If you wanna read a scathing theological critique of #ChristianNationalism, look no further than John MacArthur himself. Brutal takedown of contemporary efforts to restore Christendom via political reform. Dude even thinks our Revolution was sinful—Founders didn’t obey Romans 13.
Here’s his thoughts on the American Revolution. Hardly an endorsement of the Christian founding of our nation.
Oh man, savage. Get ‘em, John. Unthinkable that Christians become the avowed enemies of the very people they’re hear to serve.
And here’s one where J-Mac quotes another author. Note the underlining.
Ok last one. But J-Mac doesn’t let up. Unequivocally against depending on social & political reform, from the Christian left or right, to advance an unspiritual Christian America. He says be good citizens & vote. But rails against Christianizing in any way but via conversion.
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🧵 Impossible to understand support for #ChristianNationalism without understanding the role of perceived threats to Christian dominance (Whiteness often implied), either demographically or culturally. Here are 3 experimental studies demonstrating & unpacking this connection. 1/5
Study 1: Authors find fundamentalist Christians on average oppose church-state separation, but really only when they feel their "prototypicality" (the sense that their religious subgroup represents America itself) threatened. Otherwise, no association. 2/5 doi.org/10.1111/jasp.1…
Study 2: Authors found when Christians were reminded of their demographic decline, they felt their religious freedom & rights threatened, which led to greater Christian nationalism, conservative political ideology, & Trump support (👀🤔). @Marah_Alkire 3/5 doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp…
One of the sad byproducts of all the political sorting is how boring it makes us. Maybe just my preference, but I find people less interesting when you can know one demographic fact about them & safely guess their stance on 10 issues. Be principled, be passionate, be interesting.
And FWIW, I'm not talking about stereotyping people. I'm saying statistically our demographic identities are sorting under partisan/ideological identities to the point that where you live, whether you attend church, what you drive, tells me increasingly more about your politics.
And not saying we should all be moderates or independents. (Though I don't think either of those is necessarily bad either.) I'm saying I think it makes social life & politics better when people have more connections with diverse groups & know what it means to feel conflicted.
🧵 What causes #ChristianNationalism to increase? Demographic threat. Authors find telling White Christians about threats to Christian numerical dominance evoked disgust which then led to increases in Christian nationalism & belief that Christians are discriminated against. 1/4
Curiously, authors found that telling White Christians about the demographic replacement of Whites didn't have a direct or indirect effect on Christian nationalism or much else. BUT they did find measures of symbolic racism predicted greater support for Christian nationalism. 2/4
Their overall findings affirm recent experimental work by @Marah_Alkire @MikeyPasek & co-authors who also found exposing Christians to messages about Christian demographic decline produced greater support for Christian nationalism and Trump support. 3/4 doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp…
🧵 Ever notice folks on the political left & right both claim their views represent those of Jesus? In our new study, we ask adults to rate Jesus on the left-right spectrum & find ratings are almost all about politics & almost nothing to do w/being religious or even Christian. 1/
For example, we find the leading predictors of whether you place Jesus further left or right are your own ideological identity and Christian nationalism, and this is true for Christians AND non-Christians alike. And religiosity doesn't really matter much. Why's that important? 2/
It helps us understand causal direction. If folks became conservative BECAUSE they view Jesus as conservative, we'd expect those who ostensibly care more about being like Jesus (very committed Christians) to show a stronger association. But we don't. Rather we find whether... 3/
🧵 Something that's helped me understand contemporary GOP politics is Ziblatt's concept of "The Conservative Dilemma" (TCD). When you start to recognize the ways GOP efforts mostly revolve around addressing TCD, it makes much more sense. So what is it? How's it shape politics? 1/
Conservatives in democracies face a problem. On the one hand, conservatives serve the interests of traditional power (wealthy, whites, Christians, men, etc.). BUT they also gotta win elections. In the past, you solve that problem by limiting who can vote. But as voting... 2/
...rights expand to the disempowered (unlanded, non-Xtians, women, minorities), conservatives have to serve elite interests WHILE ALSO getting a growing number of people to vote for policies that'll screw them over economically & in other ways. Thus "the conservative dilemma." 3/