Straight White American Jesus

While the bill in Florida has received more attention, South Carolina has its own Don't Say Gay bill on the docket. The bill would prevent instruction, presentations, discussions, counseling, or materials in any medium”that involve LGBTQ+ identities. It would prevent queer teachers fro being out to their students because that would constitute discussing such matters. It would prevent teachers from affirming or supporting queer students, offering them materials, or even assigning books that mention gender or sexuality.

Taryn Auerbach is a queer educator in South Carolina. She shares with Brad the devastating effects this bill would have on her and her students.

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Brad and Dan discuss a wide range of topics— from GOP voter fraud to Madison Cawthorn calling Zelenskyy a thug, to Don’t Say Gay Bills—through the lens of the idea that Christian nationalism is about order and violence. The takeaway: whether it’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights, or democracy itself— Christian nationalists will use violence to achieve the societal order they want. 

Also: Trump says to bomb Russia and say China did it. 

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Produced by Brad Onishi and Dan Miller

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Why can it be so apparent to us that people’s political behavior or social views are a reflection of their group identity, but they will insist that they’re group identity has no impact on these areas of their life? Or why do we have such a strong sense that we hold the social views we do or behave politically as we do because of who we are as individuals, when we know that people are shaped by their group identities? This episode explores these questions and outlines the relation between individual identity and group identity, arguing that an understanding of this dynamic is crucial for thinking about identity and identity politics.

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Why are American Christians rooting for Putin? How did the Russian autocrat become the ideal leader in their eyes? Brad speaks to Dr. Sara Riccard Swartz, an expert on Russian Orthodoxy and American religions, about her brand new book, "Between Heaven and Russia": https://www.fordhampress.com/9780823299515/between-heaven-and-russia/

Historically a minority immigrant faith in the United States, Russian Orthodoxy is attracting Americans who look to Russian religion and politics for answers to Western secularism and the loss of traditional family values in the face of accelerating progressivism. These converts sought and found a conservatism more authentic than Christian American Republicanism and a nationalism unburdened by the broken promises of American exceptionalism. Ultimately, both converts and the Church that welcomes them deploy the subversive act of adopting the ideals and faith of a foreign power for larger, transnational political ends.

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/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC

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

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Brad and Dan begin by discussing the recent AFPAC conference, where the far-right figure Nick Fuentes compared Putin to Hitler in a positive way, while giving a speech full of racial and ethnic slurs. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar attended the conference--and Greene gave an address after being introduced by Fuentes. Dan unpacks the historic significance of this chapter in the GOP's intimacy with what are essentially Neo-Nazi White supremacists, while Brad compares Greene's remarks to the KKK of the 1920s.

Interview with Kelly J. Baker: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/PPY9950636314?selected=PPY8028158396

In the second segment, Brad investigates the responses of QAnon adherents and other conspiracists to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. He links the polarization and instability in our public square back to Russia's cyber warfare during the 2016 presidential election.

The show wraps with reflection on what these issues mean in light of the news that the J6 Select Committee has evidence to prosecute Trump and close allies for various crimes related to January 6th.

Center for Trauma Resolution and Recovery: https://www.traumaresolutionandrecovery.com/

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/

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

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What do we mean when we talk about “recognition”? What is it to recognize someone in their identity? What is it to recognize ourselves in a particular way? What happens when someone doesn’t recognize me in the way I identify myself? What happens when I don’t recognize someone others in the way they recognize themselves? This episode explores the complex dynamics of recognition and the significance of identity and recognition for understanding our current cultural politics.

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/

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Brad speaks with the Danté Stewart about his journey into, and then out of, the White Church. Stewart grew up a Black Pentecostal until he reached university. There he began attending a White megachurch. He spent years in White churches convinced that the Jesus worshipped there--one coded as a White American, as superior to the one found in the Black church, as the true and right way to be a Christian and an American--was saving him from his own blackness. The murder of Trayvon Martin, the election of Donald Trump, the massacre of the Charleston 9--these events and more slowly opened his eyes to the way White Jesus had made him anti-black.

Danté Stewart's Shoutin' in the Fire: An American Epistle: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672938/shoutin-in-the-fire-by-dante-stewart/

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/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC

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

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Music by Documentary

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Brad and Dan discuss Putin's war on Ukraine and the Christian nationalist/GOP responses at home. They focus the first segment on how the only people on the global stage defending Putin openly are Donald Trump and select politicians and leaders from the GOP. This leads to an exploration of the Christians who admit that they identify more with Putin's Christian values than Joe Biden's leadership.

Link to Brad's interview on Putin and American Christian nationalists: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/im-a-fascist/id1441649707?i=1000519920471

Video of Lauren Witzske praising Putin: https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1496937857839153168

The second segment explores the frightening anti-trans legislation at play in Texas.

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/

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

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This episode explores the concern that people act against their own social or political interests because of their identity. Because they privilege their identity, they oppose political, social, or economic policies that would be beneficial to them. Dan argues that this is a mistaken conception, and that we have to recognize that identity and interests are entangled with each other in complex ways. Changing how we understand the relationship between identity and interests is the key to advancing transformative politics.

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/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC

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

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Produced by Brad Onishi and Dan Miller

Edited by Shannon Sassone

Music by Matt Puckett

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*Correction*: "Jeff" says that Locke's church is in McMinnville, TN. It is in fact in Mt. Juliet TN. Brad didn't catch it in the conversation. Both he and Jeff were a bit tense--wanting to get the story right and bring listeners into the scene, without giving away Jeff's identity. Our apologies.

Brad speaks with a man he calls Jeff (identity hidden) who went undercover at the book burning led by Pastor Greg Locke. The book burning happened ominously in the wake of the banning of Art Spiegelman's acclaimed graphic novel on the Holocaust "Maus" in a nearby school district.

Jeff wrote an article on the event: https://leftcoastrightwatch.org/2022/02/pro-coup-tennessee-pastor-holds-anti-masonic-anti-disney-bonfire/

Here is an excerpt:

In between threatening to kick in Dunkin Donuts employees teeth and refusing to follow his own dictates opposing divorce, Greg Locke is a pastor at Global Vision Bible Church (formerly Global Vision Baptist Church.) It takes little to find offensive comments on from him.

“Your kid could be demonized and attacked, but your doctor calls it autism.”

“Transgenderism is not a civil right. It’s not normal, it’s anti-biblical. And I’m sorry, just because I have morals and values that does not make me a discriminatory bigot. I’m sick of the day and age in which we live when people call good evil and evil they call good.”

Recently Locke also put out more serious calls to join things like the Black Robe Regiment, a far-right nationalist group of pastors that advocates preaching a “patriotic view” of American politics. Locke’s idea of patriotism meant encouraging his followers to attend the January 6th insurrection during sermons and railing in support of Trump’s lies about election fraud. But Locke also calls for more local forms of violence. Recently, he organized burnings of so-called “demonic” items like the Harry Potter and Twilight children’s/young adult books from almost two decades ago. LCRW attended one incognito on Wednesday last week and will tell the tale later.

Burning books isn’t new to Greg Locke. In 2019 he jumped to twitter to post a video of himself burning a book titled “The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American.”

Locke’s beliefs are firmly rooted in Christian Fundamentalism. The church he leads, Global Vision Bible Church, originally identified itself with the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement (IFB)—one of the most conservative groups of Christians in the nation. He dissociated from the IFB in mid 2011, claiming that the leadership of the movement had tried to pressure him into taking on a “legalistic mindset of man-made regulations.” Locke claims he pledged to remain amicable with the IFB despite parting ways. Incidentally, in 2019 in Knoxville an IFB pastor and sheriff’s detective called for the trial and summary execution of queer people.

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/

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC

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

SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron

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Produced by Brad Onishi

Edited by Shannon Sassone

Music by Matt Puckett

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices