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Dealing with “Christian” Extremism and Hatred in America

Dealing with “Christian” Extremism and Hatred in America

Last updated on: October 3, 2024 at 10:12 am by Ginny Baxter

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Dealing with “Christian” Extremism and Hatred in America 2024-10-03T10:12:11-04:00 Ginny Baxter

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The nation’s most extreme right-wing “Christians” have tapped into our deepest fears and prejudices, hijacked the Christian faith and attempted to overturn a legitimate secular election. As we vote once again, will we tolerate this behavior or not? Can we not find a better way to deal with “Christian” extremism and hatred in America?

Christ warns us, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). And God the Father commands, “Don’t worship or serve idols of any kind, because I, the LORD, am your God” (Exodus 20:4-5).

Yet, people who call themselves Christians are the very ones who are serving false gods and disobeying God the most.

Three Perspectives on America’s Crises

Three books that look at 21st-century America and suggest ways of dealing with “Christian” extremism and hatred are:

Christians Against Christianity… by religious scholar and best-selling author Obery M. Hendricks Jr.
The False White Gospel… by American theologian and author Jim Wallis
The Violent Take It By Force by author and religious scholar Matthew D. Taylor

Christians Against Christianity

In his book Christians Against Christianity: How Right-Wing Evangelicals Are Destroying Our Nation and Our Faith, religious scholar Obery M. Hendricks Jr., charges America’s right-wing evangelicals with “destroying our nation and our faith.”

Hendricks is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and teaches at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York. He presents his case against these religious extremists by:

Exposing their lies and contradictions
Pointing out their misuse of Scripture
Looking at their intense homophobia
Uncovering the “poorly veiled racism” that exists within the Moral Majority, Focus on Family, Christian Coalition and other evangelical organizations
Examining the right-wing’s demonization of immigrants and Muslims
Exposing their ungodly alliance with big business
Condemning their undying support for their unrepentant, immoral and non-Christian leader, Donald Trump

Faux Christians & Christianity

Hendricks likens far-right leaders to “court jesters,” “hypocritical priestly sycophants” and “faux Christians” and describes Christianity in 21st century America as:

A travesty. A brutal sham, a tragic charade, a cynical deceit. Why? Because the loudest voices in American Christianity today – those of right-wing evangelicals – shamelessly spew a putrid stew of religious ignorance and political venom that is poisoning our society, making a mockery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

He makes an excellent case against America’s far-right extremists, who corrupt the Christian faith and seek to destroy the nation. He accuses them of:

Worshipping false gods such as Christian nationalism, partisan politics and Donald Trump, who “has perhaps debased Christianity in America more than anyone before him”
Fostering racism through their white supremacist and Christian nationalist beliefs
Rejecting social justice and falsely asserting that “social justice presents an onslaught of dangerous, false teachings that threaten the gospel”
Championing hatred towards gays (Hendricks concludes that the Bible is “simply too ambiguous and the supporting evidence too slim” for us to condemn same-sex relationships. He argues that “nothing gives anyone the right to make gay men and women objects of hatred, ridicule, violence and exclusion…. No one can demonize homosexual people and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ too.”)
Debasing immigrants and Muslims
Being selective in the biblical passages they cite and “spewing avalanches of anti-Islamic malevolence”
Being hypocritical about abortion (The author explains, “If evangelicals were really ‘pro-life’ and not just obsessed with the unborn, they would be similarly filled with righteous indignation over the massive social injustices that bedevil our nation and our world.”)

My take on these issues is that God has not made any human being the judge and jury over any other human beings. God is our judge. Period. End of story.

Remnants of Christian Decency

Hendricks slams the right-wing’s support of gun ownership and their alliance with the National Rifle Association. He believes the U.S. faces the real possibility of losing what remnants of Christian decency are left.

The day of reckoning is upon us, he says.

He defends social justice as a vital outcome of Christ’s teachings, looks at current politics in light of those teachings and asks Christians to consider whether politics shapes Christianity or Christianity shapes politics.

The author also questions how right-wing evangelicals can openly support beliefs that are “essentially antithetical to the message of Jesus Christ.” He concludes that evangelical radicals “succumbed to… the spirit of the antichrist.”

A Plague of Lies, A Harvest of Hate

Hendricks isn’t referring to the antichrist found in Revelation. He’s referring to an ideology that “cynically distorts the teachings of Christ – in the name of Christ – to serve their selfish interests.”

He is especially contemptuous of the deal that white Christian nationalists have made with the devil (Donald Trump). The deal is that these extremists will defend Trump’s never-ending lies, hate-mongering, immorality and attacks on our democracy. In return, Trump will support their agenda, which is to control American society.

“For this they chose to ignore all that Jesus has taught,” Hendricks writes. “In God’s name they have visited upon our nation a plague of lies, a harvest of hate, the rotted fruit of unchecked corruption and moral chaos,” he says.

“For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.”

Hendricks has no illusions about dealing with “Christian” extremism and hatred. However he does not explain what true Christians can do about right-wing evangelicalism in the U.S. However, he has identified and condemned the problem and leaves us to find solutions.

The False White Gospel

The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy by American theologian, author and political activist Jim Wallis asks a basic question of people who call themselves Christians: Do you or don’t you believe in Christ’s teachings?

Wallis calls Americans to action in dealing with “Christian” extremism and hatred. He says it is distorting the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy, and white evangelicals need to dismantle it now.

He believes we should answer the extreme right wing’s fear-mongering, hatred and violence with love, healing and hope. He tells us that Americans’ ability to learn or re-learn the Bible’s message of “love thy neighbor” will determine the future of democracy in the U.S.

The Violent Take It By Force Movement

A new book by religious scholar and author Matthew D. Taylor — The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy — revisits the attempt to overturn the 2020 election and looks at the role played by Christian nationalism, Donald Trump and a little-known movement called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).

Taylor is an author and senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, MD. His specific areas of expertise are the evangelical and Pentecostal movements, religion and U.S. politics, Muslim-Christian dialogue and American Islam. He has written about those subjects and produced a highly acclaimed audio-documentary series called Charismatic Revival Fury: The New Apostolic Reformation.

The New Apostolic Reformation

Taylor says the NAR is an extremely dangerous organization that planned and unleashed the Jan. 6 uprising. It intended to destroy American democracy and create a “Christian” dictatorship in the U.S.

NAR was the brainchild of the late C. Peter Wagner, a missionary, writer and professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary. According to a progressive media organization named Salon, “Wagner became convinced that he was an apostle” who was called to instigate a global Christian revival and gain control over every nation on earth.

Wagner thought the NAR, like the Protestant Reformation, would give way to a new branch of Christianity that had a lasting impact on the world. In the last three decades, it grew from an obscure right-wing fringe group into a powerful worldwide organization that “has radicalized U.S. and world politics….” and fixated “on visions of taking over society” Salon says.

“They really believe that they’re this vanguard that God had placed on Earth to bring about the Kingdom of God,” according to Taylor.

Never mind that God doesn’t need or want our help.

Dire Consequences

Taylor explains that the New Apostolic Reformation’s so-called prophets and apostles are “central to the MAGA movement.” They have positioned themselves at the center of mainstream Republican politics and taken control of America’s right-wing evangelical movement.

The author calls on conservative Christians who haven’t embraced Christian nationalism, as well as liberal Christians, non-Christian faith communities, atheists and others to speak out against the New Apostolic Reformation.

“It’s a duty for Christians to face when our fellow Christians go off the rails and become harmful,” he says. And “it’s important for atheists and non-Christians to speak up, because their rights are going to be more infringed upon by Christian supremacists….”

Taylor explains, “A lot of the dialogue that needs to happen is a theological conversation. Part of the challenge here is that it’s not simply politics or power that is driving this dynamic. Theology is also very much in the mix. I’m okay with that because the consequences are so dire.”

My Two-Cents Worth

Many Americans claim that the U.S. is a Christian nation, but are we? When half of the country is filled with hatred against immigrants, people of color, gays and others in the LGBTQ community, and anyone else who is “different,” I look at America and Americans, and I think of Christ’s words in Matthew 7:21:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven…. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

God help us all!

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