Christian Nationalism

Part One: Kari, crackpots and the cancer of Christian Nationalism

“He that troubles his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.”

-Proverbs 11: 9

Twisting the story of Jesus to serve one’s own ends is as old as America itself. The tradition of scurrilous grifters and hucksters misappropriating the Nazarene for scurrilous ends was noted by America’s favorite heathen Mark Twain when he observed that there was only one Christian in history that he knew of and they crucified that fella early on.

According to legend when Jesus was on his self-imposed monastic retreat in the wilderness that rascal Satan tempted Him by offering Him political power for his soul. Power over entire Kingdoms! Jesus told Satan to go back to where he came from.

2,000-years later America’s Christians are trading their souls to the Republican Party for political power, blissfully ignoring Jesus’ argument that the love of political power will eventually eclipse one’s love of God and one’s love for God’s law. (For reference, see the blind love of Christian Evangelicals for the entire Presidency of God’s Outlaw, our former Pussy Grabber in Chief.)

“You can call us whatever you want, Joe. You can call us extremists. You can call us domestic terrorists. You know who else was called a lot of names, his whole life? Jesus.” —Kari Lake

Wow. Being called names is awful. Ask anyone who has been called names by Donald Trump, your orange Mother Superior.

Back in the heat of the campaign Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was pacing in front of a giant cross and preaching the Gospel of Kari, the story of a scorned Christian woman fighting for good old fashioned traditional values like scapegoating the marginalized and celebrating narcissism when she declared to a crowd of white howling, fist-pumping, Arizona MAGA-Republicans that white fist-pumping, Arizona MAGA-Republicans are persecuted just like Jesus.

Yup. Jesus. Not the Jesus you know. Or I know. A different Jesus.

When you say “Jesus” I see a Mediterranean peasant, an itinerant laborer carpenter, a Jew, a Torah scholar, a Nazarene, a student of the Essenes, an anti-cleric master rabbi healer from 1st century Judea who hoped to reform his religion. I see an Aramaic speaking rabble rouser who sought to fulfill the prophecies from the time of David predicting his martyrdom and after celebrating Passover Seder with his followers was rounded up by Rome’s gestapo and crucified among thousands of would-be-messiahs and rebels during that tumultuous time and in the centuries after Rome leveled the Temple in Jerusalem in 77 A.D. it became expedient and wise to celebrate a Messiah who was a pacifist who rendered unto Caesar.

When you say “Jesus” to a Christian Nationalist they are likely to see a magical American Jesus. The details don’t matter. Many Christian Nationalists claim to be religious yet admit they are Biblically illiterate. Need an example? Ask Pastor Trump to read from his favorite New Testament Book, Two Corinthians.

They know the basics. Jesus was born in a manger to Republican parents at Christmastime. God’s his dad. Joseph is cool with it. Preached stuff. Most of which we can ignore because He sounds like a Communist. Crucified. Woke up from being dead. But not a zombie. He went to Heaven and folks believe He is coming back like Schwarzenegger after an apocalypse brought about by Donald to stop the predators drinking the blood of babies at which time Jesus will defeat the drag queens and rule over the earth forever.

I think their American Jesus is coming back because he forgot the keys to his monster SUV with the gun rack in it and the “NOT WOKE/JUST RIGHT” church bumper sticker on it.

The Christian Nationalist Jesus is a buff westernized Jason Momoa Jesus, a pro-Trump Republican Jesus, an All-American flag-waving Galilean, a Judean Rambo who is certainly not Jewish.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Christ of the Christian Nationalists. Their Jesus is America’s much-awaited Messiah and Donald Trump is Jesus’ Number One Warrior, trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored, right next to the classified documents. In 2024 Donald will loose the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword on Mexicans, the media and Hunter Biden, his truth is marching on.

The icon of their Party is no longer an elephant. It’s the Righteous Right-wing Jesus Christ Superstud we saw on their T-shirts, bumper stickers and banners at every Trump rally across America. And on January 6th.

That Jesus. The pro-insurrection Mega-Church MAGA Jesus.

Who is this American Jesus who inspires His followers to place their faith in a sociopathic remorseless, adulterous, false prophet? Who is this Jesus who inspires His followers to persecute immigrants, to bear false witness and to marginalize and persecute the least among us?

Blessed are those who persecute immigrants for political gain.

For I was thirsty and you gave me a bus ticket out of town.

I was a stranger applying for refuge and you stole my children and caged them.

Who is this Jesus who died for our sins and now dies daily for the sins of Donald Trump? To see this Jesus does one need to be anointed by the Lamb of Mar-a-Lago? Blessed are the poor who tithe to Mar-a-Lago for their pockets shall be emptied.

The Creed of Christian Nationalism

Thou shalt bear false witness

When Lake said, “The 2020 election was corrupt and stolen!” she was bearing false witness.

Lake bore false witness against her Republican rival, Matt Salmon, by smearing him as sympathetic to pedophiles because he questioned her '“cameras in classrooms” proposal, she was practicing the sacred creed every Christian Nationalist follows: The end justifies the sins.

In politics one often has to be willing to lose one’s soul in order to gain the world.

The ends justifies the sins

Blessed be thy cheating, thy disinformation, thy dark money, thy gerrymandering, thy voting restrictions and thy rigged elections for the Kingdom of Donald is at hand.

Thou shalt ignore Biblical nuance and ambivalence

I get it. I do it. I “cherry pick” scripture. My favorite is the scripture that commends you to stone your wife if you find she’s no virgin on the big night. Sounds like a Bill out of the Tennessee statehouse. I don’t think the Bill would get far when they realize it would create a global stone shortage.

Lake knows banning abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest pleases her fictional Jesus who, unlike the Jesus of the Gospels, never spoke of abortion. Blessed is she who denies women reproductive autonomy and persecutes them without mercy for she shall be raised up. And lo, blessed are the mistresses of Republican politicians for, verily, they shall have access to abortion until the end of time.

'Let me take the speck out of your eye' while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."

Matthew 7:3-5

Thou shalt ignore the logs in your own eye

Thou shalt go after invisible predators in public education while ignoring the documented rampant sexual abuse in your own religious institutions, you know, the churches that are your base.

Thou shalt overlook Jesus’ pacifism

Blessed are they that stand by the NRA and the Second Amendment for verily it protects the right of those who live by the sword to continue to die by the sword. Blessed are the makers of lethal firearms who sow fear, for they shall reap profits as thy children reap the whirlwind of death and carnage.

Thou shalt know God is on your side and your opponents are Satanic

According to the notable Biblical scholar Kari Lake “The same God who parted the Red Sea, who moved mountains, is with us now as we save this republic.”

Was He? Was the same God who parted the Red Sea helping Team Crazy part Red America from Blue America in this last election?

Forgive this fallen mortal for suggesting if we want to save our Republic, as candidate Lake believes God has called her to do, we sinners might consider practicing the more challenging tenets of the faith they claim.

I‘ll list a few:

Sow love instead of hatred.

Hope in place of despair.

Love your neighbors as yourself.

And your enemies.

Lift up the least among us.

Don’t bear false witness.

Turn the other cheek.

Turn away from Donald, America’s false God and his “Two Corinthians”. And pray for his redemption. Perhaps there will be a Gideon Bible in his cell.

In Part Two I’ll describe how the Christian Nationalists hope to inherit the Kingdom of Arizona and what you can do to stand up to the madness.