Pulse
18 November 2024
On September 2, 2024, CNN reported that Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the first far-right party to win a state election in Germany since the Nazi era. Indeed, across Europe there has been an unprecedented ascendency of far-right movements with radical-right political parties making significant gains in Parliament elections.
This phenomenon is not confined to Europe and is witnessed in other parts of the world, notably the United States, where a distinct form of religious nationalism is evident.
The term ‘far-right’ is notoriously difficult to define and the groups that are labelled as such are so diverse that attempts to generalise can be both superfluous and misleading. In this article, our focus will be on right-wing religious extremism, which distinguishes itself by appealing to and commandeering religious themes and ideas, especially those associated with Christianity.
One of the chief features of religious right-wing extremism is an insistence on a militant interpretation of Christianity. In his book, Terror in the Mind of God (2003), the scholar of religious violence, Mark Juergensmeyer, explains that
Militant Christian extremists interpret passages in the Bible that speak of divine wrath and judgement as mandates for action, sometimes violent, against those perceived to be against God’s law.
An example of such a group is The Army of God, a network of militant anti-abortion extremists in the United States. This group declared ‘holy war’ against those who perform abortions, and will not hesitate to use violence – bombings, arson, and assassinations – to stop them.
Another feature of religious right-wing extremism is religious nationalism, which is often framed as the quest to recover the Christian heritage of the nation, and rescue it from the threat of multi-culturalism, secularism and immigration.
In their book, Taking America Back for God (2020), Samuel P. Perry and Andrew L. Whitehead explain that ‘Christian nationalism is a cultural framework – a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems – that idealises and advocates a fusion of Christianity and American civic life.’
Put differently, Christian nationalism is the erroneous and dangerous blending of politics and religion which uses the Bible to support a certain political ideal and agenda.
This form of nationalism is often wedded with racism. This is evident in far-right movements in the United States and Europe that are both nationalistic and white supremacist such as the Ku Klux Klan, Christian Identity, and the Creativity Movement.
Finally, some radical right-wing groups often use the apocalyptic narratives and images of the Bible to bolster their political vision and agendas.
This framework is extremely powerful as it generates in these groups the sense that they are involved in the struggle between good and evil that the Bible had allegedly foretold. It also provides the motivation for urgent action – which sometimes includes violence – which the extremists regard as part of God’s plan.
Through their misguided interpretation of biblical prophecies, these apocalyptic extremists see themselves as living in the end times and involved in a cosmic struggle. Their perceived enemies – the state, some institutions, certain religious groups such as Muslims – are the ‘anti-Christ’ which must be defeated at all cost.
Needless to say, Christians must have no truck with these right-wing extremist groups which mutilate the teachings of the Scriptures for their own ends and discredit the Christian Faith. Christians must stand firm against any group which seeks to use the Bible to justify violent acts.
The central message of the Bible has to do with the love, mercy and justice of God, which are supremely revealed in Jesus Christ, God’s incarnate Son. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that his disciples are to be peacemakers and even to love their enemies (Matthew 5:9, 44).
The disciples of Christ, who seek to imitate their Lord, must strenuously reject the use of Scriptures or the name of God by any group to endorse hate, exclusion or violence. This is precisely what these far-right religious groups are advocating, thus exposing the fact that their attitude, ideology and actions are antithetical to the Gospel they claim to uphold.
In a similar vein, Christians must reject the ideas of patriotism espoused by these radical groups, which distort the Christian identity and which conflate Christianity with nationalism. Far-right Christian nationalism reveals the profound error in the groups’ understanding of the relationship between religion and politics, which fails to appreciate the nuance found in the New Testament.
The Bible teaches that Christians ought to submit to the governing authorities, for they are God’s instruments for the execution of justice (Romans 13:1-7). But nowhere does the Bible urge believers to endorse any political ideology, system, state or nation as Christian.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus said to his disciples: ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ (18:36). This clearly indicates that Jesus’ mission was never to establish a particular political regime or introduce a political system, but to instead inaugurate God’s kingdom which transcends all national boundaries.
It is important to recognise that the ‘Christianity’ of far-right Christian nationalism, as Perry and Whitehead have shown, ‘represents something more than religion.’ It includes ‘assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism.’
In other words, the ‘Christianity’ of the religious far-right is an ideology dressed up in a religious garb, a systemic distortion of the teachings of the Bible and orthodox Christianity.
In the case of the United States, the religious far-right often embraces the assumption that America originally was a Christian nation. It has in the course of its history strayed from its Christian roots and destiny due to the influence of secularism, immigration, etc. They see it as their duty – indeed, their mission – to restore America to its original status and calling.
However, it should be noted that this idea or sentiment is so pervasive that it is not exclusive to only the religious far-right, which is the main focus of this article. It is a sentiment that has captured the imagination of many American Christians who are not associated with the far-right.
In 2005, Gregory Boyd wrote an insightful book to refute this mythology entitled, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church, which in my view should be required reading for every Christian who believes such ideas ate tenable.
Boyd rightly argued that to regard America as a Christian nation is in fact detrimental to the real witness and ministry of the Church. The paragraph is so important that I’ve decided to reproduce it here in full as I conclude this article:
The myth of America as a Christian nation, with the church as its guardian, has been, and continues to be, damaging both to the church and to the advancement of God’s kingdom. Among other things, this nationalistic myth blinds us to the way in which our basic and most cherished cultural assumptions are diametrically opposed to the kingdom way of life taught by Jesus and his disciples. Instead of living out the radically countercultural mandate of the kingdom of God, this myth has inclined us to Christianise many aspects of our culture. Instead of providing the culture with a radically alternative way of life, we largely present it with a religious version of what it already is. The myth clouds our vision of God’s distinctly beautiful kingdom and thereby undermines our motivation to live as set-apart (holy) disciples of the kingdom.
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.