Thread by @dogemperor

@brucewilson I am probably less surprised than most, but largely because I knew the NAR (and its proto-NAR incarnations like Latter Rain and especially Manifest Sons of God) are literally "sister movements" to Christian Identity (and still engage in some non-negligible cross-fertilisation).

@brucewilson Specifically with Serpent Seed theology (which was originally both racist *and* religious-supremacist; the NAR ran with the "spiritual/literally sons of God or the Devil" aspects from Branhamism, Christian Identity ran with the racist aspects).

@brucewilson There's also been a lot of crypto-anti-Semitism basically on how the only "real Jewish people" are Orthodox or (preferably) Messianic, preferably Ashkenazim, and willing to make Aliyah; Reform/Reconstruction/Conservative Judaism, and even Orthodox disagreeing with

@brucewilson Israeli politics or the present Israeli state aren't considered "really Jewish" (and are described typically in terms racists normally reserve for folks engaging in miscegenation, as effectively "race traitors").

Also: Most "integration" in these circles is performative.

@brucewilson Pentecostalism has been deeply split along racial lines since shortly after the Azusa Revival, and pretty much the entire lineage that led to the NAR was from a very, very white branch; as recently as the 50s and 60s, the AoG tended to be segregated.

@brucewilson (In a particularly notorious case--one AoG preacher kicked out of a congregation in Indianapolis ended up forming his own congregation. You might have heard of him. Went by the name Jim Jones. Eventually moved to Guyana.)

Even now, PoC tend to be mostly accepted for 2 things:

@brucewilson 1) If they can at least put on choir performances or preaching performances similar to historically African-American Pentecostal groups or AME churches.

2) If they're from a country associated with Scary, Brown, Pagan people they can get to stardom.

@brucewilson (Example: the Walid Shoebat grift, combining the Classic Convertee Narrative with a bonus of being an Otherwise Scary Brown Person Who Saw The Light. Also cref. a number of NAR leaders from sub-Saharan Africa who've done the international touring set.)

@brucewilson And there's yet another aspect of NAR belief that shows it's all performative--the concept of "Generational Curses", the idea that your ancestors up to seven generations back did a Bad Thing and that's the cause of all your problems.

Yes, this gets racist and insidious.

@brucewilson For instance: To the average NAR type, "institutional racism" doesn't exist. Cultural racism and consequences thereof don't exist. It's all "generational curses" from someone's First Nations great-grandmom, or an African-American person's ancestors carted over as slaves...

@brucewilson ...whom, by virtue of the US being a very young nation, haven't been necessarily contacted for seven generations by missionaries.

This is bad enough, but it's been actually used to *justify* stuff like ethnic cleansing and genocide of First Nations, colonialism, and

@brucewilson destruction of intangible cultural property and cultural artifacts in the name of "destroying pagan idols" and "gateways to Satan".

And yes, this has gone even to African-Americans exploring their heritage pre-slavery and having pride in modern African culture.

@brucewilson Studies of other cultures are not really seen as good unless it's for the purpose of missionary activity and eventually colonizing and converting indigenous peoples away from their existing cultures and to "modern" (and very, very white) culture.

@brucewilson This even goes to the point of homeschooling texts and "private Christian school" texts largely singing the praises of the Confederacy and the institution of chattel slavery being a "civilizing device" (yes, seriously) and All For The Good because it "Christianized" slaves.

@brucewilson And with the NAR, it goes to the point that *indigenous cultures, and non-white NAR culture in and of itself*, is seen as a "doorway to Satan"--complete with many aspects of African-American culture being condemned as "opening doorways for Satan".

@brucewilson In THAT milieu, it's absolutely unshocking and unsurprising that eventually they'd get to the idea that BLM was somehow "satanic" and associated with the "spirit of rebellion".

They have textbooks that literally claim the same thing about the Civil Rights Movement.

@brucewilson The first time I actually heard the "MLK was a Communist and therefore the whole Civil Rights Movement was Bad" smear...was not from a KKK member, but my own mother, and from others in the church #IGotOut of.

(Which had a few token African-American members.)

@brucewilson (Yes, the popular smear well into the *now* was "Communist", which was overtly equated with Satanism. Really since the days of McCarthy; the FGBMFI's popular schtick was that they were fighting "communism" when presenting a public face.)

@brucewilson Basically tl;dr they're okay with tokens, and the occasional Religious Minstrel Show, but not happy with anything more than performative action and anything that might cause actual social change and/or stop the gravy train of love offerings