NPR: "Why do these Christians keep believing Christian things?"
Let's dive in:
Long seen as a fringe viewpoint, Christian nationalism now has a foothold in American politics, particularly in the Republican Party — according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution.
"A fringe view."
Held by most Americans since her founding.
From the 1928 United States Common Book of Prayer:
Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners.
Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues.
Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth.
EXTREMISM!
Back to NPR:
Researchers found that more than half of Republicans believe the country should be a strictly Christian nation, either adhering to the ideals of Christian nationalism (21%) or sympathizing with those views (33%).
Are they really this shocked that not everyone believes in secular pluralism?
Sorry (not sorry) to burst your bubble!
Christian nationalism is a worldview that claims the U.S. is a Christian nation and that the country's laws should therefore be rooted in Christian values. This point of view has long been most prominent in white evangelical spaces but lately it's been getting lip service in Republican ones, too.
There they are, trying to connect the idea of Christian nationalism to racism.
These journalists... I tell ya.
If you actually want to know what Christian nationalism is and isn't here's a thread for you:
As for the whole white supremacy thing:
It is fit and becoming in all people at all times to acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in humble submission to His chastisements, to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom...
That was written by avowed white supremacist Abraham Lincoln in a proclamation of a national day of prayer.
We don't claim that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.
We state the objective fact that it was founded as a Christian nation.
The Founding Fathers didn't agree on all the finer points of theology, but they very much credited God for winning the Revolution and saw their very declaration of independence from the king as an act of obedience in accordance with God's will. Consider this popular slogan:
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
America's entire system is founded upon a Christian understanding of the spheres of jurisdiction in the physical and spiritual world, as well as the Christian understanding of the rights of mankind.
The government cannot usurp God because a human government has no jurisdiction to overrule God's authority. Therefore, the government has no ability to take God-given rights away from its citizens.
If you remove this uniquely Christian teaching about God, law, and the Nature of Man, you don't have the United States. It's like making bread without yeast. It's that simple.
Of course, whether or not America is still a Christian nation is very much an open debate. But for those who believe that "every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord," it doesn't really matter. Christians believe all nations, peoples, and languages will proclaim Christ as King.
This was the last thing Jesus told his followers:
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
There's that white supremacist Jesus, going off about his eternal dominion again!
This phrase "make disciples of all nations" is often twisted to mean "find individuals in all the nations" in our hyper-individualized society.
But that's not what the text says.
It could also read "make disciples of all the nations," meaning "disciple every nation to become more like Christ, teaching the nation – its government, laws, systems, and functions – everything Christ taught."
It isn't just an individual thing. It's both/and.
Christ commanded that his followers tell people across the world about Himself – to baptize them and teach them to obey his instructions. As this happens, Christians will naturally seek to make the mechanisms of society fall in line with the commands of Christ, because they believe that the only hope for a nation is to honor God and operate within the design that God has ordered for governance, whether that be in a family, a city, a state, or a federal government.
This is basic stuff. This is really basic stuff. Even unschooled farmers would have understood this in 1776.
During an interview at a Turning Point USA event last August, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said party leaders need to be more responsive to the base of the party, which she claimed is made up of Christian nationalists.
"We need to be the party of nationalism," she said. "I am a Christian and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists."
There are legitimate criticisms of this movement, because not everyone means "order the nation to follow Christ and extend the news of His grace and love to a broken world."
Some people, including more than a few Republican leaders, mean that they want create a patriotic false god for themselves that promotes their party platform. Just like some Dems make the Lord Of All Creation into a hippie commie who loves aborting babies and government welfare, some Republicans make Him into a gun-toting ultra Chad who pounds back Jack Daniels while belting out "I'm Proud To Be An American."
These Republicans are the type who conflate national patriotism with zeal for Christ, often idolize politicians from the pulpit, and are worshipping a god of their own American design.
Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a history professor at Calvin University, said it's important to note that this is not a novel ideology in American families.
"These ideas have been widely held throughout American history and particularly since the 1970s with the rise of the Christian Right," she said.
Du Mez said these views are mostly a reaction to changing demographics, as well as cultural and generational shifts in the U.S. As the country has become less white and Christian, she said these adherents want to hold on to their cultural and political power.
It's sad to see a professor at a Reformed Christian school named after John Calvin go down the woke road – or at least have their comments be used by a woke, pluralistic column for NPR.
It is true that many people see the shifts in our society as dangerous because they move away from Christian ethics: You only have to look at the increase in murder, rape, abuse, mental illness, and general lawlessness to understand that.
But what these "experts" try to do is make it about race. This is their argument:
"These old, white Christian boomers don't like their country becoming brown."
As such, articles like these smack of partisan intellectual superiority.
It isn't just a cultural issue. And the culture issue isn't necessarily related to Christian nationalism. There are many complex things happening here.
C.S. Lewis expounds on these things in his 1960 book The Four Loves, where he talks about patriotism.
He admits that patriotism itself can be used for evil:
We all know now that this love [of our nation] becomes a demon when it becomes a god. Some begin to suspect that it is never anything but a demon.
But that patriotism itself is not evil:
But then they have to reject half the high poetry and half the heroic action our race has achieved. We cannot keep even Christ's lament over Jerusalem. He too exhibits love for His country.
And that being exclusionary in national identity can be evil at times, but that it isn't always that way – in fact, protecting a sense of national identity is essential for societal cohesion.
As [GK] Chesterton says, a man's reasons for not wanting his country to be ruled by foreigners are very like his reasons for not wanting his house to be burned down; because he ‘could not even begin' to enumerate all the things he would miss.
None of these things dip into the realm of Christian nationalism.
But NPR (and the rest of the media, the academy, and the political Left) wants to tie everything together with a nice bow so they can frighten undecided voters with scary stories of The Handmaid's Tale coming true.
"These people believe that Jesus is Lord and that everyone on the planet should hear about the hope for eternal life found only in Him! Pretty soon they'll be telling you to love your neighbors! Then they'll claim that loving your neighbors includes creating a stable, functioning society with healthy borders, traditions, and culture! That's basically like being impregnated against your will in a theocratic dystopia!"
It's all a ridiculous game. These are the same people who say marriage shouldn't have certain borders. Anything goes for them! Marriage itself is antiquated! They then apply this same promiscuity to the nation and say that if you don't like so many illegal aliens flooding over the border, or if you disagree with songs like "WAP" headlining the charts, or if you think kids should learn about hard work and mathematics instead of the manifestos of genderqueer communist activists, that you are a "Christian" nationalist.
In essence, they're thinking you'll be too stupid to figure out that this is a complex issue that requires a lot of thought and prayer to understand.
But no matter. Let them complain.
