New Theological Term: Capitol Hill Theory (CHT)
As the shockwaves reverberate throughout the world over what has become known to be the “storming of Capitol Hill” – a microcosal “last straw” that forever broke the minds of BigTech and progressive/progressive-adjacent Christian leaders everywhere, a new theological term is needed to describe a burgeoning argument and theological position that springs from it.
Their argument, which has been adopted and now assumed as fact, is that the incursion into the nation’s Capitol on January 6 was a watershed moment which once and for all, with absolute clarity, demonstrated that all Trump supporters are white supremacist who are complicit in the violence therein.
If you voted for the President, either joyfully or with reservation, you bear a portion of responsibility for the destruction and death of five people and the attack on our nation, and doubly so if you’re a white evangelical.
Priestess Tish Harrison Warren summarized it nicely in Christianity Today, when she wrote:
Though it saddens me deeply, it must be clearly admitted: Yesterday’s atrocity was in large part brought to us by the white, evangelical church in America...
I have at times tried to dismiss these leaders and events as fringe, as the crazy cranks and bizarre displays we ought to ignore. I have instead focused on how, day in and day out, pastors and Christian laypeople are seeking to faithfully follow Jesus, to love their neighbor, and to serve the poor, to embody the truth we proclaim this season. But I cannot overlook the reality that millions of evangelicals are swayed by those who proclaim untruth and ugliness in the name of Jesus.
The responsibility of yesterday’s violence must be in part laid at the feet of those evangelical leaders who ushered in and applauded Trump’s presidency. It can also sadly be laid at the feet of the white American church more broadly.
We call this term “Capitol Hill Theory” or CHT. It is the belief that anyone who voted for President Trump or the Republican Party shares responsibility, blame, and culpability with the rioters and criminals involved in the violence at Capitol Hill, as well as the racist ideology and rhetoric that surely accompanied it and caused it.
Whereas Critical Race Theory would suggest conservative white evangelicals are all inherently guilty of racism in some manner, Capitol Hill Theory says conservative white evangelicals are all inherently guilty of storming the Capitol.
In fact, the same progressive evangelicals and Reformed Leaders and Organizations™ declaring your ontological identity to be a racist who is oblivious to your white privilege, are also saying you are inescapably a “Capitol Hill stormer” oblivious to your complicity and white supremacy.
In a way, the “storming of Capitol Hill” has become the new “19th-century slavery.” You’re guilty of it and need to repent of it, even if you weren’t there or involved. Not only must you repent, but you need to joyfully offer reparations on account of it if you want to bring about true restoration and justice.
These reparations begin, at the very least, with an acknowledgment of the sin of voting for Donald Trump and the Republican Party in the first place.
Expect to see this argumentation all over the pages of The Gospel Coalition, Southern Baptists sites, the ERLC, and most mainstream Christian publications, and know there is a term for it.
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If you’re against the Jan 6th protest then you are necessarily FOR communism. It will take far more than a one-day protest (in which no buildings were destroyed, nothing set on fire etc.) to restore our freedoms. No nation ever overcame communism by “voting harder.”
CT is not alone. “The Atlantic described the incident “a Christian insurrection” while Religion News Service called it the work of “Christian nationalists,” [Bill] Donohue writes. Meanwhile, both Patheos and Americans United for Separation of Church and State blamed “White Christian Nationalists” for the violence.” (That’s apparently a cut from a Breitbart article that was on another site.) “Christian” is being associated with “white” and singled out as a societal problem in some media.
This could get ugly. The church is in part to blame precisely because it’s in such dire need of purification, what with gay friendly churches, goofball charismatics selling Jesus as parlor tricks, and liberal deniers of traditional orthodoxy. Maybe this would still happen if the church was rock solid but at least we’d be in a better position to deal with it.
Don’t get rid of your hard copy Bibles just yet. Your online versions – Blue Letter, YouVersion, Logos, etc- just may get de-platformed. It sounds like the powers that be that make the decisions are potentially heading in that direction. They’ve long wanted to; Hillary told us so back in 2008 when she told us that “religious beliefs would have to be changed” in America. (If it’s important to keep your notes and highlights after the server kicks you off, you could look into how to download those to your device now.)