power, is Donald Trump and his far right followers. Even Republicans who don't support Trump's bid for power (like Mike Pence) are branded as traitors to the cause. In such a politically polarized environment it's not so far fetched to imagine that if that bid was successful opponents and traitors, who are perceived as uncompromisingly evil, will be jailed, perhaps even executed by Trump's successors.**

There is something about idealists, whether of the left or right. Christian or non-Christian, that makes them potentially dangerous. As Sir Kenneth Clarke commented on the leaders of the French republic, they "...suffered from the most terrible of all delusions; they believed themselves to be virtuous" As one of the leaders of the republic said: "In a republic which can only be based on virtue any pity shown toward crime is flagrant proof of treason".  The extremes of left and right will show no mercy to their antagonists.

Footnotes

* This "goodies vs. baddies" vision of reality is even true of "critical theory" which attempts to  get away from it with the emphasis being on socio-political structures and conditions. Because, of course, real humans have to populate those structures thus casting some as oppressed and others as oppressors. Even if "the system" is cast as the chief oppressor this still leads to a contingent of human beings who, like the right-wing conspiracy theorists, will by implication claim to be politically enlightened and thus effectively be the children of light.  But critical theory misses the elephant in the room: Namely, the first person conscious perspective which inevitably is always tempted to prioritize the order of its own private house of experience over and above that of others.

** This is what the God-father does to you if he thinks you've been disloyal to his protection racketeering: 

Donald Trump uses expletive to attack ex-ally Benjamin Netanyahu - BBC News

The Hillsong Business Model

                          (This post is still undergoing correction and enhancement)

                     

....and  they've sold a very successful brand!

Several years ago I was talking to someone who had decided to leave his fairly average church and move on to one of the Hillsong churches. As I listened to his story and his initial experiences of Hillsong (he'd been along to have a reconnoiter and talk to the leadership)  I remarked that it sounded as though they were using a business model for church; in particular, as in any business it seemed that the management were very much in charge. Moreover, in his first contact with the local leadership it looked almost as if he had gone for a job interview; he was asked about his commitment, what he felt he could contribute and his preparedness to contribute. In raising the bar of membership  they were conveying its value. The apparent hurdles to membership act as a provocative "come on" to some people looking for spiritual challenge.

My friend was clearly very much blown away by the professionalism and seriousness of the Hillsong set-up; Hillsong wanted to make sure they got on board members who were equally as serious and dedicated.  This contrasted  with the sort church I was used to where voluntary help can be patchy  and lead to a struggle to get things done (But in such churches there is little or no duress or pressure and "voluntary" really does mean "voluntary"). So I could see why my friend, who clearly wanted to express his spirituality seriously, was so taken with Hillsong: Here was a church where church community was taken to the heights he felt it deserved. At that time he was perhaps one of those persons who saw radical challenge & change as the antidote to a dreary mediocrity & familiarity. But it didn't last. A year or two later and he had left. Unfortunately I never managed to catch up with him to find out what his story was and why the honeymoon had ended.  Perhaps, I speculated, he just couldn't hack an environment where management are management and plebs are plebs. The notion of an aristocracy rests uneasily in democratic societies. 

At that time my perspective was that Hillsong was another Charismatic leaning church that specialized in exciting "hi-scene" services and events. The Charismatic ethos with its lively musical services and a lionized, sometimes authoritarian leadership, was already very familiar. But Hillsong had raised the game to a level of management & professionalism I hadn't seen before, even when compared to the Restorationist strain of church.  

As it turned out I needn't have spoken to my acquaintance to find out why he left because some of my questions were to be answered by a recent BBC documentary called Storyville: God goes Viral. This was a fly on the wall documentary about the Hillsong phenomenon. Well, I say fly on the wall, but it was apparently produced by an atheist and I suspect this person selected material to convey the idea that the Hillsong scene was very much a façade that covered underlying ills. Even so, taking into account the obvious bias enough was revealed to raise concerns about what was going on at Hillsong. But it wasn't all wrong: there were good ideas and intentions there, but in other significant respects they had lost their way. 

In the documentary an ex-Hillsong member talked about the time that Brian Houston the founder of the movement went to America to learn about megachurches. According to this person this visit was a turning point and from then on the Hillsong group pushed "the look"; that is, stylish and quality presentation in services and shows became very important.  All this came with an emphasis on the need for more money to finance this makeover of the Hillsong brand. There were clips of Hillsong public figures appealing for generous giving ("Give till it hurts", "You rob God when you hold back") and members were urged to tithe their income before tax. One Hillsong special event required a $379 ticket to be purchased. The accusation that they had become another prosperity church was looking very plausible.

But the business plan worked. The church attracted many young people who were thrilled by an exciting Christian scene that glittered when compared to the often dowdy & dull affair traditional church can sometimes be. Above all, this new scene offered a strong & welcoming community ethos; as the Hillsong strap-line chimed: "Welcome Home!". Acceptance, friendship and a strong sense of belonging to something new, fresh and significant was offered. Humanity's strongest gregarious instincts & aspirations were being catered for in this business model. In particular directionless young people who had dropped out or had a tough beginning could come and feel they were part of a social scene, a family in fact with purpose, gravitas and a great destiny; in these nihilistic secular days that is a big deal. The brand also attracted some big-name celebrities further enhancing the credence, prestige and salability of the movement. Hillsong were onto a winner; they were selling rare products that many yearned for and couldn't otherwise find; namely, meaning, purpose and community, all wrapped up in a very attractive package. Hillsong now have a world wide network of churches who sell the brand and I can see why. I've never seen a niftier piece of religious marketing.  

Christian celeb, Carl Lentz
I don't know the other guy.

But things started to get out of hand. For the leadership the temptations of hedonism and materialism started to loom menacingly in the background. To maintain the attractive image the leaders felt they needed to look "hip" and image started to count: Expensive clothes and vehicles were bought. UK "motorbike" pastor Dan Blythe was featured in all his cool leather gear motor cycling between appointments. Some of the leaders donned expensive Gucci shoes and trainers. I looked up the leaders of my local Hillsong church; a glamouress almost film star looking couple who might have been selected by Stock, Aitken and Waterman to front an act. Leaders had pre-paid credit cards and an ex-Hillsong member who worked in accounts said that in some cases at least these cards were used to finance personal spending.  Carl Lentz the pastor of the famous NYC church had an extramarital affair and was also accused of sexual abuse and was sacked. 

At one level there is nothing startling about the Hillsong scene: Hillsong have in effect moved into a very profitable line in show business. They were also selling very effective community oriented products and profiting from them: Normally people don't get too uptight about the money celebrities earn from the gregarious gig experiences they lay on and from the associated merchandising. And of course sexual scandals among the famous and attractive are only to be expected; they face many temptations after all and that may include the conceit of entitlement. But Hillsong products go much deeper into the psyche than the shallowness of secular culture: Hillsong were selling nothing less than eternity.  Who can beat that?

While watching the documentary I did have some moments that chilled me: I've watched several documentaries on Jim Jones' "People's Temple" (sic) where survivors of the eventual massacre talked of the great sense of belonging and purpose that the "People's Temple" gave them. In fact even today these people lament the loss of those human relational aspects the Temple provided and remember very happy & purposeful times in the sect.....  but that was before the criminally insane Jim Jones was allowed to have his way. With Hillsong I had the same chilling sense of people being bribed with the offer of entry into a warm community and in return giving themselves enthusiastically to a human collective that was not all it was cracked up to be. Although Hillsong supremo Brian Houston shouldn't be compared with the mentally ill Jim Jones, Houston's brain child has grown up to display some unpleasant characteristics. I suspect that Houston has a range of bad ideas regarding the authority of leaders and borderline prosperity notions, all of which have a bearing on Hillsong culture. Although I'm loathe to make comparison with "The People's Temple" (sic) there are echoes of it if only because we are dealing with the same human stock with its social aspirations, desires & failings, a tendency toward lionization of celebrities, idiotic & simplistic idealism and an affected group think. These are all too human weaknesses which may be hidden under a gloss of affectation and triumphalism. Heady success inflates like a balloon, but also like a balloon it is so easily burst.

In the documentary the Hillsong rank and file appeared to be overworked and underpaid - in fact in most cases it seems that they were unpaid volunteers, as they are in most churches, but with a lot more cash and labour being skimmed off to feed the polished Hillsong scene. The latter entailed leaders buying expensive designer garb to fit the image. But there is a sense that in our society this is nothing so unusual or specially objectionable: The paid leaders were actually in a kind of business offering a very salable product and they may well have felt entitled to a just remuneration: After all, we don't complain when secular celebrities spend in a way consistent with their status and income

But what was galling was that the volunteer workforce were not only unpaid but via the pre-tax tithe they were encouraged to contribute they effectively paid for the privilege of being part of this business model! They also worked hard work; after all this was supposed to be the Lord's work. What they got in return was the privilege of being part of a community with significance and destiny.  The documentary interviewed a youth worker who had recently left Hillsong. He said he did 87 hours/week (?) unpaid and had to sleep at his parents house on an air mattress.  Contrast that with the credit card wielding Gucci wearing pastors. The youth worker was now rather pensive and doubtful: What if there is no heaven he asked? But he went on to say There has to be more. I know what he means. There is something in us that shouts out that meaning and justice must be satisfied and therefore death can't be the end. I admired his conviction and yet his willingness to face these tough questions. He was a genuine guy. Unfortunately this intellectual honesty may well register as sinful doubt in a triumphalist Charismatic and/or fundamentalist church culture, but it's actually an indictment on these culture's lack of integrity and failure to make space for honest questions and deal with them as best they can. The alternative is they make Christianity appear too easy, formulaic and subject to group affectations. They don't admit that there are issues which need addressing. See for example the case of Hillsong worship leader Marty Sampson who gave up the faith completely. (See footnote).  Least of all would they acknowledge that atheism does actually have a prima facia case that needs to be dealt with, especially since the scientific revolution has revealed on one level what is apparently a spiritually sterile mechanical universe lacking in anthropic significance. I'm certainly not an atheist myself but I think I can understand something of the atheist case: Since the demise of Ptolemy the modern view of the cosmos and the very fabric of reality have been a challenge to make theistic & anthropic sense of....not that that sense cannot be made if we try a little harder.  But as the Marty Sampson case suggests "a little harder" isn't what this kind of fellowship is about;  rather its about style over content and cliched & glib answers. 

The documentary informed us at the end that our youth pastor had actually gone back to work for Hillsong. But he clearly needed that timeout to rethink his faith & make sense of life because the Hillsong culture didn't give space for such rethinks. I don't blame him for returning though; he was simply seeking fulfilment of aspirations many of us have. But the walk of faith is not always as easy as some churches pretend: Making sense of life is sometimes a struggle that triumphalist charismatic and fundamentalist Christians are unwilling to countenance. Another Hillsong dropout said "I gave everything but it felt fake". Behind the façade some do feel discomfort. There is a great danger of creating the expectation that if all isn't rosy in the garden, then its down to a failure of faith. That's prosperity teaching for you. 

On more than one occasion the documentary juxtaposed a video of moving herds of sheep with the Hillsong hi-scene congregations. This was a little unfair. The atheism of the documentary producers has an unfortunate tendency to veer off toward a directionless teetering on the brink of the nihilist abyss. The Hillsong rank and file are doing little more than what many of us do: namely, to seek warm community, familial connection, attractiveness, significance, purpose, an end to dullness and above all a life with shape and direction: If that is what motivates the movement of these crowds of sheep people who can blame them. In comparison the empty atheist universe cannot compete with the Hillsong business model, even though that model has its serious flaws. 

But as with atheism, a scene like Hillsong also teeters on the edge: They are tempted by very human failings: Heady inauthenticity, style over content, blinkered idealism, group think, unwarranted leadership adulation, doctrinal simplicity and worst of all sectarian and cultish practices. Having said that however, Brian Houston doesn't strike me as having an unbending & brittle fundagelical personality and he may yet be able to learn the lessons needed to put the movement back on track. After all, in some respects the movement does have a lot going for it and many people have found a spiritual home there and above all a life with meaning. 

Footnote

Some notes on  Marty Sampson  (ex-Hillsong Worship leader) can be found embedded in this post:

Meanwhile, Back in Theological Toy Town.... 

ADDENDEM 09/06/2022

This article by Sam Hailes, editor of Premier Christianity suggests that things at Hillsong are even worse than I make out above!

"Answers in Genesis" and QAnon

It's very likely that Ken Ham (the fundamentalist theme park manager for AiG) was and is a Trump supporter. I don't think he ever urged people to vote Trump, but he was clearly a sympathiser. Take this quote from Ken's blog post dated 17 March 21 where he compared his treatment by the "left-wing" (sic) media with the way it treated Trump. 

The left-wing, secular media is doing to President Trump what they’ve done to us for years—spreading false accusations, lies, and misinformation; being engaged in censorship; and more.

In a post entitled "Will Biden make a more secular America" dated 17 Dec 2020 we find Ken listing the faults of the Biden administration and then saying:

This anti-Christian approach is typical of many atheists—they have nothing positive to offer and spend most of their time attacking Christians.

He then quotes Titus 1:15 and Romans 8:7 ignoring  Biden's own Catholic faith.  As far as I'm aware Ken has never criticised the Trump administration (let alone in such strong terms) in spite of Trump's corruption and his attack on American democracy which I read as a bid for absolute power (see footnote*).

Like many of a far-right inclination Ken doesn't use the label "left-wing" & "radical left" to designate classical  revolutionary Marxist idealism: To the far right many mainstream Western views now get registered as "cultural Marxism".  I'm a UK Monarchist whose vote floats between Labour and Conservative but it's quite likely I'd be seen by the far right as a cultural Marxist! (Even though I reject the idealism of "critical theory")

But the reason for Ken's implicit support for Trump is obvious - Trump supporters are his constituency and customer base; he simply can't afford to alienate them. His theme park business depends on their patronage. 

Another client who is sensitive to his patrons is of course Donald Trump himself who was always very aware of his voting constituency; so much so that he avoided criticising the crazy QAnon conspiracy theorists and hob-knobbed with professional conspiracy theorist  Alex Jones (See here and here).  News is now coming to light that Ken Ham is involved in a similar cynical strategy of implicit support not just for Donald Trump but also for the QAnon conspiracy theorists. This news is found in a video by a QAnon theorist who, presumably with AiG support, used Ken's Ark Park as the backdrop for a piece of QAnon promotion. This promotion video is hosted by a Christian conspiracy theorist called Trey Smith. The video title along with its explanatory blurb reads as follows:

The COMING STORM: a Donald J Trump documentary inside Noah's Ark

The "Coming Storm" is a talk on the subject of Donald J. Trump affront "Noah's Ark" in Kentucky with documentary maker Trey Smith.

This documentary / video is a talk with Trey Smith about the prophecies of Donald J. Trump, 2020, and the election.

The documentary takes place at the Ark Encounter" replica of Noah's Ark in Kentucky by Ken Hamm.

The "Storm" is a QAnon concept: According to the QAnon fantasists "The Storm" is the day when the evil-other (That is, what they lump together as the "left-wing" in the Media and government) are rounded up and imprisoned for their crimes of mass paedophilia (Yes it's that far fetched!).  Prophecies were made to the effect that Trump would win a second term and the explanation of why Trump isn't in power now is that the election was "stolen" and that Biden is an illegitimate president.  That these conspiracy theorists can paint such an evil picture of their antagonists makes some of them dangerous; some of them will kill to get their way and believe it's justified.

Because the backdrop of Trey's video is Ken's Ark Park baby I think we can safely infer that in the absence of an explicit condemnation of QAnon fantasies, Ken is sending out implicit signals of support to the QAnon believing community. Like Donald Trump, Ken has a cynical eye on the patronage of his constituency.  Atheist PZ Myers points out in one of his blog posts that it is significant that Ken has recently added "paedophilia" to Answers in Genesis' polarised evil-other vision of secularism. This looks suspiciously like a signal to the QAnon fantasists that Ken's organisation is sympathetic to the QAnon cause, a cause which revolves around a fantasised paedophilia ring. After all, Ken needs their patronage. 

* Footnote:

If the possibility of fundamentalist dominionists being at the head of a Western dictatorship seems farfetched let’s recall that many American Christian fundamentalists are closely linked to Donald Trump the man who:

a) Vowed to “drain the swamp” of America’s well established democratic government,

b) Attempted to by-pass established democratic institutions and set up his alternatives,

c) Hobnobbed with professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and gave credence to the QAnon theorists,

d) Seeded the democratic debate with conspiracy theories,

e) Arguably helped provoke the attack on Capitol Hill,

f) Emboldened race supremacists & fascists, (cf. the Charlottesville rally)

g) Had a rapport with dictators like Russia’s Putin (etc) 

h) Attempted to intimidate a republican election official into falsifying the vote count 

i) Had an adviser whosuggested imposing Trump’s view of the election using military force.  

ADDENDUM 09/09/2021

In an address that can be seen here Steve Bannon, one of Trumps pardoned side kicks uses language that almost sounds as if he wants the 2024 US election to be the inauguration of a new dictatorship: He talks of 20k shock troops on standby ready to take over a country they effectively already control.....

If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately .....pre-trained teams ready to jump into federal agencies.... .We’re winning big in 2024 and we need to get ready now.......We control the country. We’ve got to start acting like it. And one way we’re going to act like it, we’re not going to have 4,000 (shock troops) ready to go, we’re going to have 20,000 ready to go and we’re going to pick the 4,000 best and most ready in every single department.

Perhaps it's all just metaphorical election talk. I hope it is, but do people like Bannon talk in metaphors?  If the far-right win the 2024 election would they ever again concede an electoral defeat if they think of themselves as controlling the country? Having crawled over the back of Trump could Bannon one day call himself "president"?

News Monitor

On Steve Bannon:

Capitol riot: Lawmakers vote to hold Steve Bannon in contempt - BBC News

Trump to start social media under his control:

Trump to launch new social media platform TRUTH Social - BBC News

Origins of the US Evangelical Right

Well, according to a Christian cowboy he certainly would be shooting me! 

There was an article in the January 2021 Premier Christianity magazine by Martyn Whittock, a Church of England lay minister and historian. He has written books on the subject of the association of American evangelicalism with right-wing politics (Witness wide support for Donald Trump among US evangelicals for instance). I was therefore very interested in the article he had written, an article entitled "The Disunited States of America". In the article Whittock explains why he thinks right-wing politics and faith have became so entwined in America. Below I discuss some of Whittock's ideas.

ONE) Whittock tells us that in 1954 the words "Under God" were added to the pledge of allegiance. He makes a point similar to that  which can be found on Wiki:

Even though the movement behind inserting "under God" into the pledge might have been initiated by a private religious fraternity and even though references to God appear in previous versions of the pledge, historian Kevin M. Kruse asserts that this movement was an effort by corporate America to instill in the minds of the people that capitalism and free enterprise were heavenly blessed. Kruse acknowledges the insertion of the phrase was influenced by the push-back against Russian and Chinese atheistic communism during the Cold War, but argues the longer arc of history shows the conflation of Christianity and capitalism as a challenge to the New Deal played the larger role.

Here was an early step linking Christianity with capitalism, low taxation, gun rights and the American way, a way which was set over and against communist atheism. These items then naturally became mandated in the Christian right's agenda. For myself I've always traced low taxation and US diffidence toward government regulation back to the very formation of the US in the American revolution, a revolution triggered by the a rejection of colonial taxation and suspicion of a distant central regulator. This history seemed to become ingrained into America culture; as Ronald Reagan said, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem. This ethos had the upside of helping economic growth via the market but the downside was an irrational suspicion of central government: Such attitudes do help create a power & influence vacuum which gives an opportunist the chance to step into that vacuum (which may be what Trump has done).

TWO)  In the 60s and early 70s there were government moves which were perceived as not favourable to the Christian cultural foundation of America. Viz: The banning of public prayers in schools, regulation of Christian academies, & legalisation of first trimester abortions. Quoting Whittock:

[Evangelicals] felt that Christian values were being overlooked, or caricatured, in the media. Furthermore, they felt that the school system drives a secular agenda. At the same time, the growth in LGBTQ rights challenged the traditional views of marriage and 'acceptable' sexual behaviour..... in short a cultural war began....

With this comment I feel I'm on familiar ground: My understanding of the rise of fundamentalist evangelicalism is that it is a response to the cultural marginalisation of Christianity especially during the 1960s (and into the 1970s) and especially among society's intellectuals who rejected the Christian rationale. In a reactionary move some parts of American evangelicalism became anti-intellectual and anti-science and the symptoms of this are seen in the rise of young earthism (latterly flat earthism) and fideist versions of Christianity that majored in the ecstatic. This was both a protest against the changing social mores and also against intellectual Christianity which was perceived to have failed. It was, I propose, akin to the response of the romantics, as puzzled but naïve Christians tried to regain a sense of sacredness in the creation and reaffirm the ecstatic component of Christian testimony. My understanding here has less to do with historical research than having lived through that time. But according to Whittock, because of conditions peculiar to the US, American evangelicals have also reacted by becoming very politicised and have expressed this via their support of the Republican party, a party which they perceive to be the party of traditional American Christian values. 

THREE)  Then in 2008, Barack Obama happened, says Whittock: He goes on to say:

The election of a young, intelligent, telegenic and highly articulate social progressive (committed to proactive federal government initiatives) was a sharp reversal of all that the evangelical right had been working on for more than 20 years. The Obama presidency was seen as an existential threat. Then the possibility of a political success for a socially progressive female Washington insider, in the form of Hilary Clinton, caused an upsurge of evangelical activism unparalleled in US history. 

FOUR)  Then in 2016 "Trump happened": According to Whittock:

It was this that led 81% of white evangelicals voting for Trump....It was a marriage of convenience in which Trump promised everything on the evangelical agenda.....Evangelicals reciprocated with intense support for a man whose personal and political morality  - which many feel is at odds with Christianity - was set aside in order to win what they perceived as a battle for the soul of America.  

His policy on immigration struck a chord, since polling reveals that 59% of white evangelicals see immigrants as threatening their cultural identity. 

For a group traditionally suspicious of government the necessary Covid-19 restrictions were often seen as unwelcome state interference.   In the same way, the shutting of churches was easy to present as state restrictions on religious freedom...the wearing if masks we seen as a sign of acceptance of state power. This occurred alongside a fear of economic decline as a result of lockdown, which further resonated with a group whose religious beliefs have long been associated with support for American free enterprise. 

....In the aftermath  of Trump's defeat, a well known US evangelical confided to me, in an off-the-record assessment, that the majority of evangelicals believe in Trump's narrative of a "stolen " election, a minority are resigned to a Biden presidency, but will keep fighting to change the abortion law; a smaller minority are relieved at Trump's defeat; and huge numbers of young evangelicals are leaving their highly politicised  spiritual communities. Clearly for US evangelicals the turbulence is far from over. 

***

It was almost as if Trump was stepping into a suit that had been specially tailored for him. The egotistical & cynical Trump exploited this situation to the full. He cynically made friendly overtures toward the crackpot professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and the crazy QAnon theorists - he was of course after the votes of their followers. The ultra-far right fascists and white supremacists were emboldened by Trump and crept out of from under their stones and appeared on the streets. Trump wanted their votes too and therefore wasn't vocal in condemning them. Trump talked the language that the right-wing wanted to hear; gun rights, low taxation, private health care, climate change conspiracy, America first etc; These things came onto the evangelical agenda and became almost mandatory adjuncts to their faith. Trump didn't care who or why people voted for him; he just wanted their votes, he wanted power. But underneath it he had complete contempt for the American system. He denigrated that system, its media and its governance with hints of conspiracy theorism and he attempted to bypass it with popularist rallies and social media. The Capitol Hill insurrection was a natural outcome of Trumpism whether he liked it or not. 

Trump had a sinister looking affinity & rapport with strong arm dictators like Putin, Kim Jong Un, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Mohammed bin Salman. If this was a sign (which think it is) that Trump had the qualities of a crypto-dictator then it is ironic that in some respects he stood for the very opposite of the things those right wing evangelicals elected him for: If allowed to have his way he was the antithesis of individual freedoms and small government. We saw hints of the kind of people Trump attracted when Michael Flynn, one of Trump's side kicks, suggested martial law be imposed to act on Trump's conspiracy theory that the election was rigged and force a re-count in Trump's favour.  But the survivor in Trump probably realised that would make America look like a tin-pot military state and blow his cover completely. The revelation of Trump's threatening phone call to a Republican election official telling him to find more votes or else, taken together with the Capitol Hill insurrection looked bad enough as it was! 

But the Christian right wing were blind to all this, blinded by their seeing the world through the paranoid spectacles of proto-Conspiracy theorism. For them mild social reforms, liberal attitudes, government initiatives and regulation were seen as the harbingers of a communist plot. 

Trump cynically exploited a run down and culturally debased evangelical community just as he had exploited the crackpot conspiracy theorists like Jones and QAnon. In fact there is an overlap between right-wing evangelicals and conspiracy theorism  (See here).  But many evangelicals, whilst  claiming to support freedom of the individual are the very opposite of what they claim to be; their cultural instincts lead them to favour a highly authoritarian fundamentalism with its absolute certainties, demagogic preachers, "anointed" patriarchs and Godfathers who rule almost by divine right. The notion of epistemic humility is utterly alien to them. They have, in fact, strong autocratic instincts; you will sometimes hear that "A church is a theocracy and not a democracy".  It is unlikely that they would feel such antipathy toward  government if government was in their hands; the tail seeks to wag the dog. Suspicious of government they may be, but I doubt they would be so suspicious if their subliminally dominionist vision came about and they at last held the reigns of power; it would be Rome all over again. 

Some right wing evangelicals attempted to excuse their support for a candidate of clearly compromised political and personal morality by likening him to Cyrus or King Jehu, Biblical figures who worked out God's plans in spite of themselves. That right-wing evangelicals drew this parallel is revealing of their autocratic tendencies: Cyrus and Jehu were Middle Eastern despots at the centre of monarchical systems, circumstances hardly paralleled in democratic America. Right wing evangelicalism's subliminally monocratic vision  of government was no model for democracy. I felt a certain amount of dubiousness when one citizen supporter of Trump told me that he believed the "Republic was being rebirthed".  On the news I heard another Trump supporter saying they wanted Trump to set up a Trump dynasty. So perhaps the "rebirth" was as a monocratic system with a Trump dynasty at its head? In which case it would no longer be a republic!

The much hoped for scenario of the right-wing evangelical imagination found expression in a solid wall of "charismatic prophecies" that wrongly predicted a Trump electoral win**. Well, if there had been a Trump win I can tell them this: According to Tolkien only one hand can wear the ring of absolute power, the one ring to rule them all.  That's why we have democracy instead of "Theocracy": Democracy attempts to distribute the power among epistemically and morally flawed humanity and forces them to give public account of themselves to one another. This may lead to untidy, messy and argumentative government, but such a system acknowledges that humanity is flawed, epistemically and morally, so that's to be expected. The fundamentalist kindergarten versions of Christianity abdicate their epistemic responsibilities and look for security & certainty and seek to end argument & debate with what they claim to be channels of unambiguous  divine revelation either in the form of so-called "plain readings" of scripture and/or the rule of "anointed" patriarchs. 

Relevant Links

The wasting of the evangelical mind

Footnote

** The news from America is that all the influential "charismatic prophets" wrongly predicted a Trump election win.  This systematic error is evidence of a systemic problem: One might argue that since we would stop listening to one prophet who got it wrong on many prophecies why should we listen to an ensemble of culturally related prophets all of whom got it wrong on one prophecy? One commentator on the failed Trump prophecies expressed his belief that some of the "prophets" had a good track record and were respected Charismatic patriarchs & therefore still worth listening too. But for me, given the sectarian complexity of evangelical culture, life's far too short to rake through this extensive and varied culture and make such fine tuned distinctions, if indeed they exist as substantive distinctions. I've got better things to do.

ADDENDUM 07/09/21

If the possibility of fundamentalist dominionists being at the head of a Western dictatorship seems farfetched let’s recall that many American Christian fundamentalists are closely linked to Donald Trump the man who:

a) Vowed to “drain the swamp” of America’s well established democratic government,

b) Attempted to by-pass established democratic institutions and set up his alternatives,

c) Hobnobbed with professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and gave credence to the QAnon theorists,

d) Seeded the democratic debate with conspiracy theories,

e) Arguably helped provoke the attack on Capitol Hill,

f) Emboldened race supremacists & fascists, (cf. the Charlottesville rally)

g) Had a rapport with dictators like Russia’s Putin (etc) 

h) Attempted to intimidate a republican election official into falsifying the vote count 

i) Had an adviser who suggested imposing Trump’s view of the election using military force.  

ADDENDUM 09/09/2021

In an address that can be seen here Steve Bannon, one of Trump's pardoned side kicks uses language that almost sounds as if he wants the 2024 US election to be the inauguration of a new dictatorship: He talks of 20k shock troops on standby ready to take over a country they effectively already control.....

If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately .....pre-trained teams ready to jump into federal agencies.... .We’re winning big in 2024 and we need to get ready now.......We control the country. We’ve got to start acting like it. And one way we’re going to act like it, we’re not going to have 4,000 (shock troops) ready to go, we’re going to have 20,000 ready to go and we’re going to pick the 4,000 best and most ready in every single department.

Perhaps it's all just metaphorical election talk. I hope it is, but do people like Bannon talk in metaphors?  If the far-right win the 2024 election would they ever again concede an electoral defeat if they think of themselves as controlling the country? Having crawled over the back of Trump could Bannon one day call himself "president"?

News Monitor

On Steve Bannon:

Capitol riot: Lawmakers vote to hold Steve Bannon in contempt - BBC News

Trump to start social media under his control:

Trump to launch new social media platform TRUTH Social - BBC News

Hell and Hamnation Watch

In a post entitled “Are we wrong to call out compromise”* Ken Ham heaps his spiritual wrath on Phil Vischer (of "Veggie Tales" fame) and the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig for their old earth beliefs. (both have been targets of Ham in the past)

Ken has every right to express his (misguided) conviction in young earthism as vehemently as he wishes and one can’t complain if he speaks out when he sees professing believers teaching doctrines that he strongly believes are opposed to his interpretation of Scripture. But it seems that Ken is unable to do this without impugning the consciences and characters of those who would disagree with him.

Like Charles Taze Russell who founded the Jehovah's Witnesses, Ken has a big stake in marketing his views and his organisation. These business interests mean that when it comes to criticising those who disagree with him Ken finds himself caught between a rock and hard place: He doesn’t want to look like a Christian cultist who make their views a salvation test and yet he needs to maintain the strict exclusiveness of his version of fundamentalism which justifies his business interests. Therefore he tries to keep an ostensible but teetering balance between shying away from outright cultish exclusivism and yet keeping up an exclusivist polemic which effectively accuses critics of all but blasphemy. To this end Ken gives much lip service to the paradoxical view that, in his words,  young earthism isn't a salvation issue but an authority issue. Like other sectarians such as the Jehovah's Witnesses he goes on to apply that authority (his, of course) with a strength of language that doesn’t just express his strong belief in young earthism but which assassinates the spiritual character of those who disagree with him.  As I have shown before Ken has a very unpleasant habit of heaping spiritual abuse on old earth Christians. This latest article of his is no exception. 

At one point Ken mentions in his article Charles Spurgeon who, following the majority of mainstream Christians of his day, showed signs that he believed the Earth to be millions of years old. But Ken is so convinced of the persuasive power of his own views and the impressiveness of his organisation that he is sure that if he spoke to Spurgeon, Spurgeon would see the light:

 I think if we were able to give Spurgeon the arguments biblically and scientifically against an old earth today, he would immediately see that believing in an old earth was compromising God’s Word.

Well, Ken, it's easy to put your opinions into the mouth of a long dead person isn't it?  Putting words and ideas into people's mouth's is another of Ken's bad inquisitional habits: He'll put blasphemies into the mouths of contemparies who disagree with him today!  Ken's confidence in the persuasiveness of his own words and organisation reminds me of a confident statement made by the father of  the Jehovah's Witnesses,  Charles Taze Russell, who also made claims to his authority: Viz:

 "People cannot see the divine plan by studying the Bible itself. We find also that if anyone lays the Scripture studies aside, even after he has become familiar with them, if he lays them aside and ignores them and goes to the Bible alone, our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness. On the other hand, if he has merely read the Scripture studies with their references, and has not read a page of the Bible as such, he would be in the light at the end of two years". (The Watchtower, September 15, 1910)

Let's be clear: According to Ken if you study the Bible and don't come to the same conclusions about the age of the earth as him you are at best a compromiser and at worst a blasphemer - in fact Tom Wright and Francis Collins have been accused of blasphemy by our Ken! 

Raymond Franz, ex-JW, wrote a  book titled "Crisis of Conscience" where he tells of the spiritual abuse of those members of the organisation who eventually found themselves in a place where they were at odds with the Watchtower Society, the JW equivalent of AiG. Viz:

During those two years, the motive character and conduct of persons who conscientiously disagreed with the organisation have been portrayed in the worst of terms. Their concern to put God's Word first has been represented as the product of ambition, rebellion, pride, as sin against God and Christ. No allowance is made for the possibility that any of them acted out of sincerity, love of truth or integrity to God.....An enormous amount of rumour and even gutter-level gossip has circulated among Witnesses, internationally. Faithful Christians with high standards of morality are accused of being wife swappers, homosexuals, hypocrites, and egotists interested in establishing their own personal cult. Older ones are often dismissed as being 'mentally disturbed' or 'senile'.

In the article in point we find Ken, typically, laying on the spiritual incriminations in bucket loads. He accuses  Christians like William Lane Craig and  Phil Vischer of many things. In fact we read that:

* They are eroding Biblical authority.

* They are compromising God’s word.

* They need to repent of their compromise.

* They are the thin end of the wedge of spiritual degeneration: for compromise in one generation generally gets worse in the next generation.

* They, intentionally or not, haven’t done [what is right] with a whole heart.

* They’ve allowed some compromise to creep in, and it undermines biblical authority in their own teaching and in those they serve.

* They are taking ideas outside the Bible to God’s Word and undermining its authority.

* They spread secular, pagan ideas—they originally came from people who rejected God’s Word and sought to explain history apart from God and his Word. Therefore, those who add these ideas into Scripture are compromising with godless, “pagan” ideas. (The basis of this accusation is false. See here)

* They are false teachers.

All these constitute the grave spiritual character assassination of those who don’t follow Ken and his organisation. Ken's  claim to not make his views a salvation test looks like lip service. As we have seen here and in previous posts Ken is doing everything in his power of expression to make young earthism all but a salvation test of contemporary Christians who dare to contradict him.  

Footnote

* See here: https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/ken-ham/2021/01/04/are-we-wrong-to-call-out-compromise.