Rising Christian nationalism: a threat to us all

[IwantToRetire]

Article by Humanist UK, so doesn't really reflect on the impact on women although does mention abortion rights.

But I do think that our politics are far more influenced by the US, not for any deep reasons, but so much of our TV is now americanised.

And some of the fundamentalist UD christian groups have very regressive attitude towards women.

https://humanists.uk/2025/09/17/rising-christian-nationalism-a-threat-to-us-all/

Haven’t read the full the thread but if it hasn’t been mentioned already I think many of you would enjoy Justin Brierley’s podcast The surprising rebirth of the belief in God.

Has some great episodes about the right wing jumping on the Christian bandwagon and implications for both. Also just great to hear some measured and respectful debate between some really interesting philosophera, apologetics and atheists.

2 things:

Magna Carta severely limited the rights of Kings in England hundreds of years before the Enlightenment.

The execution of Charles 1 in 1649 ended the concept of devine right in England for all time.

I'm afraid this is where I roll my eyes, because "Christian Nationalism" is the latest boo-term in US Democrat circles, and even if it's a thing over there - and I suspect it's very exaggerated, the religious right has been in steep decline for a generation now - even if it's a thing over there, I really despair at the kind of Brits who insist on importing American concepts that don't have real validity here.

The Humanist Association et al are doing the same thing as those BLM protesters in Trafalgar Square chanting "hands up, don't shoot" at unarmed British cops.

Don't get me wrong, there are people on the right who also stupidly import American concepts, but the difference is that nobody really takes Carl Benjamin and his friends seriously.

The only correct response to people who say there's a rising tide of theocracy in the UK is, are you high?

I think he identified the problems that arise when poor (white) rural communities were push/pulled into overcrowded slum conditions in cities. And then he noticed the same problems/behaviours arose in poor (African American) communities that were push/pulled into overcrowded, segregated conditions in cities. Because there were similar cultural responses in both groups to that dislocation and difficult living conditions,.he seems to assume that the first group influenced the second. When really just as likely is that humans aren't that different to each other underneath and will often respond, as groups, to similar pressures in similar ways.

The conversation here has been really interesting and well balanced.

There is a danger in the line of thought that goes "Christianity teaches that all human life has value and that all humans are equal in the eyes of God. This makes Christianity unique. Therefore Christians are "better" than other people. Therefore their lives have more value (or at least have more right to exist in places like the UK/America)."

Its incredibly simplistic and I don't.think Tom Holland was arguing that point in his book. And I
I dont think the people discussing what makes Christianity worthwhile/unique on this thread were either. But it is definitely a line being pushed by some on the American right/that's spreading over here. I dont think its even Christian fundamentalism, since a lot of the people arguing along those lines don't seem to be full belief Christians themselves**. It's More a weird sort of utilitarian view of religion/Christianity. It's deeply paradoxical. Actually the very idea of "Christian Nationalism" is paradoxical
But it's definitely a thing! You see very odd people pushing it like Elon Musk or even Peter Thiel. Not your standard Bible Belt fundies.

**I also think it's a deeply miserable place to be spiritually. Atheists/agnostics are often very happy. I dont think you need to believe in God to be happy..But trying to find a rational/utilitarian reason to believe in something is an impossible task. (Cough Jordan Peterson cough)

I missed part of that off. I meant to say "well balanced in contrast to the angry insult hurling that normally happens on Twitter etc.

Definitely agree. Esp that it's so nice to have a nuanced discussion, thank God for the haven of sanity which is FWR!

Ikwym about the weird utilitarian version, which is worrying. Thiel is an evil man, close to Epstein among much else.

Otoh there is also a fundie version- I'll post some book recs a bit later on the small but somewhat worrying fundie types (who have some connection to the Thiel types).

That's a fairly modern Protestant way to look at the Bible. I think it's fairly alien to many of the older forms and Judaism as well.

Sorry, I don't quite understand (a bit tired) - do you mean that I'm interpreting the Bible to be more lenient on slavery than it actually is?

It's been some time, but as far as I recall, TS was addressing the claim that inner city black ghetto culture (gang culture, really) is the authentic black culture which came over with slaves from Africa. Often with a follow up claim that therefore it needs to be accepted or else its racist. It's usually not expressed quite the same way today but you still see the general idea in claims that, for instance, black people shouldn't be expected to be on time, or black kids in school shouldn't be expected to learn "white" math.

Sowell's claim is that is not the case that this is authentic black culture that came from Africa. His argument is that the slaves largely lost most of their African culture within a generation or two, and often what replaced it was the culture of the poor whites around them - what is sometimes referred to "Cracker" culture in the US. These people were largely descended from Scots-Irish pioneers, many of whom had been part of the underclass back in the old country. They were rural, and were not what you would consider diligent working farmers, but the kind of people who drank and sang a lot, were emotional and thought a lot of their honour, fought a lot, and only did the bare minimum of work to get by. At least that was the stereotype of them and there are some sociological studies that suggest there was some validity to that stereotype.

According to Sowell both these poor blacks and whites ended up adopting much the same religion, social values, way of life, and even language elements. Many moved North eventually to cities in mass migrations where they were often not well recieved by Northerners whatever race they happened to be.

Sowell's claim is that the problematic elements of ghetto culture are what remains of these people.

No, I am saying that making lists of things that happen in the Bible - which is a compilation of many books of many origins and of many genres - in not historically how Christians have understood what it is saying is the right way to live.

I see, I know what you mean, I think : so would you say that those laws for the Israelites in the OT are not giving an ideal for conduct, but instead giving rules for a flawed situation?

I somewhat agree.. especially for Chrisianity.

But doesn't Judaism see the OT (tho ofc it's not OT to them) as law and recommendation of how to live? Tho ofc the Talmud and others varies on how to interpret it. The rabbinical interpretations in the Talmud do seem to take slavery as a given, while limiting its harshness and encouraging freeing slaves.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_slavery

That's a great summary of the book. I read it last year and need to check it but that sounds v accurate from what I remember.

Some have questioned whether the culture of poor rural white Southerners (the ones abused as 'white trash' in books like To Kill A Mockingbird or Gone With The Wind, for those who're less familiar) would have transferred to black Southeners to that extent, especially since they surely would have spent more time with wealthy white Southerners since those were mostly the slave owners, but as I said other scholars back it up.

I remember in particular Sowell attributed the rise of the KKK in part to the growth of 'black redneck' culture in Northern cities. I haven't seen this elsewhere but I suppose it could be possible. It's an uncomfortable argument to make as it almost sounds like victim-blaming but it's quite possible to make that claim without doing that.

Ofc the claim that Ghetto culture is the 'authentic black culture' seems even worse when you compare to US immigrant Jamaicans, Nigerians etc

The only thing worse than accepting crimes like slavery is trying to justify it...

Augustine seemed to see slavery as something not good, but sort of inevitable. In the same way that in a perfect world we might not have the vast gaps between rich and poor/inequality. But it's accepted today because that's how the world is. Similar to how slavery was seen in the ancient world by the likes of Seneca.

Whereas the Atlantic slave trade was so extreme in scale and quite a new innovation for Europe. And there had been first hand accounts by then of Europeans taken into slavery by Barbary pirates and then ransomed. It seemed to become necessary at that point to justify it. Maybe there was some cognitive dissonance going on? So thats when you see arguments along the lines of:

• Christianity is uniquely a good thing. Therefore, the practice of slavery is providential because it's helping to spread Christianity/civilisation through West Africa and to the slaves themselves
• The Bible says Black people are inferior. Sons of Ham etc
• Not just the Bible but also science proves black people are inferior

People in the ancient world had slaves, but they didn't feel the need to justify slavery (except Aristotle/Plato). It just was. So there wasn't the same stigma attached. It just "was" for early Christians too. Whereas because the those involved in American chattel slavery needed a moral justification, you had a really toxic legacy of racism even after slavery had ended. The son of a freed slave could run for political office in Rome because there was no stigma. Not so the antebellum South. It actually made slavery worse. The flip side of this is, as already said, some Christians felt it went against the Christian faith and ultimately campaigned to end slavery. So that argument won in the end.

That's partly why I'm a bit wary of people trying to justify bad things/even "unchristian" things through a sort of Christian exceptionalism. That's maybe the wrong word. I think Christianity did have a positive impact on the evolution of UK democracy etc. But some in the political sphere are twisting that to justify a kind of Christian chauvinism. Or the idea that only "cultural Christians" can care about liberal democracy, human rights, "civilisation", the UK etc. I'm not expressing myself very well. But I know what I mean. It's the same thing as someone on the far left justifying sending death threats to JKR because "we are the good guys and she's the nasty hateful terf so it's OK to be hateful to her".

I definitely agree somewhat...thunk the JKR trolls comparison is too harsh though.

I do get a bit fed up at the veneration of Tom Holland's book. He made good points but I do think some were a bit overstated. As we've said, Christianity definitely encourages better attitudes to slaves but it never forbids it. If Christianity is so intrinsically and unambiguously opposed to slavery, how come slavery was so widely permitted in Christendom until the early 19th century?

Similarly, democracy. Christianity is definitely more friendly to democracy than others but full democracy still only became widespread in Europe in the mid-20th century (think of places like France etc waiting until the 1940s to give women the vote).

I also think a lot of the effects of British Christianity are more characteristics of Britain rather than Christianity. This might sound a bit garbled - what I mean is that Christianity has had very different effects in different places. Attitudes to women in say, Mexico are different from attitudes in France. British colonialism, while brutal at times, was far far less so than French, German or Belgian. Yet these countries were all Christian. Obviously 20th century Ireland is a very disturbing example of Cathlocism getting out of hand in a way it hasn't in other Catholic countries, at least not to the same extent. Christianity did not prevent the rise of dictatorships and genocide in Germany, Italy, Spain etc in fact, in Spain for instance much of the Church cravenly kowtowed to Franco.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that Christianity has influenced all of Europe, and the very particular way Britain (or more specifically England) has developed isn't JUST applicable to Christianity, or even Protestant Christianity for that matter.

False equivalency -I think you have to differentiate between state-imposed communist atheism and just a not-very-religious country.

Communist leaders like Mao, Stalin, Che, Castro& Marx himself were all very homophobic. So ofc those countries are going to have had poor outcomes for gay people. That's a function of communism, not atheism.

Whereas take a mainly non-religious like Czechia. It's no coincidence it's one of the most tolerant of gay people in Eastern Europe.

The same goes for the Netherlands am Scandinavia- Denmark and Netherlands, to name two, were pioneers in adopting civil partnership laws, Iceland was the first country in the world to have an out gay PM etc

The atheist French Revolution also led France to become the first country to decriminalise gay sex,which made it a 19 th century safer haven for gay people long before other countries were more accepting. Arguably this parrly led to France becoming more progressive on gay rights fairly early among European countries in the later 20th century.

I'm not saying atheism is best or that countries with a state religion are always bad for gay people, clearly that's not true. But I don't think your argument on this particular point holds up.

Silly comment to make. Buddhism has a variety of views on homosexuality, Thai, Chinese & Japanese Buddhism have a long history of accepting male-male relationships at least within certain boundaries.

Other branches are negative, seeing it as a sin.

The Dalai Lama himself has been ambivalent . He seems more willing to agree it's OK for non-Buddhists but I wouldn't peg him as gigantically homophobic.

Buddhism is certainly not flawless, but it's attitude to homosexuality is an odd one to compare negatively to Christianity. Some branches may be negative, but a
it doesn't say men should be stoned to death for gay sex as the OT does, nor does it contain unambiguously negative stuff like Paul or the more murky Sodom & Gomorrah. The fact it's less unified and more of a philosophy than a religion makes it harder to pin down on one position.

Silly comment to make. Buddhism has a variety of views on homosexuality, Thai, Chinese & Japanese Buddhism have a long history of accepting male-male relationships at least within certain boundaries.

Other branches are negative, seeing it as a sin.

The Dalai Lama himself has been ambivalent . He seems more willing to agree it's OK for non-Buddhists but I wouldn't peg him as gigantically homophobic.

Buddhism is certainly not flawless, but it's attitude to homosexuality is an odd one to compare negatively to Christianity. Some branches may be negative, but a
it doesn't say men should be stoned to death for gay sex as the OT does, nor does it contain unambiguously negative stuff like Paul or the more murky Sodom & Gomorrah. The fact it's less unified and more of a philosophy than a religion makes it harder to pin down on one position.

The Wiki has some good links on the different branches' attitudes. I agree the Lama is not best placed to make a huge pronouncement.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_homosexuality

I'd add to this by saying that forcibly imposed religion & imposed atheism are both bad for populations. It's wrong to judge either by state-imposed versions.

The idea that there is one authentic black culture is racist, isn't it? Even if referring solely to people with African ancestry.

Thomas Sowell was referring to the 'Scotch-Irish' who were not originally from Ireland but from (mostly southern) Scotland and the Borders, who moved west first to Ulster (where some of their descendants remain) when the British wanted Protestant 'planters' to take over land seized from its original owners, and then a generation or two later to America. They produced several American presidents, and the hillbillies, and poor whites. J D Vance's ancestry, allegedly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans

When I read the Bible aloud a few years back there were plenty of 'yowsa, I didn't know the Bible said that' moments (not all of them in Ezekiel though he was a rich seam) but one of cursing psalms was the only thing where I voiced disagreement with every verse. The Proverbs were a bit repetitive and sexist, so I swapped 'man' and woman' throughout after about the first quarter which was good and thought provoking - example, post-swap:

Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous man,
from the wayward man with his seductive words,
17 who has left the partner of his youth
and ignored the covenant he made before God

@MusettasWaltz Obviously 20th century Ireland is a very disturbing example of Catholicism getting out of hand in a way it hasn't in other Catholic countries, at least not to the same extent. Christianity did not prevent the rise of dictatorships and genocide in Germany, Italy, Spain etc . . . .

What on earth?

Ireland (95% Catholic until a few decades ago), a republic, which didn't become a dictatorship, or align itself with dictatorships, or commit any genocide, a democracy that has been transformed from abject poverty to well-educated wealth in its first century of existence is disturbing?

Come, you must know the disturbing history I'm referring to....

I know Ireland is much, much better now, and it is not comparable to a dictatorship or genocide-committing state.

I apologise for the clumsy phrasing : what I meant was that Catholic sexual morality became incredibly oppressive in Ireland to an extent it did not in other countries)

The Magdalene Laundries, the forced adoptions, the church sexual abuse esp in industrial schools, the extreme control the church had over everyday society for most of the 20th century (homosexuality illegal until 1993, as was abortion ofc until a few years ago, divorce illegal until 1997, illegitimacy only legalised in 1987, contraception illegal until 1979 ...)