I don’t usually use texts written by others in this blog, but this article lays out clearly the issues faced by serious Christians in our current toxic religio-political environment. It is both blunt and radical, as is the message of Jesus to his followers.
Below is an
excerpt from a talk by Chris Hedges entitled “The Politics of Cultural Despair”
transcribed and printed in Scheerpost October 19, 2020. To read the complete article click <here>.
All
fascist movements paper over their squalid belief systems with the veneer of
morality. They mouth pieties about restoring law and order, right and wrong,
the sanctity of life, civic and family virtues, patriotism and tradition to
mask their dismantling of the open society and silencing and persecution of
those who dissent. The Christian Right, awash in money from corporations that
understand their political intent, will use any tool, no matter how devious,
from right-wing armed militias to the invalidation of ballots, to block Biden
and Democratic candidates from assuming office.
Capitalism,
driven by the obsession to maximizing profit and reduce the cost of production
by slashing worker’s rights and wages, is antithetical to the Christian Gospel,
as well as the Enlightenment ethic of Immanuel Kant. But capitalism, in the
hands of the Christian fascists, has become sacralized in the form of the
Prosperity Gospel, the belief that Jesus came to minister to our material
needs, blessing believers with wealth and power. The Prosperity Gospel is an
ideological cover for the slow-motion corporate coup d’état. This is why large
corporations such as Tyson Foods, which places Christian Right chaplains in its
plants, Purdue, Wal-Mart, and Sam’s Warehouse, along with many other
corporations, pour money into the movement and its institutions such as Liberty
University and Patrick Henry Law School. This is why corporations have given
millions to groups such as the Judicial Crisis Network and the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce to campaign for Barrett’s appointment to the court. Barrett has ruled
to cheat gig workers out of overtime, green light fossil fuel extraction and
pollution, gut Obamacare and strip consumers of protection from corporate
fraud. Barrett, as a circuit court judge, heard at least 55 cases in which
citizens challenged corporate abuse and fraud. She ruled in favor of
corporations 76 percent of the time.
Our
corporate masters do not care about abortion, gun rights or the sanctity of
marriage between a man and a woman. But like the German industrialists who
backed the Nazi Party, they know that the Christian Right will give an
ideological veneer to ruthless corporate tyranny. These oligarchs view the
Christian fascists the same way the German industrialists viewed the Nazis, as
buffoons. They are aware that the Christian fascists will trash what is left of
our anemic democracy and the natural ecosystem. But they also know they will
make huge profits in the process and the rights of workers and citizens will be
ruthlessly suppressed.
If you
are poor, if you lack proper medical care, if you are paid substandard wages,
if you are trapped in the lower class, if you are a victim of police violence,
this is because, according to the Prosperity Gospel, you are not a good
Christian. In this belief system you deserve what you get. There is nothing
wrong, these homegrown fascists preach, with the structures or systems of
power. Like all totalitarian movements, followers are seduced into calling for
their own enslavement.
As the
Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels understood: “The best propaganda is that
which, as it were, works invisibly, penetrates the whole of life without the
public having any knowledge of the propagandistic initiative.”
