“The Anti-Christian Alt-Right”

I recently read an article in “First Things” (March, 2018 – Number 281, pp 29-34) by Matthew Rose, which provided real clarity for me as to the philosophical base of what is called “Alt-Right.”  This particular phenomenon has been particularly troublesome since before and during our last election process of 2016, and is perhaps best personified by Steve Bannon, who was advisor to the White House and had the President’s ear.

The article begins with a description of a young man, “Dan”, who is apostatizing from the Roman Catholic Church.  His name is phony, but emails from “Dan” are being sent to Christian academics and clergy.  Dan says, “The Church has become the number one enemy of Western Civilization.  Soon the only people left in Christianity will be third-world immigrants and a handful of self-hating whites.” (p. 29)

According to Matthew Rose, the alt right “purports to defend the identity and interests of white people, who it believes are compliant victims of a century long swindle by liberal morality…its principles are not so abstract, and do not pretend to neutrality.  Its creed in the words of Richard Spencer, is “Race is real.  Race matters.  Race is the foundation of identity.”  But Matthew Rose says this is not about a commitment to white supremacy.  “The alt-Right is anti-Christian.”(p.30)

Rose documents in this article essays by Greg Johnson, a theorist with a doctorate in philosophy from Catholic University of America, who argues, “Christianity is one of the main reasons for white decline” and “a necessary condition of white racial suicide.”  Johnson edits a website that publishes essays on many topics, but a common feature is “its subject’s criticism of Christian doctrine.”  Gregory Hood, one of the websites essayists writes, “Like acid, Christianity burns through ties of kinship and blood.”  It is “the essential religious step in paving the ways for decadent modernity and its toxic creeds.” (p.30)

According to Rose, the alt-right turns one hundred this year.  Its intellectual birth is marked by the 1918 publication of the first volume of Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West.

Another theorist who figures in this rejection of Christianity is Alain de Benoist.  He is a leading theorist in the European New Right, an intellectual movement that began in France in the late 1960s.  Benoist, according to Rose, attempts to envision a post-Christian future for people of European descent. (p.33)  His 1981 work, On Being a Pagan, makes this claim that the world is holy and eternal.  Pagan is also humanism.

“It recognizes man, the highest expression of nature, as the sole measure of the divine.  God does not therefore create men; men make gods, which “exist” as ideal models that their creatures strive to equal.”  Benoist writes, “Man shares in the divine every time he surpasses himself…every time he attains the boundaries of his best and strongest aspects.” (p.33)

Benoist reaches this conclusion:

“Christianity imparted to our [Western] culture and ethics which the alt-right calls, “pathological altruism.”  Its self-distrust, concern for victims, and fear of excluding outsiders—such values swindle Western peoples out of a preferential love for their own.”(p.33)

I commend this article to its readers.  Having wondered where the intellectual underpinning of the alt-right movement began, Rose’s article has proved to be most illuminating and helpful.  As we seek to better understand the call of Jesus Christ on our lives, it is helpful when we can understand why a particular philosophy is so corrosive to western culture and life and why it finds it power in the rejection of the message of Christ and the Christian church.

The alt-Right philosophy is also most informative when we seek to more clearly understand the right wing agenda of our President.  What I have been calling bizarre, is indeed part of an intellectual movement spanning a hundred years.  It finally makes sense to me why this movement must be vigorously opposed by Christians.  This philosophy cuts away at the core of Christian community.  The church is not the church of one people group alone.  As the gift of new languages through the gift of the Holy Spirit of God to the church at Pentecost shows, Babel is no more, but all humanity is united in this one new language of the Holy Spirit, a gift to the world from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 2).  The gift of Christ’s Spirit is intended to unite all the people and all the languages of the entire world.

In a reflection upon this article, today, I wrote these words, entitled “A Reflection on Servanthood.”

Considering President Trump as an “Entitled White Male”, I said:

Entitled white males could not exist without the supportive structures and other persons of our society.  This would immediately become obvious by a simple experiment.  As an experiment, let us place all entitled white males on an island by themselves and see what occurs.  Is it not likely that some will dominate, some will become subservient and some will become enslaved?  This type of hierarchy fractures society and makes it into those who are “the haves” and “the have nots.”

Our question today:  “Is this the type of society we want in 20^th century America?” Even now, many are behaving as if we live on an island alone, separated from all the rest of the world and not united as one human family.  Hence we have entitled white males, egocentric, narcissistic, isolated and selfish, led by our own entitled while male, President Donald Trump!

This is not the vision of Christ for his holy bride, the holy, catholic church!  The New Jerusalem descending from God to the earth is made up of all persons of humanity and not simply of entitled white males.  In fact, in the words of Jesus, “the last shall be made first and the first last!”  We do not even know if entitled white males who receive their reward on this earth will even be allowed admittance into the kingdom of heaven.  “Except you humble yourselves and become as a little child,” Jesus says, “you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:16)

It is important for those of us who proclaim the gospel of Christ to understand its social and ethical implications.  We cannot sit or pray in silence when there are those who are attacking and subverting the very good news of Christ we love and proclaim.  We know there is only one Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Why do we allow ourselves to be seduced by false messiahs and false promises, even so called messiahs elected to the White House?  Surely by this time in human history, we do not need another lesson as we learned from fascism and Nazism in Europe in the 20^th century!  Look at the tremendous cost to humanity from that era?  How many wars, how many holocausts should it take to persuade the church we cannot trust saviors who arise in the earth who are not the one true Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord!

Perhaps a time will come when we as human beings in the United States learn from the mistakes made in past eras.  Must we do all this again?

I have compared the current administration in the White House to a “bad belch” of American Politics.  God help us, someone get some Tums, Rolaids and Gas X to try and staunch this “bad belly ache.”

This is, perhaps, enough to say about this for now.

So then, let us pray:

“Lord Jesus Christ, we know that the gift of your own Holy Spirit is meant to unite and not to divide us.  Come upon us in this day and hour once again.  Baptize your children, of whatever language, people group or tribe and break down the barrier walls which separate us.  Make us one in Jesus Christ our Lord.  As you have glorified your name, so now glorify it yet again, for we pray in your strong and redemptive name, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Come upon us all, as in the day of Pentecost.  Make us into one new people, of one voice and language in Jesus Christ.  Break down all those barriers which seem to divide us.  Make us one new people, a light of welcoming redemption and hope to all the world.  In Jesus name we pray, world without end, Amen and Amen!

Let all of God’s people say, “Amen!”

“Amen!  We praise you Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The voice of one crying in this wilderness, “Make straight in this desert a highway for our God!”  To our Lord Jesus Christ, be all glory and praise, world without end!  Amen and Amen!