Recently I argued against two rather simplistic critiques of Christian Nationalism: firstly that it is difficult to generalise about Christianity (Luke Ford), and secondly that any ideology that includes Christian elements can only be "universalistic" (Richard Spencer). This may have given some the false impression that I was myself in favour of Christian Nationalism. I'm not. Just because you demolish a critique, does not mean you believe in the thing being critiqued. It might instead mean you think someone is not hitting it hard enough or in the right places.
For me the problem was that neither of those critiques addressed the real issue with Christian Nationalism, an ideology that is being pushed on the Right these days by the likes of Nick Fuentes and Andrew Torba.
The real problem with Christian Nationalism, and indeed with any ideology that includes faith-based elements, is that you actually have to BELIEVE in the faith-based elements for it to go any further.
The real problem with Christian Nationalism, and indeed with any ideology that includes faith-based elements, is that you actually have to BELIEVE in the faith-based elements for it to go any further.
Secular ideologies make statements about the world, embody values, or approach reality in certain ways that can be tested objectively. For example, Communism was discredited when its economic models failed; Fascism when its martial qualities were found wanting; etc.
But this is also true for faith-based religions. They too can be tested objectively. For example, it might be noticed that people who live traditional Christian, Mormon, Amish, Muslim, or Hasidic Jewish lives have healthier birth rates than those that don't.
But this is also the exact point at which the problem kicks in -- and it kicks in like a donkey!
"Yes," you declare, "Mormons have got the right idea. Just look at those healthy birth rates and great group solidarity!"
But what's the next step?
How do you get from noticing the correlation between certain people believing (or claiming to believe) certain things and the supposed good effects of believing (or claiming to believe) those things? Do you, for example, just say:
"Well, those birth rates are proof enough for me, I fully accept the divine teaching of the Church of Latter Day Saints!"
Will that work?
And, even supposing it were possible to switch on your faith like a bathroom light, you would still have problems. You'd have to check the data on conversios like yourself, infected with the poison of previous secularism, to see whether they got the same positive outcomes from the faith as the dyed-in-the-wool multi-generational religios.
Also, if the positive outcomes were your main and overriding reason for forcing yourself to believe in the religion or its ideological derivative, how would you handle other faiths that had identical outcomes? Would you also start riding an Amish horse buggy and worshipping Allah, all while pursuing your salvation and your socio-political salvation through the Book of Mormon?
Non-secular ideologies must always prevail over religiously flavoured ones, because, when they point to positive outcomes, you don't have to do gymnastics of faith, and force your mind to believe in those things you can't force your mind to believe in.
If you're believing in obvious nonsense in order to get to high birth rates, etc., why not simply cut out the middleman, believe in the goal itself, and construct an ideology around that; one that any sane man can sign on to without LARPing as hard as this guy?
It's as simple as that.
If you want, you could still keep the LARPy religion to enjoy in private in your personal down time.
Secularism is honest and lives in the open and welcomes critique. Religious ideology, by contrast, is a lie that lurks in the shadows and avoids critique like a vampire avoids daylight.
If you're believing in obvious nonsense in order to get to high birth rates, etc., why not simply cut out the middleman, believe in the goal itself, and construct an ideology around that; one that any sane man can sign on to without LARPing as hard as this guy?
If you want, you could still keep the LARPy religion to enjoy in private in your personal down time.
Secularism is honest and lives in the open and welcomes critique. Religious ideology, by contrast, is a lie that lurks in the shadows and avoids critique like a vampire avoids daylight.
The mental gymnastics you have to go through
in order to get to those high Mormon birth rates.
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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).
I was listening to a podcast on the Son of Sam killer from a Catholic podcast network. The host explained that many prison conversions are insincere--the convict does it to signal he's "reformed" or for some other reason (he could have mentioned convicts converting to Islam for Halal food). The way to tell if a conversion is sincere is if the person takes a serious intellectual interest in their new faith. For what its worth, the host thought this was the case with David Berkowitz. Its certainly the case that alot of these people who are really into online politics convert to this or that religion for shallow reasons, and they probably will drop out of their new faith eventually. However, in my experience most people who convert are very interested in the intellectual details of their new religion and are sincere, and the largest group of people converting for utilitarian reasons are "normies" joining the religion of their spouse, not super-online political obsessives. I'm aware of a lot of Catholic converts/reverts who get theology Master's degrees and become priests or High School religion teachers, or are at least better informed of the content of the faith than the average cradle Catholic.
ReplyDeleteNick F is following in the footsteps of Lyndon Larouche and Bob Avakain in creating a fringe political movement that operates like a religious cult. I'm not sure I would point to him as indicative of any larger trends, he's more of a weird sideshow.
A "Christian nationalism" will work just fine if the people of the nation are generally Christian! The greeks no doubt had a strong religious/Christian element to their 19th century fight of independence against the muslim turks. The serbs, bulgarians, etc. the same. There no doubt also was a strong sense of germanic identity in the great religious efforts of the Reformation. And on and on.
ReplyDeleteBut white/european people are just not that religious/Christian these days. Being mostly agnostic/materialist often with the influence of several secular ideologies on the personal level: Liberalism, Socialism, Enviromentalism, Gay-ism, Globalism, perhaps Nudism, etc. And in day to day life mostly thinking about sports and not about God.
So traditional religion/Christianity is a moot point in any western political endeavor.