“Christian nationalism is not a religion, is not christianity, it’s a political phenomenon that involve the exploitation of religion for political gain. As an ideology it is basically based on the idea that America is a christian nation and its laws should be based on the bible. This idealogy is really a tool for a leadership driven political machine whose purpose is to get the political power. It is deeply antidemocratic movement. This movement is based on a deep organizational network: legal groups, policy groups, networking organizations, information groups (propaganda and desinformation), data tools…”
Telle est la définition que donne Katherine Stewart au début de la troisième partie de la série de 4 podcasts diffusés par le Lincoln Project.
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Jimmy Carter a sans doute été le plus pieux des présidents de l’après-guerre mais il a beaucoup déçu les évangéliques. C’est Ronald Reagan qui a été le premier à pactiser avec les Christians nationalists, à l’époque la Moral Majority emmenée par le pasteur évangélique Jerry Falwell. Il avait fondé en 1956 à la megachurch à Lynchburg en Virginie, puis la Liberty University en 1971 d’abord sous l’appellation Lynchburg Baptist College. George W. Bush a renoué cet accord avec les évangéliques et Donald Trump en est devenu le champion incontesté tout en favorisant sous évolution vers des positions de plus en plus radicales. Il a en particulier fait nommer troisjuges ultraconservateurs à la Cour Suprême. La troisième branche du pouvoir a invalidé l’arrêt Roe v. Wade en publiant en 2022 l’arrêt Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization qui statue que la Constitution ne confère pas de droit à l’avortement. Il a en particulier donner un megaphone à des extrémistes comme Paula White ou
Ci-dessous les liens vers une série de podcast du Lincoln Project sur le sujet.
The Threat of White Christian Nationalism – série de podcast du Lincoln Project
Part I: Piety Not Required with Jeff Sharlet
In the first episode of “The Threat of White Christian Nationalism”, host Reed Galen is joined by journalist and bestselling author Jeff Sharlet. They discuss the religious and cultural landscape of present-day American evangelicalism, how white Christian nationalism is not “old-time religion” but a rapidly mutating political theology, and how white Christian nationalism isn’t synonymous with piety and has warped into an ideology to serve Trumpism.
The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War Hardcover – March 21, 2023 – Jeff Sharlet (Author)
An unmatched guide to the religious dimensions of American politics, Jeff Sharlet journeys into corners of our national psyche where others fear to tread. The Undertow is both inquiry and meditation, an attempt to understand how, over the last decade, reaction has morphed into delusion, social division into distrust, distrust into paranoia, and hatred into fantasies―sometimes realities―of violence. Across the country, men “of God” glorify materialism, a gluttony of the soul, while citing Scripture and preparing for civil war―a firestorm they long for as an absolution and exaltation. Lies, greed, and glorification of war boom through microphones at hipster megachurches that once upon a time might have preached peace and understanding. Political rallies are as aflame with need and giddy expectation as religious revivals. At a conference for incels, lonely single men come together to rage against women. On the Far Right, everything is heightened – love into adulation, fear into vengeance, anger into white-hot rage. Here, in the undertow, our forty-fifth president, a vessel of conspiratorial fears and fantasies, continues to rise to sainthood, and the insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, killed on January 6 at the Capitol, is beatified as a martyr of white womanhood. Framing this dangerous vision, Sharlet remembers and celebrates the courage of those who sing a different song of community, and of an America long dreamt of and yet to be fully born, dedicated to justice and freedom for all. Exploring a geography of grief and uncertainty in the midst of plague and rising fascism, The Undertow is a necessary reckoning with our precarious present that brings to light a decade of American failures as well as a vision for American possibility.
Part II: The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory with Tim Alberta
In the second episode of “The Threat of White Christian Nationalism”, host Reed Galen is joined by journalist and bestselling author Tim Alberta. They discuss the societal perceptions of American evangelicals and the flaws/fallacies within their movement, why bad history plus bad theology equals the perfect formula for christian nationalism, and why Trumpism resonates so strongly with Americans who want theology to fit their politics…rather than the other way around.
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism – December 5, 2023 by Tim Alberta (Author)
Evangelical Christians are perhaps the most polarizing—and least understood—people living in America today. In his seminal new book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, journalist Tim Alberta, himself a practicing Christian and the son of an evangelical pastor, paints an expansive and profoundly troubling portrait of the American evangelical movement. Through the eyes of televangelists and small-town preachers, celebrity revivalists and everyday churchgoers, Alberta tells the story of a faith cheapened by ephemeral fear, a promise corrupted by partisan subterfuge, and a reputation stained by perpetual scandal. For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom—a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings and traditions, explaining how Donald Trump’s presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated historical trends that long pointed toward disaster. Reporting from half-empty sanctuaries and standing-room-only convention halls across the country, the author documents a growing fracture inside American Christianity and journeys with readers through this strange new environment in which loving your enemies is “woke” and owning the libs is the answer to WWJD. Accessing the highest echelons of the American evangelical movement, Alberta investigates the ways in which conservative Christians have pursued, exercised, and often abused power in the name of securing this earthly kingdom. He highlights the battles evangelicals are fighting—and the weapons of their warfare—to demonstrate the disconnect from scripture: Contra the dictates of the New Testament, today’s believers are struggling mightily against flesh and blood, eyes fixed on the here and now, desperate for a power that is frivolous and fleeting. Lingering at the intersection of real cultural displacement and perceived religious persecution, Alberta portrays a rapidly secularizing America that has come to distrust the evangelical church, and weaves together present-day narratives of individual pastors and their churches as they confront the twin challenges of lost status and diminished standing. Sifting through the wreckage—pastors broken, congregations battered, believers losing their religion because of sex scandals and political schemes—Alberta asks: If the American evangelical movement has ceased to glorify God, what is its purpose?
Part III: The Power Worshippers with Katherine Stewart
In the third episode of “The Threat of White Christian Nationalism”, host Reed Galen is joined by investigative journalist and author Katherine Stewart. They discuss how the white Christian nationalist movement is driven by a cohort of leaders and organizations that form a deep organizational network, how the attack on public education is part of a larger project to destroy democratic institutions, and what members of the pro-democracy movement can do to fight against the advancement of white Christian nationalism.
The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism Paperback – April 26, 2022 – Katherine Stewart
For too long the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy. Stewart pulls back the curtain on the inner workings and leading personalities of a movement that has turned religion into a tool for domination. She exposes a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances and united not by any central command but by a shared, anti-democratic vision and a common will to power. She follows the money that fuels this movement, tracing much of it to a cadre of super-wealthy, ultraconservative donors and family foundations. She shows that today’s Christian nationalism is the fruit of a longstanding antidemocratic, reactionary strain of American thought that draws on some of the most troubling episodes in America’s past. It forms common cause with a globe-spanning movement that seeks to destroy liberal democracy and replace it with nationalist, theocratic and autocratic forms of government around the world. Religious nationalism is far more organized and better funded than most people realize. It seeks to control all aspects of government and society. Its successes have been stunning, and its influence now extends to every aspect of American life, from the White House to state capitols, from our schools to our hospitals. The Power Worshippers is a brilliantly reported book of warning and a wake-up call. Stewart’s probing examination demands that Christian nationalism be taken seriously as a significant threat to the American republic and our democratic freedoms.
Part IV: Why Do White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump? with Sarah Posner
In the fourth and final episode of “The Threat of White Christian Nationalism”, host Reed Galen is joined by investigative journalist and author Sarah Posner. They discuss the historical roots of the Christian right (including the opposition to desegregation and the rise of the prosperity gospel), what MAGA learns from Christian nationalism’s spiritual warfare and charismatic worship practices, and what a possible Trump victory (or loss) would mean for the movement of white Christian nationalism.
Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump – Sarah Posner – Random House “
In terrifying detail, Unholy illustrates how a vast network of white Christian nationalists plotted the authoritarian takeover of the American democratic system. There is no more timely book than this one.” (Janet Reitman, author of Inside Scientology) Why did so many evangelicals turn out to vote for Donald Trump, a serial philanderer with questionable conservative credentials who seems to defy Christian values with his every utterance? To a reporter like Sarah Posner, who has been covering the religious right for decades, the answer turns out to be far more intuitive than one might think. In this taut inquiry, Posner digs deep into the radical history of the religious right to reveal how issues of race and xenophobia have always been at the movement’s core, and how religion often cloaked anxieties about perceived threats to a white, Christian America. Fueled by an antidemocratic impulse, and united by this narrative of reverse victimization, the religious right and the alt-right support a common agenda – and are actively using the erosion of democratic norms to roll back civil rights advances, stock the judiciary with hard-right judges, defang and deregulate federal agencies, and undermine the credibility of the free press. Increasingly, this formidable bloc is also forging ties with European far right groups, giving momentum to a truly global movement. Revelatory and engrossing, Unholy offers a deeper understanding of the ideological underpinnings and forces influencing the course of Republican politics. This is a book that must be listened to by anyone who cares about the future of American democracy.