The Empire Strikes Back

The Bible and the Plot to Destroy American Democracy, Part 13

How did millions of American evangelicals become stormtroopers (and not even know it)?

Christianity traces its origins to the time of the Roman Empire when it began as a sect within Judaism, a tradition extending back at least another thousand years. Over that timespan, there were periods when the dominant voices allied themselves with the oppressive powers of Empire and seasons when they stood in opposition.

In the mid-twentieth century, the dominant form of American Christianity, mainline Protestantism, offered the moral foundation for the post-war liberal consensus which pushed the forces of oppression - white supremacy, patriarchy, oligarchy, and fundamentalism - to the margins.

But mainliners were not the only expression of Christianity, a new interpretation was ascending, one that would denounce the moral fabric of American democracy, liberalism, as evil.

Much of the research into White Christian Nationalism has been done by sociologists, historians, journalists, and theologians who have done great work connecting the dots between the leaders of evangelicalism and the interests of power, but my background is in the area of Christian formation.

I am more interested in the stormtroopers. How did the Empire build its army? How did biblical inerrancy become central to the plot to destroy American democracy?

I did an internet search on how the Galactic Empire formed its stormtroopers and the answer was what I suspected: indoctrination.

It wasn’t just Fox News, they were formed in Sunday schools, youth groups, women’s Bible studies, men’s fellowship, worship, and classrooms.

We have a Christian formation problem. The methods used within evangelicalism to make disciples have the side effect of destroying critical thinking. Yet, the nature of evangelicalism suggests this is a feature not a bug.

The word “evangelical” can be confusing because several of the old mainline denominations were once considered evangelical; they believed in salvation by faith - that Christianity was an “opt in” faith.

At the turn of the 20th century there was a split in Protestantism over modernism - the critical interpretation of Scripture. In simple terms, the modernists adapted the Bible to fit the science and fundamentalists insisted that science must submit to the Bible.

The modernists “won” and the fundamentalists withdrew from the mainline churches, formed their own publishing houses, and separated themselves from society. Separation, the need for purity, is a key component of fundamentalism.

In the 1940s, the neo-evangelical movement began within fundamentalism to reengage with culture and formed the National Association of Evangelicals to provide organization for joint mission efforts.

Where denominations often had agencies to carry out work together, evangelicals created parachurch organizations and took to radio and television to promote their message with revivalist preachers.

They also held old fashioned revivals, one preacher grew into the face of mid-century evangelicalism when a series of revivals in Los Angeles in 1949 got the attention of William Randolph Hearst, who used his influence to “puff” Billy Graham up.

In the weeks prior to his first “crusade,” the USSR successfully detonated its first atomic bomb and Mao Zedong announced the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, after a long civil war.

After listening to the preface to the first edition of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, I realized something about this period that I think those of who did not live it have not understood.

When we think of the 1950s, we often imagine a time of peace and prosperity, but the adults of the 1950s had just survived World War II and endured the Depression. The Influenza Pandemic and World War I were both in living memory. Nuclear war was imminent.

Modern evangelicalism was born into a world of fear.

Into that fear, Graham offered the simple message of salvation. He framed the Cold War as a moral conflict between Christian America and atheist Communism and offered a reductionist message: accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and be saved.

Through the 1950s, Graham worked with President Eisenhower to fuse patriotism and capitalism with Christianity and create a civil religion to protect against the militant atheism of Communism.

He also worked across denominations and helped to create a common Christian American identity. It was a unity built around an “other” - the Communists.

All that unity with other denominations, and Black Americans, led the old order fundamentalists to sever ties with Graham, while many mainline churches were being influenced by the evangelical movement.

In the 1960s, the New Right began to form in the Republican Party to roll back the New Deal, but struggled to gain momentum because most voters benefited from the social capitalism of the era. In an effort to build their coalition, Republicans developed a strategy to win over Southern white voters after Democratic support of the Civil Rights Act put them in play. Many of these voters were also part of the evangelical movement..

During this time, evangelicalism expanded into culture through the Jesus Movement which inspired the growth of contemporary Christian music and worship.

Evangelicalism was becoming a subculture, with its own music, television shows, bookstores, and private schools. Still, liberalism was infecting their churches - women were starting to be ordained in Southern Baptist Churches!

So, in 1978, a group of evangelicals gathered in Chicago to clarify the only true and correct way to read the Bible. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and Hermeneutics established a purity test for evangelicals.

Then, the fundamentalists staged a takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention and the evangelical subculture.

Through the 1980s and 90s, the subculture became a separatist environment for evangelicals to live in and the rise of the church growth movement helped to spread a new model for churches to embrace. This set the stage for churches to become stormtrooper academies as they began to incorporate the 8 criteria for thought reform (see chapter 22). (Thanks to Kristin Du Mez’s Live, Laugh, Love for pointing me in this direction)

Now, I don’t think anyone read the book and then came up with a plan to brainwash people, but neither did the Chinese. It was what happened when people abused their authority and developed formation strategies that relied heavily on manipulative techniques that, when combined, turned good people into stormtroopers.

I have long been concerned about the use of the Bible to manipulate people, but when I learned about the psychology of totalism, I saw how the stories I’ve heard, along with my own experiences on the fringes of high control Christianity, mapped onto this formula. My hope is that some sociologists out there can do more extensive research into this.

Here is an overview of how it seems to me that evangelicals have used thought reform to develop people into stormtroopers:

Milieu Control - This is the need to control as much of the environment and information as possible to ensure a particular outcome; it is core to the isolationist nature of fundamentalism. Christians learned to be “in the world, but not of the world,” as they were encouraged to work in Christian companies, shop in Christian stores, participate in more and more church activities, homeschool, only befriend other Christians, don’t trust the liberal media, etc. Talk radio and propaganda news stations helped to support the wall that already existed.

Mystical Manipulation - Contemporary worship grew more emotionally driven through music and mood lighting and charismatic preachers on elevated platforms increasingly taught messages that blurred the lines between salvation and prosperity which had the effect of subverting grace for obedience.

The Demand for Purity - Around the mid-2010s, I started noticing that visitors who came to our church were no longer impressed by programs if we were not “biblical” enough. It took a long time for me to understand what that meant, but by that time, many Christians had been formed to recognize “pure” Christianity from its impure imposters. Biblicism had become an established purity test. It was the dividing line between “us” and “them.” (Also, purity culture itself.)

The Cult of Confession - When I was in youth group, we often went on retreats and on the last night of every one, there was an altar call. Anecdotally, many youth were “saved” every year, or every month, or every week. This is not the same as healthy confession, rather it is a manipulative tactic to break down a person’s judgment of their own self and to view themselves as sinners..

The “Sacred Science” - In many churches, the Bible cannot be questioned. “WE AFFIRM that the written Word in its entirety is revelation given by God.”* In some cases, this also extends to the pastor who is “God’s anointed,” which prevents accountability.

Loading the Language - This is the one that I am most passionate about. “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Within evangelical subculture, the primary interpretation of the Bible is as a collection of thought terminating cliches. In addition, the reductionist view that Christianity is primarily about going to heaven when we die prevents people from doing the deep work of knowing and following Jesus. Worship music is also filled with thought ending cliches.

Doctrine Over Person - “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9). “For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander” (Matthew 15:19).

Once the sacredness of Scripture to be used as a collection of thought terminating thoughts is established, verses like these are weaponized to manipulate people into ignoring their instincts.

The Dispensing of Existence - Perhaps this was really “their final most essential command.” I think the saddest part of the last decade has been watching as evangelicals have grown comfortable with the inhumane treatment and deaths of people who are not them. The “others” do not really exist.

I’m not sure that anyone cares if evangelicals want to believe that Noah’s Ark was a true story, or if they have cutesy Bible verses all over their homes, or if they have fog machines in worship, but all of these things work together to break down people’s ability to think critically and oftentimes to even know whether or not they’re being manipulated.

Maybe you’re reading this and wondering if you’ve been manipulated.

Are you free to ask questions? Do you find yourself quieting concerns? Have you been cut off from old relationships? Are you in a bubble? Do you seek input from multiple sources? Have some people become your enemy?

Most of our evangelical MAGA friends are not really in a cult because they’re not in completely closed systems. And they haven’t actually been brainwashed, they’ve been conditioned to ignore and not trust information from outside or even their own instincts. They’ve been trained to accept simple answers and that asking questions can lead to becoming an “other,” which could result in eternal torment (or possibly annihilation).

It’s important to recognize this is abuse that has been going on for decades. It’s going to be easier for many people to stay because accepting the level of betrayal that they’ve experienced is going to be too hard. Those who do leave will need care as they rebuild their ability to trust themselves and others again.

Most days this all feels like its too much, that there’s nothing we can do, but that’s not true. There is a way.

Next time: A New Hope (see what I did?)

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