Mainstreaming Mormonicity For The Fringe Religious Right

Writing about the rally, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat noted, snidely, that “a suspicious liberal could retort that all the God-and-Christ talk and military tributes were proof enough that a sinister Christian nationalism lurked beneath the surface” of Beck’s movement. Douthat was wrong: Beck’s Christian nationalism isn’t beneath the surface at all. It’s right on top.

It’s long been obvious, at least to those of us who follow the religious right, that the ostensibly secular Tea Party movement is deeply imbued with the ideology. In my 2006 book, Kingdom Coming, The Rise of Christian Nationalism, I tried to describe the worldview of the Christian right—its belief that the United States began as a Christian nation, blessed for its piety, before sinking to unimaginable lows as secularism gained ground. In the Christian nationalist imagination, the true catastrophe started with the New Deal, which brought socialism to America and turned government, rather than churches, into guarantors of social welfare. The Christian nationalist mind-set is apocalyptic: Time is always running out, a Satanic, hideously powerful enemy is always on the verge of instituting tyranny, and only a brave band of utterly committed believers can restore the nation to its lost glory.

Beck’s rally made the connection between the Tea Party and Christian nationalism explicit, as he called for Americans to go to “God boot camp” in preparation for a coming “global storm.” He drew heavily on the work of David Barton, a revisionist Christian nationalist historian and staple of Christian right literature. Barton specializes in combing through history and stringing together out-of-context quotes to argue that the founders intended for Christianity to serve as the basis of American government. In the early ’90s, as I reported in my book, he spoke at white supremacist events, but has since climbed into the Christian right mainstream. Beck has been championing Barton all year, and Barton spoke at Beck’s Divine Destiny pre-rally event on Friday at the Kennedy Center.

So typeth Michelle Goldberg. Now we know: Beck's been channeling this Barton loon since he ran out of W. Cleon Skousen material. M.G. continues:

Evangelicals have never accepted Mormonism as a branch of Christianity. Indeed, in the early 20th century, Christian writers often compared it to Islam. After all, it was polygamous and militant, born from the vision of a prophet claiming to be the latest in the Judeo-Christian lineage. As the Baptist author of the 1911 book Mormonism: The Islam of America put it, “[T]here is no other body of people from whom we have so much to fear in proportion to their numbers.”

Indeed, Bab-tiss. Can't wait for these potential schisms to start playing out. While waiting, we'll find some ammunition in that Bab-tiss book, courtesy of Google & Hah-vad, & fully enjoy the irony of fights between adherents of varying fairy tales. "Let's you & him fight," as they say.

Just one book in a series (from 98 yrs. ago):

Plus ça change ...