Christian Nationalism

7 June 2024

“The entrance into our political, social and industrial life of vast masses of peasantry, degraded below our utmost conceptions, is a matter which no intelligent patriot can look upon without the gravest apprehension…they are beaten men from beaten races, representatives of the worst failure in the struggle for existence.”

This was not a warmup speech for a MAGA rally, but rather an editorial in the Rumford Falls Times by Waldo Pettengill, the first president of a paper mill which became the largest employer in that part of Maine and whose employees included many French Canadians.? Words such as these were mouthed by those concerned about Italians and other Southern Europeans and Jews and other Eastern Europeans.? An article in Wisconsin in April 1924 suggested that the country might soon need to “station a soldier every hundred yards on our borders to keep out the hordes.”? This sentiment led to the passage of restricted immigration laws in the 1920s.? Those lobbying for such dramatic changes included the Ku Klux Klan.

Eduardo Porter recently wrote in The Washington Post that restrictive immigration laws follow shortly after the foreign-born population tops 15%; the country once again hit that threshold about two years ago.

The nations of origin of those about whom those complaining may speak may have changed, but the message remains the same.? Prior to a century ago, there were those who questioned the arrival of Germans in this country (which included the former president’s grandfather), as they were viewed as taking the land and the jobs of those of native stock. Germantowns sprouted. German was taught alongside English in many public schools.

Similar messaging was heard in Charlottesville when violent demonstrators chanted “Jews will not replace us.”? It is heard when Neo Nazis demonstrate and proclaim their intention to create a white-only state in New England.

What Pettengill said almost 120 years ago is not very different from the rhetoric heard recently in Ohio: “I don’t know if you call them people… they’re not people in my opinion…” said Donald Trump, who later referred to immigrants as “animals.”

At church recently, a visiting priest gave a heartfelt sermon contrasting the message in the Gospel to the message coming from self-proclaimed Chrisitan Nationalists. Are we not told that we should feed the hungry, comfort the sick, give drink to the thirsty, cloth the naked, shelter the homeless? ?He concluded that anyone who calls himself a Christian cannot agree with such rhetoric which is heard on radio, on t.v. and, sadly, from the pulpit.? It is as if a small group of people, ideological descendants of Waldo Pettengill, have hijacked Christianity and ignored the messages -quite direct messages – in the Gospel and decided to create their own religious ideology.

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