This year, I read two kinds of books: Books from Christians beyond the realm of theology that expand Christian discourse, and books from non-Christians that serve as unintentional natural theology.
What's that quip about fascism always falling in the United States but landing in Europe? Virtually all actual anti-Semitism in the US today is on the left. Pretty much all the attacks against Jews in NYC are committed by blacks, for example. And the campus left is hardly getting their ideas from Oswald Spengler.
A more interesting point to think about is why evangelicals are overwhelmingly positive towards Jews, but Jews so overwhelmingly negative towards evangelicals (cf: Max Blumenthal).
Thanks for the pushback, Aaron. For initial context, I’m primarily saying that I wasn’t aware of some of the history in "The Right" until reading Continetti this year, not that right-wing anti-semitism is the primary danger to Jews right now. But a couple more thoughts that I might need to expand on at a later date:
- My sense from reading The Right was that there have been several “New Right” exits from movement conservatism in the movement’s short history. Whether the exit went in a more religious or Neo-pagan (or other) direction, almost all of these included at least some folks going to a more anti-semitic perspective. This led me to think that anti-semitism is a perpetual danger on the right, especially for those criticizing/exiting movement-conservatism.
- I thought about this since the New Founding/NETTR discussion: It’s very bad strategically to have almost any interaction with the anti-semitic right. Part of strategic and savvy conservatism is to remain respectable. While some portion of the left just never respects conservatives, you still need to be able to say, “I’m not anti-semitic, and I don’t associate politically with those who are.” (You can and should still associate on a personal level: I’ve engaged that conversation with two people personally - one alt-right Christian guy and one very intelligent Catholic guy who was seriously entertaining anti-semitic theories.)
- Also, anti-semitic sentiment is not popular in the broad American public, but it is popular in the online and intellectual radical right, which can have a sometimes disproportionate effect.
- But everything I’m saying here depends on the first thesis I took from “The Right,” that anti-semitism is a perennial temptation on the right - even if it’s not the danger to Jews right now. (It could easily become a danger, for example, if a second Trump administration included a more Israel-skeptical foreign policy - not that there isn’t discussion to be had there.) I'd be interested in your take, which I've heard a bit of, on those previous "New Right" attempts.
All I would say is, what's the bigger problem in the evangelical world: anti-semitism or an excessive devotion to the state of Israel? Too many people reading BAP or too many people hanging on Bibi's every word?
Maybe this should be dismissed along with Catholic integralism, but I can see it having an influence on the "let's be more Christian and hardcore" right.
I can see that, but I'm trying to talk, not to the general evangelical public, but more to intellectual people at the intersection of Reformed theology and conservative politics, where I find myself (though not exclusively to them). There, the question seems to be which variety of conservatism to embrace and whether we need to be wary of certain versions of the right. I would hope it would be something like what you've warned the religious right about adopting a "culture war" strategy in the negative world.
I guess to me the issue is in part skin the game. Anti-semitism is bad and should be condemned and I do condemn it. At the same time, nothing could be socially safer than doing that. The question is what positions are we willing to take to that are unpopular and entail risk for taking them. Complaining about right wing anti-semitism is the easy way out.
Your list also, candidly, shows a lack of awareness on some of the very issues you highlight. Blumenthal is a Jewish author that is, according to your brief take, accusing evangelicals of controlling the Republican Party and saying how horrible that is. (The truth is that evangelicals don't have the much influence in conservatism or the Republican Party when it comes to their own specific concerns - they are a vote bank). If you reversed the field and an evangelical writer said Jews run conservatism, you'd see that as anti-semitic. In fact, Blumenthal even seems to deploy the old moneyman trope against Howard Ahmanson, per your synopsis. Why is it ok for him to do these things? (I haven't read Blumenthal's book, so perhaps it is more nuanced than what I took away from your synopsis).
I feel like there's a disconnect in there somewhere.
As a Jew, and Israeli, I find this conversation fascinating. I'll share my own two cents on this, and my belief is that while I'm a bit outspoken on this, its becoming something Right-Wing Jews (a growing group) will come to agree on. Maybe something Amy Waxish
1) To say any group controls any sector of politics is an empirical fact. It's not something that can be claimed to be maliciously anti-semitic or anti-evangelical. While Jews are specifically frightened of this charge, this is a response that needs to change. It either needs to be empirically proven false (which is unlikely) or owned up. If its owned up, it has ethical implications of taking responsibility of the fact.
2) I'm pretty sure the fear of RW anti-semitism is mainly a historical effect of Nazi Germany. It also intersects with Jews wanting to justify their integration into the US (and into the elite of US society) by downplaying Christian Nationalism. I think this was a mistake, and I think that most American Jews view the US like most Americans today- a secular nation that is home to a Christian tradition. The ADL and the likes have allied themselves with the Left, which also has to do with using victimization as moral vindication. This might shift as the Holocaust becomes a distant memory and Israel's military supremacy over its neighbors becomes a salient fact of daily life.
3) RW anti-semitism is not an actualized problem in the USA, but I do think it has the potential to become one. It would probably be more of a repercussion of Jews being overrepresented in the left (and far left) and under represented in the far right (but probably over represented in the right) than of anything else.
I agree that control is an empirical matter, but it's hard to actually measure, despite various Who Rules America? types of analyses.
Robert Dahl's Who Governs?, a look at New Haven, CT in 1960 is a classic in this regard, as it examines various claims about who actually controlled that city.
Thanks, Aaron. I agree about the unfairness of the double-standard for mainstream liberal criticism of evangelicals. (I think Blumenthal was still pretty mainstream at the time.) I also agree with your description that movement-conservatism is a Jewish and Catholic project, primarily - evangelicals are just the voting base. I certainly don't think saying that is anti-semitic. To me, Blumenthal - maybe because of his animus - highlighted the ways in which the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jimmy Swaggart merged Christianity with mobilizing the evangelical voter in a way that was very worthy of criticism. That's not representative of most evangelicals, but it's definitely a danger to avoid - and again, it's about how evangelicals should act as a voting base; we aren't (most of us) in leadership in the conservative movement.
I also agree about skin in the game, generally. If someone curries favor with the secular left and only criticizes their fellow evangelicals who are to their right, they don't have skin in the game. For me, I've been having a few thoughts that diverge from the perspective that I have largely gained from reading your writing. I'm not absolutely confident in them, but I'm testing them out and in this case, having you disagree with them - for which I am grateful!
For my part, I'll keep digging into the history, both of the evangelical church and of American politics and conservatism. I would be interested in your take on Blumenthal's book though, because I read it out of an interest in how money and power are behind the scenes. I came away viewing Ahmahnson quite positively. Thanks for the pushback overall.
What's that quip about fascism always falling in the United States but landing in Europe? Virtually all actual anti-Semitism in the US today is on the left. Pretty much all the attacks against Jews in NYC are committed by blacks, for example. And the campus left is hardly getting their ideas from Oswald Spengler.
A more interesting point to think about is why evangelicals are overwhelmingly positive towards Jews, but Jews so overwhelmingly negative towards evangelicals (cf: Max Blumenthal).
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/03/15/americans-feel-more-positive-than-negative-about-jews-mainline-protestants-catholics/
Thanks for the pushback, Aaron. For initial context, I’m primarily saying that I wasn’t aware of some of the history in "The Right" until reading Continetti this year, not that right-wing anti-semitism is the primary danger to Jews right now. But a couple more thoughts that I might need to expand on at a later date:
- My sense from reading The Right was that there have been several “New Right” exits from movement conservatism in the movement’s short history. Whether the exit went in a more religious or Neo-pagan (or other) direction, almost all of these included at least some folks going to a more anti-semitic perspective. This led me to think that anti-semitism is a perpetual danger on the right, especially for those criticizing/exiting movement-conservatism.
- I thought about this since the New Founding/NETTR discussion: It’s very bad strategically to have almost any interaction with the anti-semitic right. Part of strategic and savvy conservatism is to remain respectable. While some portion of the left just never respects conservatives, you still need to be able to say, “I’m not anti-semitic, and I don’t associate politically with those who are.” (You can and should still associate on a personal level: I’ve engaged that conversation with two people personally - one alt-right Christian guy and one very intelligent Catholic guy who was seriously entertaining anti-semitic theories.)
- Also, anti-semitic sentiment is not popular in the broad American public, but it is popular in the online and intellectual radical right, which can have a sometimes disproportionate effect.
- But everything I’m saying here depends on the first thesis I took from “The Right,” that anti-semitism is a perennial temptation on the right - even if it’s not the danger to Jews right now. (It could easily become a danger, for example, if a second Trump administration included a more Israel-skeptical foreign policy - not that there isn’t discussion to be had there.) I'd be interested in your take, which I've heard a bit of, on those previous "New Right" attempts.
All I would say is, what's the bigger problem in the evangelical world: anti-semitism or an excessive devotion to the state of Israel? Too many people reading BAP or too many people hanging on Bibi's every word?
I just came across this Catholic Twitter account insinuating that the Jews are to blame for abortion. https://twitter.com/WeCrusaders/status/1708633031169257895
Maybe this should be dismissed along with Catholic integralism, but I can see it having an influence on the "let's be more Christian and hardcore" right.
I can see that, but I'm trying to talk, not to the general evangelical public, but more to intellectual people at the intersection of Reformed theology and conservative politics, where I find myself (though not exclusively to them). There, the question seems to be which variety of conservatism to embrace and whether we need to be wary of certain versions of the right. I would hope it would be something like what you've warned the religious right about adopting a "culture war" strategy in the negative world.
I guess to me the issue is in part skin the game. Anti-semitism is bad and should be condemned and I do condemn it. At the same time, nothing could be socially safer than doing that. The question is what positions are we willing to take to that are unpopular and entail risk for taking them. Complaining about right wing anti-semitism is the easy way out.
Your list also, candidly, shows a lack of awareness on some of the very issues you highlight. Blumenthal is a Jewish author that is, according to your brief take, accusing evangelicals of controlling the Republican Party and saying how horrible that is. (The truth is that evangelicals don't have the much influence in conservatism or the Republican Party when it comes to their own specific concerns - they are a vote bank). If you reversed the field and an evangelical writer said Jews run conservatism, you'd see that as anti-semitic. In fact, Blumenthal even seems to deploy the old moneyman trope against Howard Ahmanson, per your synopsis. Why is it ok for him to do these things? (I haven't read Blumenthal's book, so perhaps it is more nuanced than what I took away from your synopsis).
I feel like there's a disconnect in there somewhere.
As a Jew, and Israeli, I find this conversation fascinating. I'll share my own two cents on this, and my belief is that while I'm a bit outspoken on this, its becoming something Right-Wing Jews (a growing group) will come to agree on. Maybe something Amy Waxish
1) To say any group controls any sector of politics is an empirical fact. It's not something that can be claimed to be maliciously anti-semitic or anti-evangelical. While Jews are specifically frightened of this charge, this is a response that needs to change. It either needs to be empirically proven false (which is unlikely) or owned up. If its owned up, it has ethical implications of taking responsibility of the fact.
2) I'm pretty sure the fear of RW anti-semitism is mainly a historical effect of Nazi Germany. It also intersects with Jews wanting to justify their integration into the US (and into the elite of US society) by downplaying Christian Nationalism. I think this was a mistake, and I think that most American Jews view the US like most Americans today- a secular nation that is home to a Christian tradition. The ADL and the likes have allied themselves with the Left, which also has to do with using victimization as moral vindication. This might shift as the Holocaust becomes a distant memory and Israel's military supremacy over its neighbors becomes a salient fact of daily life.
3) RW anti-semitism is not an actualized problem in the USA, but I do think it has the potential to become one. It would probably be more of a repercussion of Jews being overrepresented in the left (and far left) and under represented in the far right (but probably over represented in the right) than of anything else.
I agree that control is an empirical matter, but it's hard to actually measure, despite various Who Rules America? types of analyses.
Robert Dahl's Who Governs?, a look at New Haven, CT in 1960 is a classic in this regard, as it examines various claims about who actually controlled that city.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Governs%3F
It's rare that any one person, cabal, or faction actually rules. Things are usually much messier.
Thanks, Aaron. I agree about the unfairness of the double-standard for mainstream liberal criticism of evangelicals. (I think Blumenthal was still pretty mainstream at the time.) I also agree with your description that movement-conservatism is a Jewish and Catholic project, primarily - evangelicals are just the voting base. I certainly don't think saying that is anti-semitic. To me, Blumenthal - maybe because of his animus - highlighted the ways in which the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jimmy Swaggart merged Christianity with mobilizing the evangelical voter in a way that was very worthy of criticism. That's not representative of most evangelicals, but it's definitely a danger to avoid - and again, it's about how evangelicals should act as a voting base; we aren't (most of us) in leadership in the conservative movement.
I also agree about skin in the game, generally. If someone curries favor with the secular left and only criticizes their fellow evangelicals who are to their right, they don't have skin in the game. For me, I've been having a few thoughts that diverge from the perspective that I have largely gained from reading your writing. I'm not absolutely confident in them, but I'm testing them out and in this case, having you disagree with them - for which I am grateful!
For my part, I'll keep digging into the history, both of the evangelical church and of American politics and conservatism. I would be interested in your take on Blumenthal's book though, because I read it out of an interest in how money and power are behind the scenes. I came away viewing Ahmahnson quite positively. Thanks for the pushback overall.
After reading Tim Alberta's new book, it's going to take me awhile to get to another critique of evangelicalism most likely.
I know Howard personally a bit, by the way.