My dad and stepmom moved to South Carolina (both of them as Yankee as can be) because they fully believe the South will rise again. They are fundie born-agains with Rapturitis. They have believed and lived this way for decades. This stuff is baked in. Not going anywhere, now that it’s headlining and no longer a weird subculture.
Appreciate all you do to ask us to reflect on how to wisely adapt to stuff like this.
I went to a small, traditionalist school in South Carolina for about 2 of my college years. We were a magnet for people thinking like this. They've only gotten worse as they have embraced Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Good lord 🤦♀️ thankfully I haven’t spoken to my father since I was in college, so never got the full scoop on the booming fundie community down there. It’s bonkers though, where I live in the northeast, Yankee hillbillies drive around with confederate flags. And talk about how they’re fixin to move down south first chance they get 🙄
Well Jamie, you’ve done it again—another sharp and brilliant take.
Reading your piece, I found myself thinking about Arthur Blessitt. I wonder if you’ve ever come across him. I remember him vividly from the late 1960s: walking barefoot down Sunset Boulevard with a massive wooden cross, chaining himself to lampposts, preaching on the Strip. He was part of the Jesus movement’s fringe and widely rumored to be an “acid casualty,” though he later denied ever using LSD--although I remember people saying they "dropped" with him.
What’s fascinating is that Blessitt had a little-known but significant encounter with George W. Bush in April 1984. During a revival event called Decision ’84 in Midland, Texas, Bush—then still an oilman—heard Blessitt preaching on the radio. Intrigued, he asked to meet him, and a Bush family friend, Jim Sale, arranged it. According to some accounts, it was during that meeting that Bush decided to commit his life to Jesus—Blessitt was the preacher who prayed with him. But when the Bush family caught wind of it, they quickly introduced W to Billy Graham. The narrative shifted, and history now credits Graham with Bush’s “born again” moment.
Why does any of this matter? Because a close friend of mine, who served as a high-level NSA consultant, sat in on Defense Department meetings with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz—your usual suspects. When the question came up during Iraq War planning, “What’s the exit strategy?” Bush reportedly replied, “Jesus will show us the way.”
It sounds insane, I know—but follow the thread,. Yank it hard enough and you’ll find that one of the most disastrous foreign policy blunders of the 21st century may trace its psychic origins to a barefoot lunatic dragging a twelve-foot wooden cross down Sunset Boulevard, ranting about Jesus. A man the establishment wrote off as just another LSD burnout with a martyr complex and a flair for street theater.
And yet—years later—his gospel wormed its way into the skull of a dry-drunk oilman named George W. Bush, just in time for him to steer the country into a trillion-dollar holy war with no exit plan except divine intervention. “Jesus will show us the way,” he said. Sweet Jesus.
So yes, this current Christian fever dream is bizarre—of course it is—but it’s not new. It’s just the latest chapter in a long saga of messianic delusion and backroom prophecy. How many more of these rogue saints and shadow preachers are out there, whispering in the ears of men with nuclear launch codes?
I appreciate your fresh perspective. I don't agree with Sam Harris' take on Islam. But I think Islam does have something important to teach us about the current Christian nationalist movement. I will get to that.
The current Christian Nationalist movement is pretty imperial. Meaning, they use religion to prop up their power and authority and as a cover for conquest and profiting from exploitation. And they are reinstating hierarchical structure where the head of state is divinely appointed like a king or emperor who can not be contradicted. Even though they are non-deminational charismatic Protestants, they are reinstating the merger between church and state, not like Rome, but more like King Henry the VIII or maybe like the Czar who was authorized through the Byzantine hierarchy and was ordained by Gid to morally cleanse the church and state (in a medieval kind of way).
Now, regarding Islam, it's different, yes. Because it was an empire whose expansion was not primarily focused on material acquisition but on ideological propagation, spreading a message.
Is that was this Christian Nationalist government is doing? Yes! They are spreading their ideology constantly. But Is that their primary motive??? They might like to think in their hearts they are saving souls from the devil. But they are mostly perpetuating the "morality" of the 1600's colonial profiteering. Where "Christianity" and being European in culture (and skin tone), gives you legal privilege to oppress others for profit, for life.
Islamic colonization did include slave trade. But it also let others freely practice their religions. Albeit with a inferior dhimi legal status and jizya tax. But every conquered people had to pay tax to their conqueror whoever they were.
In the American colonies slaves, indentured servants, and tradesman were taxed from childhood. Who wasn't? The elite, and those in the government and their family members, all friends of the king were exempt! Does this sound familiar???
In Islam, Harris seems to somehow ignore the golden age which was not just progressive for Muslims but for the whole world. They were advancing science, mathematics, hygiene, medicine, and astronomy when Europe had not yet become enlightened. The Christian Nationalist movement is like the antithesis of the Islamic Golden age. They are more like Bishop Cyril of Alexandria trying to cleanse the city of pagan worship and mob murdering Hypatia, the philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and head of the academy. The burning of the library of Alexander likely happened around that time and not during the Islamic conquest as some surmise. Today's administration would happily burn that library. They in effect are, as they are removing vast swaths of research from public access and many other things.
Today's retrograde Islamic extremists, were birthed out of wahabism only about 75 years ago. Why? To use religion to prop up the power of the Saudi King. And they later embraced decolonization from Western Imprerialism. None of this has anything to do with Christian Nationalism except both the Arab elite and "Christian" elite love exploiting the poor to be become more rich and using religion to prop legitimacy
It seems to me that an essay by Phil Wilson titled US Fascist Iconography is very much related to your assessment of US christian nationalism. It is featured on the Counterpunch website.
Geez!, poignant and focused writing and insights from Jamie. Where I was puzzling out fragmented pieces of culture you laid the pieces out to map the journey that got us to where we are. Does not take much of a stretch to see these pieces fit together. Much appreciated though probably too much credit and emphasis on the movement coming out of the south. When I think of the "old rural South" where I grew up you'd wouldn't need much education to tell a New York Real Estate Tycoon Yankee modern carpetbagger wouldn't and doesn't give a Sh-t about the south. Where and when did that southern sixth sense of reading BS die?
Citing Sam Harris as an expert in understanding civilization is naive in my opnion. Harris' assertion that Islam and secular democracy cannot coexist ignores empirical exceptions. Pre-revolutionary Iran and modern Malaysia both combined Islamic values with the state by modifying interpretations. Tunisia's Ennahda movement, even, participates in electoral politics in defiance of theory that Islamist parties need to be anti-democratic.
Harris also simplifies extremism to prioritizing doctrine over history. Most scholars have underscored that the geopolitical realities, i.e., Western intervention, oppressive regimes, poverty, marginalization by western Christian-majority powers, are more compelling drivers of violent Islamic extremists.
understood. now go back and re-read what I wrote and see if I was in any way endorsing Sam's monolithic critique? I was using him and Huntington as foils to set up the counter argument re: American counter reformation religiosity as equally dangerous.
I happen to be in Tunis right now—the birthplace of the Arab Spring back in 2011. And today, fittingly, is May Day, or International Labor Day, which means loud, impassioned demonstrations echoing through the streets near the government ministries.
Ennahda—also known as the Renaissance Party—has been largely neutered by President Kais Saied, who, despite his increasingly authoritarian tendencies, is still popular enough to be cruising through the first year of his second five-year term. But Ennahda's influence isn’t entirely gone. These things rarely vanish cleanly.
From where I sit, Ken Wilber catalyzed a genuinely fascinating movement. A lot of good people and programs emerged from that Integral wave. But like most movements, it seems to have run its course. Coincidental or not, I sometimes wonder if the wig marked the moment things started to drift for him—like some strange talisman of spiritual burnout.
Of course, the world doesn’t hand out clean answers. It laughs at binaries. As Wilber once said—perhaps too often—"Everyone is right... just partially." Arabs? Islam? Well, which Islam? Shiites? Sunnis? And even then, which Sunni school? The four can barely agree on doctrine, let alone politics.
Nuance reigns, and the devil dances in the details.
we're over in Mallorca--could wave on a clear day ;). curious as to how Wilber made it into the comments? are you at an integral gathering or just thinking in spirally terms?
This article was fabulous. Saved and sharing widely—crystal clear. I have read half of Fantasyland and it's in the queue to finish; you've bumped it up to the top. Also, super random, but since you happen to be on Mallorca: my dear friends run a phenomenal retreat business there! So if you're ever thinking of holding a retreat for your fellow luminaries, check it out and LMK if you'd like to be put in touch. As humans go, they're the best of the best. :)
It’s not clear that any of the main rabble rousers in this cultural movement have Christian fundamentalist beliefs. I can’t think of a single one of the main right leaning influencers who does. Charlie Kirk?
How about Speaker of the House Mike Johnson? Or the conservative catholics on the supreme court? Not to mention that the MAGA base includes the christian fundamentalists. I grew up with fundies who got tired of using the democratic process to accomplish "god's will" and demonized the liberals. Trump- somehow- managed to coopt the former Moral Majority despite his personal life and political stances before declaring as president being anthema to the "Thy Will Be Done" caucus. My take is that fundamentalists believe they are using Trump to bring righteousness back to the US, when he is actually using them to make himself powerful. It's like Constantine the Great in the era of the Nation-State.
Sure there's lots of Jerry Falwell and "apocalypse rapture" types out there it just isn't clear to me that they are leading the charge on any of these topics at the moment. Certainly the MAGA base includes them though, there is no question about that.
check Russell Vought and Project 2025 and the Atlantic’s The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows for more background. for first time ever these folks have hands on wheel of power AND policy.
- If by Protestant Reformation he means smashing it into pieces and not abiding by the centralization of the catholic church so that it can't do as much harm, sure? Hardly a nontransferable transformation.
- None of these religions are exceptional - they all have the same core truths that when you boil it down, their messiahs told the initial following to be very nice to each other to a point where it upset the established order and then their messages had to be rebranded to become 'acceptable' to the wider culture to include levers for control by part of the priest class (exoteric adaptation)
- The exoteric perversions of modern religious orders are all incompatible (by design). That should be hardly surprising, they were grafted into institutions for organizing us behind state interests.
And yes I noticed WHO that quoted image is of and WHAT he practices. But I won't spoil the surprise.
As JFK once supposedly quipped on a trip to England, “you gave Australia your convicts and America your fanatics…it’s really too soon to know who got the worse end of that deal.” I've never heard this before and it sheds light. thnx.
The one thing I know about this is that god won't save anyone. This is a people problem.
The United States has never had a class war or a religious war. Europe had many of those before coming to the current social democratic consensus (which is not unanimous as Brexit shows). There is hope that the US could learn from European history. But it seems like we might need our very own Hundreds Year War or French Revolution to realize the instability of using religion to justify massive social and economic inequities that harm those at the bottom the most.
You rocked this one, brilliant brother! Best one in a while. I bought the Kurt Anderson book, looks great. Check out my recent post for a review of Spirit-in-action. You know, we are living out the Atman project: substitute sacrifices in the search for Atman or true liberation. DA
You might enjoy Paul Kingsnorth's (converted Orthodox and writing an excellent Substack) Erasmus Lecture on this topic: 'Against Christian Civilization'
You definitely think from a Eurocentric Cartesian Dualistic Reality- obviously you have no idea of a Pantheistic Neutral Monistic Reality- but how could you possibly be any different based on the Western Newtonian Cartesian Binary Education System that created your language and reality.
Another great read. Jamie is one of my favorite influencers. I really enjoy the research. I just have to ask to what end? If he ever decides to do really do something about what's going on, I'm with him.
My dad and stepmom moved to South Carolina (both of them as Yankee as can be) because they fully believe the South will rise again. They are fundie born-agains with Rapturitis. They have believed and lived this way for decades. This stuff is baked in. Not going anywhere, now that it’s headlining and no longer a weird subculture.
Appreciate all you do to ask us to reflect on how to wisely adapt to stuff like this.
I went to a small, traditionalist school in South Carolina for about 2 of my college years. We were a magnet for people thinking like this. They've only gotten worse as they have embraced Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Good lord 🤦♀️ thankfully I haven’t spoken to my father since I was in college, so never got the full scoop on the booming fundie community down there. It’s bonkers though, where I live in the northeast, Yankee hillbillies drive around with confederate flags. And talk about how they’re fixin to move down south first chance they get 🙄
Well Jamie, you’ve done it again—another sharp and brilliant take.
Reading your piece, I found myself thinking about Arthur Blessitt. I wonder if you’ve ever come across him. I remember him vividly from the late 1960s: walking barefoot down Sunset Boulevard with a massive wooden cross, chaining himself to lampposts, preaching on the Strip. He was part of the Jesus movement’s fringe and widely rumored to be an “acid casualty,” though he later denied ever using LSD--although I remember people saying they "dropped" with him.
What’s fascinating is that Blessitt had a little-known but significant encounter with George W. Bush in April 1984. During a revival event called Decision ’84 in Midland, Texas, Bush—then still an oilman—heard Blessitt preaching on the radio. Intrigued, he asked to meet him, and a Bush family friend, Jim Sale, arranged it. According to some accounts, it was during that meeting that Bush decided to commit his life to Jesus—Blessitt was the preacher who prayed with him. But when the Bush family caught wind of it, they quickly introduced W to Billy Graham. The narrative shifted, and history now credits Graham with Bush’s “born again” moment.
Why does any of this matter? Because a close friend of mine, who served as a high-level NSA consultant, sat in on Defense Department meetings with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz—your usual suspects. When the question came up during Iraq War planning, “What’s the exit strategy?” Bush reportedly replied, “Jesus will show us the way.”
It sounds insane, I know—but follow the thread,. Yank it hard enough and you’ll find that one of the most disastrous foreign policy blunders of the 21st century may trace its psychic origins to a barefoot lunatic dragging a twelve-foot wooden cross down Sunset Boulevard, ranting about Jesus. A man the establishment wrote off as just another LSD burnout with a martyr complex and a flair for street theater.
And yet—years later—his gospel wormed its way into the skull of a dry-drunk oilman named George W. Bush, just in time for him to steer the country into a trillion-dollar holy war with no exit plan except divine intervention. “Jesus will show us the way,” he said. Sweet Jesus.
So yes, this current Christian fever dream is bizarre—of course it is—but it’s not new. It’s just the latest chapter in a long saga of messianic delusion and backroom prophecy. How many more of these rogue saints and shadow preachers are out there, whispering in the ears of men with nuclear launch codes?
Hell, I’ve lost count.
I appreciate your fresh perspective. I don't agree with Sam Harris' take on Islam. But I think Islam does have something important to teach us about the current Christian nationalist movement. I will get to that.
The current Christian Nationalist movement is pretty imperial. Meaning, they use religion to prop up their power and authority and as a cover for conquest and profiting from exploitation. And they are reinstating hierarchical structure where the head of state is divinely appointed like a king or emperor who can not be contradicted. Even though they are non-deminational charismatic Protestants, they are reinstating the merger between church and state, not like Rome, but more like King Henry the VIII or maybe like the Czar who was authorized through the Byzantine hierarchy and was ordained by Gid to morally cleanse the church and state (in a medieval kind of way).
Now, regarding Islam, it's different, yes. Because it was an empire whose expansion was not primarily focused on material acquisition but on ideological propagation, spreading a message.
Is that was this Christian Nationalist government is doing? Yes! They are spreading their ideology constantly. But Is that their primary motive??? They might like to think in their hearts they are saving souls from the devil. But they are mostly perpetuating the "morality" of the 1600's colonial profiteering. Where "Christianity" and being European in culture (and skin tone), gives you legal privilege to oppress others for profit, for life.
Islamic colonization did include slave trade. But it also let others freely practice their religions. Albeit with a inferior dhimi legal status and jizya tax. But every conquered people had to pay tax to their conqueror whoever they were.
In the American colonies slaves, indentured servants, and tradesman were taxed from childhood. Who wasn't? The elite, and those in the government and their family members, all friends of the king were exempt! Does this sound familiar???
In Islam, Harris seems to somehow ignore the golden age which was not just progressive for Muslims but for the whole world. They were advancing science, mathematics, hygiene, medicine, and astronomy when Europe had not yet become enlightened. The Christian Nationalist movement is like the antithesis of the Islamic Golden age. They are more like Bishop Cyril of Alexandria trying to cleanse the city of pagan worship and mob murdering Hypatia, the philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and head of the academy. The burning of the library of Alexander likely happened around that time and not during the Islamic conquest as some surmise. Today's administration would happily burn that library. They in effect are, as they are removing vast swaths of research from public access and many other things.
Today's retrograde Islamic extremists, were birthed out of wahabism only about 75 years ago. Why? To use religion to prop up the power of the Saudi King. And they later embraced decolonization from Western Imprerialism. None of this has anything to do with Christian Nationalism except both the Arab elite and "Christian" elite love exploiting the poor to be become more rich and using religion to prop legitimacy
It seems to me that an essay by Phil Wilson titled US Fascist Iconography is very much related to your assessment of US christian nationalism. It is featured on the Counterpunch website.
Geez!, poignant and focused writing and insights from Jamie. Where I was puzzling out fragmented pieces of culture you laid the pieces out to map the journey that got us to where we are. Does not take much of a stretch to see these pieces fit together. Much appreciated though probably too much credit and emphasis on the movement coming out of the south. When I think of the "old rural South" where I grew up you'd wouldn't need much education to tell a New York Real Estate Tycoon Yankee modern carpetbagger wouldn't and doesn't give a Sh-t about the south. Where and when did that southern sixth sense of reading BS die?
Citing Sam Harris as an expert in understanding civilization is naive in my opnion. Harris' assertion that Islam and secular democracy cannot coexist ignores empirical exceptions. Pre-revolutionary Iran and modern Malaysia both combined Islamic values with the state by modifying interpretations. Tunisia's Ennahda movement, even, participates in electoral politics in defiance of theory that Islamist parties need to be anti-democratic.
Harris also simplifies extremism to prioritizing doctrine over history. Most scholars have underscored that the geopolitical realities, i.e., Western intervention, oppressive regimes, poverty, marginalization by western Christian-majority powers, are more compelling drivers of violent Islamic extremists.
Even the British MI6 found out that most so-called Islamic terrorists have little religious knowledge, (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/aug/20/uksecurity.terrorism1) debunking the theology-terrorism connection.
Lastly, Indonesia's plural democracy demonstrates that secularism is not the sole modern answer.
understood. now go back and re-read what I wrote and see if I was in any way endorsing Sam's monolithic critique? I was using him and Huntington as foils to set up the counter argument re: American counter reformation religiosity as equally dangerous.
I happen to be in Tunis right now—the birthplace of the Arab Spring back in 2011. And today, fittingly, is May Day, or International Labor Day, which means loud, impassioned demonstrations echoing through the streets near the government ministries.
Ennahda—also known as the Renaissance Party—has been largely neutered by President Kais Saied, who, despite his increasingly authoritarian tendencies, is still popular enough to be cruising through the first year of his second five-year term. But Ennahda's influence isn’t entirely gone. These things rarely vanish cleanly.
From where I sit, Ken Wilber catalyzed a genuinely fascinating movement. A lot of good people and programs emerged from that Integral wave. But like most movements, it seems to have run its course. Coincidental or not, I sometimes wonder if the wig marked the moment things started to drift for him—like some strange talisman of spiritual burnout.
Of course, the world doesn’t hand out clean answers. It laughs at binaries. As Wilber once said—perhaps too often—"Everyone is right... just partially." Arabs? Islam? Well, which Islam? Shiites? Sunnis? And even then, which Sunni school? The four can barely agree on doctrine, let alone politics.
Nuance reigns, and the devil dances in the details.
Enquiring minds, as ever, want to know.
we're over in Mallorca--could wave on a clear day ;). curious as to how Wilber made it into the comments? are you at an integral gathering or just thinking in spirally terms?
Nah, just thinking about his take, "Everyone is right... just partially." Maybe a reach.
This article was fabulous. Saved and sharing widely—crystal clear. I have read half of Fantasyland and it's in the queue to finish; you've bumped it up to the top. Also, super random, but since you happen to be on Mallorca: my dear friends run a phenomenal retreat business there! So if you're ever thinking of holding a retreat for your fellow luminaries, check it out and LMK if you'd like to be put in touch. As humans go, they're the best of the best. :)
https://www.instagram.com/retreatdsgco/
hiking up to Lluc Monastery today to pay our regards to the Black Madonna shrine there!
Amazing!!!
It’s not clear that any of the main rabble rousers in this cultural movement have Christian fundamentalist beliefs. I can’t think of a single one of the main right leaning influencers who does. Charlie Kirk?
How about Speaker of the House Mike Johnson? Or the conservative catholics on the supreme court? Not to mention that the MAGA base includes the christian fundamentalists. I grew up with fundies who got tired of using the democratic process to accomplish "god's will" and demonized the liberals. Trump- somehow- managed to coopt the former Moral Majority despite his personal life and political stances before declaring as president being anthema to the "Thy Will Be Done" caucus. My take is that fundamentalists believe they are using Trump to bring righteousness back to the US, when he is actually using them to make himself powerful. It's like Constantine the Great in the era of the Nation-State.
Sure there's lots of Jerry Falwell and "apocalypse rapture" types out there it just isn't clear to me that they are leading the charge on any of these topics at the moment. Certainly the MAGA base includes them though, there is no question about that.
check Russell Vought and Project 2025 and the Atlantic’s The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows for more background. for first time ever these folks have hands on wheel of power AND policy.
On Harris's 3 points:
- If by Protestant Reformation he means smashing it into pieces and not abiding by the centralization of the catholic church so that it can't do as much harm, sure? Hardly a nontransferable transformation.
- None of these religions are exceptional - they all have the same core truths that when you boil it down, their messiahs told the initial following to be very nice to each other to a point where it upset the established order and then their messages had to be rebranded to become 'acceptable' to the wider culture to include levers for control by part of the priest class (exoteric adaptation)
- The exoteric perversions of modern religious orders are all incompatible (by design). That should be hardly surprising, they were grafted into institutions for organizing us behind state interests.
And yes I noticed WHO that quoted image is of and WHAT he practices. But I won't spoil the surprise.
Ah, come on. WHO is it?
As JFK once supposedly quipped on a trip to England, “you gave Australia your convicts and America your fanatics…it’s really too soon to know who got the worse end of that deal.” I've never heard this before and it sheds light. thnx.
truth in advertising--it's likely apocryphal, but too good not to quote with a disclaimer ;)
Well done, Jamie. And bonus points for the Depeche Mode reference
The one thing I know about this is that god won't save anyone. This is a people problem.
The United States has never had a class war or a religious war. Europe had many of those before coming to the current social democratic consensus (which is not unanimous as Brexit shows). There is hope that the US could learn from European history. But it seems like we might need our very own Hundreds Year War or French Revolution to realize the instability of using religion to justify massive social and economic inequities that harm those at the bottom the most.
You rocked this one, brilliant brother! Best one in a while. I bought the Kurt Anderson book, looks great. Check out my recent post for a review of Spirit-in-action. You know, we are living out the Atman project: substitute sacrifices in the search for Atman or true liberation. DA
You might enjoy Paul Kingsnorth's (converted Orthodox and writing an excellent Substack) Erasmus Lecture on this topic: 'Against Christian Civilization'
https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/the-monthly-salon-october-bb8
have read it!
You definitely think from a Eurocentric Cartesian Dualistic Reality- obviously you have no idea of a Pantheistic Neutral Monistic Reality- but how could you possibly be any different based on the Western Newtonian Cartesian Binary Education System that created your language and reality.
Another great read. Jamie is one of my favorite influencers. I really enjoy the research. I just have to ask to what end? If he ever decides to do really do something about what's going on, I'm with him.
gotta follow that Book of Instructions Before Leaving Earth if u wanna be in the club