White Christian Nationalism is the Root Cause of Hate and Oppression in America
It Always Has Been
We love to tout phrases like “greatest country in the world” and “land of the free”, but 13 of our presidents owned slaves, women didn’t get the vote until 1920, indigenous people were exterminated, Japanese internment camps prevailed, and children are taken away from their parents at our borders.
That’s a short list of heinous crimes.
As if our past isn’t rotten enough, we’re now seeing a rabid movement toward Christian nationalism once again which means that progress is unlikely while regression will continue to destroy as much of our recent social progress as possible. Sad but true, my progressive friends. Bernie and Hillary lost the war and so did we because …
Trump ushered in a new era.
The MAGA crowd soon adopted his shocking behaviors and now Americans say and do anything they please. The more outlandish and cruel the comments the better. It’s as though they are trying to top one another with the most regressive ideas possible. They deliver these ideas to the public in the crassest most shocking manner imaginable. Each time someone says something shocking and cruel, they get loads of attention in the press. And why not?
That has worked for Trump all these years and he’s their role model.
Republicans tested this strategy and found that they endeared themselves to their followers even more. So, now, there’s nothing too outlandish to proclaim. The devil has been unleashed once again. Trust me, I realize the devil had been lurking in the shadows for a few decades. Once given the opportunity, there was a swift and mighty resurgence of hate and oppression that swept across the land. However, I need to give the devil a break, because those that lead the cause to normalize hate and oppression once again are often the most devout among us.
They believe that their god bestowed upon them the right to rule. They’re just trying to reclaim their God-given rights.
This bizarre behavior is acted out under the guise of making America great again which according to Christian nationalists means bringing back the day when the church dominated our culture and white males ruled supreme. We have a phrase for that as well.
It’s called White Supremacy.
Never doubt for one minute that white supremacy IS white Christian nationalism at its worst. It’s an unleashed desire founded on the idea that America is the greatest country in the world because white males made it so. Furthermore, this ideology is also based on the premise that the Christian god gave white males supremacy over women and all other races.
The rabid Christians infiltrating positions of power across the nation are all about bringing god back into our government.
But even those who don’t have a religious bone in their bodies are catering full time to these religious zealots. Trump is a prime example. There’s nothing about his life that even remotely suggests that he’s ever been interested in a religion of any kind. But the Republican party would be sorely weakened without the support of evangelicals. So, it is crucial that Republicans continue to please those who will ruin everything. Without them, they are nothing.
Never underestimate the power of the evangelicals to move heaven and earth to accomplish the goals on their agenda.
If you don’t understand how evangelicals think, you’re at a definite disadvantage. They are in it for the long haul, are experts at uniting behind a cause, and most importantly believe they are on a mission for god. That last bit is what makes them so dangerously determined and has always had the potential to harm those who disagree with them.
Anyone who disagrees with their ideology is not only against white males but also against the Christian god. Who, by the way, is the one true God.
Oh, sure, we’re the greatest country in the world. (written with utter sarcasm) We’ve convinced ourselves of that long ago. We believe it so firmly that we excuse our cruel and punitive behaviors. We teach it in our schools, from our pulpits, and in our communities. Our children grow up thinking that everyone wants to be us and that we have the best culture on the planet.
I just got back from six weeks in Spain.
I’ve been wintering in Spain for almost 18 years. Covid put a stop to that for two years, but I finally returned this past March. I rent the same apartment every year. It’s my home away from home. Down the street from my abode is an elementary school. Every day, I walk past this school and see children enjoying recess. Unlike children in the greatest country in the world, however, these Spanish children do not have to engage in regular practice drills where they’re required to pretend that there’s a man with a military rifle storming the halls of the school with the intent to murder them.
Can you even imagine?
How wonderful for these children. They get to go to school without feeling like their lives are under threat at all times. Which group of kids do you think has a better chance of growing up trauma free? You can’t tell me that the developing brain of a child goes unscathed in America. I predict that we’re going to see anxiety and depression increase. Going to school in America is the perfect definition of a traumatized childhood.
Oh, and by the way, only about 13% of the Spanish population goes to church these days. So, we can’t give god credit for the safety of Spanish children.
What’s the difference between these two scenarios? Could it be that America isn’t the greatest country in the world after all? Could it be that we’ve asked thousands upon thousands of young people to lay down their lives for their country and it was nothing but a big fat lie? Could it be that our religion didn’t save us but actually helped to create our deeply violent and noninclusive country?
In a truly great country, I should be able to go to the grocery store, a movie, a festival, a mall, work, and school without getting shot. For the love of a god of any culture, Americans can’t even go to church and not be part of a mass shooting.
I use the American mass shooting phenomenon as only one example of how truly messed up our culture is and has been since the beginning.
We were making a bit of social progress in the 20th century, but it’s now slipping from our grasp. That progress was the direct result of serious attempts to secularize our government. The life force behind the Republican party and the drive to destroy the hard-won and long-overdue progress of the 20th century is being led by Christian nationalists.
It was true in the past and it’s true today.
We haven’t yet achieved the separation of church and state but at least we once touted it as a good goal. Now, however, republicans are making bold statements that come from a desire to turn our democracy into a theocracy. If you think this is the first time that our culturally approved religion has determined what you and I can do, think again.
The church has influenced the government to interfere with our rights to divorce, gay marriage, transgender rights, and abortion to name a few.
Evangelicals aren’t the only ones who harm women, children, people of color, and the LGBTQ community. The Catholic church has a long, sordid, and violent history of oppression.
Oh, sure things have shifted a bit.
Churches used to pass judgement on divorced couples, childbirth out of wedlock, sex before marriage, living together in sin, and mixed marriages. Virginity was a major obsession. Little girls who got pregnant were sent to homes for unwed mothers where their babies were taken from them right after birth. Couples living together were almost unheard of and a divorce was very hard to get.
There was huge shame attached to these moral controls that the church enforced.
Laws have been passed that were a direct result of the church pushing a moral agenda on the people via the government. If that’s not church and state working together to rule the people, I don’t know what is.
Eventually, after many years of hard work, those laws were changed by secular groups who really did believe in the division of church and state, but that was a very recent accomplishment.
For the bulk of American history, our government, the church, and our culture itself did not give women, people of color, and the LBGTQ community the same rights as white males. The church influenced our cultural expectations as well as our laws.
Of course, even evangelicals no longer think divorce is a sin.
Divorce rates are very high among the devout. Along with living together and having sex before marriage, most heterosexual restraints whether cultural expectations or laws influenced by the church have disappeared. It doesn’t leave a lot for the church to feel morally superior about. Hence, drag queens and the tiny transgender community has become the focus. But all of that aside, the main reason white christians feel compelled to meddle in my life and yours by bringing religion to the government level is the belief that white Christian males should reign supreme over everyone else.
I’m still waiting for the US to put into practice the progressive idea of separation of church and state. What a glorious day that will be.
I never thought I’d live long enough to witness such rampant regression. I wanted us to keep moving forward. There was still so much to do. I mean women didn’t have the right to own a credit card without the signature of either father or husband until the 70s. Women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community were invited to sit at the table of freedom and autonomy very late in the history of humankind. We were still trying to overcome centuries of generational trauma when …
BOOM!
Christian nationalism reared its ugly head — AGAIN!
All of a sudden, we found ourselves in a very precarious position. Women are under regular threat from white Christian nationalists who are passing punitive and oppressive legislation daily. It’s terrifying. Transgenders are under daily, vicious attack.
I have a brilliant transgender niece. I can’t sleep at night because of the hate directed at her every hour of every day. She’s such a wonderful woman. She’s graduating this spring with her Ph.D. and has been offered a postdoc at Stanford University. She can write her ticket almost anywhere in the country but she probably shouldn’t live in many states in the US.
How is that even possible? Christian nationalism, that’s how.
Most Americans believe that the dark, restrictive laws toward women in Muslim countries where its illegal to remove a head covering are archaic. Burying women up to their necks in the ground while the fathers and brothers stone them to death for daring to enjoy the same privileges that men enjoy is horrifying. Well, those laws were passed by Muslim nationalists. Those cultures of oppression are also a direct result of religion.
We’re no different.
America is not the greatest country in the world. It never has been.
More than 4,400 African American men, women, and children were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950. Trust me, those were white Christian nationalists who committed these atrocities.
White Christian nationalists hung, beat, burned, and drove these African Americans out of the South.
Hate, dominance, misogyny, child abuse, war, mass incarceration, racism, cruelty, and punitive ideologies, are embedded in the many doctrines that spring from a book that of all titles to be given was dubbed HOLY.
I have a very diverse family.
I will never forget or forgive the Americans who vote to endanger those that I love. Hate is a reemerging disease like malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, pertussis, influenza, and gonorrhea. It’s infecting society once again and it’s coming from the same religious roots. It was never gone.
It’s led and influenced by white Christian nationalism.
Our culture is built upon deep-seated beliefs that god ordained the white MAN to rule the earth. Our religions themselves promote and protect this deeply rooted belief system. Our laws have protected these beliefs. Our citizens have embraced these insidious beliefs. The very fiber of who we are was built firmly upon an oppressive, violent, and non-inclusive way of life.
Horrendous things happen, we blink, and then go back to business as usual.
Our hearts tell us that our culture is diseased, but our heads convince us that we’re the greatest country in the world. And, yes, this may be the primal man at his best. This may be in our DNA. We may be cavemen with cell phones, void of free will and at the mercy of our tribal instincts and the wiring of our brains. We may be programmed to create and then destroy. It certainly appears that way at times.
The future looks bleak despite our amazing technological progress, but we can’t give up.
Listen I’ve seen a lot. I’m 72 years old. I’ve witnessed good and I’ve witnessed bad, but I’m freaking out. America is moving into a very scary era and history will not be kind to us.
That is if we even allow historians to write about it.
Anyone — family, friends, or acquaintances — who votes Republican is voting to hurt my family. I will never forget it. I will NEVER forget it. I will never forgive. This is personal. This is the real deal.
America is NOT the greatest country in the world.
It never has been and it never will be until we do some real soul-searching and begin to practice the separation of church and state. Until we include everyone as equal under the law, we will continue to be guilty of atrocities that cause human beings to suffer unnecessarily. White Christian nationalism is and always has been the root of oppression in America since this country was founded.
I don’t want to live in a world like this.
Teresa is an author, citizen of the world, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
