{"id":3579,"date":"2023-04-26T16:30:49","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T20:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mudbloodcatholic\/?p=3579"},"modified":"2023-04-26T16:30:49","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T20:30:49","slug":"the-party-of-the-beast-intro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mudbloodcatholic\/2023\/04\/the-party-of-the-beast-intro\/","title":{"rendered":"The Party of the Beast: Intro"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A Sign of Contradiction<\/h4>\n

Christian nationalism has gotten popular in the US over the last decade or so. It isn\u2019t the same thing as Trumpism: Trumpism is a version of<\/em> Christian nationalism, and a fairly crude one, but there are much more sophisticated types. This is why educated, literate voices like Doug Wilson and Stephen Wolfe can promote Christian nationalism among Protestants as a serious political project; it\u2019s a little like theonomy<\/em>,1<\/sup> which Wilson has been preaching for decades.<\/p>\n

Among Catholics, integralism<\/em> has played much the same role. This is the belief that, far from maintaining a \u201cwall of separation,\u201d the state should be officially Catholic; this normally comes with other sweeping legal and social changes and a generally authoritarian tone. As a rule, integralists maintain that it is not merely a theological opinion, but part of the Church\u2019s teaching (which makes its complete absence from the New Testament a little weird, but never mind). The early-to-mid twentieth century saw a lot of this in Europe; Franco\u2019s Spain<\/a>, Dollfuss\u2019s Austria<\/a>, and Salazar\u2019s Portugal<\/a> are widely praised by integralists. It doesn\u2019t have<\/em> to be nationalistic to work, but it fits in with nationalists quite comfily, and many integralists are in fact nationalists as well.<\/p>\n

All this is too bad, since Christian nationalism is from hell.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Preaching of Antichrist<\/em> by Luca Signorelli (1504)
\n\u2014fresco in Orvieto Cathedral, central Italy<\/small><\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m a kidder, so you might think I\u2019m joking or exaggerating to make a point with that last sentence. I am not. When I say Christian nationalism is from hell, it\u2019s because that\u2019s what I mean, in plain English.<\/p>\n

Exitus<\/em><\/h4>\n

Unluckily, a lot of Christians apparently don\u2019t know hell when they see it. Worse, a lot of them seem convinced that hell can be persuaded to cooperate<\/em> with heaven\u2014and that the only effect of this alliance will be heaven getting its way. This strongly suggests that American Christians don\u2019t clearly understand what<\/em> heaven is.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t great! If we\u2019re supposed to be citizens and emissaries of the kingdom of heaven, but we don\u2019t know our own native language or laws, we\u2019re probably just going to get used to whatever our surroundings are. And we were given instructions about that.<\/p>\n

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.<\/em> \u2014I John 2.15-17<\/p>\n

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God \u2026<\/em> \u2014Hebrews 11.13-16<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The aim of this series is to explain what the kingdom of heaven is, and, correspondingly, what hell is. I both think and hope that this will make it clear why Christian nationalism (as it calls itself) belongs to hell rather than heaven.<\/p>\n

Reditus<\/em><\/h4>\n

To get things straightened out, we\u2019ll need to go back to a beginning. Not the<\/em> beginning, but a beginning: the beginning of St. John the Baptist\u2019s ministry. The Baptist, you remember, is the forerunner of Christ: the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, \u201cPrepare ye the way of the Lord.\u201d<\/em> What he says and does is prepares the way for what Christ says and does: it is his context, his backdrop. Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist<\/em>\u2014which makes it kind of weird that we modern westerners pay so little attention to him2<\/sup>\u2014notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I believe the Baptist symbolizes something we badly need in the modern Church. He has one message; Christ has another, one that is related to the forerunner\u2019s but distinct from it. We tend to subsume the forerunner\u2019s message into Christ\u2019s, which clashes with history: the two men were distinct enough that to this day, St. John the Baptist is the central figure of an entire independent religion<\/a>. Somewhere, somehow, we started to smudge differences that we absolutely must keep clear\u2014the differences between command and permission, gift and wage, normal and ideal.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a natural mistake to make. Yet it is crucial that we un-make it. The gospel, as such, depends on it.<\/p>\n

Eat Bugs, Take a Bath, Save the World<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ikon of St. John the Baptist as \u201cthe angel of the desert\u201d
\n(written3<\/sup> ca. 1620)<\/small><\/p>\n

So what does the Baptist do and say?<\/p>\n

What he does<\/em> is straightforward, if odd. First, he spends about thirty years in the southern Israeli scrublands eating bugs<\/a>, and possibly hanging out with other religious weirdos known to frequent the area.4<\/sup> Then he comes back to civilization and starts a street-preacher routine (which, to be fair, is less weird at this time). He has a gimmick, too, a showy virtue-signal: if you accept his preaching, you get a full-body dunk in the drink.<\/p>\n

Now, ritual purification by washing was very normal to Jews. Standard forms were washing your feet on entering someone\u2019s home (everyone wore sandals, and the roads were covered in camel dung!) and your hands before eating. But ritually washing your whole body, or tevilah<\/em>,5<\/sup> was not common; this was something you did after a period of being ritually unclean (e.g. after touching a dead body), or in preparation for a solemn feast. Or, if a Gentile converted to Judaism, part of their conversion ritual was to undergo tevilah<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In other words, the symbols John the Baptist was using implied the Jewish people were about to have an encounter with God, one they needed to prepare for by the fullest, most formal religious cleansing. He might even be hinting that they\u2019d hardly be better off than the Gentiles, when it showed up.<\/p>\n

This implies a radical re-commitment to observing the Torah, not just in public conduct but from the heart. However, symbols generally come with a message, and St. John the Baptist\u2019s symbols were no exception. What did he say?<\/p>\n

\n
Footnotes<\/h5>\n

1<\/sup>Roughly speaking, theonomy is the belief that:<\/p>\n