.@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/
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/

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More from @TaylorMatthewD

Jan 31
A minor tremor in Independent Charismatic-land this month that shows the uncertainty of this post-/mid-Trumpian moment: Mario Murillo, 1 of the big 4 panelists on Kenneth Copeland's "Flashpoint" declared (via blog) he was taking a hiatus from the show. mariomurillo.org/2023/01/17/mar… 1/
Murillo is a big deal. He's a respected Evangelist. He was the preacher who Bill Johnson credits with actually converting a young Bill. Murillo's been around for decades, but as "Flashpoint"'s star rose after the 2020 election, he became a leading Trumpy prophetic voice. 2/
The top "Flashpoint" prophetic panelists (often interspersed with other guests) are Lance Wallnau, Dutch Sheets, Mario Murillo, and Hank Kunneman. Host Gene Bailey seems to be angling to take over Kenneth Copeland's whole shop. 3/
Read 11 tweets
Jan 30
Because #NewApostolicReformation leaders have close ties to Messianic Judaism & Christian Zionism, it’s rare that you’d find explicit pro-Nazi comments from them. More often, if they’re going to reference Nazism, they cast their enemies as Nazis & themselves as victims of Nazism.
Yes, you can find ties bw #NAR leaders and white nationalists, but those are rarely overt. A lot of NAR-originating prophetic memes (like #AppealtoHeaven flags) have a sort of patriotic/godly, universal-adapter quality, so other movements can grab them and plug & play.
One very strange (& explicit) Dutch Sheets “Nazi” reference was “Operation Valkyrie,” and was part of his post-2020 prophecy tour. It’s a prophetic dream/prophetic meme I really wanted to get into in Charismatic Revival Fury, but it was a real rabbit hole.
Read 7 tweets
Jan 10
IMPORTANT UPDATE from the #January6thCommittee materials: the good news for listeners of Charismatic Revival Fury is they did have the #WhiteHouse visitor logs that I ended the series pining for. The bad news is they only released select dates: govinfo.gov/app/details/GP…
They evidently decided to only release the logs from dates relevant to the material referenced in the #January6thReport (Dec 12 - Jericho March, Dec 14 - Electoral College, Dec 18 - nutjob Flynn/Lawyers meeting, Dec 21 - MTG, et al. meeting, & Jan 3-5 - leadup to #January6th).
So the Dutch Sheets prophecy meeting on Dec 29th isn't in there. For those coming in late to this conversation or who haven't listened to our Charismatic Revival Fury audio-documentary series (you should!), this is what I'm talking about: religiondispatches.org/evidence-stron…
Read 4 tweets
Jan 9
Here's an interesting find abt Fivefold/Dominion Theology & the leadup to the #NAR (@FredClarkson @brucewilson @ulyankee1 @visionsurreal) I found a flyer for Maranatha World Leadership Conf (12/29/85–1/2/86). Workshops include: 1) C. Peter Wagner, "The Dynamics of Church Growth;"
2) Larry Tomczak (of People of Destiny), "Principles for Building a Thriving Church;" 3) Dennis Peacocke (eventually on ICA apost. council), "Dominion: A Vision for the Church;" 4) Rice Broocks (member of Wagner's New Apostolic Roundtable), "Apostolic Vision for Your Church"
Plus a series of workshops titled "Reformation of Society: Taking Dominion in Every Area of Life" with sessions on THE ARTS, EDUCATION, HISTORY, MEDIA, SCIENCE, MUSIC, LAW (7 total, though diff. list from the eventual 7 Mountains).
Read 4 tweets

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