December 12, 2023 at 9:01 AM

Christian Nationalism and Other Traps

@DonG

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James Lindsay has been talking about Christian Nationalism the last few months. He says this is a trap and should be avoided. The Left is laying traps all over the culture to gain power and knowing about these will help you avoid the traps and giving the Left the outcome they desire. To understand is to disarm and as a bonus, it will make your Christmas gatherings more pleasant.

One important technique of the Left is to create false dialectics (false oppositions). These cultural conflicts create a lot of energy and enable the Left to advance a power grab. The Left creates the energy and then uses action to provoke a reaction and uses that reaction against their enemies. An analogy is a little boy sticking his finger in his sister's face and saying "I am not touching you." This eventually provokes a reaction (a smack) and they boy cries to mommy to get the sister in trouble.

A real-world example is drag queen story hour. The Left spent years prepping the cultural battleground calling anybody that was against the gay lifestyle "homophobic". You were either 100% in favor of gay marriage and dudes in women's sports or you were an anti-LGBT2YIIQ++ bigot. That is a false choice, but they don't allow neutral ground. The action comes from putting men in sexy dresses to read stories to kids to provoke a reaction. If there is not a reaction, they will push harder and the stories read to kids will involve all kinds of perversion. To add energy to the conflict, there will be a "Trans Day of Visibility" where Americans are told there is a genocide against trans folks (a lie, but who looks at details). Eventually, someone will react (beat up a drag queen) and all of government will create a laws to enshrine dragness and oust any politicians that object. Power taken is never ceded back.

Other real-world examples are George Floyd (are you a racist or do you want to defund police); J6 (are you an insurrectionist or do you want to put Trump in jail); Ukraine funding (trillions for Ukraine or are you a Putin lover); Asian hate crimes (you are against "White Hate" or you support "White Hate"). All these false choices/conflicts were/are used to create energy to break institutions and move power to Leftist leaders/central government.

That brings us to "Christian Nationalism". What is that? You have probably never heard the phrase. I didn't until a few months back. But it turns out the Left has been using this for a while. They have been preparing the cultural battlefield for years by equating "Christian Nationalism" with "White Nationalism" (think neo-Nazi). This equivalence is in the minds of Lefties and pervades their writings. This lays the trap. Recently the Left has stepped up the rhetoric calling Speaker Mike Johnson (who has a Biblical world view) a "Christian Nationalist". When Trump said he would close the border this week, the Left called him a "Christian Nationalist". People on the Right have started reacting by saying heck yeah, I am a Christian Nationalist, wrongly thinking that means they are patriotic and Christian. Wrong! Next, the media will accuse all the people who claimed to be Christian Nationalists have admitted they are "White Nationalists" and "Nazis". All persons will be given a false choice: are you a Nazi? Or, do you condemn these Christians?

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wTobiOpd-hw/V_sfbD_bJGI/AAAAAAAAQyA/11lyOJM0spUsV0I7NgFD2XrwxVWBdl2gwCEw/s1600/Wargames%2B2.jpg

Forewarned is forearmed. As young Matthew Broderick taught us, the only way to win is not to play the game. When you see a dialectic coming or your Lefty cousin wants to talk about politics at the eggnog bowl, deprive the conflict of energy--call out the Marxist troupe and move on. It is better to argue about the definition of "neo-Marxism" than which of the Founders were Nazis. If you see a fellow patriot getting ensnared, alert them and lead them to safety. ps. Taylor Swift might be the next psyop.

This post was promoted to the Main Feed at the recommendation of Ricochet's members.

Banned Member@DrewInWisconsin2y

This is an excellent (and long) piece on the subject.

Christian Nationalism: A Primer for the Layman

First and foremost, Christian Nationalism should be thought of as a label that is being applied to a wide variety of perspectives. Just because someone describes themself as a Christian Nationalist is no cause to start church discipline proceedings. Similarly, just because someone expresses concerns with Christian Nationalism doesn’t mean they’re a woke progressive Christian. Much of the disagreement is between good people who hold different definitions of the term.
While the concepts of a Christian Nation goes back centuries, Christian Nationalism as label is a more recent development, although not as recent as you might assume. First appearing in print in the late 1800s, the term Christian Nationalism has seen a gradual increase in usage since the mid-20th century. In 2006, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote Kingdom Come: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, in which she fearfully chronicles the rise of conservative evangelical political involvement. However, it wasn’t until the January 6th Capitol protest that Christian Nationalism exploded into the national consciousness.
With images of protestors waving Christian flags and carrying crosses juxtaposed with rioters pouring into the Capitol building, the media began referring to the event as an insurrection carried out by White Christian Nationalists. With the race-based qualifier unilaterally inserted, mainstream media supercharged the label with racism even as nothing about January 6th itself indicated racist motivations for the protest.
Appalled by what they were seeing in the media, many Christian leaders were quick to denounce Christian Nationalism (‘white’ being quickly dropped as the protesters weren’t exclusively white). In the ensuing weeks and months, the media capitalized on this aversion to Christian Nationalism by running numerous pieces explaining the ascent of this “dangerous” ideology which, at this point, had expanded to include any conservative political involvement by Christians.
This expanded application of the Christian Nationalism label is where the present rift within evangelicalism originates.
. . .
Again, remember that CN is a developing label. Arguments for or against CN need to be extremely specific. There shouldn’t be any ambiguity about what you are advocating for or opposing. Otherwise, your opponent in this debate is going to fill that label with their preconceived notions of what Christian Nationalism is, resulting in a lot of miscommunication which our enemies on the left will be more than happy to exploit.

By the way, there is apparently some new movie being pushed that aims to stoke fears of Christian Nationalism. It's produced famous Christian theologian Rob Reiner. So I'm sure you can already guess what approach it'll take.

Discussion (24)

CHARTER MEMBER
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iWe@iWe2y
I had always assumed a Christian Nationalist was some kind of Christian Supremacist, a fictional caricature of one's opponents.
Banned Member@DrewInWisconsin2y
This is an excellent (and long) piece on the subject.
Christian Nationalism: A Primer for the Layman
First and foremost, Christian Nationalism should be thought of as a label that is being applied to a wide variety of perspectives. Just because someone describes themself as a Christian Nationalist is no cause to start church discipline proceedings. Similarly, just because someone expresses concerns with Christian Nationalism doesn’t mean they’re a woke progressive Christian. Much of the disagreement is between good people who hold different definitions of the term.
While the concepts of a Christian Nation goes back centuries, Christian Nationalism as label is a more recent development, although not as recent as you might assume. First appearing in print in the late 1800s, the term Christian Nationalism has seen a gradual increase in usage since the mid-20th century. In 2006, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote Kingdom Come: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, in which she fearfully chronicles the rise of conservative evangelical political involvement. However, it wasn’t until the January 6th Capitol protest that Christian Nationalism exploded into the national consciousness.
With images of protestors waving Christian flags and carrying crosses juxtaposed with rioters pouring into the Capitol building, the media began referring to the event as an insurrection carried out by White Christian Nationalists. With the race-based qualifier unilaterally inserted, mainstream media supercharged the label with racism even as nothing about January 6th itself indicated racist motivations for the protest.
Appalled by what they were seeing in the media, many Christian leaders were quick to denounce Christian Nationalism (‘white’ being quickly dropped as the protesters weren’t exclusively white). In the ensuing weeks and months, the media capitalized on this aversion to Christian Nationalism by running numerous pieces explaining the ascent of this “dangerous” ideology which, at this point, had expanded to include any conservative political involvement by Christians.
This expanded application of the Christian Nationalism label is where the present rift within evangelicalism originates.
. . .
Again, remember that CN is a developing label. Arguments for or against CN need to be extremely specific. There shouldn’t be any ambiguity about what you are advocating for or opposing. Otherwise, your opponent in this debate is going to fill that label with their preconceived notions of what Christian Nationalism is, resulting in a lot of miscommunication which our enemies on the left will be more than happy to exploit.
By the way, there is apparently some new movie being pushed that aims to stoke fears of Christian Nationalism. It's produced famous Christian theologian Rob Reiner. So I'm sure you can already guess what approach it'll take.
Banned Member@DrewInWisconsin2y
Also . . .
deadline.com
Open link
Among those offering expert commentary in the doc are political commentator and author David French; VeggieTales co-creator and Holy Post podcast host Phil Vischer; pastor, author, and Holy Post podcast host Skye Jethani; historian and author Kristin Kobes Du Mez; Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore; historian and author Jemar Tisby; U.S. Presidential Medal of Honor Winner Sister Simone Campbell; social activist Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II; Evangelical Pastor, activist Doug Pagitt; journalist and producer Reza Aslan; journalist and advocate Rob Boston; journalist, Master of Divinity (M.Div.) Jack Jenkins; pastor and author Rob Schenck; political commentator and author Charlie Sykes; sociologist and journalist Andrew Whitehead; historian and author Anthea Butler; journalist and author Katherine Stewart; and journalist-attorney Andrew Seidel.
Looks like they picked the worst people to take part in this documentary.
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Susan Quinn@SusanQuinn2y
First they came for the Jews . . .
I heard about this some time ago, and I was hoping it would disappear. I'm glad you're alerting people, Don, to the insidious label.
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Chuck@Chuckles2y
Is being a disciple of Christ a bad thing? Apparently so.
What about being into Nationalism? Who would admit to such a thing!

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