Two Tweets that Demonstrate America's Destructively Extreme Polemics
Political activists have always been willing to skirt the lines of truth in order to recruit others to their cause, but, in our nation’s swift race to the bottom, this phenomena is becoming far more overt and mainstream. I was captivated by two recent tweets from people, on opposite ends of the political spectrum, who openly straddle the line between activist and journalist. I believe them to be perfect encapsulations of the delusional extremes those on both sides of our nation’s ideological split are attempting to drag potential allies toward.
The first is a tweet by Daily Wire commentator and creator of the film, What is a Woman?, Matt Walsh. This came after a sizeable thread noting how America was not the only nation to have slavery, and that the practice continues elsewhere, to this day. These comments received heavy backlash from Walsh’s ideological adversaries and have gained him the highest amount of attention he has received since the initial release of his documentary several months ago.
In this tweet, Walsh doubled down beyond the true statement that America was not the only country to have slavery (using the Ottomans and indentured servitude as an example), to make the provably false statement that chattel slavery was not a more insidious form of slavery than others. Some forms of slavery, which have existed for all of civilization, involve ways for a slave to be manumissed (to have their freedom purchased or ordered by a magistrate, in a way that the owner often cannot refuse). Traditional forms of slavery often allowed the slave to own their own property and potentially buy their own, albeit limited, freedom - a fairly common practice in Rome and Greece, although owners could refuse the slave’s right to own property.
On the other hand, chattel slavery gave the slave master complete and unquestioned ownership of the slave and all of their descendants, in perpetuity, with state-level prohibitions to property ownership and even literacy, and with no hope for any of them to be freed, unless the owner consented. Though slavery in Israel allowed Hebrews to own foreigners and their descendants in perpetuity, they were made members of the household and given full religious access, something that American slaves were regularly denied. If an Israelite beat their slave so severely that the slave lost an eye or tooth, they were to be set free (Exodus 21:27). An American slave owner’s wrath was in no such way restricted. These facts alone - without delving into whether any form of slavery was or is moral (I would argue to the negative) - makes distinguishing the legally sanctioned form of American chattel slavery from other legally sanctioned forms not only coherent, but indispensable when discussing the history of slavery in the Western hemisphere.
What fascinates me about this tweet is that Walsh was willing to go to such extremes and ruin his otherwise factually correct argument, reducing it to nothing more than a right-wing virtue signal. He is seemingly so obsessed (consciously or not) with making his argument the polar opposite of the 1619 Project’s - of convincing his followers that their ideological opponents have absolutely no redeeming quality - that he is willing to dispense with all nuance that might lean in their direction, limiting his audience to the choir he already preaches to and the few, historically illiterate, center-right Twitter users he may convince to move further right. By doing so, he is also preventing himself from making inroads with moderates who, within lessons on American slavery, would want a nuanced, historically accurate representation of all slavery presented, including the differences between indentured servitude and the slavery systems within the Islamic and Christian worlds. He has ruined his credibility with many potential allies in order to make an argument that I have personally seen given in the same breath as, “black people had it better under slavery,” something I am near certain would be a bridge too far for him.
Equally fascinating, and factually inaccurate, is this tweet from Salon contributor, Amanda Marcotte, promoting a piece she wrote for the publication, entitled The backlash to Christianity: Republicans are now panicked — but they only have themselves to blame.
There is so much going on in this tweet that I feel the need to break it down in a bullet-point list.
Marcotte incorrectly buckets “Christians” into a single worldview, synonymous with a “Christian Nationalist” stereotype, when the reality is that there has been a century-long, slowly growing, intra-faith divide between theologically liberal and conservative churches (and everything between). When events like Drag Me to Church1 exist, surely we are not a monolith.
“…these people believe in forced prayer” is Protocols of the Elders of Zion level stereotyping. I have met people who wear shirts depicting Jesus hugging the American flag, and even they do not believe in forced prayer. Marcotte is purposefully mischaracterizing the recent Supreme court decision that allowed a high school football coach to pray on the field, as a personal expression of faith. It would be a violation of the near universally held, Protestant doctrine of liberty of conscience2 to support negative repercussions towards any student that didn’t join him. I would also wager that most conservative Christians would agree that any school employee forcing a child to pray should receive administrative action, as should any teacher forcing the secular religion of political activism on their students.
“They don't care what's in your heart, so long as you go through the motions and say they're superior,” is a complete misrepresentation of the gospel, which it is sadly clear Marcotte has never heard. It is actually the most theologically conservative, Protestant Christians who ardently promote that we are not justified or saved by our own works, but by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross3, and that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). What she is describing is pharisaic legalism, which is widely considered heretical teaching in mainstream, conservative circles. Interestingly, it is theologically and politically liberal denominations that are more likely to consider the bible to be errant, and for Jesus to be only a wise teacher (not God incarnate), and hence fall into what has been labeled moralistic therapeutic deism, the belief that if you’re just a “good enough person” God will overlook your sin, based your individual merits alone.
The use of Marjorie Taylor Greene as the poster-child of a distorted Christianity, where all believers are extreme theonomists4, is the biggest sign that Marcotte is not an honest actor and, like Walsh, is playing only to her preexisting audience. Using a politician who is highly controversial among Christians as the face of the religion is as disgusting and dishonest as using a picture of Hassan Rouhani, the current president of Iran and a Shiite theocrat, for an article about how “Islam (in totum) is a toxic religion”.
Her article, which you can reach through her tweet, is a window into how warped and extreme American polemics have become. We are so polarized that, in a publication that often runs articles from Pulitzer Prize winners, editorial staff finds it acceptable that an opinion piece should frame an entire religious demographic in the same terms the Bolsheviks framed the Kulaks. Marcotte’s statements give more insight into her belligerent, delusional worldview than her targets’, such as, “…Republicans grow more fanatical in their efforts to punish Americans for having sex,” “…Republicans are justifying this turn towards compelled religious performance by whining about the empty pews in their church,” and “‘There's also growing hostility to religion,’ Justice Samuel Alito recently whined…” Marcotte often delves into the type of unhinged and absolutist statements one normally finds in the worst Info Wars episodes, yet, because her target is approved by establishment media, she maintains a contributor role with a nationally known publication.
One statement in her article stands out as the most similar to Walsh’s inaccurate description of history (with an easily identifiable, polemic motive): “Republicans are ignoring the plain text of the First Amendment — which says the government shall ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion’ — in favor of the tortured myth that there's no separation of church and state.” The portion of the First Amendment that she quotes specifically prevents the creation of a “Church of America” like the still existent Church of England. It is not there to prevent people from praying while working for the government or to prevent religious people from electing representatives who will enact legislation that represents their religious worldview (or from electing presidents who nominate judges with that worldview). Marcotte is everything she projects upon “Christian Nationalists”, an extremist who will not rest until only her dogma is allowed to be the law of the land.
Between these two, ridiculous poles - between “religion should have nothing to say about the law, but my secular worldview should rule unabated” and “chattel slavery wasn’t worse than indentured servitude and America has nothing unique to rectify” - I choose neither. In a political climate that demands we choose between the narratives of 1619 and 1776, I choose A.D. 33.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. - John 13:34-35 (ESV)
CBS 17 - Drag performance held at church in Durham to protest UMC leadership https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/durham-county-news/drag-performance-held-at-church-in-durham-to-protest-umc-leadership/1960255038/
Westminster Confession of Faith: Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience 20.1 – 20.2 http://thewestminsterstandards.com/wcf-chapter-20-of-christian-liberty-and-liberty-of-conscience-20-1-20-2/
This is made clear by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans. A fantastic deep dive into the subject is Francis Schaeffer’s The Finished Work of Christ.