Bruce Ashford has written an incredibly helpful 4-part series on the alt-right movement and how evangelicals should respond to it. Not only is this worth your time for reading and your own understanding, but many church members will likely have questions about Resolution 10 and what the SBC meant when it passed a resolution condemning the alt-right movement. This is don’t-miss material.
The Anti-Gospel of the Alt-Right
Overview: An Evangelical Conservative’s Guide to the Alt-Right
Part 1: An Introduction to Alt-Right Ideology
Part 2: A Profile of 5 Alt-Right Leaders
Part 3: A Response to FAQs about the Alt-Right
Part 4: An Evaluation of the Alt-Right
I mainly post this here to make you aware of this excellent resource. I plan on making it available to our church members when we give a #SBC17 overview to our church.
Excellent series. Very helpful. Thank you for posting.
I’m still trying to sort out what is the alt right but I’m not sure the articles by Bruce Ashford linked here are entirely accurate. For example, one claims that Milo Yiannopoulos is part of the alt right but an article on Breitbart (which Milo used to work for) titled “Politico Falsely Labels MILO ‘Alt-Right Journalist”
says
“MILO has repeatedly stated that he is in no way alt-right, while many members of the movement have also agreed that MILO is not a member or representative of the group, including Richard Spencer.”
Bruce Ashford also fails to mention that Milo is Jewish. If a very open “gay Jew [with] a black boyfriend” as Milo has self identified is part of the alt right, then it’s the most inclusive and tolerant white racist movement I’ve ever heard of. So again, I’m not sure Bruce Ashford’s articles are entirely accurate.
The article does not say Milo is a part of the alt-right, but that he is an alt-right sympathizer, which is absolutely true. There’s nothing to any of the criticism you’ve left in this comment.
Did you read anything other than the intro article?
Brent,
You are kidding right?
First, the link above in the main post to part 2 calls Milo a leader.
Second, the article itself calls Milo an insider.
Paul’s statement above, ” If a very open “gay Jew [with] a black boyfriend” as Milo has self identified is part of the alt right, then it’s the most inclusive and tolerant white racist movement I’ve ever heard of” is a point well taken. Perhaps there is more to this divide than just racism as Milo would argue. Or, perhaps this grouping “alt-right” is so fluid it is like trying to nail jelly to the wall. Neither of these two options is viable for those trying to pigeon hole the “alt-righters”.
luke
No, I’m not kidding. In part 2, Milo is listed, but in the beginning of the article Bruce clearly labels him as outside the movement. Direct quote from part 2: “sympathetic outsiders such as Milo Yiannopoulos”.
I understand this tactic: try and nit pick details to try and discredit the source, but it won’t work here. Bruce has been careful and clear in the way he’s written these posts.
Brent, I had missed the line in article two that called him a “sympathetic outsider”. The title of part two “A Profile of 5 Alt-Right Leaders” and Milo’s being listed as one of the five led me to believe that he was being identified as part of the movement. After all, if someone in a large print title is called a leader of a movement it’s a fair inference to think he’s being identified as part of the movement. I am unaware of any leaders of movements that are not part of the movement they lead. Perhaps the author should retitle the second article for it is contradictory.
And brother, I don’t see why you’re so hard in your responses. As I said in my original comment, “I’m still trying to sort out what is the alt right but I’m not sure the articles by Bruce Ashford linked here are entirely accurate.” I have no ulterior motives. I have no interest in white identity and from what I’ve read so far of the alt right (in its strict sense, not when it’s used as “nazi” to slam anyone on the right) it is a white identity movement. (Note I intentionally did not capitalize alt right in my comments.)
But if you respond to “I’m not sure the articles by Bruce Ashford linked here are entirely accurate”and a reasonable objection as you have, it gives the impression that your position is weak and that they may not actually be as bad as you’re saying, or that your position is equally bad. When honest questions are objected to, people look elsewhere for answers.
I usually find that short, to-the-point comments are more effective in a comments section. My directness wasn’t intended as harshness. I didn’t find any objections raised to be reasonable, but rather to be a result of not reading (carefully?) the material.
Brent,
I stand corrected that Milo is said to be an “outsider” but it was not due to lack of reading. I, like Paul, am trying to figure this whole alt-right mess out and like Paul, when you stick a name under the heading “Leaders”, it influences how you take the information that follows. Paul’s original point still stands that if a gay Jewish man with a black boyfriend is a part of the alt-right and is accepted by the alt-right, there is much about the alt-right that is being overlooked and misunderstood.
But you understand my “tactic”. You give me more credit than I deserve.
Yiannopoulos is a walking contradiction. No one knows for sure who he is. He is indescribable. His actions do not match his words. He was the reason Leslie Jones, the Black actress most recently known for her role in the redone Ghostbuster, was being harassed on twitter by members of the Alt-Right. Then claimed he was not responsible.
He was barred from speaking at certain college campuses because of racist and fascist views. He liked the publicity, he liked the controversy. You cannot say he was not a part of alt-right during that time period. Men can be married and speak against women. Women can be married and be feminist. Such it seemed was the case here. Although Milo does it more for the shock value or the publicity I think.
The nail in his publicity coffin came from his remarks supposedly condoning pedophilia.
Good information. Thank you for writing and researching this.
I read Bruce’s articles and found them helpful. People whom I know who understand the alt right found some errors, as commenter Luke did.
I have read all of the comments on this thread so far, and I agree that for some reason they seem unnecessarily harsh. I did not see Luke’s comment as a tactic. A tactic?
I have admitted not knowing much about the alt right, and have been rebuked. Now a commenter here is labeled as using a “tactic” because he points out that the lines defining the alt right appear to be blurry.
I appreciated the TGC article on the alt right, and I appreciated Bruce’s work.
The very existence of these articles shows that as a block, evangelicals may not know that much and need an education. So it is a very good thing that articles like this are being published.
But the other thing I notice due to the sensitivity of the discussion is that there seems to be a lot of interest and emotion about who is in the alt right, who is not, and who gets to decide.
Shouldn’t we go easy on drawing lines and grading the sincerity of denunciations on the basis of questioning where the lines are drawn?
Inasmuch as we just resolved to publicly rebuke the alt right, the right to define the alt right and assign people to it are really powerful things.
The equivalent of calling someone a racist, a crypto racist, or soft on racism.
I hope our fellowship does not go down this direction.
It would not be much of a step, I fear. And doing so would place us in the camp of haters that we rightfully rebuke.
Louis, turn down the drama settings please. Both comments discredited Bruce’s series because they incorrectly perceived carelessness or inaccuracy in describing one individual. That’s worthy of strong pushback.
If you want to talk about the specific errors you mentioned, feel free.
“Inasmuch as we just resolved to publicly rebuke the alt right, the right to define the alt right and assign people to it are really powerful things.
The equivalent of calling someone a racist, a crypto racist, or soft on racism.
I hope our fellowship does not go down this direction.
It would not be much of a step, I fear. And doing so would place us in the camp of haters that we rightfully rebuke.”
Those are really great points Louis.
Discussing matters that touch race and racism are so hard to discuss because the emotional aspects of it and the tendency of some people to dismiss and castigate those who see things differently (often even those who may only have a disagreement as to process or nuance) as, to use your terms, “racist, a crypto racist, or soft on racism.”
Others have a tendency to dismiss and castigate those who see these matters differently than they as, among other things, liberal virtue signalers.
Neither “side” is pristine in these debates/discussions.
On a related note is also a bit of a minefield when we encroach upon the idea of “unintentional racism” . Issues about how that is defined, who gets to determine what it is, what exactly are the remedies, who sets up the remedies, ect. are complex and difficult.
May we all show grace to one another as we learn, reprove, encourage and spur one another to honor the Lord in these matters and in our discussions. (I am cautioning myself here too – heaven knows I fail in showing grace in online conversations sometimes.)
Its hard work, but most things worth doing are.
Louis,
I’ve been following these issues for over a year, in national politics and in evangelicalism.
You are right to still be a little confused. One thing missing from pretty good articles by Carter and Ashford is a more recent history of how the term was used and who claimed it for their ideology in the year before Trump was elected.
Before I detail that a little bit, I’ll offer two reasons but not the only ones that I think explain some of the harshness in these discussions.
First, the country has never had an informed discussion and debate on its immigration policy. This is the same for evangelicals. So in the popular mindset the acceptable opinion on the matter is often open border policy support = good and more closed borders policy support = probably has xenophobic or racist motives.
Second, progressive critical race theory is making some inroads roads into evangelicalism. I haven’t seen this much with Southern Baptist commentators, but I have with other evangelicals. For instance, the PCA recently appointed a professor that explicitly embraces the ideology to chair its racial reconciliation committee. CRT makes the same foundational error as the white identitarians but from the left-wing, treating “White” as a cohesive, singular ethnic group. They typically use the same harsh rhetoric too.
As for the recent alt-right history, after Trump won the election and Richard Spencer held a conference at Washington D.C. shortly afterward, the media was much more interested in him because the alt-right was a strong and notorious force online for Trump, and he had coined the abbreviated term. This is where the viral video of the nazi salutes was recorded by the Atlantic and after that point it was successfully used to link the label exclusively with white identity movements. This is key on why some still find the term to be broad and others narrowly focused on white identity. Some figures that formerly used the term to refer to their ideology disavowed it then too.
Before that, it was commonly used to refer to ideologies centered around some form of nationalism, whether civic, economic, ethnic, or racial nationalism. This is why the abbreviated term was adopted because alternative to the right referred to an alternative to mainstream conservative thinking on chiefly immigration up to that point (but also other issues, for instance feminism – see Milo and how in one Republican debate, none of the candidates spoke up that women shouldn’t be in the military regarding a question about it). Yes, Richard Spencer coined the abbreviation, but even though Karl Marx is associated with communism, he did not coin the term.