A Mean-Spirited Transition in the Name of God

A Mean-Spirited Transition in the Name of God

Part 1 – Senator Josh Hawley (MAGA R, Missouri)

“Supporting Josh and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life… What he's doing to his party is one thing. What he's doing to the country is much worse."

Revered former U.S. Senator John Danforth (R/MO) and Hawley’s mentor, on January 7, 2021, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Imagine the power and force of an uninhibited religious zealot, a Stanford graduate (BA, history with highest honors), Yale Law grad, a Rhodes Scholar, law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, law professor who worked his way up to becoming Missouri’s Attorney General, and ultimately – with pivotal support from Missouri’s iconic US Senator John Danforth at the time – defeating Claire McCaskill in 2018 to become a US Senator. Unlike recently anointed Trump running mate, JD Vance (also a Yale Law grad), who was a never-Trumper filled with negatives about the ex-President but recently flipped to a “whatever Trump wants” US Senator (R/OH) to cater to his raw ambitious side, Hawley always wore his faith on his sleeve. Hawley was raised Methodist, but he and his family now attend an Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Danforth forth had mistakenly assumed that this religiosity was just a fine conservative trait… not his defining characteristic, but Hawley was a natural MAGA leader. “In December 2020, Hawley provoked a political backlash when he became the first senator to announce plans to object to the certification of Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 United States presidential election. He led Senate efforts to overturn the Electoral College vote count and rallied supporters of the notion that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen. Although he did not directly encourage the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, observers perceived his [raised fist signaling the soon-to-be attackers, pictured above] as inflammatory. In late January 2021, Hawley denied trying to overturn the election results.” Wikipedia

But here’s his now-clearly annunciated agenda for America, not based on any notion of democracy but firmly anchored in the essentials of theocracy, where religious leaders and the Bible are the deciders. On July 8th, Hawley was the keynote speaker at the National Conservatism Conference on The Christian Nationalism We Need in Washington, D.C. Here are excerpts from that presentation:

I want to speak to you tonight about the future. About the future of the conservative movement and of this nation. But every future is rooted in some earlier past—or as Seneca said, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”… We are a nation … defined by the dignity of the common man, as given to us in the Christian religion; a nation held together by the homely affections articulated in the Christian faith—love for God, love for family, love for neighbor, home, and country... And some will say now that I am calling America a Christian nation... And so I am. And some will say I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do. Is there any other kind worth having?...

The truth is, Christian nationalism is not a threat to American democracy. Christian nationalism founded American democracy. And it is the best form of democracy yet devised by man: the most just, the most free, the most humane and praiseworthy…. And my claim to you tonight is that we must recover the principles of our Christian political tradition now for the sake of our future. This is true whether you are a Christian or not, a person of a different faith or none at all. The Christian political tradition is our tradition; it is the American tradition; it is the greatest source of energy and ideas in our politics—and always has been. It has inspired conservatives and liberals, reformers and activists, and moralists and trade unionists down our history. And now we need this grand tradition again.

But Josh, with that degree in history, you know there is a catch. For the who are non-evangelical Christians, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, those of Baháʼí Faith, Wiccan, animists, believers in any number of religions of our Indigenous Peoples, agnostics, atheists, etc., the bad news to them is that your faith is second rate, subordinate to evangelical Christianity, does not fall within Hawley’s attempt to show an elevated value system and… Since fundamental evangelicals are a minority in this country, one that is contracting over time, they cannot impose their severely limited religious rules, regulations and mandates in any system where there is a majority vote.

They can scream “woke” and “right to life” and “deviant moral decay” as much as they want, but they are still a dwindling minority. You will note that the “Stop the Steal” campaign, the dozens of legislative efforts to suppress or overturn votes and gerrymandering are all focused on making sure that only their votes count. Nothing new. And while many evangelical leaders are cheering, many others are not, as pointed out by David Amelotti writing for the July 15th 2024 KMOV:

“Rev. Molly Housh-Gordon with the Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbia, Missouri, said religious freedom is essential to other freedoms and you cannot have one without the other… ‘Sen. Hawley your fantasies of tyrannical control are not welcome. Missourians love our neighbors. Missourians know better,’ Housh-Gordan said… Rev. Nathan Empsall is an Episcopal Priest who is also the executive director of Faithful America… ‘First of all - which Christianity? Christianity is two billion people across the world. It’s a diverse religion. When they say a Christian nation, they mean a specific form of mostly white, mostly evangelical conservative straight patriarchal Christianity that becomes often white nationalism,’ Empsall said.

“Progress Missouri, branded as Missouri’s progressive communications hub, brought a handful of religious leaders from across the state for a virtual town hall Monday. They say Sen. Hawley’s words are dangerous for Missourians… [In the second week of July], Hawley spoke with First Alert 4 about his controversial speech. He insists his motive is keeping the political left from destroying the First Amendment and religious liberty that makes the foundation of the U.S.

“‘It is a fact of history and not open to debate, a fact that we were founded by Christian believers and that our fundamental ideals including those in the Constitution of the United States, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights all come to us from a Christian tradition,’ Hawley shared. ‘That is just a fact and I think that’s something worth preserving.’” An ends justified by any means, perhaps even at the barrel of an AR-15, a favorite weapon for extremists to make their point.

I’m Peter Dekom, and Josh Hawley is among the least patriotic Americans alive today, completely dedicated to eliminating any voices contrary to (white) Christian nationalism… and people who believe they are acting at God’s mandate can be the most dangerous people anywhere no matter what rights the Constitution guarantees.