Soldiers of Christ: Rousas John Rushdoony, the Christian Right, and Postwar US Fascism

This paper examines the Christian Right as one of the most influential fascistoid currents in the postwar United States and makes the case for situating it in the history of fascist movements. It begins by making the case for “fascism” as productive frame for thinking about the postwar United States. Fascism, as I argue, denotes not just a state formation but a type of movement culture and a set of “mobilizing passions” (to quote Robert Paxton): it is the name for a particular strand of right-wing politics that has palpably impacted mainstream politics and even institutions in the United States at critical junctures throughout the twentieth century and beyond.

The paper will use Rousas John Rushdoony – one of “the founding fathers” of the Christian Right in the 1970s – as a launching point for thinking about the Christian Right as both a movement culture and a fascist formation. The paper will also argue that AIDS activists in the late 1980s and 1990s adopted a distinctly antifascist politics to counter the Christian Right and, as such, should be recognized as part of US antifascist history.