While it’s tempting to skip so much WCN Bible dogma, it is vital for Americans of all faiths and no faith to understand what motivates White Christian Nationalists to claim they have a right to control us. We cannot dismantle this structure if we refuse to grasp how they weaponize Bible verses to deny responsibility for their own behavior while forcing the rest of us to live by their WCN dictates.
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Barely a week into my coverage of Project 2025, I was pointing out its Christo-fascist language. One of the first phrases I highlighted in my own private study was * Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought *from P2025, page 13.
I remember reading that sentence to my husband and asking him if anything stood out to him. When he shrugged and said no, I shrieked, “IT’S A BIBLE VERSE! IT’S FROM THE BIBLE! HOW MANY AMERICANS WON’T KNOW THAT?!”
Imagining how many Americans would not recognize P2025’s buried WCN language made me keep reading. And highlighting. And shrieking. If Americans voted for a Christian Nationalist theonomic dictatorship, I wanted them to understand what they were choosing.
Note that I was warning Americans about this government on 5 February 2024. If you’d like to keep me in this chair making proactive, forward-thinking journalism, become a PAID SUBSCRIBER.
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The origin of “the liberty to do not what we want but what we ought” is Romans 7:15-20, attributed to Paul. Before we look at this convoluted set of verses, it’s important to learn a bit more about Paul.
Pharisees practiced strict adherence to Old Testament law and were one of the only groups Jesus Christ personally condemned. Before his conversion to Christianity on the road to Damascus, Paul was a badass Jewish Pharisee who took great pleasure in persecuting Christians.
In his letter to the Galatians, he claimed to be the “best” Jew and the “best” Pharisee. No one could accuse him of personal humility. He would have memorized important chunks of the Hebrew Bible in order to ensure that its laws and traditions were being followed to the letter.
It’s no surprise that Paul’s mastery of Old Testament law would influence his Christian letters. The writings of Paul and his acolytes comprise more than half of today’s New Testament.
Paul touted his lack of need for “the company of women” and encouraged his male followers to remain celibate in order to focus on serving God, becoming a key vector for the spread of Christian misogyny toward women. Paul is also responsible for the White Christian Nationalist insistence that while Jesus Christ died for an individual’s sin nature, people must also do what they ought by following the whole Bible, which includes today’s WCN cherry-picked version of Old Testament law.
This brief history of Paul was sourced from Britannica. Read more about Paul at Britannica HERE.
It’s a confusing word salad in any translation, but the New International Version is closest to doing not what we want but what we ought.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.15And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.16As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.17For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.18[a]For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.19Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.20
What I hate I do - In White Christian Nationalism, this paradox results when a Christian continues to give in to sinful urges, the sin nature automatically assigned to humanity because Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Genesis Garden of Eden.
Christians are commanded to hate and reject sin, to turn their backs on their “old” nature, the sinful one they were born with, and embrace their “new” nature in Christ. But the “old” nature still calls to them. Whenever they give in to that nature - “what I hate I do” - they are doing what they want.
I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. - One of my biggest struggles in following Christianity stemmed from this teaching. They believe we are born with a sinful nature, leading us to have all sorts of godless, heathen urges that vary based on who desires to oppress and control a congregation or population.
Upon accepting Christ through salvation, Christians reject that nature for a new holy nature in Christ. In other words, they are granted the power to * do what they ought*, that is, to choose not to sin.
But Andra, you say. Today’s White Christian Nationalists are the worst hypocrites. This WCN regime commits atrocities I’d define as SIN all the time.
**Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. **Paul applied his personal lapses and failings to his sinful nature, NOT TO HIMSELF. He separated himself from his own responsibility for his choices and instead blamed them on SIN, a nature he was born with and sometimes simply could not control, poor thing. (Sarcasm)
Cue all the White Christian Nationalist men who’ve sexually abused and assaulted women and children or cheated on their wives, only to cry and apologize and promise never to do it again. It was his SIN nature, see, and he sometimes simply cannot control it. He wasn’t responsible for the vile things his SIN nature did, so he shouldn’t be punished and have his whole life destroyed over some momentary SINFUL lapse. Better to make everyone else forgive him and forget his behavior with tearful promises he’ll never do it again.
Until he does it again, and this cycle repeats. Which is why these poor, helpless men must have some structure to suppress their SIN natures, which are largely activated by the SIN others are committing all around them.
Hence Paul’s insistence on building Old Testament structure into his letters. As a former Pharisee, he believed adhering to a code of laws and behaviors helped a person control not only their SIN nature but also the temptations others presented to their SIN nature. Everyone, Christian and not, needed to adhere to these rules to keep Christians like Paul from becoming helpless to his SIN. They insist this structure could improve society because in theory more people would choose (or be compelled) to * do not what they want but what they ought*, as defined by WCN men, the poor, pathetic victims of all this SIN.
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