Punching Nazis? Preaching as Anti-Fascist Resistance

Abstract

In this essay I examine contours of fascism and anti-fascism through which we must interpret the current political climate in the USA. I suggest that anti-fascist preaching is a necessary response to fascism and proto-fascism, and I press for more aggressive, illiberal homiletical responses in the age of Trump. In order to meet a minimal definition of homiletical anti-fascist resistance, as I define it, preachers and homileticians need to actively, explicitly preach and lead in ways that intentionally render churches dangerous places for racist, fascist or proto-fascist expression – and perhaps simultaneously render them havens for those who are the targets of racism, fascism and proto-fascism. If Christian preaching had been intentionally and explicitly anti-racist and anti-fascist throughout the past century, the present political situation in which we find ourselves and the scars of fascism which haunt our country and the world might look much differently today.