Carlos Camargo, Ph.D.’s Post

#bradleybonishi #bradonishi #preparingforwar #uspoliticalcommentary #usreligioncommentary #uselection2024 #christiannationalism #ussocialcommentary #whitechristiannationalist #uscivilwar #uscivilwar2024 - Preparing for war : the extremist history of white Christian nationalism--and what comes next by Bradley B. Onishi The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not a blip or an aberration. It was the logical outcome of years of a White evangelical subculture's preparation for war. Religion scholar and former insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots in Preparing for War. https://lnkd.in/gd4aqjPH Combining his own experiences in the youth groups and prayer meetings of the 1990s with an immersive look at the steady blending of White grievance politics with evangelicalism, Onishi crafts an engrossing account of the years-long campaign of White Christian nationalism that led to January 6. How did the rise of what Onishi calls the New Religious Right, between 1960 and 2015, give birth to violent White Christian nationalism during the Trump presidency and beyond? What propelled some of the most conservative religious communities in the country--communities of which Onishi was once a part--to ignite a cold civil war? Through chapters on White supremacy and segregationist theologies, conspiracy theories, the Christian-school movement, purity culture, and the right-wing media ecosystem, Onishi pulls back the curtain on a subculture that birthed a movement and has taken a dangerous turn. In taut and unsparing prose, Onishi traces the migration of many White Christians to Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in what is known as the American Redoubt. Learning the troubling history of the New Religious Right and the longings and logic of White Christian nationalism is deeply alarming. It is also critical for preserving the shape of our democracy for years to come. Worldcat Links - Preparing for war : the extremist history of white Christian nationalism--and what comes next by Bradley B. Onishi https://lnkd.in/g_pE9XFJ

This is the first in a series on measuring Christian nationalism, getting much mor specific about who is saying what about whom. Gotta get behind the smoke to the real fire. Measuring Christian Nationalism, Part 0 https://lnkd.in/gcSV8fQJ

JMC faculty partner Mark David Hall has recently released a book about Christian nationalism in America titled Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism Is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church. Order the book today! #newbook #newbookrelease #newbookalert #americanhistory #civiceducation

Is Christianity greening? Many scholars argue that, ever since Lynn White’s devastating critique, Christianity has engaged with environmentalism. Many scholars also argue that this is only superficially so. These conclusions are often based on the case of the United States. Suzanne Ros and myself studied the case of the Netherlands between about 1960 and 2020 in an Open Acces article published in BMGN in June 2024. We analysed newspapers, annual reports of RNGOs and public surveys and discovered that Dutch Protestant Christianity is indeed greening, if slowly and chequered. We also found that this process occurred in four historical waves. Our article raises questions about the dynamics of this process and future developments. https://lnkd.in/ebp5aZBh

The Church in Poland, when there is a need, calls for actions stemming from faith. And when there are people who are wronged or are suffering, it wants to testify to them, it comes to their aid as the Church! Not for any political reasons! Only for the reasons of Christian love, Christian solidarity!" (Card. Karol Wojtyła, Sermon delivered in the Church of St. Stephen in Krakow, December 26, 1976) Cardinal Karol Wojtyła's words express the essence of the Church's mission, which motivates it to act in the spirit of love and solidarity, while remaining independent of political interests. The Church serves society and defends the suffering and needy out of a genuine impulse of faith and Christian compassion. This Christian solidarity, which Cardinal Wojtyła spoke of, is an attitude of openness and empathy towards other people, especially in problematic and crisis situations. The Church, out of the spirit of solidarity, approaches people in need, sharing their difficulties with them, regardless of the person's political or material situation. For Karol Wojtyła, Christian solidarity is an obligation towards neighbors, rooted in the evangelical values, where love is active and expressed through concrete actions. Cardinal Karol Wojtyła clearly emphasized that the Church does not engage for political reasons, but only for those reasons resulting from its mission entrusted to it by Christ. This point distinguishes the actions of the Church from the actions of state institutions or political organizations, which are often guided by interests. Conversely, the Church is guided by the message of love and solidarity. It avoids entanglement in political conflicts, which allows it to maintain its credibility and moral authority in society. #wojtyła #wojtyla #johnpaulii #popejohnpaulii #society #societal #authority #morals

On the rise of Christian Nationalism in the U.S. (in lieu of our great and historical tradition of Patriotism + separation of Church and State): If pro-abortion supporters are biblical murders, what about pro-hatred supporters? Colossians 3:8 “But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” Once we accept a new citizen to the U.S., by birth or by naturalization, are we not all national brothers and sisters irrespective of religious denomination? 1 John 3:15 “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” Is economic inequality biblically justified? Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent perversion of justice and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter; for high official watches over high official, and higher officials are over them. I personally don't believe abortion is only a woman's right to choose. I also don't believe a woman who has been raped or subject to incest or whose life is in danger should be forced to bear the child. Christianity should not be about screaming biblical verses at the top of one's lungs and calling for war against others. Christianity should be about deep reflection on how to build positive bridges during challenging times. Most especially, SELF CONTROL Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” https://lnkd.in/dfsPT7Wa

Are leftists more likely to convert to religious belief or are rightists? “Today, however, those on the left are especially hardened to Christian teachings, and evangelicals’ overtures yield radically decreasing dividends. In the negative world, preferential treatment of the woke is less a strategy for changing the world than for signaling one’s obeisance to power. Moreover, privileging the left evangelistically undermines outreach to those who are more open to the gospel. To be clear, I do not believe this means we should abandon hope of reaching those on the left. What I am proposing is that we recalibrate our methods and emphases. Today, centrists and those on the right are more fertile soil, I believe, because they are more open to reality. They recognize that the cultural revolutionaries’ projects to rewrite reality are destroying civilization. These refugees crave clarity about basic moral realities because of how much confusion the negative world has produced. They are looking for voices who stand up to the civilizational destroyers—maybe even voices who boldly proclaim supernatural truths. Like the “god-fearers” that early church missionaries often targeted, we today need to consider the “reality-respecters” in our mission. It appears that a harvest is ripening.”

Chenault, John, "Western Christianity and the origins of antiblackness, eurocentrism, and white supremacist ideology." (2022). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 3835. https://lnkd.in/gnXd97Ff Abstract: This qualitative study investigates the cult(ural) and intellectual history of Western Christianity to address a significant gap in the literature about the origins of whiteness/antiblackness in the West and its subsequent socialization worldwide. Western Christianity’s seminal role in the social construction of the whiteness/antiblackness dichotomy has been undertheorized, neglected, and ignored. This study finds early Christian theologians categorically imposed conceptual metaphors about Blackness on African people that depicted them as the exemplars of evil to teach Christian doctrine about sin and salvation. It connects these original antiblack discourses directly to the theo-political arguments Western European Christians used centuries later to justify African hereditary enslavement, western colonialism, and the ethos and polity of white supremacy. It contends that this identical rhetoric currently facilitates the relegation and confinement of African Americans post-emancipation to a permanent racial underclass that constitutes an afterlife of slavery in its perpetuation of colonial-era structures of exploitation and oppression. It concludes by finding whiteness/antiblackness, i.e., white supremacy, is a form of religion, the belief system of a cult based on White Christian animus to symbolic blackness that is directed at real Africans and their descendants worldwide. In closing, it recommends re-envisioning the global “Black” struggle as a struggle for re-existence It thus calls for Africana peoples to reject Western Christianity’s symbolic blackness and re-imagine Africana identities with a self-awareness and social consciousness able to defeat the gravitational pull of the massive “white” hole of White Christian Supremacy and the negative valence of whiteness/antiblackness it manifests and maintains. Author's Keywords Christianity; monotheism; whiteness; white supremacy; anti-blackness; eurocentrism