As Alex Jones put it, “We’re gonna win in the end because… God WINS!”
This past weekend, infamous FBI fibber Michael Flynn stood on a stage at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and spoke his truth: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.” Christian nationalist mic drop. He’d finally said the quiet part out loud.
The message that America should be a Christian nation, taken quite literally, is foundational to the Christian right. It is not a fringe belief but rather a rallying cry, the principle that animates — and excuses — their foray into the messy political realm, into the lowly things of this world. According to Matthew 25:31-46, when Jesus returns to earth, “All the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” In this so-called Judgment of the Nations, godly countries will be rewarded and ungodly ones punished, which means that in a conservative Christian’s mind, their own fate may in some way be wrapped up in the U.S.’s relation to certain wedge issues like abortion or LGBTQ rights. That, in turn, goes a long way toward explaining why, in 2018, 61 percent of evangelicals said the country was headed in the right direction while 64 percent of everyone else begged to differ.
If there is anything different this time around, it’s in the violence of the rhetoric. Here, there are no genteel delegations or academic tomes. In indiscriminately pulling the fringiest elements of American Christianity into his political coalition, Trump melded theocratic thinking with religious radicalization. The effect? According to a Public Religion Research Institute study published early this month, 26 percent of white evangelical Protestants (and 30 percent of Republicans) agree that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence if that’s what it takes to save the country.” For the attendees of Reawake America, civil war is now a quaint concept; Holy War is more what they’re after these days. Or as Alex Jones put it this weekend, “We’re gonna win in the end because…God WINS!”
One answer could be that the culture — the marketplace of public opinion — no longer matters to the Christian right. This is no longer a humble competition for souls. This is about power. And, quite possibly, violence. “There needs to be some kind of understanding when this kind of language ramps up that you have to pay attention to that,” says Butler. “Honestly, we’ve got jihadists in this country. They’re just Christian ones.” It’s the threat of violence implicit in Flynn’s words — rather than the explicit absurdity — that we should care about.
Not coincidentally, the gospel of Matthew goes on to explain by exactly what criteria the nations should be judged: “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed…For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.’” But being a Good Samaritan is not what power is about. That’s not the type of work that puts you on the stage at Cornerstone, backed by a shofar and a wave of righteous indignation. That’s the loud part of the Gospel that Flynn and his ilk are keeping quiet.