“Your public service is animated by the same conviction,” he said, “to help and protect people and to advance justice and reconciliation, especially for those who are too often looked over and left behind.”
“This is your noble commission,” he said. “This is the divine summons for all of us.”
There are myriad changes with the incoming Biden administration. One of the most significant: a president who has spent a lifetime steeped in Christian rituals and practices.
Mr. Biden, perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century, regularly attends Mass and speaks of how his Catholic faith grounds his life and his policies.And with Mr. Biden, a different, more liberal Christianity is ascendant: less focused on sexual politics and more on combating poverty, climate change and racial inequality.
His arrival comes after four years in which conservative Christianity has reigned in America’s highest halls of power, embodied in white evangelicals laser-focused on ending abortion and guarding against what they saw as encroachments on their freedoms. Their devotion to former President Donald J. Trump was so fervent that many showed up in Washington on Jan. 6 to protest the election results. (emphasis added)
Before Biden
Evangelical Christians see themselves as being under severe attack in America and threatened with loss of their rights to believe and practice religion as they wish privately, socially, in government and in commerce. The core narrative of the oppressed, persecuted American Christian struggling to simply be free unites that tribe. As discussed here before, (i) the core narrative is pure malarkey, and (ii) Evangelical Christian Nationalists have succeeded in gaining control of the Supreme Court and are now aggressively attacking secularism, feminism and other social circumstances they morally disapprove of. The core persecution narrative is false propaganda used to scare the tribe into extremism, intolerance and hostility to the rights of others they disapprove of. In particular, racial minorities and the LGBQT community are heavily disapproved of.
Evangelical Christian Nationalism as a political and social force in America is not going to go away. Nor will it soften its aggressive attacks on aspects of society its leaders deem to be unacceptable to their God. These people and their ideology are focused on eliminating from American society the things they know are immoral, ungodly and in need of self-righteous social cleansing. That most Americans generally disagree with them is of no concern. Most of these people are anti-democratic authoritarians who supported the attempted coup on Jan. 6. Contrary public opinion is something on the list of things that needs to be cleansed from American society.
During and after Biden
The NYT characterizes Biden’s leadership as repudiating conservative claims that Democrats are anti-Christian (the false persecution narrative). It is true that fewer registered Democrats identify as Christian compared to republicans. In 2019, about 80 percent of registered Republicans identified as Christian, while about 52 percent of democrats did. But that does not mean that non-Christians are anti-Christian. The anti-Christian lie is necessary to maintain the power of the persecution narrative to keep the tribe united, frightened, angry, intolerant, aggressive and non-compromising (authoritarian).[1]
In general, it doesn't seen to be the case that liberal Christianity will come to exert the power that conservative Christian Nationalism has and will continue to have. But time will tell how this social dynamic plays out. Maybe tolerant liberalism will come to replace intolerant conservatism in American Christianity.
Footnote:
1. It helps to keep some context in mind to highlight just how ridiculous the fake Christian persecution narrative is in modern America. Among other things, Christians dominate (i) local, state and federal courts, law enforcement, police, and prisons, including the Supreme Court, (ii) congress and state legislatures, (iii) the White House and state governorships, (iv) public and private schools and colleges, and their curricula, (v) local, state and federal employees, (vi) Christian churches, schools and businesses, (vii) the US military, (viii) the US postal service, and (ix) most private sector businesses. Christians dominate just about everything important in America today. Where is the threat in that?
Second, religious belief and practice enjoys rock solid protection in the Constitution, and federal and state laws. Third, no major segment of US society is arguing to get rid of Christianity. Again, no threat in any of that.
To remain a powerful propaganda and deceit tool, the persecution narrative has no choice but to characterize rights for despised groups and secularism as vicious attacks on, and existential threats to, poor, persecuted Christians. That was exactly how Christian conservatives characterized 2015 Obergefell decision that legalized same-sex marriage. Some or most Christians called Obergefell a massive attack on both religious practice and Christian free speech. The characterization was gross exaggeration to the point of clearly being intentional, outright lies. Conservative Christians just cannot tolerate or accept social changes that they dislike. So they lie about it, call disliked social change serious persecution. Most appear to live in a state of either genuine self-delusion or cynical lust for power.
One reflection of the deranged persecution narrative is propaganda from radical right online sites. One version of persecution that is circulating is that now that democrats have "absolute" power, Christians will be rounded up and put into re-education camps. Persecution Christians are scared that they will be forcibly converted into atheists and maybe also cannabalistic pedophiles or something crackpot like that.
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