Is Christian Nationalism on the Horizon?

I know I’ve posted several “other people’s” writings lately, but sometimes they say things so much better than me. 😊

I’m doing it again with this post. (Sorry. 🙁)

This one is from Robert Reich … and he talks about an issue that many of us are concerned about. He titles it “The Republican Party becomes the Christian Nationalist.”

Another important aspect of the anti-democracy movement in America deserves attention. The wall separating church and state is getting hit with a Republican battering ram.

The Texas Senate just approved about a half-dozen religion bills, including a requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in the state, allowing chaplains to replace counselors in the schools, and letting school districts set time for staff and students to pray and read religious texts.

Idaho and Kentucky have signed into law measures allowing teachers and public school employees to pray in front of and with students while on duty.

Meanwhile, Republican state lawmakers are falling over themselves to pass book bans, abortion prohibitions, and anti-trans laws — and justify them with scripture.

“Put on the full armor of God. Stand firm against the left’s schemes,” Florida governor (and soon-to-be-announced Republican presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis said at the Christian Hillsdale College — substituting “left’s schemes” for the “devil’s schemes” of Ephesians 6:11.

And it’s not just any religion. It’s Christianity. As former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn (whom Trump has promised to bring back for a second Trump term) put it at a recent ReAwaken America event, “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion.”

Republican lawmakers say the Supreme Court will back them in their attempts to make Christian nationalism the center of American life, referring to a U.S. Supreme Court decision last June that allowed a public high school football coach to pray on the field after games, arguing his actions were protected by the Constitution...

I like to think (hope) that there are Christians who are NOT in favor of these actions. I know that every evangelical believer is gung-ho on the idea, but SURELY the more reserved/conventional/mainstream denominations will put up a fight.

Surely.

So I guess my question to readers is this: Do you truly think this will ever happen? I’m talking full-fledged legal maneuvers that make Christian Nationalism the Law of the Land. And if it IS put into place, how do you think such an action might affect you personally?

OR … do you think there is enough resistance among non-believers and/or nominal believers to stop the movement?

Here We Go Again

Religious Freedom seems to be the topic of the day in many circles (after the impeachment, of course). Especially since our esteemed President signed the recent Executive Order which he said was aimed at “reducing discrimination against people and groups of faith.”

(Ironically, Trump ended his above comment with … “There’s nothing more important than that.” I can’t help but ask … more important that impending impeachment?)

One writer in an article about the EO seemed giddy with excitement:

President Trump acted in the best interests of the American people Thursday when he signed an executive order to bolster and protect the rights of students to pray and discuss God in their schools. The order champions and reinforces the freedom of religion guaranteed to us in the Constitution as one of our most important rights.

He went on to say (undoubtedly without prejudice) …

We’re not looking to coerce or force anyone to accept our beliefs – we simply want government to respect our constitutionally derived right to freely express our own deeply held faith.

Of course the question then arises … WHOSE “deeply held faith” are you referring to, sir? The deeply held faith of the Muslim? The deeply held faith of the Mormon? The deeply held faith of the Sikh? The deeply held faith of the Jew?

Oh wait! His next remark seems to make it quite clear:

My own organization has been encouraging students to exercise their religious freedom by bringing their Bibles to school on the first Thursday of every October. (emphasis added)

Maybe I’m off-base, but aren’t Bibles the textbook for Christians?

He goes on to mention how terribly some (Christian) students are treated because they were …

… prohibited from praying during non-instructional time, denied participation in faith-based student clubs on campus, and chastised for expressing biblical points of view in class assignments.

IMO, his first two complaints have some validity, but that last one? Borderline if you ask me. I mean, isn’t “expressing biblical points in class assignments” an example of crossing that line?

In another article on the same subject, the Rev. Johnnie Moore, a member of Trump’s informal evangelical advisory board contended that …

the “White House isn’t saying whether one should pray or to whom or what they should pray to” with the announced changes but that “they are simply making it clear that in the United States students have First Amendment rights also, and our ‘separation of church and state’ wasn’t intended to suppress a vibrant religious life in America but to facilitate it.”

Sounds good, but if this guy is on the evangelical advisory board, there’s little doubt the entity “to whom” he’s referencing.

It never ends. Instead of allowing people to be who and/or what they want to be, certain groups insist upon molding everyone to their way of thinking/believing.

Doesn’t anyone ever wonder why “God” (who is supposed to the All-Wise One) didn’t design his creations to all think the same way? It sure would have saved us humans a lot of grief!