How Christian Nationalists Use YOU to Enrich Their Eternities
This concept is a backbone of current Republican politics and Project 2025 policies (Scroll to the end to listen)
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If you aren’t reading the comments, you’re missing so much at How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life. We have so many engaging, invested, intelligent people here. Today’s newsletter is from a series of comments yesterday regarding how Christian Nationalists believe suffering brings people to God.
Yesterday, Marcy asked this question: If I choose not to repent, why does a Christian Nationalist care?
Christian Nationalism makes YOUR choices about THEIR ETERNAL REWARDS.
My life experiences in Christian Nationalism are emblematic of the dynamic.
Growing up, we rarely took family vacations. Our Christian Nationalist church strongly encouraged attendance at every service. When my father was a deacon, missing a church gathering was not acceptable.
We were assigned to small groups, not just for Bible study but for connection maintenance. The leaders would reach out every time we weren’t there, in part to make sure we were okay, but also to reiterate the importance of consistent attendance.
Once I left my Christian Nationalist upbringing, family visits became fraught. My parents almost never spent an entire weekend with us, because they had to be in church on Sunday morning. If we visited them, we were expected to attend church whether we wanted to or not. (I wrote about the last time my husband and I attended the church where I grew up below.)
Frustrated with this situation, I told my mom, “Well, I guess we’ll see each other in heaven.”
Her response: “I wouldn’t be too sure about that if I were you.”
Was she telling me I was going to hell because I rejected my upbringing? Or was she saying the fruits of her Christian walk would put her in a higher heavenly “caste” than mine?
It illustrates how much Christian Nationalist behavior (and therefore Christo-fascist Republican behavior) centers on THEIR heavenly rewards. How many souls did they lead to the lord? How many sins did they condemn? How closely did they walk with the One True God?
Christian Nationalists care that we don’t repent because they believe it impacts their heavenly treasures. Here’s how the charge to live for eternity plays out.
Pre-Dominionist Christian Nationalism
In the evangelical Christian Nationalist world of my youth, it was common to bring up faith matters in casual conversation. We were taught God bought people into our paths SPECIFICALLY to share the gospel with them. Jesus commanded us to witness in his Great Commission. We would give a public accounting of every failure at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Pre-dominionist Christian Nationalists care about your soul because they've been indoctrinated to believe they will be publicly humiliated in eternity for those they didn't witness to in life, people who ultimately were condemned to hell. They are told to witness to people persistently; their victims’ rejection and discomfort are just Satan at work. They must keep praying for these sinners and bring up salvation at every opportunity. They are told to ignore polite boundaries because eternity is too important to worry about the other person's feelings.
They are also promised a jewel in their heavenly crown for every soul they lead to Christ. They are told the size of their heavenly mansion will correspond to their earthly witness. Heaven is an aspirational caste system, where those who defer gratification and sacrifice during this life will accumulate wealth and power in the next one.
Hence, my mother saying, “I wouldn’t be too sure about that if I were you” in response to our spending time together in heaven. She believes she will be in a higher heavenly class than I will.
Dominionist Christian Nationalism
In the early 1990s, Dominionism turned evangelicalism on its head. Dominionist Christian Nationalists believe Jesus will not return until they have converted the world. Every person who refuses to accept Jesus is preventing Jesus’ return and keeping dominionist Christian Nationalists trapped. They have fully embraced coercing everyone to their One True God.
Dominionists also believe they are building heavenly mansions and amassing eternal fortunes for their earthly efforts. By forcing you to acknowledge the One True God, they will hear him say well done (and here’s your bounty.)
In both cases they care about your soul because of the potential benefits or consequences to them in their version of eternity.
They don't really care about YOU; they care about their star-studded crowns and their bigger mansions in the holier parts of heaven. Or they want to be rewarded by Jesus when he returns and creates a new earth, where they will have the same rewards.
From a Christo-fascist, Project 2025 perspective, the people who manage to topple the world’s biggest democracy and replace it with a theocracy governed by the One True God stand to reap the BIGGEST heavenly haul. All while relishing the power and riches they could accumulate on earth.
Christian Nationalist Republicans see this scenario as a win-win. Acting as the One True God’s avengers in government, they believe they’ll rid us of their definition of perversion and sin. Surely those they persecute will accept the One True God over prison or concentration camps or torture or execution. Those who refuse will learn by the consequences.
Whatever a person chooses, Christian Nationalists count it as eternal treasure in their heavenly ledger. If we go along, great. More godly rewards for them. If they punish us, great. They’ll amass more crowns for standing up to our recalcitrance.
I don’t think I need to type this, but I will anyway: WE MUST DEFEAT THEM IN NOVEMBER AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT. AND KEEP DEFEATING THEM UNTIL THEY RELEARN THAT AMERICA WAS FOUNDED AS A BEACON OF FREEDOM FOR ALL FAITHS AND NO FAITH, EQUALLY.
After I read your post and picked my jaw up off the floor, I had these thoughts: I don't think God cares about brownie points; Jesus said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven; and the focus on heavenly mansions and bejeweled tchotchkes reminds me of kids playing "grownup", imagining what their future will be like based on a child's view of adult life. Sigh ...
Thank you Andra. As always I appreciate your hard work and helping me understand the bigger picture. Grateful for your talent and dedication 🥰