My Take | The scary totalitarianism of the US Christian right
- The ‘Christian nation’ envisioned by Republican Senator Josh Hawley and his coreligionists mirrors the totalising ideal of Islamic State
Shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, I had lunch with an imam in Hong Kong and asked him about the difference between Islam and political Islam, of which I was, and still am, pretty ignorant on both counts.
To cut a long story short, he said political Islam does not distinguish between government, society and economy. It’s an all-embracing vision of how life should be lived and organised. So, I asked, it doesn’t separate the public from the private sphere, no? In the most extreme interpretation, you don’t, the imam said, it’s all of a piece.
That sounds like totalitarianism, I said. Well, yes, but in a good way, he replied. “But in a good way”– that’s comforting! As we finished lunch, instead of Osama bin Laden, he told me to read Sayyid Qutb, the Islamic political theorist. Needless to say, most Muslims are not such fundamentalists.
I had the same reaction this week while reading “Our Christian Nation”, a 4,300-plus word essay published in early February in a Christian magazine by Republican Senator Josh Hawley.
“Our Christian Nation” seems definitive about Hawley’s views on politics, economy and religion. You would not be surprised if he thinks the United States is at heart a “Christian nation” and that it ought to run as a “Christian society” and a “Christian economy”.