Anti-Christian Nationalist and Atheist James Lindsay Tricked Christians Into Thinking He’s Honest

There’s a very popular meme that circulates whenever the left pulls the “Trump is Hitler” card out of their hat. The meme shows a picture of Trump drinking water next to a picture of Hitler drinking water, and it says, “They both drank water.” The meme satirizes a convoluted form of mental arithmetic: because Trump drank water and Hitler drank water, then that means Trump is equal to Hitler.

This is the same type of anti-logic that James Lindsay, a prominent anti-Christian Nationalist activist and atheist on 𝕏, attempted to employ this last week.

James Lindsay’s rise to fame was in 2018 when he and a couple others wrote 20 extremely absurd papers on outlandish topics and submitted them to several journals for publication. Their point was to show how nonsensical and corrupt that fields built off identity politics are. Amazingly, almost half of their submissions saw publication, proving their point. It was an impressive feat.

The issue with James Lindsay is that he is a very staunch atheist who spends majority of his time on 𝕏 attacking Christian Nationalists. (Christian Nationalism is a much longer discussion that will likely get its own blog post in the near future; but for now, for those who are unaware of what it is, it is simply the desire for your nation to be Christian, and the overall belief that the nation you live in should be governed by biblical principles. This is an overly simplified explanation, of course, but it is not a difficult concept.) Lindsay has termed it “woke Christofascism.” He has also indicated that it’s a psy-op by the people he calls the “Woke Right,” which he defines as “people who push ‘trad’ values and right-wing ends using Woke Leftist means-including postmodernism, Critical Theory, and Marxist conflict theories … activists who use Woke tactics (desire for unlimited power, victimhood narratives, identity politics, subjectivism, et al.) yet claim to be the only ‘true conservatives.'” This very vague definition portrays the generally subjective manner in which the term is defined. Using select leftist rhetorical styles does not inherently make you a leftist. We can get into the debate of whether or not it is prudent or effective for conservatives to use the “leftists are the real racists/sexists” tactic, but that’s besides the point: using that argument style does not always make you “woke.” In reality, the term “Woke Right” has just become an overused moniker for conservatives you don’t like. Just as the word “woke” carries negative connotation in both right-wing and now left-wing circles, you are meant to shudder away from having this phrase ascribed to you. “Woke Right” is mainly just a scare tactic to shun the more conservative right-wingers into quiet submission.

Aside from all that, the recent controversy with James Lindsay centres around his obsessive hatred for Christian Nationalism. It began when he decided to go back to his roots in a much more dishonest and malicious way. On December 3rd in an 𝕏 post, he declared that “[t]he flagship Christian Nationalist Woke Right publication has published part of the Communist Manifesto.” He explained that he had taken a “couple thousand words” out of Karl Marx’s infamous Communist Manifesto and “lightly modified” it before submitting it to the American Reformer (a pro-Christian Nationalism magazine) under a pseudonym, knowing that they would never publish such an outspoken atheist like him. With this announcement, he had right-wing influencers losing their mind on 𝕏 over what seemed like such an impressive and outlandish accomplishment.

And then people actually looked at the article he had submitted and saw that it was not as Lindsay made it out to be.

𝕏 influencers, podcasters, and independent journalists like Ian Miles Cheong, Mike Cernovich, and Tim Pool were among the first to call Lindsay out on his hoax. In a response to someone on 𝕏 promoting Lindsay’s hoax, Cheong said, “Except James lied about what he actually wrote and what he changed. He changed everything.” Attached was an image (pictured below) of a portion of the article with red-highlighted words. When matched up with the Communist Manifesto, it was realized that all the red-highlighted words as seen below are the words that Lindsay had changed — meaning majority of the “lightly modified” article is not actually from the Communist Manifesto.

Lindsay’s entire argument revolved around, “Marx used rhetorical style…Christian Nationalists use rhetorical style…so therefore, Marxism equals Christian Nationalism.” Obviously, rhetorical style does not equal substantive argument, as everyone promoting the hoax attempted to portray. This then became the subject of a lot of jokes on 𝕏 as people mocked the basis for Lindsay’s insane assumption. Even now, Lindsay continues to harp on about the “Woke Right,” as if he had actually accomplished what he claimed to have accomplished.

I seem to have struck a nerve with James Lindsay myself when, in a quote post to one of his many “Woke Right” rants, I said, “I’ve officially muted the words ‘Woke Right’ from appearing on my timeline for the next month until frauds like @ConceptualJames and @SethDillon realize no one is listening to their gaslighting agenda anymore.” Lindsay responded to me with, “Irony is hilarious.” I agree; the irony is that he accuses the “Woke Right” of using leftist tactics when he did just that. The “Christian Nationalists use this rhetoric and Marx used this rhetoric so therefore Marx equals Christian Nationalists” is the same anti-logic of “Trump drinks water and Hitler drank water so therefore Trump equals Hitler.” Yet Lindsay would never admit to this because then he would become the boogeyman he has been crying in the streets about for years.

But having said all this, the worst part of the controversy wasn’t just what Lindsay did. He is not a believer. He is an atheist who builds a following off the tearing down believers. He is not necessarily expected to act honestly. The worst part of it was how Christians reacted to this. Samuel Sey, a Christian Canadian blogger now residing in the US, posted soon after this controversy surfaced: “Protect this man [James Lindsay] at all costs. He’s tricked a Christian nationalist website (American Reformer) into publishing Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. 😂😂 The Woke Right and the Woke Left agree on basically everything, they just swap the identities of the oppressors and oppressed.” Immediately, many solid Christian conservatives rebuked Sey out of love (as Christian brothers and sisters should), but Sey has still not repented from these comments. Think about the gravity of what he said; not only is he taking the side of a man who opposes everything that we as believers stand for, but he is rejoicing in the perceived trickery of other Christians. I don’t take joy in calling him out like this, but it is important that we call out our brothers in love when they gravely falter like this. Sadly, Sey wasn’t the only one. Seth Dillon, the owner of satirical news website The Babylon Bee and professing Christian, said, “James was able to trick these guys into publishing the Communist Manifesto because the woke right is a mirror image of the woke left. They use the same rhetoric, the same methods, the same grievance and identity framework. Their solutions differ, but their wokeness is identical.” There were many other believers who fell into this same trap.

Presbyterian Christian Nationalist Nik Storm posted in response to Samuel Sey, rephrasing what Sey had essentially said: “‘Protect this atheist at all costs’ … ‘He just tricked some Christians’ … The friend/enemy distinction has never been more clear.” Another Christian 𝕏 user who goes by the name “Thumbadil aka Garry Owens” put it amazingly well when he said, “When you side with atheists over other Christians you’re either telling the world that you think your brothers are worse than unbelievers or that you aren’t a Christian.”

Instead of at least hearing out the facts before jumping to an assumption, several believers were quick to jump on board with Lindsay over their own family in Christ. They failed the tests of honesty and loyalty to their spiritual brothers and sisters. Christians who saw through Lindsay’s schemes found more of an alliance with non-believers or less-outspoken believers like Cernovich, Pool, and Cheong than with outspokenly-professing Christians. The question is: where does this leave us now? Will the Christians who were wrong in siding with Lindsay repent, or will they continue down a path of shunning and defaming the family of God? We must continue to call them out in love and pray that they repent and see the type of destruction that they are causing to the church of Christ in their dishonesty.

Cover Photo Generated by DeepAI