Things you need to know, but probably don’t

Christian Nationalism, the KKK and the Personhood of An Embryo

Oh what a tangled web they weave when Christians self-deceive

I was right in the middle of researching the intersection of the 1920s KKK and manifestations of Christian Nationalism when the news broke that the Alabama Supreme Court declared personhood status for an in vitro embryo.

One story has nothing to do with the other, right?

Wrong.

It is a weird and ugly serendipity that just as my eyes were being opened to how the 1920s version of the Klan marketed itself as a defender of Christianity, my eyes were also being opened to what is hiding in plain sight in America, the New Apostolic Reformation. It is the same song, just a different verse. Or to put it in Mark Twain’s terms, history doesn’t repeat, but it does sometimes rhyme.

The Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court Tom Parker invoked Biblical verses and the fact that this is God’s country in his ruling. Other elements of Tom Parker — which I will get to below — reveal how the threads all tie together, a web leading from the patriarchal, give-me-that-old-time-religion KKK to today.

This is still the Klan’s country and never ceased being the Klan’s country. It is just the name and the marketing that has changed.

I had been planning to write an article about the KKK as a Christian Nationalist organization to be a follow-up to what I had written about the current New Apostolic Reformation.

However, now I am switching gears slightly, and including some pertinent info about the Alabama Judge Tom Parker. He is not a member of the KKK, and I do not wish to even imply that, but he is part of the New Apostolic Reformation and a Christian Nationalist. I am making the case that this is all the same song, just a different verse.

Tying all the threads together will not be easy for me to distill down into eight minutes or less of your time. But give me your time, as these are things you need to know, but probably don’t.

The KKK was a Christian Nationalist organization

The book is called Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915–1930 by Kelly J. Baker, published in 2011.

It is not light reading — either in style or subject matter — and I was both depressed and fascinated as I skimmed through it.

To be clear — as the author herself takes great pains to be — the KKK is rightly seen and remembered as a racist organization that terrorized and lynched Black people. However, in its revival in the 1920s, it was nonetheless amazingly mainstream and welcomed warmly and enthusiastically by the larger American public — that is to say the Protestant Christian American public.

The reason you could see such a proud parade of people down Pennsylvania Avenue was not because everybody was celebrating lynching Black people. No, this KKK included dentists, lawyers, teachers, pretty much all sorts of men and women from all walks of life and this was because of how the KKK marketed itself to recruit members. It advertised itself as a patriotic fraternity defending Christianity against the evil forces among us who, said the KKK, were trying to tear America down. Sound familiar?

The burning cross (now remembered as a thing of terror lit on a victim’s lawn) was originally envisioned and displayed by the 1920s KKK as the “light of Christ” shining forth. In particular, the cross was set burning in their ceremonies to announce that this is God’s country, a Christian nation. Sound familiar?

The KKK claimed it was all about honoring Christ and it was about honoring the true patriotic history of this nation. Oh, that sounds familiar, right? Preacher William Joseph Simmons, who was key to the 1920s KKK revival, said in Congressional testimony that the Klan is simply “a fraternal, patriotic, secret order for the purpose of memorializing the great heroes of our national history, inculcating and teaching … fervent, practical patriotism toward our country…”

That is pretty much the lesson plan of the GOP, while they get rid of all that subversive CRT contaminating our schools, right?

Guess what else sounds familiar? The revamped KKK of the 1920s was an organization concerned about immigration and wanted to close the border. You might assume the immigrants they complained about were those of dark skin, but you would be wrong. The “immigration crisis” of the America of the 1920s was the influx of Jews and Catholics, mainly Russian and eastern European Jews fleeing persecution (you could call them asylum seekers) and Irish Catholics.

As much as the Klan is rightly remembered for its racism against Blacks, the Klan also had enormous hatred for Jews and Catholics.

Look at this cartoon from the 1920s showing how the glorious KKK is defending America from what they viewed as the Whore of Babylon, the Catholic Church.

The target group shifts with time, and thus does history rhyme, but the theme remains the same: White Protestant Christianity is what America was founded upon, and its absolute dominion must be defended.

That is our modern Christian Nationalism. That is Judge Tom Parker invoking God to defend… an embryo. A good white Christian embryo, of course.

They are hiding in plain sight

I always like to dig a little deeper behind the headlines. While everyone (rightly) has their hair on fire over that completely insane ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that a clump of cells in a Petrie dish is a baby, I had to ask: “Who is this guy?” Judge Tom Parker quoted the Bible in his concurring opinion. That is as much or even more insane than the decision itself.

Turns out, Tom Parker appeared on a show hosted by Johnny Enlow. You have not heard of Mr. Enlow, I’m sure, but he is a Christian Nationalist, a QAnon follower of Trump, and, more to the point, a prophet of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). God speaks to Johnny Enlow, you see.

Tom Parker thanked Enlow for promoting the Seven Mountains Mandate. That is a core belief of the NAR that Christians must conquer and completely control education, media, religion, family, business, entertainment, and government. Fundamentalist Christian values and beliefs must fully control all seven of those fields.

Judge Parker is just doing his part in implementing that by ruling an embryo is a person per the laws of God.

Digging deeper into Judge Parker, here are a few more facts you should know about him. Wikipedia notes the following about Tom Parker:

As a candidate in 2004, he was criticized …for distributing Confederate flags at a funeral of a Confederate widow. Parker was photographed at the funeral standing between Leonard Wilson, a board member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, and Mike Whorton, a leader with the League of the South… Parker was also criticized for attending a party in Selma commemorating the birthday of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, founder of the Ku Klux Klan. The party was hosted at “Fort Dixie” by Pat and Butch Godwin, operator of Friends of Forrest Inc. and also involved with the League of the South.

FYI, the Council of Conservative Citizens and the League of the South are white supremacist organizations.

History does not repeat, but it does rhyme.

Of course, Tom Parker is also a member of the Federalist Society, the organization with the infamous co-chairman Leonard Leo, the man who singlehandedly reshaped SCOTUS to end abortion access.

Did I mention how the KKK also saw its mission as one of protecting white women? That is to say, protect white women so they can stay home and crank out lots and lots of white babies like good little white women should.

I’m tired of the rhyme of history.

But now you have made rich white women mad, so you are in BIG trouble

The ultimate demise of the KKK as “defenders of Christianity” came about because of them eventually being unmasked as the vile and violent monsters they really were. No amount of slick “marketing” could undo the truth being exposed.

Likewise, no amount of slick marketing is now going to shield the Christian Nationalist Party (formerly known as the Republican Party) from blowback as the vile monstrosity it has become with abortion bans, their goal of dismantling DEI, and vile violence-inducing attacks upon trans people is more and more evident.

They were already in big trouble with an American public who wants to be kind and accepting toward people of different religions, races, and sexual orientations.

They were already in super big trouble with those who want women to have control of their own bodies and access to healthcare without interference.

However, there still have been hardcore Republicans out there who tend to look the other way on many things. These are the wealthy Republicans who just want their tax cuts and so they shrug and hold their nose and vote Republican. Abortion access was not too great a concern to them since a rich woman is always going to have access to abortion.

But now we have in vitro fertilization being brought to a halt in Alabama, and owing to the logic of “life begins at conception” likely to be under attack soon in many other states. Here is the thing about in vitro fertilization: It is damn expensive.

The vast majority of people benefiting from and utilizing in vitro fertilization to have a family are rich white women.

Suddenly those rich white Republican women who were standing aloof from the fray, just happy to have their tax cuts, are waking up this morning damn mad.

Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end of Christian Nationalism now that rich white women suddenly have skin in the game for stopping this marauding band of people dressed in the purity of white and shining forth their version of the light of the glory of Jesus.

So, maybe it is good that history rhymes. Hopefully, the rhyme will indeed continue, and Christian Nationalists and the NAR will go the way of the KKK… into the dustbin of history recognized as a malevolent force of evil masquerading as “Christianity.”