December 6, 2022

By Chuck Ardo

The first clause in the Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, wrote “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” Yet, there are a significant number of powerful Republican Christian Nationalists who oppose the idea.

Led by people like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who declared “We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists” and Rep. Lauren Boebert who believes that “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church” and drew loud applause when she said “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.” In fact, A University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll revealed that “fully 61 percent of Republicans supported declaring the United States a Christian nation even though over half previously said such a move would be unconstitutional.”

In “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism,” Katherine Stewart explains that Christian Nationalism “promotes the myth that the American republic was founded as a Christian nation. It asserts that legitimate governments rests not on the consent of the governed but on adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage.” While Rev. Nathan Empsall warns “Academic researchers define the authoritarian ideology as a political worldview—not a religion—that unconstitutionally and unbiblically merges Christian and American identities, declaring that democracy does not matter because America is a ‘Christian nation’ where only conservative Christians count as true Americans.”

The National Council of Churches warns that “For some Americans, the familiarity of the themes that Christian nationalism celebrates can obscure its true character and intentions.” It clouds the reality that this ultra-conservative strain of Christianity “encourages its adherents to believe they are battling the forces of darkness on all fronts... This mindset of embattled righteousness is applied to the perceived enemies of the state …. and true believers are directed to employ any and all means, even undemocratic and violent ones, in order to win political contests.” The evidence, although obvious, is obscured by the mayhem of the Trump inspired January 6th insurrection.

While the attack on the Capitol was front page news for weeks “Less portrayed in mainstream media” as the Baltimore Sun reported,“is the Christian hue of it all: the Capitol-focused Christian prayer rallies in December that propagated post-election lies; the Christian flags unfurled as rioters mounted the Capitol steps; the pastors and self-proclaimed apostles who exhorted the D.C. crowds of Trump supporters; the rioters speaking in tongues; the Proud Boys kneeling to pray before they went off to stomp some heads.” According to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Christian Nationalism was used to “bolster, justify and intensify the... attack on the Capitol.”

The threat to America’s democratic tradition by this home grown, militant ideology whose armed and violent adherents want to impose a national religion on the American people can neither be ignored or over emphasized.

With a majority of Republicans expressing support for declaring the United States a Christian nation even though they know it would be unconstitutional the document from which Americans attain their rights would be negated. When asked “What kind of a government have you given us?" after a session of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin replied, "A democracy, if you can keep it." Whether we keep it or not depends on our response to the threat from Christian Nationalism.