Satan's Got a Hold of Aunt Betty
A Brief Review of Caleb E. Campbell's Disarming Leviathan
What comes to mind when you read the term American Christian Nationalism? How one answers that question, more often than not, has more to do with their own political inclinations than an objective, holistic view of the Christian Nationalist landscape (myself not exempted). The answer is usually limited to a particular subset of people whom the respondent either considers himself sympathetic to or sees as his ideological polar opposite. Caleb E. Campbell’s Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor (IVP, 2024) is no exception, in that it treats “American Christian Nationalism” as synonymous with Turning Point USA. The group is certainly at the forefront of the MAGA brand of Christian Nationalist thought, and I join Campbell in condemning much of the authoritarian politics promoted under its banner. Any honest book that would attempt to “disarm” politically idolatrous Christians must account for its particular tenets, but Campbell does not appear to have done any more research of the Christian Nationalist phenomenon beyond the walls of TPUSA events, and his book suffers for it.
For example, early in the book, when defining Christian Nationalism, Campbell briefly lists two pro-Christian Nationalist books, one authored by Andrew Torba and Andrew Isker and the other by Stephen Wolfe. He describes the latter book as “us[ing] Scripture to build a theological argument for Christian nationalism in America.”1 In reality, Wolfe notes his own inability to do exegesis, quotes Scripture less than half a dozen times in the nearly 500 pages of The Case for Christian Nationalism, and doesn’t first do so until page 197. This leads me to believe that Campbell did not actually read the books. Torba and Isker’s book is so jaw-droppingly extreme in its rhetoric that I find it hard to believe that someone who read it would not mention such, instead only giving one sentence dryly acknowledging the text’s existence—especially in a book that takes issue with the comparably benign phrase “Stand for the flag, kneel for the cross.” While I acknowledge my own bias, as someone who has spent an inordinate amount of time in Wolfe’s worldview, that someone would write a book with the goal of helping Christians rehabilitate their Christian Nationalist brethren without (seemingly) reading the two best-selling pro-Christian Nationalist books is an egregious oversight.
This leads to my biggest issue with the book, and the genre of anti-Christian Nationalist literature to which it belongs: that it serves to bolster the syncretization of left-wing cable news politics in the same breath in which it castigates the syncretization of right-wing cable news politics as unchristian. Though Campbell acknowledges that the primal desires for safety and security among Christian Nationalists may be valid, at no point in the book is the audience challenged to question whether some of the belligerent stances taken by these people may have even a modicum of merit. It assumes its readers are onboard with a left-wing cable news interpretation of subjects like globalism and how COVID-19 was handled. To be clear, I’m not making a value determination on either side of these issues (though I have my opinions). My primary complaint is that the book bills itself as fostering empathy for MAGA Christians while, with little to no self-awareness, declares that such people have been taken over by l'esprit déplorable.
At one point we’re treated to a story of “Aunt Betty,” a hypothetical family member who Campbell claims is “held captive by the lies of the evil one.” What demonic lies has she been duped into believing? That our country is under an existential threat from “evil libs” and a “godless woke mob,” claims she’s primed to believe, because, among other things, her home contains icons of the American civil religion, such as a “Faith, Family, Friends” wall decoration.2 Though Aunt Betty is admittedly adopting extreme rhetoric, what parts of those beliefs may be grounded in reality? Has she seen the politicization of sex and gender invade her preschool-aged grandchildren’s entertainment? Has she heard a pro-choice activist argue that there should be no restrictions on when an abortion can be performed? Has she tuned into The View and heard her favorite musical theater performer describe her demographic as no different than the Taliban?3
Campbell makes no effort to wrestle with the often equally virulent politics and rhetoric of the other end of the political spectrum and even seems to encourage his audience to hide those views from the people they’re trying to win back. The book ends with a long chapter listing common MAGA Christian Nationalist statements and how to properly disarm them.4 There’s actually much to applaud in this section—the Christian Nationalist beliefs are accurate and most of the methodology is sound active listening. Sadly, I couldn’t help but be drawn out of that by each subsection’s “red flags,” statements that would mark you as an enemy to the Christian Nationalist. These certainly are red flags, but no effort is given to why that might be. Here are a few:
We should defund the police (or the Department of Defense).
I don’t think Christians should be in control of anything.
We should have open borders.
Republicans are racist, fascist Nazis [sic].
All of these statements are as politically extreme as the Christian Nationalist statements they’re set against, yet, again, no effort is made to challenge the target audience in their belief of such things—not even the belief that the person you’re talking to is an actual Nazi. In the end, Campbell’s Disarming Leviathan serves to fill the shoes of the bogeyman that Christian Nationalists have concocted, that of an “evangelical elite” marketing of the “postwar consensus” as the only authentic expression of Christian praxis. We must do better if we wish to truly reach people being lost to far-right political extremism.
Caleb E. Campbell, Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor, IVP 2024, p 19.
Campbell, 92-24.
Hanna Panreck, “Patti LuPone Bashes Christian Right as No Different from the Taliban in Rant on ‘The View’: ‘I Could Cry,’” Text.Article, Fox News (Fox News, April 18, 2023), https://www.foxnews.com/media/patti-lupone-bashes-christian-right-different-taliban-rant-the-view-could-cry.
Caleb E. Campbell, Disarming Leviathan, pp 143-175.