This week, John McCain tried to apply damage control to his own growing pastor problem.  Unlike Barack Obama, McCain has two controversial pastors to explain–Rev. John Hagee, who is quickly becoming infamous for his sermon asserting that Hitler was fulfilling God’s will, and Rev. Parsley, who claimed the U.S. government is complicit in facilitating genocide and says the U/S. was founded to destroy the “false religion” of Islam.

McCain is trying to pretend that he denounced these radicals as soon as he found out how extreme they are, but the reality is that Parsley and Hagee’s outrageous views have been public knowledge for months, if not years.  But McCain has an even bigger problem–he cannot distance himself from radical religious extremism so easily because religious extremists like Hagee and Parsley have a comfortable home in the very heart of the Republican party and McCain’s campaign.

As Michelle Goldberg has documented, Christian nationalists are an important part of the Republican party.  Goldberg defines “Christian nationalism” as “a political ideology that posits a Christian right to rule“.  Christian nationalists believe, contrary to the clear evidence, that the founders of the U.S. were devout Christians bent on creating a non-secular nation.  Christian nationalists seek to restore this mythical Christian nation that never was.  Since, in this view, Christians would ultimately have “dominion” over others in the United States, including in civil structures and “every other aspect of life and godliness,” such extremists are also known as Christian dominionists. 

Christian nationalism or dominionism sounds like a fringe position, something only a few extremists would support.  Well, it is an extreme world view, but it has found a home within John McCain’s Republican party and McCain’s presidential campaign. 

Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a prominent McCain supporter and one-time presidential candidate himself, is a Christian dominionist.  McCain turns to Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who Goldberg discusses in her book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism,  for advice on sexual health matters.  Coburn has called for the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions.  Mike Huckabee, who says he would like to be McCain’s running mate, declares that the Constitution should be amended in order to align with “God’s standards“–in other words, he has called for a theocracy.

Extremists like James Dobson and Pat Robertson have a home in the Republican party.  Dobson endorsed George W. Bush in 2004, worked to get out the vote, and has had the administration’s ear on key issues.  As Chris Hedges observes, Dobson has compared supporters of gay marriage to Nazis, and called embryonic stem-cell research “state-funded cannibalism“.  Chris Hedges further notes that Dobson has warned the Republican party that it must implement his radical agenda if it wants his continued support.  Republican presidential candidates eagerly sought Robertson’s endorsement (it went to Giuliani).  McCain once denounced Robertson as an “agent of intolerance”, but now says that the Christian right has a “major role” to play in the Republican party.  The McCain of 2008 has also adopted the Christian right’s extreme rhetoric, falsely asserting that the Constitution created a Christian nation.

McCain acknowledges, as he must, that the Christian right has played an active role in the Republican party.  He wants and needs their support (it will be a problem for him if Dobson really stays on the standlines, as he has threatened to do), he welcomes extreme religious radicals as his supporters, and he is trying to speak their language.  McCain jettisoned Hagee and Parsley because he had to, but he cannot divorce himself from religious radicals who have set up shop within the Republican party.   

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