Book 2, Chapter 9: Moral Conflict and Christian Identity and the Christian Right (original) (raw)

In terms of John Boyd’s moral conflict and Lind’s Fourth Generation Warfare, it is very clear that the broad Christian Right, Christian Identity, the neo-Nazis, the Odinists, and large portions of the Patriot militia ground their opposition to the federal government in religion. While the religions differ sharply, it is their war on the federal government, at times rhetorical, at times couched in defensive just-war theory, and at times actually violent that links them together. The previous chapter re-cast the Christian Right’s and the Christian Identity’s rhetoric in terms of cosmic war, epistemological warfare, and Fourth Generation Warfare. Clearly, both religious movements, and other religious movements linked to them, intend to promote a crisis of legitimacy focused on the federal government. And, it is clear that the broad Christian Right almost from its inception has been orientated towards the impositional phase of a Christian fundamentalist movement, though its broad leadership has not openly advocated violence. Moral conflict for the Christian Reconstructionists and their Christian Right allies, as well as Christian Identity, Cosmotheist, and Odinist adherents, places them firmly in opposition to the federal government. Their opposition to the federal government is rooted in and derived from their religious beliefs. The implications of the Christian Right’s “Declaration of Independence;” the idea that rebellion against tyranny is obedience to God; and, the broad Christian Right’s war on the federal judiciary via the dubious concept of “originalism” is that the federal government is illegitimate and tyrannical, and consequently Christian resistance to tyranny is legitimate. In other words, from the Republican Party, including then President George W. Bush, to the broad Christian Right which is the base of the Republican Party, the political, economic, and social systems are illegitimate and they are working to provoke a crisis of legitimacy. Or, to put it even more plainly, the broad right-wing—from the Republican Party to the Hard Right—constitutes a threat to the political system and the constitutional rights of all Americans who support a secular political order that does not privilege either a certain species of Christianity and/or the white race. This anti-system coalition’s moral opposition to the prevailing order is rooted in religion, even though those religious belief systems differ significantly from one another. The Christian Right’s language may seem softer, but the implications of the broad Christian Right’s declarations and intellectual attacks on the federal government are in reality no less harsh than the various declarations of war by Christian Identity, Cosmotheist, and Odinist believers. Individuals that have been influenced by all their rhetoric have, in fact, engaged in violence and terrorist acts.