Four Leftist Assumptions About Christian Nationalism

The First Amendment and the Original Scope of Church-State Separation

What I'm more interested in for the sake of this podcast is what are the left-wing people thinking? So they do their analysis in Moscow, which isn't terrible. They just interview people in the town. But the it's kind of bookended by their biases.

And that's what I want to examine their assumptions, their biases. There's some assumptions here right away. The assumption is that we have a group of people that disagree with the First Amendment. First Amendment just says this Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Now, the establishment of religion is the first in that list. And if you notice, it's very simply in plain English says Congress, Congress. OK, the national government we're talking about here, the general government, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

Doesn't say that state governments can't do that. Doesn't say that there are other entities outside of Congress that can't do things like this. It's Congress that shall shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

And of course, with the incorporation of doctrine, this is kind of this notion has gone away. We apply this now to the states and to local municipalities even. But originally the intent was and what it really still says, and I think it should be it's Congress.

At the time that this was adopted, nine of the 13 colonies states at that point had established religions in their states. Nine of 13, the majority had religious tests for office or state funded religious entities.

And it's assumed at that time pretty much everyone assumes America is a Christian country in the sense that not everyone's a Christian, but in the sense that we operate based upon a Christian moral framework.

Thomas Jefferson, the Danbury Baptists, and the Wall of Separation

The other thing is he makes a jump from the First Amendment to this wall of separation. Which is a term taken from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists. The Danbury Baptists were very concerned when Thomas Jefferson was elected president and their concern was mainly things that were said about Thomas Jefferson.

There's a lot of mudslinging in that in the campaign and against him because he was supposedly this atheist because he had sympathies with the French Revolution. He was actually an ambassador to France and he kind of got on board with that to some extent at the time.

And so they thought, well, this guy is going to foist atheism upon us. He's going to bring in the French Revolution into the United States. That was Thomas Jefferson in the minds of his opponents. So the Danbury Baptist Association writes a letter to him and basically says, look, we've heard this about you and we just want to kind of make sure we're OK, that we can freely exercise our religion.

And I'm obviously summarizing. But Thomas Jefferson writes them back and he uses this this phrase and he attributes it to the First Amendment that there's been a wall made between the establishment of church and state.

The reason he said that, though, was to comfort the church. It was to assure them that he's not going to interfere with their practice of religion in the state of Connecticut. The founders would have been fine with Christian principles applied even to the national sphere.

What they were suspicious of and in the historical context, what they were concerned about from England was this establishment in which the church and the state collude and could punish people that deviated.

For instance, Baptists were punished severely in places where Anglicanism was the established religion. And that was the kind of thing that they were getting away from. In fact, during the revolution, they were very concerned in Canada that it would be officially Catholic and that this was one of the things that led to the revolution or the war for independence was this fear that that could happen in the what is now the United States.

Who Counts as a Real Christian in the Christian Nationalism Debate

Now, the whole thing is going to be like these people aren't real Christian. Here's the logic they're using. This is the important part. Meet the Press is using the logic they're not Christians because of the three things that we just talked about.

Well, look, you know, they insensitive on race stuff, anti LGBT, masculine Christianity, that those are the things that are so offensive. And those things disqualify them from being true Christians because we know true Christians wouldn't actually want a Christian town.

Apparently, true Christians that behave themselves, you know, good boys and girls, they that that obey the real authority, which is the government, the real God. They aren't a threat to the implementation of equity, diversity, inclusion or anything the.

State wants to do. And so this idea of of a country for the people, by the people, it's really a country for a particular people.

Democracy, Christian Localities, and the Charge of Forced Conversion

So what if a number of people move into Moscow and they vote the bums out and it's and they have Christians that run the town. At that point, that city council, wouldn't that be democracy? Sounds like they're using the mechanisms that are already present to try to evoke a change that's not opposed to democracy.

They're not cheating. They're just using the mechanisms that are available.

And by the way, going back to Christianity and and maybe you could shed some light on this. But Christianity, I mean, Jesus Christ invited people to follow. Never. It was never an imposition, right?

Because let's put it like that. He did not twist their arm or not. You know, you want to follow this guy.

That's all it is. But who's twisting arms to be to convert to Christianity in this scenario? Who? Show me the person. Who's the person that's like we should have forced conversions? They're like smugly laughing.

Oh, my goodness. Jesus is so against this.

In-Group Identity and the Hypocrisy of Anti-Christian Nationalist Rhetoric

This is straw man at this point, though. Yeah, I think so. I mean, one of the insights of sociology is it's easiest to find who we are when we know who we're not. And so when you can define yourself against who you're not, that's really powerful.

Creates very powerful in-group bonds. We're going to pull together. We're going to face the outside threat.

The whole panel is defining themselves against Christian nationalists that they are. We are not Christian nationalists. It's a separation. They are. And let's put them under the microscope. The whole thing is a separation.

There's no inclusivity here. There's no welcoming a Christian nationalist to the panel. And let's try to break bread and let's try to be inclusive. It is all about dividing. And yet then you have Andrew Whitehead here talking about how it's just it's so my goodness.

I don't know. The hypocrisy is astounding because it's like right in front of them. And these are educated people. It's a professor of sociology. I don't understand this. How come they can't see that what they're accusing the Christian nationalists of doing is the very basis for their entire program?