White Supremacy: The Bastardization and Sacrilege of Christianity
This week, noted Neo-Nazi and alt-reichist Richard Spencer paid a visit to the University of Florida, where (I am proud to say) my fellow Floridians offered up a united and stinging rebuke of his dangerous ideology. From jeers of “Go Home Spencer,” to pointed barbs such as “how did it feel to get punched in the face on camera,” the student body and neighbors aggressively worked to show their contempt and disgust that a man dare attempt to resurrect and re-brand an ideology that led to the deaths of tens of millions of people.
Previously, however, in Charlottesville, Virginia, Richard Spencer and his “Unite the Right rally” attracted significantly more support than at Gainesville — where he and his followers clashed violently with protestors. Chants of “you will not replace us” turned into “Jew will not replace us.” Nazism, KKK, and skinhead imagery became entwined and interlaced with that of medieval and Christian iconography, such as cross lighting by the KKK, or (more recently) the use of the historical Knights Templar. The long-defunct Knights Templar had their roots in the medieval crusades by the Western European states to conquer the Holy Land (roughly modern-day Israel, Palestine; and parts of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon) from the powerful Islamic Caliphates and (later) Ottoman Empire.
As ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) has utilized historical and apocryphal ideology to further its regime (specifically the declaration of the caliphate), so too have white supremacist groups used historical Christian-state ideology to further theirs. Specifically, the concept of the Knights Templar has been refocused as a rallying cry to fight against what they call “militant Islam,” but in practice has become synonymous with pushing back against Islam in general.
The use of concepts such as the Knights Templar allows white supremacist groups to weave a cultural myth around their factions, painting them as a consistent and unified civilization: The West. Using this concept of The West, these groups rally themselves against the enemies of The West, namely “militant Islamism,” “globalism,” and “western degeneracy.”
The concept of defending the west is a powerful idea, and a shrewd PR move, for the concept of “The West” as inherently good, and thus worthy of defense, is richly baked into (for lack of a better word) The West’s cultural history. In Lord of the Rings, Aragorn cries “This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!” In The Song of Roland, the titular hero dies facing the invading Muslim Saracens. The white supremacist groups lean into this already established concept and deep-seated associations of good vs. evil with “West vs. invaders” to emotionally align individuals to their cause, to portray themselves as sympathetic, and to ultimately justify their existence.
A phrase that crops up again and again among these white supremacist groups is “Deus vult,” which is Latin for “God wills it.” Again, we find a reference to the Crusades, as “Deus vult” was the battle cry at the declaration of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II. Very clearly, we see that white supremacists are not only reconstructing the historical cry of the west in their battle for dominance, but they are legitimizing it through the use of God.
To be clear, and of great importance, the Catholic Church has taken a very strong stance against white supremacy and alt-right ideology. After Charlottesville, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo (President of the U.S. bishops’ conference) and Bishop Frank Dewane (chair of Domestic Justice and Human Development) issued a joint statement stating, “We stand against the evil of racism, white supremacy, and neo-nazism…we stand…united in the sacrifice of Jesus, by which love’s victory over every form of evil is assured.”
What is intriguing here is that the neo-nazis have laid claim to the historical tradition of the papacy (Crusades) and imperialist Christianity in defense of the West, whereas the Catholic Church and the papacy itself denounces white supremacy through the supremacy of Christ. Thus, we have two groups justifying their ideology, one through religion, and one through the historical implementation of religion for subjugation. In a nutshell, white supremacy is trying to use the Papacy’s record of warfare for justification, and the church is utilizing the tenants of religion in order to reject it.
In a way, the alt-right has forced the church to reject its own past abuses. The Catholic Church is moving past its historical actions, and utilizing (as it should) religious tenants to guide their future moves. Another example of this is the Church’s opposition to the repeal of DACA (deferred action for childhood arrivals), which is a hallmark of right-wing nativist politics, and something white supremacists have championed.
When confronted with The Catholic Church’s condemnation of nativist Unite The Right and President Trump’s repeal of DACA, the alt-right has responded by attacking the Church’s legitimacy as a pillar of the west. Steve Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart, said, “They need illegal aliens to fill the churches. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration.”
By bringing up “illegal aliens,” Steve Bannon has portrayed the Church as no longer “Western” in the sense of “White European.” He, in a sense, has separated the living church from the historical church: the former uses religious teachings to focus on social justice, whereas the latter is an embodiment of the might and greatness of white civilization. Therefore, by stating the church needs “illegal aliens” to survive, he implies that it doesn’t need “the west,” and that it does not represent “the west.” Basically, the alt-right and white supremacists can freely seize the mantle of Imperialist Christianity, because not only has the Catholic Church rejected its legacy, but (according to Bannon) is no longer even the heir to that legacy given the changing demographic makeup of the church.
Christendom and The Church itself have thus been severed from each other. White Supremacy is in fundamental disunion with the teachings of Christianity, so it is in their interest to gut the actual teachings of the religion from the vehicle that espouses them. Seeing as the greater white supremacist movement is made up of both Christian and non-Christian groups, this makes sense as a form of a lowest common denominator. For example, the Ku Klux Klan is explicitly Christian in its symbolism (the lighting of the cross), traditionally anti-Catholic, and vehemently racist, so aligns well with Steve Bannon’s attack on the Catholic Church. On the other hand, the alt-right (defined here as neo-nativist and white supremacist) is comprised of a high percentage of atheists and agnostics. Professor George Hawkley, author of Making Sense of the Alt Right stated in an interview that “[the alt-right] is a more secular population than the country overall.” Richard Spencer himself is an atheist, but identifies as a “cultural Christian.” The “cultural Christian” is the key element, and one that unites the alt-right with the Ku Klux Klan: they are united in their shared cultural heritage of Imperial Christianity, and their defense of Christendom as it exists solely as a pillar of White, Western Civilization. Christendom is defined not by its religion, but that which it historically has held, defended, and created: The West.
This is what is so insidious and dangerous about the corruption of Christian ideology by white supremacy: because the imagery is but an empty vessel to these groups, they do not fear the religious repercussions. They do not fear or respect when the Church says “this is sacrilege; this is a perversion,” because so few have religious faith. To them, the religion is useless, and the Church is wasting its potential by focusing its time and energy on the doctrine instead of doing what it once did: defending Western Society. They have untethered themselves from moral responsibility, and instead focus solely on Earthly gain.
In the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers, Sabine Baring-Gould writes:
Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.
Christ, the royal Master,
Leads against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See his banners go!
To white supremacists, this imagery is not a metaphor. It is not a call to spiritual evangelism, or to following Christ, but to literally war in the name of God. A God in which many of them do not believe. To take imagery as such at face value is to neglect its true meaning. In the same hymn, but in a later verse, Baring-Gould writes:
Like a mighty army
Moves the Church of God;
Brothers, we are treading
Where the Saints have trod.
We are not divided;
All one body we:
One in hope and doctrine,
One in charity.
It is not a mighty army, but like a mighty army. White Supremacists bastardize the concept of metaphorically rising up as an army of spiritual unity in favor of a bloody and literalist corruption and willful misreading.
The Church, and true men of faith, must have but one response: to reject this corrupt ideology. We must face them like a mighty army, not divided — but all one body in hope, doctrine, and charity.
The true Christian soldier is united and known by his hope, faith, and charity — not his violence. Christianity calls for soldiers of pacifism, and to be militant in selflessness, humility, and love.
For those that exalt themselves shall be humbled, and those that humble themselves shall be exalted.
They may shout “you will not replace us,” but we shout back “you will not replace our love.”
