The End of the Reformation I. Christian Nationalism becomes a local debate. . .
even though, I'd wager, most people don't actually know what it means.
Indeed, I don't think author Stubson actually does.
Local attorney, expert pianist, and occasional op ed writer Susan Stubson wrote an op ed for the New York Times on the topic of her faith, her political party, and Christian Nationalism. She is, as noted, a Wyomingite.
Stubson, I'd also note, is part of a political family. Perhaps for that reason she can do what some even more frequent writers. . . namely me, cannot really, which is to sail into troubled waters under her own flag. It may be cowardice on my part, but I really don't feel that I can. I’m blunt to people who know me, but I'm not a politician and, as I recently noted here, while I once toyed with the idea, my time is past. I still have to make a living, however.
Anyhow, Stubson's NYT piece stated boldly in its caption was:
What Christian Nationalism Has Done to My State and My Faith Is a Sin
That was bound to provoke a reaction, and of course it did. One of the reactors was the same letter writing dude who earlier tried to take on the Wyoming 41 in the same journal. While it's digressing, I'll note what I wrote about that letter at the time, in which he stated as follows:
2. Your self-serving statement that lawyers have done more than any other profession makes me nauseous. Talk to those who have served in the military to protect our constitutional republic, to include making us a free nation. Talk to those who have served and lost limbs and have many other maladies that they received in battle. Talk to the families of those who have given their lives for this nation in war. Then you should reevaluate your arrogant statement about having done more than any other profession. You should be ashamed. You will better understand my ire on this issue when you have read my letter.
This time he wrapped himself in the flag less, and was less antagonist towards the lawyer author, stating:
Dear Editor:
It was an interesting article to read about Susan Stubson, Casper Attorney, saying that Christian Nationalists have “hijacked" the Wyoming Republican Party. She says that they are, “super engaged are real extreme right, and they are gaining.”
Apparently, Stubson thinks that it is a terrible thing that what she calls “Christian Nationalists” are involved in being “super engaged” in the political process and are “voting.” This brings up so many points about the hideous bias of her view that it is quite nauseating. Here are just a couple of points to consider:
- Her statements make it very clear that she does not know what a “Christian" is. If they go to any church, then they must be a Christian. This is not true. As a Christian myself, Stubson needs to understand that a true Christian is one who has put his or her (yes, only 2 genders) faith in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of their sin and then proceeds to love their neighbor. Because Stubson is misguided…for which my letter calls her out…does not mean that I have a lack of love for her. I just want her to know the error of her thinking so that she might become a true Christian.
- Her statements also show that she does not know what a “Nationalist” is. This word is used to try to demean people as being crazy reactionaries who seek to have authoritarian or dictatorial control…kind of like the Wyoming Speaker of the House who won’t even allow debate in the House on issues that that matter to the citizens of Wyoming. After 26 years in the US Air Force, I consider myself a Nationalist. My country comes first, but not to the detriment of other countries, or to the detriment of any US citizen…regardless of their political beliefs. If the US is strong, then we seek to protect other countries as we have in the past, where tyranny has attempted to take hold. We didn’t cut and run as Biden did with Afghanistan, which resulted in thousands upon thousands of murders by the Taliban using weapons that Biden left for them.
- Based on Stubson's views, I am a danger to her ideologies in Wyoming. And to that, I say, “Hurrah!” I wonder if she has ever written a 1736-word op-ed piece for the New York Times to condemn the riots and horrendous destruction by Antifa and BLM? Has she ever come out against the disgusting protests at the homes of Supreme Court Justices, and even an attempted murder of one of them? Has she ever condemned Senator Schumer for his inflammatory comments that he made on the steps of the Supreme Court against Justices in telling them that they would, “…pay the price,” for exercising their judicial responsibilities? Stubson has been silent on these issues.
When I repeated my commissioning oath to become a US Air Force officer, I always remember that I had to swear to, “protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.”
As a member of the Air Force officer corps, we knew how to defend our country against foreign enemies. But a domestic enemy was a subject with which we were never clear about how to defend against them.
The words of Stubson about what she calls, “Christian Nationalists,” like it is a 4-letter word, contributes to inciting those of the violent left against Christians and Nationalists.
She sets it forth in such a way that indicates that anyone who would fall into the category of what she considers to be Christian and/or Nationalist should not have a voice and they need to be stopped cold in their tracks by any means possible.
As a so-called lawyer, she should be ashamed. While she uses her free speech right of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution to defame a specific group, she wants to remove our free speech rights.
But I would have to say that is a great thing about the United States. Susan Stubson has every right to be wrong.
Sincerely,
__________________, Pinedale
Colonel, USAF, Retired
Pretty freaking insulting nonetheless.
While it's not my main point here (I'll get to that) wrapping yourself up in the flag as you were in the service is wearing really think on me. Last time, I commented on this extensively, and I'll add that and some additional comments down below in the item foot noted here.1
Anyhow, what did Stubson say, and was it even on Christian Nationalism?
Christian Nationalism is really hard to define. It's almost more of one of those I know it when I see it type of deals. We've tried to define it here before. In its more intellectual areas, it seems to be sort of self defined as National Conservatism, whose manifesto states:
Drawing on this heritage, we therefore affirm the following principles:
I'd bet dollars to donuts that most of the local populists who conceive of themselves of adhering to Roosevelt's 1912 cry "We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord" would probably agree with the manifesto and not really put hardly any thought into it.
So what did Stubson say?
We've linked her article in up above. Here's what she started off with:
I know what she is talking about, as that was 2016 and in the Obama era of politics. To my enormous surprise, the election of Barack Obama brought out racism in the country at a level that I thought long past. A lot of the visceral reaction to President Obama was because he was black.
I don't think that has anything to do with Christian Nationalism, however. That's rather deep old fashion racial prejudice, and frankly it reflects what Ronald Reagan did to the Republican Party, something that Republican Conservatives like the Stubson have still never really acknowledged. Reagan wasn't a racist, but he invited them into the party by courting disaffected Southern Dixiecrat's and Rust Belt Democrats. Modern populism has a lot of the thin thinking, bad beer consuming, football watching Rust Belt culture that was Democratic in it. Indeed, it's brought actual Rust Belt Republicans, former Democrats, at least demographically, directly into the party everywhere. Jeanette Ward is a Rocky Mountain Republican, but a Rust Belt one.
Here's something that I’m going out on a limb on next:
The messages worked. And in large part, it’s my faith community — white, rural and conservative — that got them there. I am a white conservative woman in rural America. Raised Catholic, I found that my faith deepened after I married and joined an evangelical church. As my faith grew, so did Tim’s political career in the Wyoming Legislature. (He served in the House from 2008 to 2017.) I’ve straddled both worlds, faith and politics, my entire adult life. Often there was very little daylight between the two, one informing the other.
If Susan wants to avoid Christian Nationalism, she ought to come back to the Catholic Church. Evangelical Christianity has always been more racially divided than the Universal (Catholic) Church. I don't know how many black African pastors Evangelical Church's in Wyoming have, but they are a presence in Catholic ones, along with Vietnamese, Filipino and Hispanic pastors. People being what they are, individual churches and diocese have never been perfect, but it's always been a hallmark of being a Catholic in Wyoming that you were going to Mass with the businessmen, the ranchers, and the sheepherders. . . all at the same time.
Indeed, well into the 20th Century "main line" Protestant Churches were associated with the Republican Party here, as they were everywhere else, and Democrats stood a good chance of being Catholic. There were certainly exceptions, and after the Clinton era the Democratic Party just died here. The point is that the fusion of secular interests with religion has long been a feature of American Protestantism in a way it has not been with Catholicism.
Anyhow.
I'm not going to quote the entire article. But I'd note where she picks back up.
What’s changed is the rise of Christian nationalism — the belief, as recently described by the Georgetown University professor and author Paul D. Miller, that “America is a ‘Christian nation’ and that the government should keep it that way.” Gone are the days when a lawmaker might be circumspect about using his or her faith as a vehicle to garner votes. It’s been a drastic and destructive departure from the boring, substantive lawmaking to which I was accustomed. Christian nationalists have hijacked both my Republican Party and my faith community by blurring the lines between church and government and in the process rebranding our state’s identity.
All that is very true. When the movie Wind River used the line of "This isn't the land of waiting for back up. This is the land of you're on your own.", it was very true.
Stubson next makes this comment.
Rural states are particularly vulnerable to the promise of Christian nationalism. In Wyoming, we are white (more than 92 percent) and love God (71 percent identified as Christian in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center) and Mr. Trump (seven in 10 voters picked him in 2020).
Hmmm, here's where I think Stubson goes off the rails, because I don't think what we're seeing in the populist camp is Christian Nationalism. Maybe that is, however, because I'm an Apostolic Christian, which looks outward towards something larger than the nation to start with, and which was also historically oppressed by the Protestant culture, and frankly is still held in contempt by it.2
Tell people you are a Catholic, even though we are the original Christian religion, and pretty soon some Protestant will tell you that you are not a Christian, and frankly even doubt a little that you are a real American. And in Wyoming, you'll be in a religions' minority in a state which, in actuality, is the least observant tin terms of religion in the United States, something that Stubson didn't address in her comments. This isn't new here, either. With a high transient population, and a lot of unattached men laborers who work miles from any city, Wyoming has always been only loosely religious. Being a member of a really adherent faith group probably by default meant that 1) you were a Catholic, 2) you were Orthodox or 3) you were Mormon, all three of which are overall minorities in the state, although Mormon's are a majority in some communities in the southwest.
Nonetheless, up through the 1970s the "main line" Protestant churches remained the churches of wealth, and this was very much the case up until after World War Two, which was true for much of the United States as well. Simply being a Catholic in Wyoming limited your economic possibilities until after the war.
Wyoming is overwhelmingly white, although what that means in Wyoming is a little confusing. I doubt actually that he figure is anywhere near 92% in reality. In part, that's because long time Hispanic (Catholic again) communities in Wyoming probably self identify as white, even though they certainly aren't WASPs Most of the local politicians who cite religion are undoubtedly Protestants, although one is a California Hispanic. The state has a large Native American population that is probably undercounted in statistics such as this. Half of the state's population at any one time, at least, is transient and from somewhere else. I'd guess that probably 70% of most of the state is "white", but no more than that. Probably less.
My own place of work is probably a good example. No matter how people might identify, ethnic minorities are strongly represented.
I do agree with what she next states.
The result is bad church and bad law. “God, guns and Trump” is an omnipresent bumper sticker here, the new trinity. The evangelical church has proved to be a supplicating audience for the Christian nationalist roadshow. Indeed, it is unclear to me many Sundays whether we are hearing a sermon or a stump speech.
As an Apostolic Christian, I find the phrase "God, guns and Trump" absolutely abhorrent. I'd be less offended by "guns and Trump", even though I don't think the Second Amendment and support for Trump in an existential sense are linked, but to link in God strikes me as approaching blasphemy, and it is emblematic of a major problem.
Skipping way ahead:
Yet fear (and loathing for Ms. Cheney, who voted to impeach Mr. Trump and dared to call him “unfit for office”) led to a record voter turnout in the August primary. The Trumpist candidate, Harriet Hageman, trounced Ms. Cheney. Almost half of the Wyoming House members were new. At least one-third of them align with the Freedom Caucus, a noisy group unafraid to manipulate Scripture for political gain under a banner of preserving a godly nation.
The impact of this new breed of lawmakers has been swift. Wyomingites got a very real preview this past legislative session of the hazards of one-size-fits-all nationalized policies that ignore the nuances of our state. Last year, maternity wards closed in two sparsely populated communities, further expanding our maternity desert. Yet in debating a bill to provide some relief to new moms by extending Medicaid’s postpartum coverage, a freshman member of the State House, Jeanette Ward, invoked a brutally narrow view of the Bible. “Cain commented to God, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” she said. “The obvious answer is no. No, I am not my brother’s keeper. But just don’t kill him.”
This confusing mash-up of Scripture (Ms. Ward got it wrong: The answer is yes, I am my brother’s keeper) is emblematic of a Christian nationalist who weaponizes God’s word to promote the agenda du jour. We should expect candidates who identify as followers of Christ to model some concern for other people.
Okay, sound familiar?
If you read the entries here, it should, as I made this same observation at the time.
Stubson notes:
I am adrift in this unnamed sea, untethered from both my faith community and my political party as I try to reconcile evangelicals’ repeated endorsements of candidates who thumb their noses at the least of us. Christians are called to serve God, not a political party, to put our faith in a higher power, not in human beings. We’re taught not to bow to false idols. Yet idolatry is increasingly prominent and our foundational principles — humility, kindness and compassion — in short supply.
The answer here is obvious.
Susan, come home to the Church.
“It was a great day!” one of our pastors proclaimed on social media last year when Mr. Trump came to town to campaign against Ms. Cheney. Though many agreed with him, some of his pastoral colleagues grieved, traumatized by the hard right turn in their congregations.
Yup. and again. . . .
She concluded.
This is the state I cannot quit. I rely on those gritty and courageous leaders who hold tight to our rural values. They are the Davids in the fight against the Philistines. They are our brother’s keeper.
So I'll go from here.
I don't think what we're seeing in Wyoming is actually Christian Nationalism. Like it, hate it, or fear it, it's actually too intellectually deep for what Stubson is observing.
What she's actually observing is something that's been in the American culture for a long time. The Midwestern lower middle class WASPs and Southern WASP cultures, but just imported here. It's always been here, but the state's insistence on never taking a second look at its economy has reinforced it.
Which is not to dismiss it.
The interesting thing about it is that the rage it is expressing, and it is rage, is in reaction to the same thing that Christian Nationalism is reacting to, which is the forced radical liberalization of the culture. A development decade in the making, but which finally really burst out in the open with Obergefell. Ironically this comes out of the very same WASP culture, and its' interesting to note that this trend exists most strongly in the world where 1) the Reformation succeeded, or 2) the secular Reformation of the ideals of the French Revolution succeeded.
Their ultimate problem, at the end of the day, was the rejection of a greater existential reality. Catholicism and Orthodoxy, like the more conservative branches of Judaism, and Islam, hold that there's something greater than us and that we in turn fit within that greater reality's organization. We may be the greatest of the creatures, but we're still a creature, and as a creature, have what is set within us. We don't get to define it.
That's been discussed here in many threads, and it explains in the case of the Apostolic Religions and Judaism the strong attachment to science. The "reformed" branches of Christianity, and for that matter the more liberal reformed branches of Judaism, lack those guide rails as they took them down. When Luther started that process, he didn't mean to dismantle them as to Faith, but it happened pretty quickly, at first with any number of reformers declaring that they knew what the Faith was and rejecting what came before.
It was inevitable that ultimately that process would be self consuming. The Protestant churches started dismantling themselves some time ago, most notably with the sticky topics of sex, which they made concessions on in some instances nearly immediately. Luther through he'd discovered the Church was wrong on some things regarding the Bible and almost immediately thereafter discovered women, and that his vows could be booted on that topic, for instance.
Starting at some point, perhaps as early ago as the beginning of the prior century, the WASP culture in the US began to fatigue. It was always the wealthiest section of the population. Having eons earlier rejected Rome, it ultimately began to reject Canterbury, and anything else inconvenient. The wealthier its members are, the more likely this is true. At the lower ends, it simply weakened things to where today, for many Protestants, the clear prohibitions on sex outside of marriage, remarriage and the like just don't exist. There are Protestant church goes who have been married multiple times, or who attend weekly with their "partners" who are not married at all.
That sort of faith is emblematic, in some ways, of where we are. It's all internal, just like my definition of myself. I'm okay as I'm not a sinner as I say so. And if some want to say that they're girls if they're boys, well who is to stop them?
A recent editorial on something else I read stated, and here I agree with it, that at some point you know that things are just flat out wrong, and that's where we are now. The remaining Protestant faithful know that something is wrong and are strongly reacting. Those in the WASP rejection camp know it too and keep grasping, just like an alcoholic who hasn't had enough, for anything consumable. That's' why we simultaneously see an explosion of ridiculous made up gender categories, with new labels weekly, at the same time we see both Christian Nationalism and populist who cite to their religion.
That's also why people like Stubson are baffled. Many of those, indeed a very large number of them, on the populist right will cite religion while at the same time seemingly not grasping it. The religion of the populist right is a right wing conservative variant of the American Civil Religion. That explains why the same people can worship a political leader who is a serial polygamist or have local leaders who have been accused of icky behavior. It explains why, as Stubson has noted, that some of them can quote sections of the Bible, but also hold the poor and needy in disregard.
But that's not actually Christian Nationalism. That's populist right wing American politics of the Southern variety. Southern populism would be a better name for it. And that it had arrived was clear with the campaign of Foster Freiss.
That doesn't say anything for or against Christian Nationalism. That'll have to wait for another thread. But we should make no mistake. When Ronald Reagan adopted the Southern Strategy, it helped lead to this point. This is what was going to occur, at least to some extent. Of course, it took the urban WASPs getting really wealthy first, at which point we learn that when a large section of the population becomes well off in real terms, its mind doesn't turn to higher thoughts, but the lowest of them.
Footnotes:
1. We earlier stated:
He is still fond of many of his UW instructors. After graduation, Steve received commission as a second lieutenant in the Air Force. He served as a contracting officer through his 26-year career, had 13 moves throughout the U.S. and spent about a third of his assignments in Europe. He also earned his master’s from the Air Force Institute of Technology.A contracting officer for 26 years.
So, do I still feel that way.
Yep, more than ever.
What does the Air Force say about this position:
SECURING WHAT WE NEED
And:
QUALIFICATIONS SUMMARY
MINIMUM EDUCATION
QUALIFICATIONS
- Knowledge of contracting process fundamentals, federal acquisition and contracting directives and publications, budgeting and funding procedures and contract pricing
- Completion of the Mission Ready Contracting Officer course
- Completion of Officer Training School (OTS), Air Force Academy (AFA) or Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC)
- Must be between the ages of 18 and 39
And at this point, I'll probably make everyone mad.
One of the things about the modern military has been the massive growth of non combat jobs. Even during the Second World War, most American servicemen didn't fight, weren't going to fight, and were not at risk of dying in combat whatsoever.
Any conscripted serviceman of any kinds deserves a measure of our respect simply for doing something they didn't want to do, because their country asked them to. That doesn't make them a hero, however. And opting for a military career, as a career, has always been a solid career decision that a lot of people have made over the years, but that's what it is, taking it no further than that. Most service jobs in the U.S. Military frankly aren't all that risky, and they haven't been since some point prior to World War Two. Back in the day when Doonsbury was still funny, there was a classic instance of the cartoon when an outraged Vietnam vet calls into to complain about somebody being hosted on the radio, and it turns out they both spent the war in their domains smoking weed and listening to Jimi Hendrix. An exaggeration, but only so much.
Combat vets, and veterans who have served in combat arms are, in my mind, a different deal. Searching out contract details in an air-conditioned office is one thing, getting shelled or potentially getting shelled is quite another. If your job could just as easily be done by a civilian, you ought to really rethink claiming special status.
2. The line that Anti Catholisim is the last acceptalbe prejudice in the United States is more than a little true. It's not only accepted, but it's almost mandatory in some quarter, both from the right and the left.
