The bond that explains why some on the Christian right support Putin’s war

Russia has become an ally in a global movement.
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By Bethany Moreton

Bethany Moreton is professor of history at Dartmouth College. This article draws from her book, "Slouching Towards Moscow: American Conservatives and the Romance of Russia," forthcoming from Harvard University Press.
March 5, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EST

[www.washingtonpost.com]

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In 1987, pastors from within the heart of U.S. evangelicalism officially incorporated 2,000 American evangelicals into the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. The mass conversion stemmed from White Protestant disillusionment with the freestyle worship, therapeutic ethos and perceived feminine emotionalism of their old church homes — what one influential critic labeled “The Church Impotent.” “Evangelical churches call men to be passive and nice (think ‘Mr. Rogers’),” explained a convert. “Orthodox Churches call men to be courageous and act (think ‘Braveheart’).” Such celebration of masculinity is one reason Orthodoxy is majority male, unlike any other American Christian denomination.

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Russian Orthodox leadership in the global family values movement makes Eastern Christianity an appealing symbol for some of the most repugnant representatives of the racist right — again demonstrating the racial subtext of overt sexual conservatism. Neo-Confederates champion Orthodoxy as the spiritual home of white nationalism. Converts have played roles in the Charlottesville riot of 2017 and the Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. The terrorist who took nine Black lives in a Charleston church had an Eastern Orthodox priest as a spiritual adviser. At the same time, the American alt-right embraced Russia as the land of unapologetic whiteness and unreformed masculinity. To the concern of many Orthodox believers, such converts are having an impact within branches of Orthodoxy in the United States.

As Russian tanks roll toward Kyiv and AFPAC speakers cheer, Putin can count on the respect many Christian conservatives in the United States have for Orthodox Russia as the international standard-bearer for family values. Certainly not all the ties between American Republicans and Russian interests are based on long-standing religious visions of traditional families and White Christian supremacy. But there is no making sense of them without that context

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In 1995, Russian demographers met with the American Howard Center for the Family, Religion and Society, a project of the paleoconservative movement that mixed Holocaust deniers, Neo-Confederates and racist anti-immigrant activists. They agreed that low White birthrates were caused by the decline of traditional family forms and gender roles — and therefore the answer was the official suppression of sexual and gender dissent.

Their efforts produced the World Congress of Families, which combines funding from conservative Russian oligarchs with the organizing know-how of groups like the National Organization for Marriage — a key player in California’s 2008 same-sex marriage ban (which was later overturned in the courts). At its annual meetings, religious traditionalists coordinate policies to promote the “natural family” and combat LGBTQ and reproductive rights around the world.

White Nationalism Orthodox Christian Unity Broken by 'Russian World' Heresy -
Orthodox clergy, lay people and scholars condemn Moscow Patriarch Kirill
The Moscow Times March 15, 2022

[www.themoscowtimes.com]

Berkley Forum
What Do We Miss When We Call Them “Culture Wars”?

By: Bethany Moreton

December 18, 2019

[berkleycenter.georgetown.edu]

Our Lady of the Alt-Right: Catholic Traditionalism, Russian Orthodoxy, & the Theology of Nationalism
Thursday Lecture Series, Supernatural
April 19, 2018

[sofheyman.org]

[religiondispatches.org]

White Supremacy and Orthodox Christianity: A Dangerous Connection Rears Its Head in Charlottesville | Religion Dispatches

By Katherine Kelaidis August 18, 2017

[religiondispatches.org]

How Orthodox Christianity Became the Spiritual Home of White Nationalism | Religion Dispatches

By Katherine Kelaidis November 30, 2016



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2022 08:45AM by corboy.

The Strange Alliance
Between Russian Orthodox monarchists, American Christian Evangelicals and European fascists

[www.splcenter.org]

In an online discussion forum people described their worries and concerns about conversion to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

[www.reddit.com]

It was a few:

1.) My experiences with Orthodox people prior to visiting my parish. I had only met three Orthodox people on my campus, and out of them only one was a decent person. That one was a softball girl who gave me fasting tips and talked me through certain parts, but the other two was a pair of roommates who were certainly the kind of people NPR was talking about. One had a penchant for Confederate flags, liked to boast about his grandpa who had served in the SS, made some weird remarks about the “Jewish Revolutionary Spirit,” and on one occasion suggested I beat my wife to make her submit. The other guy had a t-shirt of Corneliu Codreanu the first time I had met him, stated that St. Maria of Paris was in Hell for saving Jews during the Holocaust, lectured a friend on his choice to date a Black woman using some very racist language, and on one occasion yelled at my roommate to stay away from his stuff (very publicly I might add) because my roommate is Romani and (as this guy put it) “his kind are the n-ggers of Orthodox countries.” And yes, both of them were fans of a certain Canadian psychologist and frequently post stuff by Rod Dreher and a certain Orthodox YouTuber I can’t name.

2.) Online Orthodox people were just atrocious. I was forced out of an Orthodox server on Discord because I questioned his logic that Absolute Theocratic Monarchism was the only acceptable form of government. Immediately after that I was told I was a “Godless communist,” “filthy degenerate,” “liberal f-ggot,” “heretic,” “vile scum,” and was kicked out on the basis that I was apparently a Jew who had come to sow discord within the Church and was informed that Christ would deal with me accordingly at the Last Judgment.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2022 07:21AM by corboy.