I keep reading here and elsewhere about the movement on the right that’s hurtling America headlong toward a theocracy.
My wife, God bless her, reminded me today that the early history of white folks on this continent didn’t go so well in the “let’s make this country a Christian nation” kinda way.
So I looked it up. According to an article on web.stanford.edu, written by Erick Wong and titled The History Of Religious Conflict In The United States:
As the Church of England was striving to establish one, uniform religion across the kingdom, colonial America was divided, each of the colonies being dominated by their own brand of Christianity. Due to the distance from England and the room in the colonies, many religions were able to establish themselves in America, colony by colony. For example, Anglicans, who conformed to the Church of England, populated Virginia. Massachusetts was home to the Puritans. Pennsylvania was full of Quakers. Baptists ruled in Rhode Island. And Roman Catholics found a haven in Maryland, where they could establish themselves amid the other colonists’ protestant majority. Each of these colonies maintained a distinct religious character and favored one religious denomination’s power.
The period after the Revolutionary War saw a lot of infighting between the various states and Christian denominations. Virginia … was the scene of notorious acts of religious persecution against Baptists and Presbyterians. Anglicans physically assaulted Baptists. ... In 1771, a local Virginia sheriff yanked a Baptist preacher from the stage at his parish and beat him to the ground outside, where he also delivered twenty lashes with a horsewhip. Similarly, in 1778, Baptist ministers David Barrow and Edward Mintz were conducting services at the Mill Swamp Baptist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia. As soon as the hymn was given out, a gang of men rushed the stage and grabbed the two ministers, took them to the nearby Nansemond River swamp, and dunked and held their heads in the mud until they nearly drowned to death.
Sound like something your typical suburban soccer mom would endorse?
The fact that we were able to get past those kinds of violent divisions — divisions of a type that have ripped apart places like Northern Ireland, among many others — was one of the many miracles involved in the founding of this nation and the creation of the Constitution.
So, it looks like the Christians sorta already tried the “Christian nation” idea. And it failed miserably.
But even if the nationalists managed to put aside their differences to achieve a short-term goal, how long would that Christian harmony last — especially given the characteristics of the autocratic-oriented leaders in today’s Christian nationalist movement.
How long would it take for the Protestants to turn on the Catholics? A week? Less?
So, if you have any Christian nationalist friends (unlikely, I know), you might bring up The Troubles and see how they like that prospect.