This essay is not an attempt to develop an apologetics for Christianity in opposition to white Christian nationalism. It is not an attempt to defend some notion of pure Christianity against a polluted version of it. However, there is an interpretation of the central figure of Christianity, Jesus, that provides us with a measuring rod for our assessment of white Christian nationalism. The purpose of this essay is to understand and critique a development in a branch of Christianity that has led to the rise of authoritarianism and neo-fascism, with emphasis on the development of charismatic political leadership.
The use of the word “hate” in my title might cause some worry among my readers. It may seem to some that such a word is far too strong to attribute to a group of people who have declared their love for Jesus. However, the Jesus whom they love is not the one read about in the Gospel but rather it is a Jesus that has been created in their own image, or better yet, the image of the heroic and charismatic figure of John Wayne.
Hence, in white Christian nationalism there is the rejection of the character structure presented to us in the Gospels in favor of a character structure that responds to the fears of those who find themselves inadequate as free beings responsible for their own self-development. What is hated by white Christian nationalists is not necessarily Jesus himself but rather the character structure that Jesus exhibited and called for in his followers.
In this essay I examine the role of character development as it relates to charisma and authoritarianism. This essay focuses entirely on the negative or oppressive form of charisma, or what Maor Levitin calls authoritarian charisma as opposed to ethical charisma. In a way, my question is a transcendental one: What are the necessary conditions for authoritarian charisma and how is it constitutive of leadership in white Christian nationalism?
Fear of Death, Transference, and Character as the Vital Lie
Many discussions of charisma focus on it as a unique quality possessed by an individual which gives her the power of drawing people to her. Something in the charismatic individual’s character makes her appealing. However, whatever this property is, it has no power unless there is a need or lack in the individuals who fall under the spell of the charismatic individual. Turning away from the charismatic individual for a moment allows us to seek out the social and personal needs of social groups who fall under the spell of the charismatic leader.
Quite often political reflections on authoritarianism and the charismatic individual avoid the role of psychological needs and development. My approach has as its foundation the insights of psychoanalytic theory and its contribution to understanding human behavior. I begin with Ernest Becker and his theory of fear of death as the fundamental drive behind human behavior.
In his book The Denial of Death (1973), Becker provides a historical overview of the transition from the Freudian focus on the sex drive and the pleasure principle as the driving force of human behavior to the fear of death. Although I am not willing to fully part with Freudian theory, I do agree with Becker and others that the sex drive is not the sole determining factor in human behavior. Becker builds his theory on post-Freudian thinkers such as Otto Rank and Erich Fromm. He also revives the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard.
Becker argues that the key motivating source of human behavior is the fear of death. This fear of death is not merely a fear of the end of life. It is also a fear of life itself. That is, life itself confronts the human individual as something beyond the individual’s control. Human finitude is intolerable for a creature who sees herself as free. Human beings deal with the threat of death and finitude by constructing “character,” an image of the self that transcends finitude, and culture, a collective narrative that transcends finitude by uniting oneself with a group. Involved in both responses is the psychoanalytical problem of transference. The individual transfers onto an individual or group the qualities that she would like to possess but have come up short.
The individual attempts to overcome her finitude or helpless animal nature by constructing an image of the “heroic.” While the individual fails to live up to his image of the heroic, he or she finds aspects of the heroic in other individuals or groups. The image of the heroic is transferred onto some figure who manifests the heroic in her life.
Becker’s work is important for us because it provides another motivation for human action beyond the sexual drives as theorized by Freud. The turn toward the fear of death and life, that is, the hatred of human finitude, provides us with a better foundation for understanding the type of need that people seek fulfillment of in the charismatic individual. However, it is Erich Fromm’s analysis of character structure that takes us even further.
Fear of Freedom and the Development of Character Structure
In his book Escape from Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm analyzes the various mechanisms that incline the modern individual toward authoritarianism. While Becker’s analysis is of the human condition in general, Fromm’s focus is on the modern individual, especially insofar as the modern individual is a product of modern capitalist society. This makes Fromm’s work more valuable to us as our concern is with recent developments of authoritarianism and the role of charismatic political and religious leaders.
According to Fromm, one develops as a free individual in a way that is similar to the development of a child. The development of individual freedom requires that one separates oneself from one’s primary ties (family, clan, tribe, community, etc.), a process that strengthens the individual – but at a cost. Further:
The other aspect of the process of individuation is growing aloneness. The primary ties offer security and basic unity with the world outside of oneself. To the extent to which the child emerges from that world it becomes aware of being alone, of being an entity separate from all others. This separation from the world, which in comparison with one’s own individual existence is overwhelmingly strong and powerful, and often threatening and dangerous, creates a feeling of powerlessness and anxiety. As long as one was an integral part of that world, unaware of the possibilities and responsibilities of individual action, one did not need to be afraid of it. When one has become an individual, one stands alone and faces the world in all its perilous and overwhelming aspects. (44-45)
According to Fromm and Becker’s accounts, the individual seeks to overcome his or her sense of helplessness by being attached to a more powerful individual or group. I will focus on the powerful or charismatic leader. The individual finds in the charismatic leader features that they have failed to develop in their own lives. A sense of failure and anxiety leads the individual to forfeit her freedom and subject herself to the charismatic leader, who is capable of making them feel secure and important.
The charismatic leader has the power to win friends and influence people because people see in this individual something that they desire for themselves but lack. Attachment to the charismatic leader creates a sense of belonging, security, identity, and meaning.
Rapid social change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries accompanying struggles for liberation by marginalized groups threatened to completely restructure the social life to which white male Christians had grown accustomed. The new status of women, Black people, the LGBTQ community, and new critiques of capitalism created a fear of disorder and loss of control for white male Christians who had been used to social control.
If we had a strong heroic figure like John Wayne in charge, he would save America from its pending downfall. Hence, we have seen for the last seventy years an attempt in Christianity and politics to return to an America that white male Christians were more comfortable with.
Donald Trump, John Wayne, and White Salvation
It seems strange that Donald Trump, a man with no record of religious or Christian commitment, would become the champion of the Christian right. This strangeness dissipates once one does a close analysis of the development of white right-wing Christianity over the last several decades. Simply put, the various movements for the liberation of marginalized and oppressed groups in the U.S. led to a crisis of white, male, Christian masculinity. In her book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (2020), Kristin Kobes Du Mez explores the seventy-year history of the development of the struggle of white male evangelicals to save their heroic image from a country that they saw as growing soft:
Evangelical support for Trump was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice. It was, rather, the culmination of evangelicals’ embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad. By the time Trump arrived proclaiming himself their savior, conservative white evangelicals had already traded a faith that privileges humility and elevates “the least of these” for one that derides gentleness as the province of wusses. Rather than turning the other cheek, they’d resolved to defend their faith and their nation, secure in the knowledge that the ends justify the means. Having replaced the Jesus of the Gospels with a vengeful warrior Christ, it’s no wonder many came to think of Trump in the same way. In 2016, many observers were stunned at evangelicals’ apparent betrayal of their own values. In reality, evangelicals did not cast their vote despite their beliefs, but because of them. (3)
White male Christians in America had a need that was not fulfilled by Jesus. Du Mez is right in her assessment of the seventy-year development of white Christian nationalism. However, I believe that the problem goes back even further, to the development of the idea of American exceptionalism and the belief that white Americans are God’s new chosen people. Du Mez shortens the story by focusing on the charismatic figure of John Wayne and how he shaped the white male imagination.
John Wayne represents the strong, charismatic, “take no shit” image that many white males in America seek to emulate. White evangelical men adopted a John Wayne savior mentality. It was their job to protect women who knew their role as women. Hence, the feminist movement had to be rejected. They saw themselves as protectors of this country, and its values. Christian identity became conflated with American identity. If “Christian” America was to be protected, men needed to be more militant.
Trump’s charisma and meteoric rise in politics is merely the culmination of White evangelicals’ search for a hero that would kick the asses of liberals and the nation’s external enemies. Trump was able to ride the wave of white Christian nationalism in politics created by the charismatic Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. We must not forget that it was Reagan who was able to win over white Christian evangelicals from Jimmy Carter, himself an evangelical Christian, who appeared to them to be too weak to protect the country and its conservative values.
With Reagan, there was finally a John Wayne in the White House. Trump supporters see in him the same charisma and toughness that they saw in Reagan. What makes Trump even more appealing is that he could express disdain for the “least of these” in a very unapologetic way. He gave hatred and prejudice a new heroic boldness. Christian values like love, humility, compassion, community, and caring for the other had become anti-American values in the white national imagination long before Trump. White Christian nationalism has rejected Jesus as savior and accepted some version of the John Wayne persona.
