As Christian Nationalism ties its wagon to the rise of authoritarianism, we see patterns familiar to us from history, past autocratic regimes that merged with far-right religious movements. The substance of Christian faith is often replaced with an ideology of empire even as the empire coopts religious institutions for its own purposes. In the midst of this, we see how the designs of American White Christian Nationalism tilt toward replacing democracy with theocracy.
Since the President Elect has courted Christian Nationalists, a base that includes rank and file Evangelicals as well as radicalized ones, he is now rewarding political supporters by placing them in positions of authority and leadership. They very often lack experience or qualifications because expertise is beside the point. The same can be said of unqualified judges appointed to posts above their pay grade. The only measure of qualification becomes absolute loyalty to the supreme leader and espousing the correct ideology of the regime.
A case in point is the appointment of Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel. Throughout history ambassadorships in plum positions have been rewards for the rich and famous who have supported people in power. But the Huckabee move is directly related to Christian Nationalism and its implicit convictions about Israel.
Huckabee is a Baptist minister who served a term as the Governor of Arkansas and was a talk show host on Fox news. When Donald Trump states that Huckabee will bring peace to the Middle East, it is not peace in general or peace for all that he has in mind. This peace includes a particular political goal and a view of the end times as embraced by one slice of the Christian spectrum. In their end-times scenario, Israel plays a distinctive part; they need to be consolidated in Palestine as a precondition for the second coming of Christ. That means that Christians of Huckabee’s stripe have a vested interest in making sure Israel has that particular place and privilege. This goes far beyond protecting Israel as ally and friend. This is establishing Israel as a puzzle piece in their eschatological drama.
Jewish Zionists, of course, are committed to the Jewish occupation of Palestine as a part of what they understand to be their birthright, ordained by God. That means that Palestinians are simply obstacles to those designs, and must be expelled, removed from the land. Thus, Zionist settlers continue to displace Palestinians who have lived there for generations, establishing settlements in their place. This is often violent, with settlers relying on government privilege with no accountability. When tragedies such as the attack by Hamas out of Gaza into Israel take place, it provides even more fuel for the complete removal of Palestinians. When we look at Gaza today, beyond the response of Israel to protect herself and hobble Hamas, the actions go much farther, falling into a scorched earth policy – the decimation of Gaza in its entirely with no limits on the destruction and killing.
This is a far-right Israeli response under the guidance of Netanyahu and his military advisors. The action takes place under the auspicious of securing safety for Israelis. But the unspoken part unfolds piece-by-piece. The absolute destruction of Gaza is the prequel to the resettlement of Gaza with Israeli settlers, now poised on the border of Gaza, waiting to go in. This will be endorsed and enabled by the present Israeli government. It is embraced by Jewish Zionists without question. But there is another group that embraces it with equal gusto.
Christian Zionists, those who believe that Israel must take all of the land as antecedent to the second coming, are equally motivated. They want the Palestinians gone as well. But for different reasons than the far-right Israeli government or the Jewish Zionists. The end result may be the same, but they base their conviction on their own Christian grounds.
Do the Israelis know what makes Christian Zionists tick? Of course they do. They secretly disparage them for such hairbrained beliefs. But the Christian Zionists give them what they want: Total support for whatever Israel does in regard to Palestinians and an unlimited cache of weapons.
Mike Huckabee is one of these, part of the Christian Nationalist movement, a Christian Zionist, and a far-right political ideologue. When Trump says Huckabee will bring peace to the Middle East, it is not because they will pursue some negotiated two-state solution. No, they hate the idea of a two-state solution because it doesn’t fit their end-times scenario. Like Trump, Kushner, and Pompeo did in Trump’s first term, they will ignore the Palestinians altogether and never talk with them – and I don’t mean Hamas. I mean that the Palestinians will be disregarded entirely.
This is what Huckabee is being appointed to do. It fits with the vision of Netanyahu and Trump. And Christian Zionists who want this end-times scenario with Israel to play out in a certain way will embrace this as a divinely inspired moment.
This is what happens when autocratic political movements join with one version of religion. They override the concerns of American founders about religion being imposed on the public and religious dogma shaping public policy. Rather, in the interest of pursuing a church-state hybrid, replacing democracy with theocracy, they appoint ambassadors to political posts with the intent of transposing religious belief into foreign policy.
That is what is happening now, in real time. Uninformed and fairly self-centered Americans voted for it, reacting to prices that seemed too high, and the specter of immigration run amuck. Americans distressed about our country’s complicity in the disaster in Gaza staged protest votes against Harris, sometimes voting third party or not at all. The unintended consequences were inevitable. Protest actions helped a much worse option to prevail, a scorched earth regime to take power that will turn tragedy into something much worse.
One thing remains true and has been throughout history: This is how regimes emerge, especially autocratic ones, and how religion props them up to give them the illusion of legitimacy. Once religion enters into the formula, what was once a political conflict turns into a holy war, which is always the worst kind, bloodiest, and most entrenched.
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