White Christian Nationalist Sexuality?

twitter |   I keep seeing "sex addiction" used as a term of agreed-on meaning, whether the speaker believes it explains the murders or not. But nearly all of what the conservative evangelicalism of the murderer describes as "sex addiction" is what the rest of the world calls sexuality...

In my book THE FAMILY I wrote about how fundamentalist ideas about sex have changed in the last decades, & in many ways gotten even more dangerous. The murderer's "sex addiction" may well refer to sexuality twisted by a hateful theology...

American fundamentalism has mostly moved beyond the "puritan" mores caricatured in 80s movies like Footloose. Before, it tried not to talk about sex. Now, it talks about sex--a lot. Sex manuals are fundamentalist best sellers. Pastors preach about it...

Today's fundamentalists claim to promote "healthy" sex. Part of that is pathologizing not just queer sex but hetero sexuality that isn't married & monogamous; hence "sex addiction." Many, many churches see resisting such "addiction" as a form of "spiritual warfare" ...

That idea of "spiritual warfare" has LOTS of implicit & often explicit racist currents. Non-Christians--and many white evangelicals see non-white people, especially Asians, as non-Christian unless otherwise informed--are seen as loci of "demonic" activity, endangering Christians.

Some megachurches and parachurch ministries practice "spiritual mapping" as part of "warfare"--marching through a city to "fight" "demonic activity" at strip clubs, porn shops, &, yes, massage parlors.

It's worth noting that many or most fundamentalists view what they think of as Asian religions as "demonic strongholds." When I visited The Family's C St house for congressman they had planned a day of prayer against the "demonic stronghold" of Buddhism.

So take "spiritual warfare," add a history of missionary orientalism (per Edward Said) steeped in US wars, & then update with contemporary fundamentalism's obsession with "healthy" sex vs. "sexual addiction." It's a recipe for this kind of racist, misogynist violence.

Contemporary fundamentalism's obsession w/ sex isn't in addition to its implicit & sometimes explicit racism; it IS its racism. Its ideal is "purity"--historically rooted in anti-Blackness, fear of "miscegenation," the "temptation" of the theological (racial) "other."

Defenders of fundamentalism will note that it's anything but all-white, & that many white fundamentalists & evangelical families adopt non-white children. But the "purity" narratives aren't about exclusive whiteness; they're about the supremacy of Christian "whiteness."

The sexuality of Christian nationalism is particularly concerned w/ the "purity" of its capitalist economic worldview; hence its obsession w/ rooting out commodified sexuality, "the idea that anything can be bought and sold." It's a contradiction, I know.

Christian nationalist sexuality both fetishizes sex & wants to "purify" it. Fundamentalist sex manuals say sex shld be frequent & fun--hetero married--& imply if its' not there's something wrong w/ you. But if all that "fun" sex leads you to see the world erotically--it's demons!

Remember, too, that Christian nationalism, in the pulpit & in Congress, has dedicated itself to the idea that there literally is no safe sex outside of hetero marriage. Disease, "contagion," physical & spiritual, is always a threat. Resisting it is "Every Man's Battle."

"Every Man's Battle" is the title of a series of megaselling evangelical sex guides. The battle is--I kid you not--against masturbation. What they mean is temptation, as embodied by shameless women. Who's most shameless? Godless women, especially those racially coded as such.

"You're sexually pure," declares Every Man's Battle, "when sexual gratification comes only from your wife." It advises men to "bounce" their eyes away from any woman or media they see as attractive--& to recognize (read: hate) that which they believe is designed to attract them.

Of course, such an approach doesn't de-eroticize the world; it profoundly sexualizes it, making every time you step out the door or sit down & yr computer a "spiritual war" adventure in which men imagine themselves heroes for looking away. The world becomes a fetish.

Did the Atlanta murderer read those bestselling books? We don't know. But he invoked "sexual addiction" in the context of a Christian nationalism that has made explicitly misogynist & implicitly racist purity narratives...

...and the murderer acted w/in an American fundamentalist tradition that has long seen Asia--& Asian bodies--as a site of "spiritual warfare" (alongside actual US wars). This doesn't make every fundamentalist a murderer! But purity narratives are always, in the end, murderous.