Resisting Christofascism Today

“We live under a system of terror,” Dorothee Sölle wrote in 1981, alarmed by the way in which capitalism and militarism were smothering democracy at the height of the arms race and the rise of the “Moral Majority.” As a German political theologian teaching in the US, Sölle lamented the uncritical obedience shown by Christians in view of the neoliberal conservative political machine. As she observed Christian leaders and politicians alike conflating nationalism with faith and Christian values, she gave this system of terror a name: Christofascism.

In the 2020s, we too live under our own kind of system of terror: the threat of another Trump presidency looms large while the Biden administration continues fund war and climate chaos. Sölle’s critique of Christofascism offers some guidance for today’s US Christians committed to tearing down fascist-style leadership and policies. But the call to disobey Christofascist political goals demands a process of self-reflection for progressive Christians as well. I argue that Sölle’s critique of Christofascism compels progressive Christians to re-examine their own relationship to obedience and authority.

Sölle’s Political Theology

Before she was dubbed a modern mystic, Dorothee Sölle was a political theologian. She saw Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann as her “theological fathers” and admired Dietrich Bonhoeffer for responding to politics of domination and articulating theologies of uncompromising discipleship. Sölle was an important conversation partner with New Political Theologians Johann Baptist Metz and Jürgen Moltmann, and made unique contributions to the New Political Theology project in the twentieth century, especially her warning against Christofascism.

Sölle’s book, Window of Vulnerability: A Political Spirituality, is a key place to start for analyzing her reflections on Christofascism. While teaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Sölle analyzed the messaging of popular televangelists like Jerry Falwell. She wrote about how their distortion of the gospel pushed specific political views that define sexual morality, the role of the family, American exceptionalism and free market capitalism. Like many among the self-named “Moral Majority” in the 1980s, Falwell used language of “Christian values” to push a political program to distract from policy expanding military domination. Sölle began to refer to this “instrumentalization of religion,” or, religious support for neoconservative (and often fascist) political goals, using the term she coined, “Christofascism.”

Defining Christofascism

Christofascist leaders preach three primary tenets: moral hegemony, an oppressive work ethic, and patriarchal definitions for the role of the family in society. Christian moral hegemony authorizes American exceptionalism, exhibiting “American chauvinism and unchecked militarism.” Sölle critiques televangelist Jerry Falwell for describing welfare and safety net programs as anti-biblical and rehearses free-market capitalistic tropes that blame the poor for poverty while perpetuating “extreme hostility toward labor unions.”

Sölle argues that members of the Moral Majority hoped to distract their audience from militaristic policy by preaching patriarchal ideologies of the family. In a rather sarcastic assessment, Sölle writes,“It is not the nuclear bomb that threatens our survival; it is the love between two men or two women that endangers everything we have achieved! The moral scandal of our time is not the starvation of children of the Third World, thanks to our masterly economic planning, but the abortion of unborn life!” Sölle’s most basic definition of Christofascism is articulated this way: “For believers who are dependent on authority and in search of something to hold on to, religion is instrumentalized in order to engender hate, to lead them into battle, into crusades.”

In response to the belief that a leader must not be fascist if they were elected, Sölle argues that fascism is not limited to totalitarianism. Fascist traits are evident when democratically elected leaders strengthen structures of “militarism, racism, sexism and the neocolonial exploitation of the third world.” Fascist leaders use the rhetoric of freedom to hide the fascist ideologies they proffer. “[This dynamic] leads a population to a freely chosen acceptance of militarism. And militarism, that is, the absolute priority of military ends over all other public obligations, is in fact a substantial criterion for Hitler-style fascism.” Democracy rhetoric becomes a veil covering over domination and militaristic, sexist and racial violence.

Christian Nationalism is Christofascism 2.0

Sölle’s critique of Christofascism in the 1980s and 90s provides US Christians with a model for how to look for fascist ideologies tying religion and politics together today. Christian nationalism is a stark example of fascist ideologies functioning in relationship to religion today. In Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, Whitehead and Perry present the three pillars of Christian nationalism: power, boundaries and order. They use these pillars to explain the Christian nationalist support for the Trump presidency in 2016 and the unwavering obedience that persists among his followers.

Trump voters in 2016 wanted to regain control over the racial and religious hierarchies that scaffold American society. A vote for Donald Trump offered a solution to the “threat” posed by racial and religious “outsiders” against what it means to be “truly American” (white and Christian). Christian nationalists believe US Christians upholding white supremacy are the rightful owners of American property, protection and freedoms. This is why borders, the second pillar, are so violently defended: racial and religious “outsiders” pose the gravest threat to securing a “Christian” nation.

Enforcing order, the third pillar, means that Christian nationalists guard heteropatriarchal family roles. Christian nationalists believe that enforcing the heteropatriarchal family mold will “heal” US society of its social and economic ills. Protecting order is also a call to remove queer and trans life from society.

Needless to say, the nine-hundred page document, Project 2025, is full of examples of violent enforcement of power hierarchies, borders, and a heteropatriarchal social order. But we can also use this framework to critique the ways that the Biden administration proves itself amenable to fascist-leaning forms of power, borders, and order as well. For example, some critics echo Sölle’s concern over the “unchecked militarism” as a defining characteristic among US presidential leadership regardless of their political party.

Christofascism Coopts Obedience

Ultimately, Sölle’s critique of Christofascism is a critique of Christian obedience. It is a challenge to look beyond the glaring manifestations of Christofascism in society and turn the critical gaze inward. At the base of Christofascism lies the response of uncritical obedience. For this reason, Christians need to become aware of how their own language of obedience functions within Christian moral systems and concepts of faith. This project remains unfinished for many Christians, even progressive Christians who publicly and courageously denounce Christofascism.

Aligning with New Political Theology, Sölle maintains that theological language should be formulated with history in full view. “Being a German after the Holocaust means that my theological concepts and the words I use to express them have no life apart from their history.” This means, German Christians in the twentieth century, still reeling from the horrors of fascism, need to scrutinize any Christian language that can be used to authorize hierarchies of power and domination.

Sölle’s project became a political theology that moves to identify and omit obedience from Christian theological and moral language before new language can be retrieved and invented. This set her apart from her New Political Theology interlocutors. While Metz and Moltmann attempt to speak about God with language that refuses to turn away from the atrocities of the Shoah, they do not treat obedience with the same focus as Sölle.

Sölle argues that it is counterproductive to resist authoritarian domination through the moral concept of obedience. This was a striking claim to make after Christian leaders and anti-Nazi resistors Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, along with the documents penned to form the Confessing Church, all use language of obedience to rally Christians to protest fascist rule, according to my own research. They reflect the Pauline statement that “Jesus is Lord” and it is right to disobey unjust law or political leadership as an act of obedience to God. Although Sölle agrees with the overall demand to disobey Hitler, of course, she disagrees with the rhetoric of obediential theology as the primary motivating method.

Obedience Distorts Moral Agency

As feminist theologians have long argued, relating to God as an all-powerful deity who requires obedience places humanity within a perpetual and irreversibly imbalanced dynamic of power. This dynamic reinforces theologies of God that mimic kyriarchal images of “father, ruler, owner, commander” while the human person images themself as “child, slave, subject, soldier.” Sölle’s particular contention with the language of obedience stems from her concern over the way that Christian moral language shapes how we see ourselves as moral agents and how we act in moral dilemmas.

When obedience is the primary way Christians define their moral commitments and ethical action, they risk serious malformation. Obediential language becomes a habitual response to fear of punishment rather than a result of moral discernment. Not only does this distort one’s moral formation, Sölle shows how the habit of obedience bleeds into other spheres of life, including the political sphere. For this reason, it becomes crucial to dissect theological language for its potential to support, justify or sanctify political domination.

Throughout her writing, Sölle analyzes the psychological and political cost associated with relying upon language of obedience to describe one’s theology of God and one’s moral identity. Sölle points to Erich Fromm who maintains that obedience is the cardinal virtue of authoritarian religion and he uncovers exactly how obedience degrades moral identity and moral agency. When Christians respond to “God’s will” out of fear of punishment, or a sense of not having choice, they diminish their own capacity to discern creative moral responses to ethical issues.

Applying Sölle’s political theology today would entail listening closely to current examples of the interlocking dynamic of US Christianity and fascism. Given Christian Nationalism’s prominence in US culture and policy, I would argue that this method would look for ways that Christians demonstrate obedience to power, boundaries and order.

The Self-reflexive Step Towards Antifascism

Being antifascist, for many Christians, would then require a self-reflexive search for relationships of domination at play in our own spirituality, moral systems, and communities. Questions we might ask include: Do we relate to God in a way that reinforces hierarchies of power? Do we equate morality with obedience to God or a religious leader or even the Word of God? Where do we protect boundaries and borders, sanctifying an us/them approach to ministry? Are we structuring our communities around “order” rather than creative inclusivity, fluidity and openness to change? 

In essence, my reading of Sölle today is a challenge to make the political personal. US progressive Christians risk the temptation to distance themselves from the culture that allows Christofascism to flourish a bit too easily. Instead of patting ourselves on the back, Christians can be antifascist by transforming our own obedience to dynamics of domination, in our theological language, our spiritualities, and our communities, as we continue our vigilant watch for fascist ideologies and policies at play in broader society. Christian antifascism is creatively and strategically disobedient to power, boundaries and order at the most intimate levels.

In view of Christian nationalist culture and persistent militaristic shaping policy, Dorothee Sölle’s critique of Christofascism continues to claim relevance in the 2020s. But progressive Christians need to take her warning against Christofascist politics personally. We must be self-reflexive in our protest. By questioning how we relate to God, interpret morality, and structure our communities, we can work to dismantle obedient habits that perpetuate dynamics of domination. Sölle’s critique becomes a challenge for Christians to form one another as moral agents with political responsibility through creative disobedience.