When Christian Nationalists Attack Christians

And How We've Seen This Before

I’m grateful so many are waking to distinctions between different kinds of Christians. Some Christians stand against the powers of Trump 2.0, and with the poor and marginalized.

As is well documented, Christian Nationalists do not. But they don’t just denigrate those communities directly. They also simultaneously attack other Christians who attempt to help the marginalized. They are “Christian Nationalists attacking Christians.” They do so as the theological shield for political policies that harm vulnerable communities.

What I’m here to say today is: None of this is new.

Today’s essay is a brief history lesson on how current Trump 2.0 Christians are pulling out a very old playbook: denigrating the moral voice and social witness of other Christians who disagree with them.

We Mainline Protestants (I am United Methodist) have had front row seat to these deep divisions in Christianity for years. I’d like to believe our own history has something to teach us about this present moment.

Let’s unpack two current examples:

1. General Michael Flynn’s demonization of the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s (ELCA) ministry with refugees.
2. Eric Metaxas’ claim to the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

To General Flynn: “Lutherans = Drug Dealers”

Last week, one of Donald Trump’s most staunch supporters slurred the ELCA and their ministry with refugees, all but suggesting they are akin to drug dealers or the Mafia.

Elon Musk retweeted this, and promised his merry band of Teenaged Mutant Ninja Hackers would put a stop to it all. By all accounts, they are doing that right now.

This is out of the Nationalist playbook:

Denigrate other religous faith, call it “unChristian,” and suggest that average ordinary Americans are being ripped off by these leftist so-called christians.

Of course, you have to love the irony that a billionare who could, singlehandedly, aleviate much human suffering with his own charitable giving, is instead seeking to cut off payments to help refugees.

These funds in question go to help resettle refugees coming to America through legitimate processes. Yes, it’s a lot of money. But these funds pale in comparison to the government handout recieved by Musk's own Space X.

My point here is to focus on the moment before Elon and his Muskovites spring into action. Words are important. ¹

General Flynn puts “religion” in quotation; the implication being Lutherans aren’t really faithful Christians. Our Texas Attorney General is currently trying a similar move with a Catholic Relief agency in El Paso. Part of his legal argument against them is that they’re not “really” Catholic.

This is incredibly dangerous, of course. It’s an attempt to de-legitimize the work these fine Christian groups are doing. By throwing out the phrase, “money laundering” General Flynn seeks to equate the ELCA with drug dealers or organized crime.

I suppose he imagines there are Lutheran mission workers living in opulent mansions, somewhere?
Or maybe that their Sunday offerings come via sales of Meth, and then the taxpayer money “cleans it?”

I have no idea. I can’t get inside such ridiculous thinking. I’m just urging you to push the metaphor enough to see it for the straw man it is.

The Lutherans can defend themselves. And they have. They’ve fought back against this scurrilous accusation in this video:

You should make sure you understand the lies and their defense. MY point here is to push you deep into what these metaphors do to the public.

Equating “Lutherans” with “Drug Dealers” has the effect of Otherizing Lutherans and their work with refugees. They are not “real Christians.” They’re slurred as “dangerous criminals” stealing the tax money of hard working Americans.

This is what this same Nationalist movement tried to do with Episcopalians two weeks ago, following the sermon of Bishop Marriane Budde. (I wrote about that here).

Before “Lutherans Are Drug Dealers”
There was “Mainlines Are Marxists”

We Mainline Protestants ² can tell you: This has Otherizing has been tried before.

In the early 1980s, the Christian Nationalists forbearers of General Flynn came after our United Methodist Church, and a group known as the “National Council of Churches (NCC).”

Most memorable was a hit piece on 60 Minutes that aired in 1983. United Methodist scholars Fred Kandeler and Andrew Weaver wrote up a history of 60 Minutes’ lazy journalism the early 2000s. (Fred was a clergy colleague in the North Texas Conference some years ago…)

Writing in 2006, about the 1983 “60 Minutes” piece, Kandeler and Weaver said:

"The broadcast on CBS's 60 Minutes entitled "The Gospel According to Whom" began with Roman Catholic priest, Richard John Neuhaus, saying, "I am worried - I am outraged when the church lies to its own people." The camera moved from an offering plate in a United Methodist church in the Midwest to images of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and then to marchers in Communist Red Square. The lengthy segment over and over suggested that the National Council of Churches (NCC) was using Sunday offerings to promote Marxist revolution.

The most damaging accusation in the program was that NCC had somehow funded armed insurgents in Zimbabwe. While showing horrific footage of a slain missionary, the program implied that the NCC was responsible for the brutal murder.  It was a lie that the top rated show in television told to tens of millions.  The broadcast was highly damaging to mainline Protestants and the NCC.”

If you think I’m being harsh in describing this 60 Minutes segment as a “hit piece,” I’d refer you to what 60 Minutes producer, Don Hewitt, said about years later:

“Sixty minutes executive producer Don Hewitt appeared on the December 2, 2002, edition of Larry King Live (CNN) and was asked whether he regretted any shows that he had done in his 36-year career. Hewitt named only one, the 1983 60 Minutes double segment on the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches. Hewitt told King that;

"We once took off on the National Council of Churches as being left wing and radical and a lot of nonsense. And the next morning I got a congratulatory phone call from every redneck bishop in America and I thought, oh, my God, we must have done something wrong last night, and I think we probably did.””

In and around the same time Kandeler and Weaver were documenting this history, a book called “United Methodism @ Risk: A Wake Up Call” also made the rounds among we United Methodists.

It unpacked a shadowy group called “The IRD,” outsiders to the United Methodist Church, who were funding an insurrection inside our walls. They’d done the same thing to Presbyterians we well.

Again, this is ancient history, now.
But I find it worth remembering, given where we are.

This very old website from 2006 will give you general outline of the history of the IRD’s attack.

It’s clearly same playbook Flynn is using to attack the Lutherans…

1. Denigrate Mainline Christian’s charitable relief work…

2. Suggest they are “not Christian…”

3. And therefore, delegitimize their influence in our broader culture.

Which gets me to the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and another current attempt at the very same move.

Metaxas Attacks Us

Right wing commentator Eric Metaxas has become a darling of the Christian Nationalist Right. A staunch supporter of Donald Trump, he has also written a book about the great German Christian resister, Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Metaxas suggests he, and present-day Christian Nationalists, are somehow the current spiritual ancestors of the great Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I don’t plan to unpack just how badly Metaxas is twisting history. Bonhoeffer was part of a small band of Christians called “The Confessing Church” during the time of Hitler. These brave and faithful Christians broke from the Christian Nationalism of the Nazi regime, and became heroic resistors to Nazi power. Many of them, including Bonhoeffer, would be executed during World War II.

For decades since, the moral legacy of Bonhoeffer —resisting the marriage of State Power and the Christian Church— has been a touchtone for Mainline Christians.

But, also for decades now, Metaxas and other Right-leaning Christians have sought to wed themselves to the Bonhoeffer legacy. And now, there’s a new film too, based on Metaxas’ book.

Apparently, the film was a bridge too far for Bonhoeffer’s actual family. Eighty six of them finally spoke out and defended their ancestor. Our friends at Baptist Global News (No. Not Those kind of Baptist…) did a nice write up on this.

Here’s what Bonhoeffer descencents said about Dietrich:

“We are horrified to see how the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is increasingly being distorted and misused by right-wing extremists, xenophobes and religious agitators,” that letter begins. “As direct descendants of the seven siblings of the theologian and resistance fighter executed by the Nazis, we can testify based on what we learned from our families that he was a peace-loving, freedom-loving humanitarian. Never would he have seen himself associated with far-right, violent movements such as Christian nationalists and others who are trying to appropriate him today. On the contrary, he would have strongly and loudly condemned these attitudes.”

Not to be outdone, Metaxas fought back against their correction the record, deciding he could speak for these actual relatives of the actual Bonhoeffer. (Mansplain, much?) Metaxas called them “Jew hating, pro-Hamas lunatics.”

See the move again?

A writer/theologian who is actually supporting a Right Wing Populist government (Trump 2.0) slurring other Christian views as “non Christian.”

But! Once again, I’m here with the history.
And what is new is old.

During the early 2000s, a “new” group arose within The United Methodist Church. Actually, these were folks directly related to that earlier attacks on Mainline Protestantism connected with the 60 Minutes report.

The new name this new group chose for themselves?

Wait for it… “The Confessing Movement!”

Like Metaxas today, they sought to wed their conservative theology with Bonhoeffer’s theology of resistance. They were mostly concerned about issues of human sexuality. And, for a brief time, they got some traction.

Led in part by now disgraced former UM Bishop Scott Jones, their big idea was: The UMC should adopt a “Confession,” a “Creed,” that would define the limits of United Methodist theology.

It was a relatively inoffensive creed that mirrors language similar to historic Christian creeds. Except! It also added anti-LGBTQ language. (“Oh...by the way….)

That was their real goal: an attempt to codify a limit to UMC acceptance of LGBTQ persons.

It didn’t work. Enough UM’s pushed back against the idea that we become a “Creedal” denomination. So, they moved to other methods. And over the two decades that followed, these same Conservatives continued a push against the acceptance of LGBTQ members and clergy. That push resulted in a painful denominational split that we surely don’t need to recount today.

To be clear: Much of this work was funded by what might rightly be called “outside agitators.” Non-United Methodists who provided funding which amplified their message. They did this exact same thing to Presbyterians too. And, yes, Episcopals.

So, all of this is to say Conservatives “wedding” themselves to the legacy of Bonhoeffer is not new. It’s a retread of a very old tactic they’ve been using against Mainline Protestants for some time.

Our Christian Divisions Are Confusing.
(That’s Why I’m Writing This)

If you want to know why Mainline Protestants today are a shell of our former selves, its because for fifty years, we’ve been attacked by friends and foes alike.

Even the great Martin Luther King Jr rightly called-out moderate Methodists, and other “Mainline Protestants,” in the 1960s. King’s seminal “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” is still used today to attack the inaction of Christians, anywhere.

But, we must confess, if you look at the names King’s original letter was addressed to…yep…it includes Methodists of that day, and many other “Mainline Protestants” too.

I’m not lamenting what King wrote.
He was right.
White Christians, then as now, don’t stand up enough.

My point is: this justly written “call out” from within Left-leaning social justice movements also did not happen in a vacuum.
(Just as broad, Leftist critique of Christianity today doesn’t either…)

From the other end of the theological spectrum though, all along, Mainline Denominations have been viciously attacked and slurred for fity years by Conservative movements.

Shadowy, outside groups have sought to destabilize the Social Justice and Humanitarian witness of Mainline denominations. Some of these groups have also worked within our ranks, and freezing us into frustrating internal polity fights that stunted our social witness and divided our people.

All the while, generations of muscular Evangelical megachurches have arisen —starting with Falwell’s Moral Majority down to the “New Apostolic Reformation” of today— providing “market competition” for all mainline churches, everywhere.

Once upon a time, Mainline Protestants as a whole, and we United Methodists as part, were among the strongest religious voices in our nation. But our own sloth, inaction, and decades of attacks from all sides, has wrought a toll.

We are a shell of our former selves.

But: However you feel about Chritians today…We are still here. And my goal is not so much either lament or defensive self-apologetics, as much historical context.

Mainline Protestants tend to trend more Progressive than other forms of contemporary Christianity. They are a solid 10% of “Blue voters” in most elections. Which is not everything, but also never nothing.

Some of us have long histories of standing up for social justice, or doing heroic huanitarian work, arm in arm with all people of good will.

Some of us see the value of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” or have marched with “Black Lives Matter,” or have challenged our “heirarchies” on the inclusion of gay people, and even been arrested supporting immigrants. (Some of this stuff, I have done…)

But we are not big. And it’s not in our nature to brag. Because, if we are trying to follow after Jesus’ example, we know we’re supposed to quietly doing this work God calls us to, and always looking to be good allies and coalition members.

But just know, if you’re thinking these attacks of Christians on other Christians is a new thing…..
nope.

We’ve seen this shit before.

1. (Yes. I’ve just intetionally used two examples of how offensive and degrading language can be in this very essay...see how it works?)

2. Of course, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Espiscopals, and others are all considered “mainline.”