Thread by @jaredstacy

The very first point of the very first class I took in youth ministry at Liberty University:

“Hitler was the greatest Youth leader of the 20th century”

🧵x12

Let me say: I don’t think this came from any explicit admiration for Nazi Germany.

Instead, it’s was like the wand maker Olivander to Harry Potter on Voldemort: “he did great things—terrible—but great”

But… 1/12

But there’s something deeply unsettling about how often & casually conservatives point to totalitarian regimes, and their “successful” capture of institutions & education. 2/12

When people cite the examples of Mao, Stalin, or Hitler as those who did “great” things, they have to make a host of assumptions that boil down to this: “I’m different than them” 3/12

If you believe you’re immune to all the classic fascist or authoritarian evils, while pursing fascist or authoritarian politics, you have another thing coming. Advocating for a supposed Christian moral order doesn’t exempt anyone from evil. 4/12

If you believe you’re immune, the more dangerous & hidden assumption among Christians who say these things is that you come to believe you can *redeem* authoritarian rule. This is absurd. 5/12

It’s almost as if Christian totalitarianism hasn’t been tried and found wanting in the roughly two millennia of Christendom. Yet…

“Christians” says sociologist & theologian Jacques Ellul, “have yet to renounce the ideology of Christendom” 6/12

There has been a mass forgetting of the violence necessary to establish and maintain the totalitarianism of authoritarian rule.

You can’t advocate for the total political capture of society, for conforming culture to a morality, without underwriting violence. 7/12

This link between authoritarian rule and violence gets downplayed or baptized by those advocating for Christian nationalism. Either it’s misrepresentation & slander, or righteous, State-sanctioned murder. 8/12

But ironically, the link between violence & authoritarianism is front & center when the tables turn, when it’s not Christians in charge but someone else. 9/12

When Christians imagine authoritarianism, it’s “redemptive”—but when Christians imagine authoritarianism under non-Christians…

Then the persecution complex fires up and generates a host of conspiracy theories about imminent violence against Xians in America. 10/12

More than democracy is in crisis of Christians continue to be a people who cannot find a measure of shared humanity with other people.

We ought to, if we are at all serious about staying true to our confession that Jesus became human. 11/12

Christians have no inherent immunity to evil. If anything, we should be more awake than most to our own darkness, more freely honest about our limits and culpabilities when it comes to power. We should be the last people imagining the redemption of authoritarianism. 12/12

After all, the human contribution to the crucifixion of Jesus was a religious collusion with imperial power. That sort of authoritarianism cannot be redeemed, it can only be disarmed in hell. And that’s what Jesus did. /end

BONUS: When I say there has been a “mass forgetting” of the link between violence and authoritarian rule, I mean among white Christians—not minority traditions in America who know (too well) white supremacy thrives on this link. Many faithful Christians need no reminder of it.