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Yep. And it's not a historical faith, it's a faith invented about 50 years ago by James Dobson and a bunch of Republicans who wanted to gain power for themselves. "Christian conservatism" is a cult, but led by some of the least charismatic people imaginable.
James Dobson started out fairly normal (relatively speaking) in the 1970s as a Christian Psychologist. My parent’s version of “the talk” for me and my sisters were audiocassettes by him about human sexuality from the late 70s/early 80s. Don’t remember much of the details, but I do recall he thought sexual fantasies were normal and had zero issue with masturbation.
He got more and more fundie over the decades, and dove into politics. It is easy to say that Dobson and his evangelical contemporaries are hugely responsible for making evangelicalism the christofascist nightmare that it is today, but having been on the inside, it’s way worse than that.
They’re the inevitable child of a religious culture that idolizes the god-given, white colonialist-settled US and necessarily creates cults of personality around “godly” men.
You're right that it's more complicated than that. But I thought it was well understood that he was working behind the scenes from the beginning to intentionally craft the narrative of a paternalistic, aggressive faith that was pro-war and anti-government. Is that not your understanding? Because Phyllis Schlafly preceded him and she was definitely in that same vein.
I might have the causality a little bit off, though. Most of my information comes from Kristin Du Mez's work, but it's been a while so I might be misremembering parts of it. I grew up in evangelicalism, but in the late 80s and 90s when everything was pretty well humming along toward Trump or somebody like him—even though we didn't know it yet.
I also forgot to mention how all of that was building on the racist work of antebellum preachers who said that freedom for slaves was essentially an early sign of the apocalypse and certainly the end of the world was coming soon (that's more or less the way that the Rapture, which was a fringe theology up to that point, became popularized). It was then that American Christianity went from being mostly outward-focused in daily life and insular in ways of politics to being insular in daily life and outward-focused in ways for politics.
In any case, it was a gross history constructed by people trying to gain power for themselves and the Republican party. I do know that the big turning point came when they decided to come out against abortion specifically because they thought Jimmy Carter was too popular among Christians.
We’re on the same page, friend. I suppose my point is that the self-appointed leaders of white evangelicalism past and present got where they are by a feedback loop between themselves and their followers. You can only sell something like hotcakes if people want what’s on offer. People wanted justification for slavery, they got it. People wanted justification for persecution of secularist jews, they got the Red Scare and McCarthyism. I’d argue that the modern christofascism has its roots most directly in McCarthyism. The John Birch Society is a white Christian nationalist organization that had its heyday in the 50s and early 60s, but really just was giving people what they wanted. A quick fix of endorphins that comes from defining and hating an evil other.
Indeed, absolutely on the same page. I've heard it said before that God's harshest judgement is to give people what they want.