{"id":113222,"date":"2017-03-21T11:31:27","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T19:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=113222"},"modified":"2017-03-21T11:31:27","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T19:31:27","slug":"the-rise-of-christian-kinism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=113222","title":{"rendered":"The Rise Of Christian Kinism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Republic is not happy<\/a>:<\/p>\n

For alt-right Christians, Russell Moore is the embodiment of where the religious right went wrong\u2014by refusing to openly embrace racism. Throughout his youth, Griffin says, he felt alienated by Christians like Moore who were intent on \u201ccondemning racism.\u201d He was only drawn back into Christianity when he married the daughter of Gordon Baum, a far-right Lutheran leader who co-founded the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center<\/a> as \u201ca virulently racist group.\u201d Griffin says he joined the CCC, as well as the white nationalist League of the South, because both groups embody the elements he views as integral to his faith: They are \u201cpro-white, pro-Christian, pro-South.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Moore has become a popular target among alt-right Christians. The white supremacist and popular alt-right radio show host James Edwards, himself a Southern Baptist, regularly disparages Moore on his program, calling him<\/a> a \u201ccuck-Christian.\u201d In June, after the Southern Baptist Convention banned displays of the Confederate flag<\/a>, Edwards hosted Nathanael Strickland, proprietor of the Faith and Heritage blog. In a recent post, Strickland had argued that white Southerners \u201chave faced a widespread and determined assault on our heritage, symbols, monuments, graves, and identity by secular and governmental forces,\u201d and likened such supposed attacks to what Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf<\/i>: that Germans faced \u201ccultural extermination and ethnic cleansing.\u201d Edwards seconded that analysis, declaring the Confederate flag \u201ca Christian flag,\u201d and arguing that to attack it \u201cis to deny the sovereignty, the majesty, and the might of Lord Jesus Christ in his divine role in Southern history, culture, and life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Strickland recently told me that alt-right Christians see \u201cracial differences\u201d as \u201creal, biological, and positive,\u201d a view he insists is \u201cmerely a reaffirmation of traditional historical Christianity.\u201d He argues that many on the alt-right who consider themselves atheists or pagans only lost their faith in Christianity \u201cdue to the antiwhite hatred and Marxist dogma held by the modern church.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Strickland considers himself a \u201ckinist,\u201d part of the new white supremacist movement that, according to the Anti-Defamation League<\/a>, \u201cuses the Bible as one of the main texts for its beliefs,\u201d offering a powerful validation to white supremacists for their racism and anti-Semitism. Strickland sees kinism as a successor to Christian Reconstructionism, a theocratic movement dating back to the 1960s that played a key role<\/a> in the rise of Christian homeschooling. The movement\u2019s primary goal was to implement biblical law\u2014including public stonings<\/a>\u2014in every facet of American life.<\/span><\/p>\n

After Trump\u2019s victory, Edwards ferociously attacked the president-elect\u2019s critics, Bible in hand. \u201cThe Bible says, \u2018There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,\u2019 and I want there to be that,\u201d he said on his show<\/a>. \u201cNow is the time for retribution, and I want them to suffer. I want them to feel the righteous anger of a good and decent people. I want Trump to drive them into the sea.\u201d He called on the \u201cdegenerates, perverts, and freaks,\u201d and other \u201ccriminals who shilled for Hillary\u201d to \u201cmake good on your promise to leave the country.\u201d He added: \u201cThey can take Russell Moore with them on the way. That\u2019s for sure. Good riddance. Please leave.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Alt-right Christians like Edwards see their movement as part of a global battle for ethnic nationalism. Days before the election, neo-Nazis assembled at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to show their support for Trump. Matthew Heimbach, an alt-right Christian leader<\/a> who founded the Traditionalist Worker Party, told the crowd<\/a> they were in a worldwide struggle for the preservation of \u201cethnic, cultural, and religious integrity,\u201d a battle that has been joined by \u201cnationalists around the world that are fighting the same enemy.\u201d That enemy, Heimbach said, is made up of \u201cJewish oligarchs and the capitalists and the bankers\u201d who \u201cwant to enslave the entire world.\u201d He ticked off some of the movement\u2019s international allies: President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who has overseen a Hitler-inspired<\/a> campaign of extrajudicial killings, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has displaced and slaughtered<\/a> millions of his own citizens. To Heimbach, Assad \u201cis fighting to defend his people against the globalist hydra of Saudi Arabia, of the terrorist state of Israel, and United States interests.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Heimbach, who made headlines<\/a> last March for shoving a Black Lives Matter protester at a Trump rally, also draws inspiration from the far-right Russian writer Alexandr Dugin<\/a>, whose book, The Fourth Political Theory<\/i>, he considers \u201csuggested reading\u201d for all Traditionalist Worker Party members. Dugin\u2019s writings reinforced Heimbach\u2019s belief, he says, that \u201cwe must reject the failed and flawed concepts of democracy, capitalism, equality of ability, and multiculturalism.\u201d To alt-right Christians like Heimbach, democracy itself is a failed and flawed concept.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some, in fact, believe that Trump does not go far enough in defending the faith. Strickland, for example, views Trump as merely a \u201ccivic nationalist,\u201d not a full-blown racial and ethnic nationalist like those on the alt-right. \u201cThere are four legs supporting the table of civilization,\u201d he says. \u201cBlood, religion, culture, and language. Civic nationalists only acknowledge the last three of those.\u201d In Strickland\u2019s view, the alt-right must now become Trump\u2019s \u201cloyal opposition,\u201d prodding the president even further to the right. \u201cThe alt-right\u2019s job in the coming months and years will be to solidify nationalism\u2019s place in the Republican Party and push the importance of the fourth leg\u2014blood.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New Republic is not happy: For alt-right Christians, Russell Moore is the embodiment of where the religious right went wrong\u2014by refusing to openly embrace racism. Throughout his youth, Griffin says, he felt alienated by Christians like Moore who were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42720,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-right","category-christianity"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113223,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113222\/revisions\/113223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}