Christian Nationalism versus the Vermin Curse
Should we fear Christian nationalism? No. What we should rightly fear is the Vermin Curse — that is, a fascist-in-the-making who threatens to wield the military against our own citizens. Which do you choose to fear? Christian Nationalism versus the Vermin Curse.
Should we fear Christian nationalism? Yes, answers Lawrence Krauss
Lawrence Krauss — an atheist at war against religion whom I still admire — blows the bugle so that we muster the troops against Christian nationalism. Writing in his Critical Mass, physicist Krauss stokes fear of Christian nationalism so that we cower, tremble, and rise up in defense against this threat. Krauss’s fear of Christian nationalism today targets the fundamentalism and creationism espoused by Mike Johnson, the newly elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“The term ‘Christian nationalist’ seems tailor-made to describe Johnson, who recently told Congress that the separation of church and state was designed to stop state incursion into religion, not the other way round….How can we expect political sense or reason from someone who cannot distinguish empirical reality from ancient myth?”
Did Mike Johnson actually say this about the separation of church and state? Yes, sorta. Does the Speaker believe his Christian witness should “influence” what happens in government? Yes, he seems clear on this. Does the Representative from Louisiana support creationist beliefs? Evidently so. Does the Republican believe the Bible is a myth? No. Is the Louisiana congressman a Trump supporter? USA Today says he is. Does this Baptist view his election is a divine vocation? Yes, he does. In his first speech after being elected speaker in a 220–209 vote, Johnson said this:
“I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear: that God is the one who raises up those in authority….He raised up each of you. All of us.”
Does this make you cower in fear of Christian nationalism? I’m not trembling in fear. Rather, I’m praying that the Holy Spirit will guide the Honorable Mike Johnson in the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love.
Krauss asks us to fire our arrows at the stuffed Teddy Bear while an angry Grizzley — the Vermin Curse — threatens our very life.
Progressives are blowing up the Christian nationalist baloon to blimp size
In a previous Patheos series on “Resentment and Compassion,” I attempted to analyze religious nationalism in Russia as well as the American fear of Christian nationalism.
My analysis suggests that Christian nationalism is in fact a limp latex balloon. But fear of Christian nationalism takes the form of a progressive — progressive Christians that are as anti-Evangelical as the atheists — air compressor that is blowing up that balloon to blimp size. In short, it is my opinion that we need not fear Christian nationalism because the threat level of theocracy is so low.
What, then, should we fear? Answer: a proto-tyrant hungry for fascist power. We rightly fear the Vermin Curse.
According to the Vermin Curse, vermin should be exterminated.
On Veterans’ Day 2023, former President Donald Trump promised that — if elected president again in 2024 — he would take revenge on his political opponents. He pledged to…
“…root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”
Please note how Trump called his political opponents, “vermin.” Axios’ Zachary Basu reports that a Trump campaign spokesman defended the former president’s use of the word “vermin” to describe his political enemies, calling critics “snowflakes” whose “entire existence will be crushed” if Trump wins in 2024.
Frankly, I don’t fear Mike Johnson who reads his Bible conscientiously and imputes creedal status to the Declaration of Independence. I fear instead the voiced threat of fascist intolerance.
Cursing before Killing
Here is what social scientists know. In cases of first degree murder, the killer self-justifies by claiming that the victim is unworthy of life. When an abusive husband is about to murder his wife, he calls her vile names such as bitch, whore, or excrement. Then he strangles, stabs, or shoots.
When Adolf Hitler decided to exterminate physcially and mentally handicapped children along with Jews and other minority groups, he described them as “minderwertig.” Der Fuhrer said these people live “lives not worth living.” If the victim does not deserve to live, then the murderer thinks the act of killing is in service of what is good.
In a previous Patheos series on Sin, I called this pre-killing rhetoric, “cursing” (Peters, Sin Boldly!, 2015, pp. 227-235) Cursing discourse readies us for violence, murder, and war. World War One provides an example of cursing and counter-cursing. Each side described itself as godly and moral but described the other as ungodly and immoral. From one side we heard: “It is Germany’s task, as God’s instrument, to execute a world-historical divine judgment on our enemies, as they represent the spirit of darkness, the deadly enemy of the Kingdom of God” (Schwager, 1988). From the other side we heard: Germany’s war aims are “anti-Christian” and “the lie is a constituent element at the innermost core of the German person” (Schwager, 1988). A nation commits itself to war only when pursuing what is just or good. War becomes justified in the cursing of the enemy, the scapegoat. To malign is to bind.
The Vermin Curse in Rwanda
The nation of Rwanda underwent a genocide in 1994. One tribe, the Hutus, murdered a million persons belonging to another tribe, the Tutsis. Just prior to the mass killings, Hutu leaders announced that Tutsis were vermin. Vermin, we all know, should be exterminated.
Must we wait for 2024 to get victimized by the Vermin Curse?
Must we wait for 2024 to get victimized by the Vermin Curse? No. The curse has already begun to take its toll. Violent rhetoric inspires lone wolves to devour their prey. Former Pressident Donald Trump described Nancy Pelosi as “a crazed lunatic.” Inspired by this cursing, a lone wolf named David DePape broke into the California home of Nancy Pelosi. Not finding Nancy at home, he bludgeoned her husband, Paul, with a hammer in order to punish the liberals. According to Think, “The GOP has Paul Pelosi’s blood on their hands.”
“Trump rioters inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 who were allegedly intent on hunting down and killing the House speaker in a bid to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.”
The Vermin Curse has already begun to do its work.
Should we fear Christian nationalism or should we fear the Vermin Curse?
There does exist in our land a genuine threat not only to democracy but to the lives of people we know. America has been cursed. It has been cursed by a power bent on revenge. Once the power of revenge has been unleashed, there is no telling in advance when it will end.
I recommend we progressives make peace with our Christian nationalist friends — Republicans too — to secure our republic against the real threat of the Vermin Curse.
Patheos PT 3213. Christian Nationalism versus the Vermin Curse
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Ted Peters follows the trail of public theology as it leads to science, religion, ethics, and public policy. Peters is an emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union, where he co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. He authored Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom? (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2002) as well as Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate 2003). He is editor of AI and IA: Utopia or Extinction? (ATF 2019). Along with Arvin Gouw and Brian Patrick Green, he co-edited the new book, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics hot off the press (Roman and Littlefield/Lexington, 2022). Soon he will publish The Voice of Christian Public Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.
This fictional spy thriller, Cyrus Twelve, follows the twists and turns of a transhumanist plot.
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Good Reading
Girard, R. (1972). Violence and the Sacred. Baltyimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Girard, R. (2001). I Saw Satan Fall Like Lightening. Maryknoll NY: Orbis.
Peters, T. (1992). Atonement and the Final Scapegoat. Perspectives in Religious Studies 19:2, 151-181.
Peters, T. (1993). Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society. Grand Rapids MI: Wm B Eerdmans.
Peters, T. (2015). Sin Boldly! Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press.
Reilly, K. (2016, September 10). Read Hillary Clinton’s ‘Basked of Deplorables’ Remarks About Donald Trump Supporter. Time , pp. https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/.
Schwager, R. (1988). The Theology of the Wrath of God. In P. Dumochel, Violence and Truth: On the Work of Rene Girard (p. 51). Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
Vorwerk, D. (1971). Darf der Christ hassen? In Hammer, Deutsche Kriegstheologie 1870-1918 (p. 292). Munich.
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