Christian Nationalism is neither Christian nor American

The framers of the United States Constitution got a lot wrong.  The rights con­tained in it were lim­it­ed to white male landown­ers.  As our coun­try has evolved, many issues have been cor­rect­ed by the process of amend­ments to the orig­i­nal document. 

One of the most impor­tant amend­ments is the First Amendment, which enshrines the right of free speech and bars any laws from estab­lish­ing a nation­al reli­gion or inter­fer­ing with the free­dom to prac­tice one’s own reli­gion or none at all. Contrary to a wide­ly held belief that the US is a Christian nation, this demon­strates that the US Constitution is a sec­u­lar doc­u­ment. There is no men­tion of a god or deity in it.

The leg­is­la­ture of Louisiana has passed a law man­dat­ing that the Ten Commandments be post­ed in every pub­lic class­room in the state, includ­ing those of pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties. Of course, this was enact­ed with the intent of assess­ing the wall of sep­a­ra­tion between church and state. Kentucky adopt­ed a sim­i­lar mea­sure in 1978. This law was struck down by the United States Supreme Court in 1980 with­out the jus­tices hear­ing oral arguments.

The US Constitution, with­in the First Amendment, states, “Congress shall make no law respect­ing an estab­lish­ment of reli­gion, or pro­hibit­ing the free exer­cise there­of…” This state­ment is com­mon­ly referred to as the Establishment Clause, and it was the basis of the Court’s 1980 rul­ing, find­ing the Kentucky law unconstitutional.

Not to be out­done by Louisiana, the Oklahoma state super­in­ten­dent of edu­ca­tion has man­dat­ed that the Bible be in every class­room and that teach­ers must teach from it. I find this amaz­ing in a time when few­er than fifty per­cent of Americans describe them­selves as reli­gious, and only three in ten adults attend reli­gious ser­vices reg­u­lar­ly.  These three in ten adults com­prise the num­ber of peo­ple who attend any reli­gious ser­vice, not just Christian services.

The dichoto­my between the pref­er­ences of the gen­er­al pub­lic and this creep­ing Christian Nationalism is unnerving.

We can all cite exam­ples in his­to­ry where peo­ple used Christianity to excuse hor­ri­ble behav­ior. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, the per­se­cu­tion of LGBTQ indi­vid­u­als, the sub­ju­ga­tion of women, wars, and the mis­treat­ment of immi­grants have all been excused using false inter­pre­ta­tions of Christianity.

It is impor­tant to note that not all Christians are Christian Nationalists. And Jesus did not direct his fol­low­ers to make laws to judge the legal and moral behav­ior of their neighbors.

Christian Nationalism, or the belief that civ­il and crim­i­nal laws should reflect the beliefs of a par­tic­u­lar sub­group of Christians and that the United States is a favored nation, is not found any­where in Christianity. This is an invent­ed con­struct designed to force a par­tic­u­lar group’s views on the lives of all Americans.

I have nev­er under­stood the obses­sion with post­ing the Ten Commandments, which are con­tained in the Old Testament. These com­mand­ments were giv­en to Moses and are a moral code for behav­ior under Jewish law, which actu­al­ly has a total of 613 com­mand­ments! No one is ask­ing for schools to post 613 com­mand­ments con­tained in Judaism, the five pil­lars of Islam, the Hindu Dharma, the five pre­cepts of Buddhism, the two laws giv­en by Jesus Christ (love God, love your neigh­bor), or the Ten Commitments of Humanism.

If lov­ing your neigh­bor is the goal of most peo­ple pro­fess­ing Christianity, I do not see how fail­ing to respect my neigh­bor is com­pat­i­ble with this goal. The framers of our Constitution believed in free­dom of reli­gion as well as free­dom from religion.

The insis­tence that one’s own beliefs are the only truth is the mark of a closed mind and shows bla­tant dis­re­gard for all those who think or believe dif­fer­ent­ly. Students and teach­ers from all back­grounds and beliefs should be accept­ed and wel­come in pub­lic class­rooms. No child should be made to feel dif­fer­ent or “less than” oth­ers because of the beliefs—or lack thereof—of their families. 

While there are peo­ple in Kentucky who seek to divert tax dol­lars from pub­lic edu­ca­tion to pri­vate schools (some reli­gious), it appears peo­ple in Louisiana and Oklahoma believe it is legit­i­mate to insti­tute laws that are clear­ly ille­gal. But in these strange times, Christian Nationalists undoubt­ed­ly feel embold­ened by this US Supreme Court. This Court has issued some out­ra­geous rul­ings. We have seen a few of these in the past few weeks regard­ing the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of home­less­ness and the lack of crim­i­nal­iza­tion of a pres­i­dent encour­ag­ing an insur­rec­tion. In light of the fact that recent­ly appoint­ed jus­tices were cho­sen due to their reli­gious views and per­son­al beliefs, it bog­gles the mind that it is per­fect­ly legal to arrest and fine our neigh­bors who have no home and com­mit the “crime” of sleep­ing in public.

So much for respect­ing the dig­ni­ty of every human being and doing jus­tice, huh?