Christian Nationalists Are Wrong On Both Sides

One of the most interesting, sad and scary parts of the Christian Nationalism movement is there are only two sides to the movement, and they are wrong about both of them.

One is the Christian part. If you sat down and wrote down how not to follow the teachings of Jesus, the Christian part of the Christian Nationalism movement pretty much nailed it. Jesus’s consistent message in the Gospels is one of love. Jesus taught “love your neighbor as yourself”, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, look for the log in your eye, not the speck in your neighbors, and “blessed are…”. You will note there are eight blessings in the Beatitudes none, absolutely none, have any thing to do with Christian Nationalists.

Two is the Nationalism part. The Nationalism part of the Christian Nationalism is based on totally not understanding what it means to be an American. One of the criteria for being an American is to understand and accept the Bill of Rights. Specifically, Christian Nationalists violate the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof“. By trying to establish a Christian Nation, they are in complete violation of the First Amendment. In addition, when they say Christian, it is their narrow perverted form of Christianity they are promoting. In so doing, they totally ignore the Founding Fathers where very cognizant of the wars fought over religion for hundreds of years in Europe.

They knew one of the reasons families came to the New World was to practice their own religious beliefs and to not be forced to accept someone else’s. There were multiple forms forms of religions being practiced including Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Congregationalists, German Pietists, Lutherans, Methodists, and Quakers. The founding fathers in the great wisdom recognized this and the First Amendment protected practicing any or no religions.

It is also important to note that some of our Founding Fathers belonged to one of the above mentioned religions. Others, such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and Monroe were Deists. A Deist is oriented toward scientific fact and natural observation, rather than scripture. Deism is a belief in God based on reason rather than revelation or the teaching of any specific religion.

Some historians suggest the Founding Fathers rather than then being Deists or Christians, they were Theistic Rationalists. Theistic rationalism is a combination of elements of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism with rationalism being the dominant component.

What is clear is the Founding Fathers would have never considered the new country to be a Christian country. They build a free country and the First Amendment is absolute confirmation of this.

So what are Christian Nationalists? They do not follow the teachings of Jesus. They do not adhere to the founding principals of our country. I would suggest they strive for a theocratic monarchy which means their version of God and religion is the law of the land. An example would be Iran where the country is ruled by its religious leaders. Again, this is absolutely contrary to the beliefs and vision of our founding fathers.

Any vote for a Christian Nationalism is vote to end our democracy and the vision of a free country that started with our founding fathers.