Straight White American Jesus

Brad and Dan discuss three stories from this week that show American conservatism is over - and what is taking its place is a right-wing totalitarianism that should scare us all.

They begin by discussing new material on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who it seems is willing to hold the country hostage by not raising the debt limit in order to get what he wants in the form of cutting certain government programs. Brad and Dan use this to delve into the shift from classical conservative ideals to radical burn-it-down-ism over the last two decades.

Brad then provides a brief profile of Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. She is the perfect example of how the contemporary American Right operates on the basis of grievance and revenge, rather than conservative principles. She is also a frontrunner to be Trump's VP pick if he runs in 2024.

They finish with the most important story of the day - an article from the Federalist that argues the following:

Put bluntly, if conservatives want to save the country they are going to have to rebuild and in a sense re-found it, and that means getting used to the idea of wielding power, not despising it. Why? Because accommodation or compromise with the left is impossible. One need only consider the speed with which the discourse shifted on gay marriage, from assuring conservatives ahead of the 2015 Obergefell decision that gay Americans were only asking for toleration, to the never-ending persecution of Jack Phillips.

The left will only stop when conservatives stop them, which means conservatives will have to discard outdated and irrelevant notions about “small government.” The government will have to become, in the hands of conservatives, an instrument of renewal in American life — and in some cases, a blunt instrument indeed.

This isn't conservative. It's a call to a totalitarian government.

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In the previous episode, Dan decoded the affirmation that Christians are called not to “live in a spirit of fear,” showing that this affirmation actually masks a pervasive culture of fear. In that episode, he looked at the dynamics and effects of this affirmation within the spiritual and religious experience of individuals and particular congregations. In this episode, he continues that work, looking at how this culture of fear spills out from individuals and congregations, taking form the Christian nationalism and culture wars that currently engulf our society. As with individuals and congregations, and despite all the movement’s protestations to the contrary, we can see that this Christian nationalism is a social embodiment of pervasive fear.

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Brad links last's week's episode on Christianity as the original American purity culture to the argument made in a new book by Stephen Wolfe - "The Case for Christian Nationalism." In the book and in his public comments, Wolfe makes an argument like this:

In Brad's mind, this is a stone's throw from ethno-nationalism - and it creates an impulse to see those who are not White, Christian, straight, patriarchal, and native-born as less than - as deserving less love - and as potentially the threats against which real Americans would defend themselves in the name of God and country. Despite the high theological language, it's White ethno-nationalism - at a time when Kanye West and Donald Tr*mp are making anti-Semitic remarks.

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Brad and Dan begin by discussing the final J6 hearing. Brad focuses on the new information that the Secret Service had tips about potential violence on J6 as early as December. They then discuss the released footage of Pelosi, Schumer, et al trying to get military and law enforcement help as the Capitol was under siege.

In the second segment Dan breaks down the verdict in the Alex Jones case. He zeroes in on how the GOP has reacted to the news by playing the victim - as if Alex Jones did nothing wrong and should not be held to account.

In the final segment, Brad discusses Kanye West's anti-Semitism and how it reveals a larger issue in this country: the casual acceptance of everyday anti-Semitism - as well as Christian nationalist's infatuation with Israel, but little regard for Jewish people.

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One of the central admonitions within theologically conservative American Christianity is that Christians are not defined by a “spirit of fear.” What does this mean? Where does this way of talking come from? And what are its effects? Dan answers these questions in this first of paired episodes on this topic, decoding this language to reveal what’s really going on with this insistence on not experiencing fear in the Christian life.

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Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC

Order Brad's book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163

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Brad does a preview from a key chapter in his new book. He argues that we should see purity culture - the movement for sexual purity in every way that swept through evangelical spaces in the 1990s - as an outworking of Christian nationalism. For Brad, Christian nationalism is the original purity culture because Christian nationalism is about creating and sustaining a pure nation - a nation that is ordered the right way with White Christians in power and everyone else knowing their place on the margins. Christian nationalism wants a pure national body. Purity culture is the attempt to create that nation by purifying teenage flesh from not only sexual licentiousness, but also all the elements that might make the national body impure - queerness, mixed races, and foreigners.

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Brad and Dan begin by discussing the revelations about Herschel Walker, GOP candidate for US Senate in Georgia, paying for an abortion for an ex-girlfriend. What interests them is how this event (like others) reveals the power-at-all-costs worldview of the GOP and the Christian nationalists at the heart of the party. Such events also show how any criticism of GOP Christians is perceived as persecution - as if they are targets of spiritual warfare, rather than public figures being asked about incoherencies between their actions and policy positions.

In the next segment Brad zeroes in on the reactions the American Right had to Lizzo playing James Madison's flute. His analysis focuses on the theme of racial retribution and a reduction of the world to an us-vs-them mentality.

In the final segment the hosts discuss the similarities among Brazil's Bolsonaro, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and the newly elected Giorgia Meloni in Italy. While they may not be political allies formally, they use similar strategies to foment fear and anxiety in their supporters.

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Theologically and culturally conservative American Christians actively mock “liberal” or “progressive” or “secular” appeals to “safety” in society. And yet, the rhetoric of safety, and the related idea of “health,” have penetrated deeply into this religious culture. One the surface, these emphases represent a more inviting, less judgmental form of spirituality. But in this episode, Dan decodes this language to show that, beneath that appearance, this rhetoric harbors judgment and resentments that actively endanger huge numbers of people and that lead to lasting negative mental and emotional health consequence.

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Brad is joined by scholars Jill-Hicks Keeton and Cavan Concannon to talk about their new book: "Does Scripture Speak for Itself: The Museum of the Bible and the Politics of Interpretation. "

https://books.google.com/books/about/Does_Scripture_Speak_for_Itself.html?id=f3iwzgEACAAJ

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC is arguably the latest example of a long line of white evangelical institutions aiming to amplify and promote a religious, political, and moral agenda of their own. Jill Hicks-Keeton and Cavan Concannon show how the Museum's exhibits reinforce a particularized and partial interpretation of the Bible's meaning. The authors reveal how the MOTB produces a version of the Bible that in essence authorizes a certain sort of white evangelical privilege; promotes a view of history aligned with that same evangelical aspiration; and above all protects a cohort of white evangelicals from critique.

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Brad and Dan are in the same room! Recording SWAJ in person! It's the first time since 2019 and so they take the opportunity to do a primer on all things SWAJ: the origin story of the show, the rundown of all the series they've done in the past and are planning for the future, the books they've written, the live event coming up in Denver, and why Brad is a California cliche and Dan is a walking dad joke.

Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/

Dan's 1st book: https://www.dupress.duq.edu/products/the-myth-of-normative-secularism-politics-and-religion-in-the-democratic-homeworld

Brad's 1st book: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-sacrality-of-the-secular/9780231183925

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