MAGA Christianity is a Crackpot Christianity. And dangerous beyond words in the hands of today’s head of the defense department.
Of Hegseth, one Marine Corps veteran has said, “I can’t even muster the words to describe his self-adulation, matched only in scope by his apparent moral depravity.” He is “an embarrassment.”
Hegseth wears two tattoos associated with crusader imagery on his chest and often invokes crusader language. Once, when drunk at a bar, he repeatedly shouted “Kill all Muslims!” No wonder he is getting high on this Iran war.
Hegseth endorses a Christian reconstructionist doctrine that calls for patriarchal control of families along with capital punishment for homosexuality (sic). (It sounds like he has something in common with the Iranian regime after all.)
His pastor, Doug Wilson, advocates a theocratic vision of society where women are denied the vote and men make all the decisions in marriage. Hegseth invited this pastor to lead a worship service at the Pentagon (sic).
The manospheric glorification of violence shown in the Pentagon video we referenced in yesterday’s DM caught the attention of Robert Jones, president of the Public Religion Research Institute. He called it “a glorification of violence in the name of Christianity and civilization.”
Hundreds of service members have complained to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation about military commanders invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify the Iran war. Says Jones, “It casts it as a holy war of a supposedly Christian nation against a Muslim nation.”
So much for ecumenism and deep ecumenism. Another mark of Crackpot Christianity is its complete lack of ecumenism and respect for other religious traditions. And, of course, for diversity within Christianity itself.
Pastor Doug Pagitt, executive director of Vote Common Good, says Hegseth’s worldview means that this administration believes it has a particular divine calling. “Hegseth believes that God has uniquely ordained Donald Trump” and others and that the military is “to fulfill God’s agenda for the world.”
I warned about MAGA idolatry in my book Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ written just before the election. And I treated the issue of what’s behind much of the Manosphere neurosis in a chapter called “MAGA’s Precarious Manhood vs. Authentic Masculinity.” Sad to say, I don’t know any religious periodicals who had the balls to review my book, though some “secular” thinkers such as Thom Hartmann did.
I attribute this indifference to the fact that liberal religion is not capable of talking about evil—unlike our ancestors such as Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century and Luca Signorelli in the early 16th century who painted elaborate depictions of the antichrist in their day. Signorelli’s painting has hung prominently in a storied Cathedral since the 14th century.
Liberal religion today has chosen to abandon the archetype to right and far right-wing Christianity. Oligarch Peter Thiel, bountiful recipient of billions of taxpayer dollars to support spying on American citizens a la ICE, will preach on the antichrist at a drop of the hat.
We have to look to artists to name evil when it arises. Theological rationalists lack the nerve. Martin Luther applied the archetype to the reigning popes of his day and other reformers followed. Pere Chenu criticized theology of the last 400 years, owned and bought by academic rationalism, for being out of touch with art and artists. It has little to say about Evil but can talk incessantly about sin.
Chenu said that theology tends to imitate “an aristocratic old lady” and that is often my experience too. It prefers to stay quiet when Evil looms, not unlike many churches in Germany in the 1930s.
Banner Image: “unChristian Nationalism.” AI-assisted image by Wesley Fryer on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you think one reason the young prefer to call themselves spiritual rather than religious is that religion too rarely stands up to evil?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Trump and the MAGA Movement as Antichrist
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society
The Pope’s War: How Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings in Creation Spirituality
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation.
4 thoughts on “Crackpot Christianity in MAGA Defense Department, continued”
Do I think one reason the young prefer to call themselves spiritual rather than religious is that religion too rarely stands up to evil?
I would say yes with regard to the reluctance of religions to stand up to evil in their own ranks, but in general I believe that the central issue, at least as far as the Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity and Judaism) are concerned, is the obsolescence of the cosmology based on a literal reading of their scriptures, combined with the widespread taboo of transcendence in scientific circles. Mankind cannot survive without a functional cosmology. As Thomas Berry insists in his writings, as long as humanity does not adopt as a new cosmology the evolving “New Story” provided by science, combined with a recognition of Nature as a compelling sacred book of revelation of the “Mysterium tremendum et fascinans,” we will remain stuck in (fascinated, possessed, infatuated) the non-viable current industrial paradigm. Hence the preference of many (not only the young) to call themselves spiritual rather than religious even if it is a mere play with words to avoid any appearance of “evil company.”
The trouble with generalizations is that they are often understood as absolutes. Many mainline religious bodies may be so conservative that they shun prophetic voices, even among their own. And yet prophetic voices are many, even in the episcopate. Whether denouncing war in general, or a war (undeclared) by the president
without congressional approval per the U.S. Constitution, or the imposition of inhumane punishments on refugees, migrants and their children–religious orders, individual clergy and layfolk who attend services regularly and recognized bishops in established churches–they may be fewer than the majority, but they still deserve recognition. Some reformers in the Catholic Church’s long history were clergy, religious, bishops and popes.
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Here is a similar warning from Jim Wallis of Georgetown University, previously of Sojourners:
https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=517037&post_id=190771134&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=2qygel&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxNjYyMDk5MzMsInBvc3RfaWQiOjE5MDc3MTEzNCwiaWF0IjoxNzczMzQ4MjYyLCJleHAiOjE3NzU5NDAyNjIsImlzcyI6InB1Yi01MTcwMzciLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.HXw7QMppnHLhUweRqs_SI4S_Guh-2ibvHp6Qiryzsbk