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Marching Principles Hedges’ brilliant article, “The Christian Right And The Rise Of American Fascism” outlines several principles inherent in Christian fascism, and to his list, I will add a few of my own:
1)Apocalyptic Violence—A central tenet of Cristo-fascism is the belief that after the Rapture or Christ’s returns to rescue Christian believers and take them to heaven, a period of seven years, or the Tribulation, will ensue in which an Anti-Christ will dominate the world, and every horror imaginable will be unleashed on humankind. Those who do not submit (again a pivotal word for Christian fascism) and accept Christ as their personal savior, will be martyred but will be assured of spending eternity in heaven with Christ. Those who do submit will be condemned eternally to hell. After the Tribulation period, Christ will return again with the “army” of Christians in heaven, and the battle of Armageddon will be fought against the Anti-Christ and his armies. The latter will be slaughtered by Christ and his followers who will set up Christ’s kingdom on earth where he will reign for one thousand years, followed by the total and complete destruction of earth as Christ and his followers return to heaven.
Sounds like a scene from the movie “Independence Day”? Actually, that movie cannot begin to capture the heinous barbarity that Christian fascism fantasizes will befall the earth and those who reject Christ. That scenario is a bloodbath of unimaginable, avenging horrors. Note that not only will non-Christian human beings be decimated, but so will the earth itself, the outcome being twofold: Humans who do not submit to Jesus will be destroyed, and the planet itself will be annihilated. How delicious the vindication for the Cristo-fascist psyche! Not only will people who reject their Jesus be grotesquely punished, but their God will prove himself more powerful than the very planet on which they live. Obviously, no need here to worry about global warming—at least the kind created by humans. God will incinerate the earth--his own instantaneous global warming, triumphing over all enemies of both himself and the Christian fascists. As Hedges notes, these fantasies of monstrous cruelty are appealing to many within the Christian-fascist movement because “The loss of manufacturing jobs, lack of affordable health care, negligible opportunities for education and poor job security has left many millions of Americans locked out. This ideology is attractive because it offers them the hope of power and revenge. It sanctifies their rage.”[2] And if any group of people on earth is enraged, it is the Cristo-fascists whose rancor is every bit as caustic and virulent as that of any Islamist fundamentalist on a suicide mission.
2) One reason Hedges labels these individuals fascist has not only to do with their positioning themselves on the political right, but specifically, their fanatical insistence on submission to theocratic government. Had George Orwell been a born-again Christian, twenty-first century Cristo-fascists would probably declare him a saint. (War is holy, and killing is sacred.) Their preferred polity is biblical totalitarianism in which the principles embraced by secular society are perceived as untrue and antithetical to their God and his Word. Unquestioning obedience to fundamentalist Christian theology and its resultant theocracy are the cornerstones of Cristo-fascism in twenty-first century America.
3) As a result, adherents are diametrically opposed to a secular world view and the tenets of modern science. As I have commented in other articles[3] in recent years, fundamentalist Christianity generally distrusts, and often despises human reason. Millions of children in America are being home-schooled, and 75% of them are children from fundamentalist Christian homes.[4] Home-schooling can offer an extraordinary alternative to attending public school, but for fundamentalist Christians, it serves, among other things, to shield their children not only from grappling with such issues as evolution and global warming, but learning the scientific method itself and the basic principles of critical thinking and logical analysis.
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||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||4)Cristo-fascism is overwhelmingly a white Anglo-American movement. While one sees growing numbers of African Americans and Hispanics joining their ranks, the movement remains predominantly white and rabidly Islamophobic. Most outspoken on this issue is San Antonio’s megachurch pastor, John Hagee, who perceives Islam as the new Satan which must be destroyed by Israel and the United States.
5) While Christian fascism cannot give enough lip service to the “culture of life” it is morbidly death-obsessed in its raging support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and capital punishment. The popularity of the grisly, sado-masochistic “The Passion Of The Christ” among fundamentalist Christians, as well as the Jesus Camp’s indoctrination of children to be willing and proud to “die for Jesus” further belie Cristo-fascism’s death fetish.
6) A new Christian Gestapo is in the works as the Christian right is working vehemently to take control of military chaplaincies and create in Hedges words, “America’s Holy Warriors.” He points out that during the last century communist and fascist movements each built paramilitary forces that operated beyond the reach of the law. The frightening popularity and proliferation of the private security firm, Blackwater, founded by a mega-millionaire right-wing Christian, Erik Prince, has not only become a giant mercenary force in Iraq, but was heavily used in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Increasingly, Cristo-fascists are becoming more blatant about their wish to force conversion to Christ through the barrel of a gun. A typical image of this concept, dripping with testosterone, may be viewed at the website of Force Ministries.
Just this week, conservative theologian, Doug Giles, appeared on Fox News arguing that Christian males should be tougher because “Jesus wasn’t a bearded lady”. Christians, he said, should stop raising nice boys and raise warriors who can fight terrorism.
In answer to the question of what is to be done, I would assert as I usually do: Knowledge is power. Fundamentalist Christianity is inherently delusional. One cannot reason with its adherents nor influence them with facts. What one can do is understand first of all that the United States has become a fascist empire. If one takes seriously Mussolini’s definition of fascism, “the corporate state”, then this nation was well on its way even before the ascendancy of the Bush II administration and September 11, 2001.
Furthermore, it is time for those who consider themselves politically progressive to stop “tolerating” Cristo-fascists. Certainly, these individuals have every right to believe whatever they choose to believe, but when one comprehends the inherently fascist nature of both their religion and their politics, one must necessarily confront not only their ghastly disregard for separation of church and state, but their implacable commitment to engineering a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the United States.
The exponential growth of the Cristo-fascist movement in the past six years is yet another symptom of empire and a somnambulant society in the throes of collapse. Whether or not one embraces Christianity or any religion, for that matter, it is instructive to engage in reality-checking the actual teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, and specifically, the gospels and other sacred writings which were excluded from the bible in the fourth century for political and socio-economic reasons in order to streamline Constantine’s hierarchical, imperial, Christian regime—the world’s first but not last, Christian theocracy. With that in mind, I highly recommend The Jesus Mysteries, by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy.
Carolyn Baker, Ph.D. is author of a forthcoming book, COMING OUT FROM CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM: Affirming Life, Love and The Sacred. Her recent book U.S. HISTORY UNCENSORED: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You is available at her website: www.carolynbaker.org.
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