5 Reasons Christian Nationalism is Hotel California (Except for the mirrors on the ceiling)

You can check out but you can never leave

CONTENT WARNINGS:

Christian fundamentalism

Current events / the horrors

Over the last year or so as the political climate has become more and more divided in the US, I’ve had many friends and acquaintances wonder aloud why many folks still follow the cult of the Orange.  These folks did not grow up in the religious right, or in fundamentalist Christian circles - because those of us who did and left are very familiar with the ideology that keeps people stuck, and the sometimes incredibly steep price of leaving. If you feel I’ve misused the word “cult” here I invite you to read through this article and see how many boxes this group checks.

Since a lot of folks who did not grow up in the subculture seem to find this is new information, I decided to compile a PSA. Much of this information is similar to what I share in my post about why many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians struggle with acceptance of the LBGTQ+ community which you can find here.

This post has taken me a long time to write for several reasons. The first being I have spent the last decade plus in working with my therapeutic team to build as whole and healthy of a life as possible that does not revolve around my childhood trauma. In fact, I'd love to see this eventually become primarily a photography blog. Where I came from will always be part of me, but it's the last thing I want to focus on. However, these topics need to be explored and demystified. The ideas and beliefs that grew up swirling around me in childhood have taken center stage politically in the US, and while I spend a lot of time feeling powerless to stop the horrors happening in the world, this is something I know. It's something I can do.

If I'm being totally honest, I'm anxious that certain folks will read this and question my faith. This is a very real tightness in my chest as I type, however at the same time I am deeply frustrated that calling out toxic theology that has poisonous fruit could be seen as betraying Christianity. In Jesus and the Disinherited Howard Thurman makes the point that in the Bible those calling out corruption weren't those who had fallen away (to use a churchy term) they were the prophets. I'm not claiming to be a prophet, and honestly I don't see this post as being about my personal faith. If you get to the end of this post and wonder what's left of Christian faith that's not toxic... That would be another post entirely. However, I want to encourage you that there is an entire world of theology and ideology based in love and mutuality instead of fear and shame.

While there is a massive spectrum of beliefs and theologies under the Christian umbrella, the ideas I reference specifically are core beliefs of denominations that lean towards conservative fundamentalism which is the bedrock ideology for Christian nationalism.  The scary thing is that often some of these beliefs also filter into more balanced or otherwise progressive spaces. This is part of what makes it so sneaky and pervasive.

Let's start with an idea that has it's claws in everything:

#1. The Theology of Original Sin aka Total Depravity

Original sin, also known as Total Depravity in the Calvinist world, is a theology that came from the very miserable Augustine of Hippo and later was popularized and expanded by John Calvin. If you've ever heard the term Calvinism, total depravity --the no-good very badness of humanity-- is a huge component.

The underlying belief is that humanity at its core is depraved, worthless, and evil.

To the Calvinist, the only shot at redemption is surrendering everything to Jesus and letting him save us from ourselves. (There is a contrasting belief based in Genesis that we are created in the image of God and the concept of "sin" is anything we do that doesn't align with our inner divinity. Jesus came to save us by reminding us of who we really are.) In fact, many people don't dig deep enough to realize that the tradition of baptizing infants came from this belief that we are born evil. While protestant denominations may look down on the ritual, they still carry the baseline ideology. Hearing pastors expound on the verse “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (of course without the rest of the verse that provides the context of “I the LORD search the heart…even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 as a kid was a seed of distrust in myself that was regularly watered by lessons and admonishment on being selfless and yielding my rights to God. In my twenties it bloomed into diagnoses of generalized anxiety and major depressive disorder and we were just getting started.

The big problem with original sin that we are facing nationally, is that the baseline ideology makes it easy to dehumanize people who are struggling with solvable problems -- problems we may have even contributed to -- and write those problems off as the wages of sin. Instead of using faith as an avenue for sharing love and care, it can become an eternal out. Children dying in Gaza from bombs or in classrooms from gun violence can be seen as the unfortunate but unavoidable result of living in a sinful world.

Cries for protection of human rights fall on deaf ears because honestly?

The concept of original sin is in direct opposition to the idea of humans having intrinsic rights to feel safe and flourish.

Even in more modern faith spaces there is often a focus on how we are worthless without Jesus and don’t deserve God’s love. When this is how we see ourselves and others, it doesn’t take long to start excusing the hate that marginalized groups receive. Anyone who lives in ways fundamentalists deem sinful are seen as just facing the consequences of their own choices. I’d venture a bet that this is also where the demonization of empathy comes from. 

Here is an example of what was included in the "curriculum" of the IBLP cult run by Bill Gothard (thanks to my friend Heather for this snapshot.) This is an extreme example but it also shows how far the ideology goes.

But isn’t Christianity supposed to be about love?  So glad you asked! To the fundamentalist, allowing folks in sin to suffer is the truly loving decision, because eventually they will learn the error of their ways and turn to Jesus. (who definitely shamed and harassed folks in marginalized groups on a regular basis, and even encouraged his disciples to overthrow the government! Wait, what? That didn’t happen?) 

Jesus summarized all the commandments into Love God, and Love your neighbor as yourself, then self love and loving our neighbors are sacred, but how fundamentalists love their neighbors as themselves is terrifying. What we are seeing play out on a national stage is the twisted version of love that was preached from most of the pulpits throughout my childhood.

A secondary dangerous belief that comes from this perversion of love is that they are the ones who really know what's best for everyone because of The Bible. The irony here of course being that even Christians across varied denominations can't agree on what version of the Bible to read, or the rules they believe the Bible lays down, or whether the Bible was even meant as a rule book! But Aunt Sally is for sure going to have the definitive answers on which we should base national legislation. If this sounds condescending as hell (where they probably assume you're going) it's because it is. I'm being a little salty and petty, but the results (or fruit ) of this idea is sobering.

There is no belief in personal autonomy. There is no respect for the path another human has walked, or understanding that their bodies and bones know things you have no concept of. There is no belief that no matter what this person has done or may do, whether they agree with you or not, that they deserve love and care. I'm sure there are a number of folks who would disagree that these two beliefs can't coexist. But I want this to be crystal clear:

The very concept of love is care and respect for another without caveats or stipulations. If you can't believe another person when they tell you who they are or what they need, you won't ever know how to love them.

While I have sat through several iterations of sermons from various pastors on the four kinds of love found in the Bible, I have learned the most about love from my partner, my friends, and a painful, sometimes grueling journey of learning to love myself. The Insta girlies and Brene Brown really set me up here. Like sure, on the one hand learning to care for myself and speak kindly to myself and set boundaries has brought so much peace and love into my life. However it has also opened a deep void of grief that some days feels like will never close. Every awkward step forward is a reminder of how new this is. I grieve my child and especially my teenage self not getting the unconditional care and acceptance they needed. I especially grieve the system of fundamentalism for telling my caretakers it was holy to teach me that my core being, my needs and wants were evil.

I share my experience so in the event that someone from the subculture happens upon this post, there are some reference points as to why these beliefs are so harmful. For most people I've met raised in secular society, human rights are obviously a positive thing. Teaching kids to have a sturdy and accepting sense of self is a positive thing. Respect for others making their own choices for their lives that we might not make for our lives is a positive thing. These things don't get questioned much. But they do in the fundamentalist world.

In summer of 2024 the election got particularly heated and triggered a particularly difficult period for my mental health. I had a long drive, and started an audiobook to distract myself from the horrors of humanity and the traffic. No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz had been on my to be read list for a while as some of my friends have had fantastic results with Internal Family Systems therapy. This book and the concept of IFS is one of the most hopeful approaches I've come across. Broadly speaking, IFS is based in the idea that just like you have varied members of a family coming in to a therapy session looking for harmony, there are different parts of our inner selves that need different kinds of care and validation. Here is a graphic that feels accurate to both my view of the book and the IFS work I have been doing with my current therapist:

The brilliance of this framework is there is no part of us that we demonize or shame as there are in so many spiritual traditions and therapeutic modalities. While I'm still getting to know my inner landscape after starting work with an IFS therapist in the last several months, the national and global applications of this ideology clicked with me right away. Richard Schwartz shares:

“How we relate in the inner world will be how we relate in the outer. If we can appreciate and have compassion for our parts, even for the ones we’ve considered to be enemies, we can do the same for people who resemble them. On the other hand, if we hate or disdain our parts, we’ll do the same with anyone who reminds us of them...In other words, when you refuse to listen, you can turn your parts into inner terrorists, and they will destroy your body if necessary...parts, like people, fight back against being shamed or exiled.”

I find the IFS structure to be pertinent to the conversation in two important ways:

First and most obvious, we are getting a front row seat to the external show of how fundamentalism as an ideology functions internally. The expectations and priorities that folks in this world are subjecting themselves and their families to on a daily basis.

Second, it's vital that we pay attention to what and who we are tempted to exile or discount and what that tells us about the culture and society we are working so hard to nurture.

Instead of filtering their theology and ideology through the lens of love, fundamentalists define love through the lens of their theology and ideology. This often leaves us with a painful divide. On a micro level, this is how teens get kicked out of the house for being LBGTQ+, and parents not attending weddings or being part of their queer kids lives. On a macro level it looks like conversion therapy existing, being okay sending missionary aide to other countries, while also feeling that the same folks from those countries seeking asylum here in the US are dangerous.

One of the main reasons it’s SO hard to have any kind of constructive conversation that even brushes up against these ideologies is:

#2. They’re not allowed to be wrong

When you sign on for the fundamentalist concept of eternal salvation, you should know that if you change your mind, or learn new perspectives you risk a whole lot of people thinking you’re heading to The Bad Place.  So you better be sure, and you better keep believing the same things no matter what new information comes to light or what new people you meet, or what new experiences you have. Remember, the first rule is believing you’re a no good very bad terrible human. So mind-body connection? Offline. Your most important beliefs are the ones that secure your spot in The Good Place, and your life work is bringing as many people there with you as you can. How you feel in this paradigm is really the least important thing.

One of the primary skills you need to be a fundamentalist is being able to dissociate from cognitive dissonance. Either that, or you have to live in a world that is so thoroughly homogenous that your beliefs are never challenged. In fact, I often wonder if this is the underlying crux of our political divide. Sure, protecting their Christian Nation is the rally cry, but in reality it’s about silencing any narratives that conflict with theirs. I’m not saying this is intentional, but it sure is a convenient result of demonizing diversity. Through the IFS lens, their firefighters and managers are out in full force to achieve some kind of control. Their inner exiles HAVE to continue to believe what they've been told or the whole ship will start to go down.

There have been several posts I've seen commenting on how even now that the Christian nationalist contingent is wielding more power that they're not happy. And my inner response is of course. Of course they aren't happy - because misery is seen of a sign of holiness - but also and more importantly, they aren't doing this to be happy. They are doing it to be their version of Right.

People cope with the cognitive dissonance in different ways, but many consider it a matter of faith. They trust that somehow following whatever version of theology they’ve extrapolated from the Bible is direction directly from God, and it will all make sense in the end. I was a very anxious kid, partly because I was so afraid of making irreversible wrong choices. Unwinding this need to have all the answers right all of the time has felt like an exhale.

If you're trying to have a conversation with someone from this belief system just remember you'll have to yell louder than their fear of being ostracized from their entire community and support system in this life and hell in the next to get through to them.

#3. Ignoring Exploitative Power Dynamics

In chapter one of her book "The Very Good Gospel" Lisa Sharon Harper shares that the first major divide of Protestant (non Catholic) denominations happened during the industrial revolution. Christians at that time fell into two main camps. The Modernist (Presbyterian, Methodist etc.) camp that acknowledged a sacred responsibility to advocate for folks oppressed by exploitative systems - and the Fundamentalists (later called Evangelicals) (Baptist, Calvinist etc.) side that for all their internalized shame believe the Gospel is only about fire insurance, and that worrying about silly things like unjust power dynamics dilutes or distracts from that message. All those verses warning about abuse of power certainly can't be applied personally. When the power dynamic feels beneficial it's harder to see the problem.

Rob Bell says: “Most of the Bible is a history told by people living in lands occupied by conquering superpowers. It is a book written from the underside of power. It’s an oppression narrative. The majority of the Bible was written by a minority people living under the rule and reign of massive, mighty empires, from the Egyptian Empire to the Babylonian Empire to the Persian Empire to the Assyrian Empire to the Roman Empire.

This can make the Bible a very difficult book to understand if you are reading it as a citizen of the the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. Without careful study and reflection, and humility, it may even be possible to miss central themes of the Scriptures.”

I'm going to state the obvious - every Christian sect - heck, every religious sect ever - chooses the perspective from which they read their sacred texts. Even (maybe especially) when they state they are just reading the text for what it is and that it was meant to be interpreted in the simplest possible way. It's impossible to read the Bible without bringing our own experiences and perspectives along for the ride. When we haven't even been taught to flex our empathy muscles and put ourselves in the shoes of others, or listen to diverse perspectives with reverence, our perspective gets even more limited.

The hopeful part of me wants to believe that the fundamentalist leaders didn't understand the implications of this split with the modernists. I'm sure a large piece of it was wanting to protect their own power and comfort as it so often is. But boiling Christianity down to insurance sales is not only reductive and lacking in nuance it's deeply dangerous. It's much easier to twist scripture and ideas to your advantage if you don't have worry about them being equitable. And of course, what has followed in history is a list a mile long of powerful evangelical Christian men taking advantage of their position and power in a bevy of illegal and inappropriate ways.

#4. Demonizing The World and the obsession with the afterlife

I guess it's no surprise that non-Christians are the easiest to demonize when this is how they treat those in their circle. I have heard more sermons than I can count that warn of how tempting The World is, and how we have to be strong to withstand the pull of sex, drugs, rock and roll.

There's also an incredibly harmful belief that you can be too happy and enjoy things in life too much. If there's anything in your life that you love more than God, you're practicing idolatry and better be ready to give up those "idols." This was explained further--it could be a hobby or activity or even a person or relationship. No stress, just don't ever get too attached to anything but Jesus. Now who's surprised I have a disorganized / avoidant attachment style?

I learned eventually that what I had been taught was a form of dissociation. I wasn't holy, I was living jumping from one trauma response to another. It never felt safe to settle in my body. We rarely if ever got to rest. When I did find moments of peace and joy, there was always that reminder in the back of my head to not let myself have too much fun, or God might get jealous.

This lack of regard for our bodies showed up in deep burnout behind the scenes, and don't even get me started on how purity culture demonized pleasure.

Of course, many mainstream Christians often focus so much on selling fire insurance that they forget THIS life matters.

Fundamentalist and theocratic Christianity teaches that this life and our planet is disposable.  They may not come out and say that - but there’s a snappy hymn that starts 

This world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through, 

my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue, 

the angels beckon me from heavens open door 

and I can’t feel at home in this world any more 

When you combine apathy for the earth with a deep belief of how evil The World is, it becomes easier and easier to dissociate from the suffering of our world. Sin becomes the boogeyman for suffering, even the suffering we have a part in. It’s so much easier to blame the devil than it is to take responsibility for our part in the problem and to do what we can to make amends.

It’s in God’s hands!

Fix it Jesus!

I just can’t wait for Jesus to come back!

I grew up with these sentiments being kitchen table conversation in our church groups. News of natural disasters, loss of animal habitat, more species becoming endangered, was all met with a shrug and reference to Matthew 24 where Jesus says that This earth will pass away and that the book of Revelation promises A new heaven and a new earth. There was a very popular Christian novel series about the end times when I was a kid. I remember laying in bed at night wondering if I would make it to adulthood or if Jesus would come back first. Trauma about end times is something that has come up in conversations with more than one ex religious friend.

To many fundamentalists, the earth falling apart is sad but inevitable. So why try to slow down what they believe is going to happen anyways?

#5 You Can Never Leave

We talked about how the need to be right manifests is by demonizing and dehumanizing anyone or anything that deviates from the fundamentalist expectations, but this also creates a lot of in fighting. We already explored how the fundamentalists and modernists split in the 1940s. I was at a friends house recently and we were talking about how many Baptists don't believe that Catholics, the oldest denomination, are real Christians. There are certain Baptist sub denominations that practice "secondary separation" which means even if their church agrees with everything your church does, if your church associates with anyone who does NOT agree with everything their church does, they won't hang out with you.

Now imagine that these people with very rigid ideas of how everyone should be living are your only support system in life. You may have even alienated family or close friends in pursuit of their version of holiness. Different denominations and churches have their own versions of excommunication or shunning (fun fact: shunning is originally an Amish / Mennonite practice.) If you happen to be someone who went all in and have a career as a church leader of some kind the stakes are even higher. You're not just risking all your community support, you're risking your livelihood. Chances are you also have a family to support if you were all in with how early marriage and pumping out babies for Jesus is encouraged.

If reconsidering a political stance risked everything that matters most to you in this life and the next, what do you think it would take for you?

It's not an accident that anything touching on these topics is likely to activate a fight / flight / freeze response and take logical thought offline.

In my case, I had to dig through a lot of really harmful, scary, challenging beliefs. If they hadn’t been contributing heavily to my constellation of health issues I might not have ever done that work. I don’t blame people for not wanting to question the basis of their belief systems. But when the options are psychological and theological excavation or debilitating symptoms…you’re more motivated.

Religion aside, we all have to find ways to live and cope with everyday life in our bodies. I believe the reason a high percentage of folks unraveling these ideas are queer, neurodivergent, or dealing with PTSD symptoms is that we are the ones who are faced with the choice to find out what's happening or be incapacitated. Our bodies got more and more insistent until we could no longer ignore their warnings. Even when we've been taught to disconnect from our bodies they will find ways to get our attention. As Richard Schwartz says, our exiles will become terrorists when they are chronically suppressed.

Often religious deconstruction is also a story that some term church hurt. The surface level clap back is always that the church is full of imperfect people and we are all growing together!  But that conveniently ignores that church hurt was not the underlying issue, it was just the catalyst for those hurting to finally pay attention to why the system allowed it.

The issue is that many churches operate out of ideologies and theologies that are not emotionally or physically safe for its members.

Sadly, it very often takes being personally affected by this to wake up to the violence of fundamentalist evangelicalism. Also in case anyone was wondering, the best response to I don't feel safe here is not What do you mean? Everything's fine!  

Often abuse is normalized and the structure of the church accentuates social power dynamics instead of leveling them. This can be seen over and over if you research any of the famous preachers and theologians that ended up being various kinds of predators as I mentioned earlier. If you want a super telling one to explore look up the details on the Ravi Zacharias law suit. Dismissing and covering up abuse is not just "church hurt". Neither is racism, homophobia, transphobia, or misogyny. It's an underlying systemic issue that is also a load bearing theological structure.

Consolidation of power and money is the elephant in the room, and of course it's easy for those in power to take advantage of.

Final thoughts:

An important piece of context for this conversation is that the religious right as we know it today was born from the outrage over a lawsuit. In 1983, there was a supreme court case, and according to wikipedia; Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574 (1983), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the religion clauses of the First Amendment did not prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from revoking the tax exempt status of a religious university whose practices are contrary to a compelling government public policy, such as eradicating racial discrimination.” This lawsuit was brought against BJU for failing to accept Black students while attempting to retain their tax exempt status, and this looked really bad. Leaders in the evangelical Christian world felt like their grip was slipping, and in the interest of protecting their white supremacist interests, the religious right was born. They needed a topic to unite churches and denominations across the country, and what evokes more emotion than the idea of protecting innocent babies? I'd say most folks I know in fundamentalist circles aren't aware of why the movement gained so much traction, but it was definitely a catalyst. (Frank Schaeffer discusses this in his book Sex, Mom, and God in detail.)

There are also a lot of additional factors that aren't specific to the religious systems that contribute to this dynamic. People are drawn to the simplification of faith and the magnetic leaders that gain popularity. "God" validating an outdated social system of isms can also be a powerful drug. All the sudden they can have righteous indignation at The World going to hell in a handbasket instead of feeling uncomfortable or guilty for not challenging their misogyny, racism, transphobia, or homophobia. It's a slippery slope to a modern crusade.

I share all this because it feels like a small action and risk I can take in the face of a news cycle churning out fresh daily horrors. If you've never considered what it feels like to live in a fundamentalist world, I hope this gives you a window into the challenges and road blocks.

If you have gotten this far somehow and identify with some or all of the beliefs and ideas I talked about you may be feeling some kind of way. Maybe defensive, maybe afraid, maybe dismissive. I want you to know that your feelings are understandable, even though I don't agree with you. I also want you to know that there IS room for you to learn and grow in your theology and ideology, and even remain a Christian if that is important to you. Jesus said in Matthew that those who knock and seek will find and the doors will be opened to them. I personally believe that choosing to rebuild a faith or spiritual ethic that is not based in fear or self hate is one of the most worthwhile things we can do in life. It is one thousand percent worth it. For me, sure it's great to be able to mostly function on a day to day level. And yes, the grief that I carry is overwhelming many days. But the joy, peace, contentment, and love without limits is what makes life worth living.