Sadly, this nation has a strikingly bipartisan consensus to thank for such a moral abdication of responsibility. Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, in particular, have been vocal in refusing to overturn the filibuster to protect voting rights (though you know that, were the present Republicans in control of the Senate, they wouldn't hesitate to do so for their own grim ends).
And of course, democracy isn't the only thing that demands congressional action (as well as filibuster reform). Workers have not seen a raise in the minimum wage since 2009 and the majority of us have no paid sick leave in the worst public-health crisis in a century. Poor and low-income Americans, 140 million and growing, are desperately in need of the child tax credit and other anti-poverty and basic income programs at precisely the moment when they're expiring and the pandemic is surging once again. And Manchin has already ensured weakened climate provisions in President Biden's Build Back Better agenda that he claims he just can't support (not yet anyway). If things proceed accordingly, in some distant future, sadly enough, geological records will be able to show the impact of our government's unwillingness to act quickly or boldly enough to save humanity.
As Congress debates voting rights and investing in the people, it's important to understand the dark forces that underlie the increasingly reactionary and authoritarian politics on the rise in this country. In his own time, Archbishop Tutu examined the system of white-imposed apartheid through the long lens of history to show how the Christianity of colonial empire had become a central spoke in the wheel of violence, theft, and racist domination in South Africa. He often summed up this dynamic through parables like this one: "When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land."
In our own American context, they have the Bible and, as things are going, they may soon have the equivalent of "the land," too. Just look carefully at our political landscape for evidence of the rising influence of white Christian nationalism. While it's only one feature of the authoritarianism increasingly on vivid display in this country, it's critical to understand, since it's helped to mobilize a broad social base for Donald Trump and the Republicans. In the near future, through control over various levers of state and federal power, as well as key cultural and religious institutions, Christian nationalists could find themselves well positioned to shape the nation for a long time to come.
Confronting White Christian Nationalism
"There are very good Christians who are compassionate and caring. And there are very bad Christians. You can say that about Islam, about Hinduism, about any faith. That is why I was saying that it was not the faith per se but the adherent. People will use their religion to justify virtually anything." Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Christian nationalism has influenced the course of American politics and policy since the founding of this country, while, in every era, moral movements have had to fight for the Bible and the terrain that goes with it. The January 6th assault on the Capitol, while only the latest expression of such old battlelines, demonstrated the threat of a modern form of Christian nationalism that has carefully built political power in government, the media, the academy, and the military over the past half-century. Today, the social forces committed to it are growing bolder and increasingly able to win mainstream support.
When I refer to "Christian nationalism," I mean a social force that coalesces around a matrix of interlocking and interrelated values and beliefs. These include at least six key features, though the list that follows is anything but exhaustive:
* First, a highly exclusionary and regressive form of Christianity is the only true and valid religion.
* Second, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity are "the natural order" of the world and must be upheld by public policy (even as Latino Protestants swell the ranks of American evangelicalism and women become important gate-keepers in communities gripped by Christian nationalism).
* Third, militarism and violence, rather than diplomacy and debate, are the correct ways for this country to exert power over other countries (as it is our God-given right to do).
* Fourth, scarcity is an economic reality of life and so we (Americans vs. the world, white people vs. people of color, natural-born citizens vs. immigrants) must compete fiercely and without pity for the greater portion of the resources available.
* Fifth, people already oppressed by systemic violence are actually to blame for the deep social and economic problems of the world the poor for their poverty, LGBTQIA people for disease and social rupture, documented and undocumented immigrants for being "rapists and murderers" stealing "American" jobs, and so on.
* Sixth, the Bible is the source of moral authority on these (and other) social issues and should be used to justify an extremist agenda, no matter what may actually be contained in the Good Book.
Such ideas, by the way, didn't just spring up overnight. This false narrative has been playing a significant, if not dominant, role in our politics and economics for decades. Since childhood for an example from my own life I've regularly heard people use the Bible to justify poverty and inequality. They quote passages like "the poor you will always have with you" to argue that poverty is inevitable and can never be ended. Never mind the irony that the Bible has been one of the only forms of the mass media if you don't mind my calling it that which has had anything good to say about the poor (something those in power have tried to cover up since the days of slavery).
In many poor communities rural, small town, and urban churches are among the only lasting social institutions and so one of the most significant battlegrounds for deciding which moral values will shape our society, especially the lives of the needy. Indeed, churches are the first stop for many people struggling with poverty. The vast majority of food pantries and other emergency assistance programs are run out of them and much of the civic work going on in churches is motivated by varying interpretations of the Bible when it comes to poverty. These range from outright disdain and pity to charity to more proactive advocacy and activism for the poor.
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