Thread by @TaylorMatthewD

.@njhochman's attempted refutation of @BradleyOnishi's thesis abt #ChristianNationalism conflates 3 things to reach a simplistic conclusion. Hochman aligns 1) Amer Xty's demographic decline, 2) changing terrain in the culture wars, & 3) some Xn leaders' pessimism abt "winning" 1/

https://twitter.com/njhochman/status/1619798187581276160

Xty is demographically declining in the U.S., but it's not going quietly into that good night. A lot of that decline is among liberal/prog churches. 45% of Americans who say "U.S. should be a Xn nation" is a still a demogr. force to be reckoned with. pewresearch.org/religion/2022/… 2/

The long-term coalescence of right-wing Christians around the Republican party means that this demographic, even if it's declining, is ever more important to Republican politicians. One need only look at Trump & DeSantis' jockeying for Evang leaders' support today to verify. 3/

Even a quick glance at the actual behavior of Republican politicians' elaborate choreography to never fall out of favor w/ conserv. Christians makes these 2 paragraphs from Hochman's June @nytimes essay totally risible. Politicians know which side their bread is buttered on. 4/

Second: yes, *some* terrain has shifted in the culture wars. Anti-immigrant crusades have a different valence than efforts to put mandated prayer back in public schools. But Hochman's claim that this somehow signals a right-wing Christian loss of clout is absurd. 5/

Just as "agnostic" (i.e., not intrinsically Christian) causes like anti-abortion and prayer in schools were theologized in the culture wars of the 1980s & 90s, so too anti-immigration, anti-trans, and anti-CRT campaigns are being theologized and "biblicized" today by Amer Xns. 6/

Moreover, Hochman's claim that Ron DeSantis (his supposed paragon of a de-Christianized culture warrior) "rarely discusses his religion publicly and almost never in the context of politics" is pretty hard to stomach, when you observe DeSantis' recent conduct. 7/

In case Hochman missed it, here's DeSantis being prayed over by Christian-supremacist, culture-war troubadour Sean Feucht (facebook.com/sean.feucht/po…), & here's DeSantis literally appropriating the Bible on spiritual warfare to describe his politics (tampabay.com/news/florida-p…) 8/

I would (sincerely) encourage Hochman to listen to my audio-docu series w/ @BradleyOnishi "Charismatic Revival Fury" to hear actual audio & analysis of what this theologization of Trump & contemp culture wars sounds like & how it fueled #January6th. icjs.org/charismatic-re… 9/

Finally, Hochman quotes Paul Weyrich's despairing 1999 assessment that "we have probably lost the culture war" as his premier evidence that right-wing Xty is receding in its influence. This fundamentally mistakes right-wing Christian rhetoric for reality. 10/

The mentality that fuels right-wing Christian mobilization in the U.S. is a paradoxical straddling of "we are embattled, persecuted outsiders" & "we are entitled, God-destined insiders." As Christian Smith so eloquently put it "embattled and thriving." amazon.com/American-Evang… 11/

Put simply, right-wing Christian despair for America fuels right-wing Christian imaginations of American revival and reformation. And, yes, @njhochman dominion theology & a rising "victorious eschatology" over the past 20 years has been instrumental in squaring that circle. 12/

I'm all for bustling academic & punditry debates over how to define #ChristianNationalism, what subdivisions within right-wing American Christianity are most important, and what counts as hard-right Christianity vs. a more mushy, sentimental American Christian patriotism. 13/

But those who, in the aftermath of the #January6thInsurrection & its Christian countenance, want to pretend that mobilized right-wing Christianity is not a threat to American pluralism (much less American democracy) have their heads in a very special kind of sand. 14/