![\"christmas-hannukah-church-sign\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/543\/2017\/03\/christmas-hannukah-church-sign.jpg\")
<\/a>This is the first in a four part series from Dr. Christopher Stroop<\/a>, a self identified \u201cex-Evangelical\u201d who seeks \u201cto foster community for those harmed by and alienated from conservative religious communities.\u201d \u00a0The posts in this series come from his post \u00a0\u201cEducated Evangelicals, Academic Achievement, and Trumpism: On the Tensions in Valuing Education in an Anti-Intellectual Subculture\u201d first published on his blog<\/a>. We thank Dr. Stroop for allowing us to publish it here on R3. <\/em><\/p>\nRead part 2<\/a>\u00a0 part 3<\/a>\u00a0part 4<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n by Christopher Stroop<\/p>\n \u201cI sat in the waiting room wasting my time, and waiting for Judgment Day. I praise liberty, the freedom to obey.\u201d \u2013 Green Day, \u201c21st Century Breakdown,\u201d\u00a021st Century Breakdown\u00a0<\/em>(2009)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Fundamentalists force an inhumane choice on reflective, empathetic individuals who grow up in their\u00a0enclave communities: assent that 2 + 2 = 5, or, if you can\u2019t, shut up about it or leave. Conservative Evangelicalism is a variety of Christian fundamentalism, and, make no mistake, the data tells us with overwhelming clarity that (apart from the \u201cspecial demographic\u201d of Vladimir Putin, Mitch McConnell, and James Comey), white Evangelicals are the one demographic<\/a>\u00a0most responsible for electing the most patently unqualified and dangerously demagogic president in modern American history. I am often asked how they could vote for someone so impious, which is a question I\u2019ve addressed multiple times, generally referring to white Evangelical subculture\u2019s pervasive authoritarianism<\/a> and its politics of Providentialism<\/a> (which can lead them to conclude that God can use Trump as a \u201cvessel\u201d despite his imperfections).<\/p>\n Perhaps a more interesting, or at least less frequently addressed, question, is how Evangelicals could vote for a candidate so manifestly, indeed flamboyantly, incompetent. But the two questions are very much of a piece, and the answers will take us down similar paths. Authoritarianism in power is always accompanied by\u00a0anti-intellectualism, pseudo-intellectualism, and post-truth conditions<\/a>. Fundamentalism is authoritarian by definition\u2013it accepts a vision of \u201cthe Truth\u201d that is sacrosanct, unquestionable, and, when found to be incompatible with reality, protected through the generation of \u201calternative facts,\u201d which themselves become unassailable truths within the enclave community that is built up to sustain the fundamentalism in question.<\/p>\n Why go to such extreme lengths to maintain false \u201ctruths\u201d instead of simply accepting new information? \u00a0Because, thanks to abusive socialization and indoctrination, one\u2019s entire identity is tied up with being right about these particular truths, making it so painful to face (actual) facts that for most fundamentalists doing so is simply impossible, leading to deflection, whataboutism, and extreme manifestations of psychological defense mechanisms such as \u00a0projection and defensive fetishes<\/a>.<\/p>\n If this sounds a lot like America\u2019s current (illegitimate) president, it should. Both conservative Evangelicals and the reality-TV-star-in-chief are insecure and defensive. Both cling to demonstrably false views. Both feel aggrieved, since they believe their \u201calternative facts\u201d deserve a hearing on par with actual facts. What this serves to do, of course, is to create a situation in which there are no genuine facts, leaving \u201cfacts\u201d to be determined by power. And because they are so invested in being right, they are willing to use coercion to force their fake \u201cfacts\u201d on others.<\/p>\n Fundamentalism is authoritarianism in microcosm, or on the margins. Fascism is essentially fundamentalism in power, and it continues to nurse a sense of being \u201cthe moral majority\u201d and \u201cbeleaguered\u201d and \u201ctreated very unfairly\u201d \u2013\u00a0at the same time<\/em>. As I tweeted<\/a> on February 11, \u201cThere\u2019s a reason that one scholarly framework for approaching authoritarian ideologies is \u2018political religion<\/a>.\u2019\u201d See also my analysis in \u201c#ChristianAltFacts, or, How the Christian Right Broke America<\/a>,\u201d and Christopher Douglas\u2019s excellent article \u201cThe Religious Origins of Fake News and \u2018Alternative Facts.\u2019<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n But perhaps this is all very abstract. And perhaps it might imply that all Evangelicals are simply anti-intellectual, with no ambivalence. In fact, in the kind of Evangelical environment I grew up in\u2013a generally college or postgraduate\u00a0educated, middle to upper-class part of the broader enclave community\u2013attitudes about education and knowledge are riddled with tensions. In an attempt to help others better understand the dynamics of living with Evangelical anti-intellectualism while simultaneously theoretically valuing education, I\u2019m going to explore this topic \u00a0through my personal experience below.<\/p>\n There is a strange sort of hope and fear for Evangelicals who profess to value academic achievement\u2013they want their kids to achieve academically, because that lends a veneer of credibility to the fundamentalist community and ideology itself. They desperately want to believe that their parallel institutions and bodies of knowledge are just as good as \u201cthe world\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n At the same time, there is a widespread fear\u00a0that at least some aspects of the parallel Evangelical information universe may not hold water when seriously tested. Would-be \u201crespectable\u201d Evangelicals who value education and want to be taken seriously are acutely aware that when it comes to \u201ctraining up\u201d the next generation, too much critical thinking, or the \u201cwrong\u201d kind of education can lead to the community losing a potentially talented culture warrior to \u201cthe world.\u201d I was supposed to be that talented, academically accomplished culture warrior. #SorryNotSorry, but \u201ctaking back the country for Christ\u201d was not for me. I am in fact horrified to watch theocracy rising in Trumpism, as I switched sides in the culture wars long ago. This series of blog posts is part of my effort to talk back, fight back, and support others undergoing the very difficult process of leaving fundamentalism.<\/p>\n Dr. Christopher Stroop graduated from Stanford University with a Ph.D. in Modern Russian History and Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities. In addition to being a scholar, he is a freelance writer, public speaker, and commentator on religion and politics, the US Christian Right, Russia, and foreign policy. He is currently a Provost\u2019s Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of South Florida, where he teaches an upper-level 19th-century Europe survey in the History Department and an interdisciplinary Russian Studies course in the Honors College. He blogs at chrisstroop.com\u00a0<\/a>. You can also follow him on Twitter\u00a0@C_Stroop<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Donate to the Work of R3<\/b><\/p>\n\n