Christofascism IS new, but it has roots in the old stuff. There are a number of recent books out on Christofascism, recently I have read Michelle Goldberg (?'s) Christian Nationalism, Kevin Phillip's American Theocracy, a book by Christopher Hedges the title of which escapes me.
The main thing, to oversimplify, is that the old Prods that Weber was on about made the link up between grace and $$, but they were way more into money. They were also progressive in Marxist terms, their greed promoted economic development, their political struggles were liberal if not democratic. See e.g., Milton On Toleration. Franklin ("time is money"), an odd example for Weber since the old reprobate was completely secular and a char er member of the Hellfire Club, was a center left small-r-republican. And the old Prods, outside totalitarian Geneva or Edinburgh, were generally pretty tolerant.
The Christofascists are almost the exact analogue of Islamists and the Hindu right -- they are purely reactionary and antimodernist; their focus is political, and while they support unfettered business and corporate greed, their main concern is imposing a repressive sexual morality written into the law of a sex and woman-hating God. No homosexuality, abortion, woman's equality, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, kink, basically Nothing Fun. Still, Weber's where to start, Make you nostalgic for the days of the old Presbyterian greedsters, people you could deal with.
--- "Mr. WD" <mister.wd at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/21/07, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Go back and read Weber's Protestant Ethic and the
> > Spirit of Capitalism. He posits that bible beating
> and
> > money making were joined at birth.
>
> You're probably right that I should head back to
> Weber, but if I
> recall correctly, Weber's focus is more on what we
> would now consider
> white bread, mainstream protestantism (e.g. Scottish
> Presbyterianism).
>
> Perhaps I am just ignorant about the history of
> religious movements in
> the U.S. but I am under the impression that this new
> Christofascism a
> lot different from old-fashioned, puritanical,
> idle-hands-are-the-devil's-plaything protestantism
> in that it desires
> to seize and wield political power and preserve U.S.
> hegemony. Does
> Weber discuss the brand of religion that appears in
> "Jesus Camp," for
> example? And how does Weber explain the surge in
> Jihadism?
>
> -WD
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