Authoritarian Threats

One blog summary of the current worldwide authoritarian threat cites four core interrelated factors: 

(1) Patriarchy (2) Christian nationalism (3) Traditional norms regarding sexuality and gender (4) White supremacy

It is appropriate that a good book on authoritarianism is entitled "strongmen."  Traditional norms are not big on gender equality. 

History as compared to "tradition" shows women had powerful roles in many ways. But, like the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court, this is not the "history and tradition" that is at issue here.  

As a worldwide movement, logically, it is not always going to be about "white" supremacy.  Leta Hong Fincher, for instance, has written about how current Chinese leadership has attacked feminism. And, in our country, white supremacists can have non-white enablers, including Hispanics who are at times coded "white."  

Christian nationalism is not the same as Christianity. It is the belief that church and state should be united with a certain breed of Christianity as the official religion of said state. Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty are but one religious group that point to another way.

Daniel C. Maguire's book Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions provides an open-ended definition for "sacred" and "religion." The sacred is the "superlative of the precious." People have a vision of "religion" as tied to God and doctrine. Buddhism need not have a god. Most people still think of it as a religion. 

I have a long-held belief that "religion" is a broad concept. We need not dwell on that too much since even the average person defines it broadly. Likewise, religious liberty includes making choices about religion. An atheist without religion is practicing religious liberty. Christian nationalism is a threat to religious liberty as well as ideal Christianity itself.

It is fitting that a blog dealing with religious legal news regularly has posts discussing sexuality and reproductive rights. Again, this all tends to come together in the end. As to the top link's prediction about our country splitting apart in 10-40 years, who the heck knows?

If I'm alive in 40 years, I will be rather old. Too far for me to judge.