New documents detail inner workings of Society for American Civic Renewal, group with an emphasis on Christian nationalism

New documents detail inner workings of Society for American Civic Renewal, group with an emphasis on Christian nationalism

New documents have shed light on the origins and inner workings of the shadowy Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), including methods for judging the beliefs of potential members on topics such as Christian nationalism, and indications that its founders sought inspiration in an apartheid-era South African white men-only group, the Afrikaner-Broederbond.

They also show that Boise State University Professor and Claremont thinktank scholar Scott Yenor tried to coordinate SACR’s activities with other initiatives, including an open letter on “Christian marriage”.

One expert says that one of the new documents – some previously reported in Talking Points Memo – use biblical references that suggest a preparedness for violent struggle against the current “regime”.

The SACR is a secretive far-right men-only organization with an emphasis on Christian nationalism and a desire to open branches across the US.

  • astraeus@programming.dev
    29·
    8 months ago

    The Handmaid’s Tale sounds practically prophetic with some of this stuff. I guess the peeps could be heard back in the 80s for some of these “Christian nationalist” groups.

    Let’s call it what it is, they take Christianity and make it their calling card but follow very few, if any, of the actual calls or teachings of Christ. They want to attach to something which has meaning to validate and give authenticity to a meaningless, and destructive, endeavor.

    • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      8 months ago

      Nah it goes back much further than the 80’s, when we’re on the topic of the age of American Christian Nationalism I like to break out the only Barry Goldwater quotes I know, the first of which was said in the 60’s:

      Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.

      Another banger:

      I must make it clear that I don’t condemn these groups for what they believe. I happen to share many of the values emphasized by these organizations. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.” … This unrelenting obsession with a particular goal destroys the perspective of many decent people. They have become easy prey to manipulation and misjudgment.

      Yet another prophetic quote:

      There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

      Another one:

      The specter of single-issue religious groups is growing over our land. … One of the great strengths of our political system always has been our tendency to keep religious issues in the background. By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars.

      Yet another accurate one:

      Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

      https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater#:~:text=Tolerance in the face of,of freedom is no vice.

      • astraeus@programming.dev
        5·
        8 months ago

        This is good stuff, pretty aligned with what I was getting at here. I think this way of thinking has been running rampant for a very long time. Even at the time of Christ, there was a number of sentiments that ran counter to Christ’s teachings that ended up entwining with the beliefs of the church. No one is a perfect listener, some are much worse than others…

      • Seleni@lemmy.world
        3·
        8 months ago

        Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.

        This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

        ~C. S. Lewis

        • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          8 months ago

          I’ve seen it said where Musk and Thiel and the other Internet billionaires are the modern robber barons, but one thing to note, they’re almost all “Libertarian”, they are almost all trying to force some kind of ideology onto us, especially Thiel, since he is completely intertwined with the MAGA movement and the GOP, and they have no goal of contributing to making our country better in the way that Rockefeller, Carnegie, and others of the Gilded Age did.

          So while I agree with the spirit of this CS Lewis quote, I believe it is aging like milk.

          Here’s a good article I found that highlights the contrasts between the old robber barons vs the new:

          https://online.maryville.edu/business-degrees/americas-gilded-age/

    • voracitude@lemmy.world
      12·
      8 months ago

      This lot are indubitably amongst those actively calling the teachings of Jesus “weak” so yeah, definitely not Christians.