Lone Ranger Christians and Community Dreams

Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Donald Trump: the unholy union of religion and power

Salted generously throughout his book One Nation Under God, Princeton historian Kevin M. Kruse repeatedly states one important phrase: “Christian Libertarianism.” The form of highly public Christianity Americans embraced, beginning around 1940, didn’t derive from St. Paul, Augustine, Luther, or Wesley. It came specifically, Kruse writes, from corporate salesmen and PR agencies, and it existed explicitly to reject the collectivism of FDR’s New Deal, and later, big-C Communism.

This creates a paradox, which Kruse doesn’t explicate (he’s an historian, not a philosopher), but which this Christian cannot ignore: millions of American Christians linking hands, in organized unity, to demand individualism and self-reliance. The massive groundswell of solidarity needed to espouse this kind of libertarianism makes my temporal lobe burn. “We’re stronger together,” such Christians insist, “even if what we’re doing together is demanding complete separation and egocentricity!”

Dressing such borderline narcissism in Christian vestments strikes me as weird, initially. Christian scripture is festooned with references to believers as a unified collective. “I will walk among you and be your God,” says Leviticus 26:12, “and you will be my people.” Likewise, in Hebrews 8:10 we find: “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” As Black slaves sang in America: “When Israel was in Egypt Land, Let my people go.”

Perhaps it’s because we’ve lost much original Biblical language. As Hebraicist Lois Tverberg writes, standard English lacks a second-person plural pronoun, a feature in both Hebrew and Greek. Both Moses and Jesus repeatedly address believers with a plural “you,” a term perhaps best translated with the American regionalism “y’all.” Very seldom did either leader address believers with a singular “you,” unless speaking directly and specifically with an individual.

The version of Christianity peddled aggressively in contemporary America endorses the idea that faith gives Christians complete license to act individually. We’ve witnessed this phenomenon with self-proclaimed Christians who use Christianity to justify rapacious capitalism. Recently, public Christians like Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Franklin Graham (son of Billy, whom Kevin M. Kruse cites extensively) have thrown their religious bona fides behind that notorious sinner, Donald Trump.

Historian Kevin M. Kruse

Fact is, the Bible comprehensively rejects Lone Ranger religion. The Hebrew prophets almost never condemn, or even address, individuals; they stress the entire people’s need to get right with YHWH. Jesus separates “his people” from the political state, even placing his movement in opposition to priesthoods and aristocracies, but he still requires the apostles to feed the multitudes collectively. We cannot save ourselves, Christianity avers; we must act in common.

Let me stress, I’m no advocate of big-C Communism. History and sociology stand robustly against Communist precepts, which actively attempt to abolish local knowledge and adaptability. Perhaps the greatest reason I distrust Communism, though, is its reliance on bigness. Mass movements which seek to establish or accrue power, from revolutions to political parties to PR operations, inevitably oppose the common humanity of individuals. They reduce us all to interchangeable parts.

This includes, ironically enough, libertarianism. Though big-L Libertarianism was founded by nudists, pot farmers, and Star Trek fans, the inevitable outcome of mass deregulation is almost inevitably the sweatshop factory. Christian libertarians generally believe that, if human laws are rescinded, God’s law will elevate the faithful, both spiritually and economically. But the actual denouement of soft regulation has historically been the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire.

Therefore my position pits me between extremes. Neither Soviet-style authoritarian collectivism, nor cowboy libertarianism, actually elevates most people, because both encourage selfish, violent narcissists to hoard wealth and authority. Both of these positions deny the human soul, and thus both deny God. Where, then, must the faithful, Bible-believing Christian land on the curve? Is there any available solution?

Certainly. Many Christians, from historic heroes like Dietrich Bonhoeffer to living innovators like Shane Claiborne, have bequeathed us the blueprints they used to build, or co-build, models of Christian community. These communities are bound together by shared values, a sense of mission—including political mission—and the belief that we’re in this struggle together. Most importantly for our purposes, though, these communities are small, and therefore don’t require either leadership or anarchy.

I cannot read Christian scripture without it reminding me how innately countercultural the faith initially is. Christ embraced lepers, prostitutes, and foreigners, while directing legendary wrath upon priests and potentates. But the only time he acted alone, was when he allowed himself to be arrested and dragged before Pilate. If we call ourselves Christ’s followers, we’d do well to remind ourselves: we may die alone, but we only live together.

In God We Trust, Sort Of

1001 Books To Read Before Your Kindle Battery Dies, Part 109
Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America

The words “under God” weren’t added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954; “In God We Trust” didn’t become America’s national motto until 1956. This seems hard to believe. Literally so, as, speaking to a colleague who’s my own age recently, he admitted he thought these had simply always been part of America’s heritage. God has been part of America’s rhetoric so long, it’s tough to imagine a time He wasn’t so prominent.

According to Princeton historian Kevin M. Kruse, this difficulty isn’t accidental. An elaborate campaign was waged to create the impression, not only that America is a uniquely Christian nation, but that it’s always been so. And while many Americans realize public Christianity has roots in the Cold War, Kruse suggests the campaign began much earlier than that. He definitely agrees, though, that public Christianity is a battle for America’s soul.

Early proponents of American Christianity definitely had an agenda to push. They specifically saw Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal platform as un-American, and undermining morals of libertarian independence and free enterprise. They saw steering America toward more conservative politics as a moral enterprise. But, as captains of industry themselves, they couldn’t openly push such ethics. So they enlisted Christianity as their patriotic moral platform.

Kruse identifies three public evangelists who participated in this public-spirited revival: James Fifield, Abraham Vereide, and Billy Graham. These three very different theologians had their particular approaches to pushing public religiosity (as distinct from religion) in America. They shared several important goals, however, and just as important, they shared contacts inside American industry. Thus they saw American capitalism and Christianity traveling hand-in-glove through history.

Beyond a handful of public preachers, however, the Christian ascendency of the 1940s and 1950s wasn’t pushed by clergy. It mostly came from a consortium of industrialists, PR agencies, and A-list Hollywood entertainers. Much of America’s postwar religious revival was coordinated by, or with the aid of, two Hollywood executives not always associated with religion: Walt Disney and Cecil B. DeMille. No wonder mid-century churches sometimes looked like the movies.

Kevin M. Kruse

This tightly organized revivalism didn’t always go how its capitalist supporters intended, Kruse writes. They pushed Christianity as an antidote to small-S socialism and FDR’s regulatory state. But they recruited a figurehead they couldn’t necessarily control, in Dwight Eisenhower. Once Ike got elected President, he really believed the Christian message he’d carried into Washington, and governed by it. He had little interest in his backers’ economic agenda, to their horror.

But while pushing Christianity proved a successful political strategy nationwide, cracks quickly began appearing locally. Schoolhouse prayers, written by school boards to appear as nonsectarian as possible, managed to offend unbelievers by being too religious, and angered True Believers by being too secular. While monied interests pushed bland, homogenized religion from above, grassroots opposition began resisting public Christianity from below. Conflict was both inevitable, and heartbreaking.

As a Christian myself, I was most struck by how many "religious" reforms happened, not because of, but in spite of seminarians and clergy. As Kruse acknowledges relatively late, Christian clergy are often more progressive than their lay parishioners. This led to friction through the 1960s, as laypeople and ministers took opposing sides in the developing culture wars. Many of these wide divisions remain in place today.

Reading Kruse’s account, it’s difficult to avoid recognizing how many threads he describes, remain active in American life today. The political strain of public Christianity, which Kruse calls “Christian libertarianism,” looms large in today’s Religious Right, with its emphasis on wedge issues and individual salvation. Public Christianity also faces persistent identity problems: many Americans like the idea of shared Christianity, but turn squishy when you pin them down theologically.

Kruse doesn’t attempt an overarching religious history of America. He focuses on one specific aspect of public religiosity, within a narrow timeframe, mostly from 1940 to 1970. His principal question isn’t whether American Christianity is true, or whether it means anything to individual believers. Rather, he cares deeply about how Americans came to believe we have a rare religious national calling. That calling proves to be spiritual snake oil.

Religious salesmen pushed a specific kind of Christianity, a soft Calvinist self-help spirituality. (Kruse uses the word “Presbyterian” frequently.) But as Kevin Kruse unpacks the paper trail those salesmen have left throughout history, he reveals an underlying message which many Christians may be reluctant to buy. Public Christians often talk a good game, but as Kruse reveals in their own words, your soul frequently isn’t their number one priority.

The Culture War Comes To Nebraska

Saturday, September 5th, 2020, was a particularly bad day in America for Republican political optics. The same day that five small craft sank during a “boat parade” near Austin, Texas, a white Chevrolet Silverado was spotted driving around Lincoln, Nebraska, with racial vulgarities written on its back window. The reaction on social media was swift: many clickers, including Nebraskans like me, hastily expressed our outrage. Perhaps too hastily.

Makes me fucking proud to be a Nebraskan. 🤬 https://t.co/3dI2Qfy6PS

— Kevin L Nenstiel (@KLNenstiel) September 6, 2020

Nebraska is a deeply divided state. This statement can have multiple definitions. We could describe the way our two largest cities, Lincoln and Omaha, dominate the outlying state, economically and culturally. It might mean how these two slightly Democratic-leaning cities perch amid an otherwise overwhelmingly Republican-leaning state.Whenever outside investors consider sinking money in Nebraska, they seldom look outside Lincoln and Omaha.

Douglas and Lancaster counties, of which Omaha and Lincoln are respectively the dominant cities, have between them about one-third of Nebraska’s population. However, they have much more of Nebraska’s educational and financial services industries (the only doctorate-granting schools in the state are in these cities). They also have Nebraska’s media presence. The filmmakers behind About Schmidt reduced Nebraska to two parts: Omaha and Interstate 80.

The truck, photographed cruising Lincoln’s largest business district, has 34-county plates. That identifies it as Fillmore County, about an hour’s drive from Lincoln. Like most of what’s commonly called “Greater Nebraska,” Fillmore Country has an economy anchored on agriculture and light industry. As you’d probably imagine, this means it isn’t wealthy. That’s reflected in demographics: the county’s population has declined steadily, by two-thirds, since its peak in 1890.

Fillmore County is part of a larger Nebraska cultural and economic structure that’s largely been abandoned by modernity. Just as most of America’s economy and culture have concentrated in a few cities, like New York and San Francisco, Nebraska’s economy and culture have stopped at the Lincoln and Omaha city limits. The rest of the state is often fifteen years behind on technology, economic development, and demographic trends.

Someone like me sees this divide, where socioeconomic elites hoard access to life’s nice qualities in shrinking geographic enclaves, and think: we should rebel against our overlords. The financial services kings who shrink our state and starve our countryside don’t just hurt country-dwellers; they undercut their own access to healthy food grown on the soil. Nebraska’s economic caste system hurts the rich as badly, I believe, as the poor.

Many Greater Nebraska residents see it differently. Given evidence of massive economic oppression, they blame the poor and disenfranchised. As I’ve written before, many Nebraskans see themselves squeezed, not by rich urbanites, but by growing Black and Hispanic populations moving into the area, looking for work. So apparently, a rural truck owner took his message, tied to a “Trump 2020” banner, and drove it into the rich part of the state.

Apparently. But…

According to news reports, the truck’s owner denies everything categorically. He claims his vehicle was vandalized, that he’s been doxxed, and both he and his ex-girlfriend, a single mother, have been subjected to threats of violence. He only went into Lincoln for the reason most Greater Nebraskans do, to conduct commerce and while away an evening, and he got targeted with vulgar, offensive property damage for no apparent reason.

The "Sower" statue atop the Nebraska
capitol building reflects the state's
agricultural heritage

My mind boggles at the contradiction. Like many outsiders, I assumed he launched his offensive into Lincoln from outside. But did Lincolnites actually attack him, possibly for his out-of-town plates? Was this possibly not a small-town attack on perceived city elitism, but an attempt to keep the country people down? Right now we only have “he-said, they-said,” though news reports indicate nobody else reported similar vandalism, so I’m skeptical.

Joining blue-collar life in Greater Nebraska has made me deeply doubtful that America will reform itself voluntarily. As long as America’s White working class sees itself as primarily White, and working class only secondarily (or not at all), they’ll never unify against their mostly White economic oppressors. In Nebraska, where economic elites are geographically concentrated and the working class are spread out, this conflict becomes territorial as well as economic.

But the rural-urban divide has two sides. Since I moved to Nebraska in 1992, I’ve witnessed hostility run both ways: Western Nebraska cattle ranchers wear their boots and Stetsons defiantly into Lincoln and Omaha, while the state legislature repeatedly cuts funding for schools and social services in Greater Nebraska. This truck threatens to become a retread of this divide. Who you believe, may well depend on where you live.

Kevin Kline and the New(ish) Deal

1001 Movies To See Before Your Netflix Subscription Dies, Part 42
Ivan Reitman (director), Dave

William Harrison Mitchell and Dave Kovic live in completely different worlds. Though both occupy Washington, DC, President Mitchell is an angry, dishonest schemer. Humble Dave, by contrast, runs a jobs placement agency in Georgetown, and moonlights as a President Mitchell impersonator. This sideline draws official attention, because the White House needs a body double to protect Mitchell’s extramarital affairs.

Czech-born Canadian director Ivan Reitman spent the 1980s directing “Little Guy Makes Good” movies like Stripes and Ghostbusters. The 1990s, however, shifted his outlook—this movie dropped just four months into Bill Clinton’s presidency. Though Clinton superficially looked like an Ivan Reitman character come to life, his infidelities were already widely rumored, and he had a notorious off-camera temper. Reitman latched onto this duality and ran.

Dave (Kevin Kline), a natural ham with a big heart, thinks his top-level assignment is a one-night stand. However, President Mitchell (also Kline) suffers a catastrophic stroke mid-coitus with a junior White House staffer. So Chief of Staff Bob Alexander (Frank Langella) contracts Dave as the President’s stand-in, to avoid scandal. Alexander successfully corralled Mitchell’s ambitions and anger for years, so he figures a schmendrick like Dave will be easy.

White House officials take Dave on official photo ops, letting his winning smile and telegenic charm smooth passage of party-line bills. Dave is, at first, happy to let Alexander run the actual presidency. However, Alexander’s ham-fisted budget cuts soon jeopardize a project close to Dave’s heart. Turns out, Dave actually believes the optimistic message behind which President Mitchell got elected; he has no patience with Washington’s official cynicism.

So Dave does what comes naturally to him: he enlists the camera’s aide. While Bob Alexander writes policy in a locked room (and President Mitchell lies comatose in an unlisted clinic), Dave conducts Cabinet-level log-rolling sessions on primetime network news. With all American watching, Dave soon swings White House policy to match the official rhetoric. Alexander, long the power behind the throne, finds himself out in the cold.

This movie’s comments about President Clinton’s personal life, some of which seem almost prescient, could easily overshadow its comments about his policies. Clinton secured the Democratic nomination, in 1992, partly by promising to deepen and extend President Reagan’s draconian cuts to America’s social safety net. Given Clinton’s “Man From Hope” oratory, it’s easy to forget he promised “the end of welfare as we know it” during his longshot primary campaign.

Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver in Ivan Reitman's Dave

Nobody seems more surprised by Dave’s sifting priorities than First Lady Ellen Mitchell (Sigourney Weaver). Though the Mitchells maintained a unified front for the camera, Bill’s infidelities, and his willingness to compromise his principles, long since drove Ellen away. They remain married because it serves their shared ambitions: he wants power, she wants to do actual good in the world. Ellen, unaware of Bill’s stroke, suspects Dave is a chameleon.

The brewing conflict between Dave and Alexander soon reaches boiling point. Alexander has blackmail data enough to see Dave arrested, but Dave has the nation’s sympathies. Trapped in a cycle of mutually assured destruction, we only wonder which will unseat the other first. Chronic liar Alexander has the ability to destroy Dave simply by telling the truth; pathologically honest Dave finds himself keeping secrets almost as well as Alexander.

Reitman heightens his political realism by incorporating real-life figures from 1990s politics. Politicians like Tip O’Neill, Tom Harkin, and Paul Simon (not that one), provide unscripted commentary on Dave’s New Deal-esque policies. Meanwhile, outside commentators like Jay Leno and the entire McLaughlin Group provide the media response. These make it clear that Dave’s candid politics would face stark criticism in real Washington.

There’s also a critical subtext to this movie: it’s easy to sympathize with Dave. He’s uncontrived, loves children and puppies, and fights for his beliefs. But he didn’t get elected President; Bill Mitchell did, with his moral compromises and smoke-filled rooms. We like Dave, but Reitman asks us: would we vote for him? Considering what candidates we Americans habitually support, Reitman’s answer is implicit, but painfully obvious.

We Americans love bellyaching about how politicians’ rhetoric doesn’t match their actions. But we do nothing about it. Ivan Reitman throws that back on us. Dave Kovic actually accomplishes the promises we Americans claim to approve, but accomplishes them under Bill Mitchell’s name. American politics, Reitman implies, requires professionals with Jekyll-and-Hyde personalities. As long as that’s what we vote for, that’s what we’ll get.

Yet the final scene suggests we aren’t doomed. We could change; Reitman encourages us to do so.

Denial, and the Comorbidities of Politics

I won’t waste time debunking the bullshit claim that COVID-19 deaths have been inflated, and only six percent of reported deaths are authentic. Smarter critics than me have already done this. I’m more interested in what this denialism says about Americans collectively, that so many people willingly reshare this message. Why are we so reluctant to accept that this disease even exists, much less do anything about it?

Marxist critic Slavoj Žižek compares the global COVID-19 crisis to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ celebrated Five Stages of Dying. He postulates on ways we’ve passed through Denial, through Anger and Bargaining, and into Depression. How, he wonders, will society behave when we reach the Acceptance stage? But Žižek apparently overlooks one important point: the stages aren’t sequential. We can slide backward, as the Six Percenters prove we’ve backslid into Denial.

Change is hard. Changing our ways hurts, because our habits are instantiated on our brains, and changing our ways forces us to rewire our bodies, just as exercise rewires our muscles. That's why demanding people do the right thing simply because it’s right, does no good. Because people will continue doing what they do as long as they can, desperate to avoid the pain which change inevitably brings.

In life, as in dying and grief, we work desperately to avoid pain. We keep events as simple and mechanical as possible, letting ourselves think as little as necessary. But COVID-19 rejects that. America currently has a 9/11-level mortality event every two days, and our refusal to act hasn’t made it go away, just kicked the issue down the road. We’re like a patient deferring a cancer diagnosis, refusing to change the ways that made us sick.

I don’t make the cancer comparison lightly. I currently have three friends facing cancer treatment, and have witnessed, at different levels, the pain and indignity which cancer therapies force on patients. Cancer therapies are painful, degrading, and costly, but the cost of doing nothing is mortality. That’s what we’re facing collectively right now: fixing our problems will hurt, probably a lot, but avoidance will cause massive suffering and death.

Like COVID-19, cancer patients suffer comorbidities that hasten death. Looking around, it’s clear America suffers pervasive comorbidities. Racism, like cancer, turns certain parts of our bodies against one another. Likewise climate change, where our shared body, the earth, is developing a fever strong enough to broil out the infectious agent. Like chemotherapy, our various comorbidities are trying to kill us just enough to destroy the infection, and save the body.

President Trump and Dr. Fauci obviously differ on how to face the problem.

That’s why we need systemic change. Like the infected body, we cannot expect one organ to heal itself in isolation, and have it make any difference. We can’t ask individuals to not be racist, while official policies keep disadvantaged populations down. We can’t ask people to think environmentally, while our economy lives and dies based on selling and consuming hydrocarbons. Our entire body is diseased together, and needs systemic treatment.

Because change hurts. Exercise is painful, like education, like chemotherapy. And as individuals avoid cancer diagnosis, or even a prostate or gynecological exam, we collectively have deferred future social pain by avoiding facing our suffering right now. Climate change and racism and pandemic are rampant, but doing anything about them is painful, and always will be. Like an oncologist, we need to force the change, even when it hurts.

Systemic change, though, requires a functional system. Our system is dominated by two parties which effectively avoid problems for literally decades. The Democrats shun meaningful reforms for fear of causing offense, while Republicans tell their emotionally rabid base anything they want to hear. Our elected officials, fearful of losing power, are unwilling to face the near-term pain necessary to prevent the cancer spreading and killing us later.

We’ve heard the words “Constitutional Crisis” ballyhooed so much during the current administration that they’ve become banal. But the collision of racism, state violence, plague, and global warming shows us that our current Constitution, devised for a much smaller nation, just can’t address the problems we have now. We’ve lost the plot because our system no longer works, as we see demonstrated in the streets of Kenosha today.

Our administration’s response to COVID-19 has literally been to deny there’s a problem. That denial, like a patient’s refusal to accept mortality, make is more likely that we’ll die sooner. That’s compounded by our collective denial that the problem runs deeper than one administration. We need to fix the system, before it kills us all.