Gale Bataille and Bill Berkowitz
“This is a fight for our lives. We are in one war. There are two armies—God’s and the devil’s. And all you have to decide is, ‘Which camp am I in?’—and spoiler alert, God wins in the end so you might want to be in the right camp.” --Moms for America’s Kimberly Fletcher at CPAC
When the Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that that frozen embryos created for in vitro fertilization are children, “Chief Justice Tom Parker cited the King James version of the Bible, biblical commentaries and Christian theologians as the basis for declaring the people of Alabama have adopted a ‘theologically based view of the sanctity of life.’” Baptist News Global Robert P. Jones wrote. Parker pointed out: “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself. … Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”
Parker appeared on QAnon conspiracist and Christian nationalist Johnny Enlow’s program on the same day the ruling was released, and claimed “God created government” and lamented that “we have let it go into the possession of others.”
While Parker’s utterances was Christian nationalism on steroids, it is not an uncommon view among Chrisitian nationalists.
Is Christian Nationalism a threat to democracy, or are liberals trying to discredit Christians by using the term? According to some Christian nationalists, there’s nothing to see here; Christian nationalism is a made up term, a distraction. However, if there’s nothing to see here, why is the pushback against liberals, academics, journalists, politicians and progressive clergy that are exposing the anti-democratic and theocratic underpinnings of Christian nationalism so over the top?
Others on the religious right heartily embrace the term. The Heritage Foundation’s 800-+ page “Mandate for Leadership” -- a blueprint for a full-bore assault on democracy -- declares that the government should “maintain a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family” (The Heritage Foundation’s ‘Mandate For Leadership’: An Undisguised Final Solution for Democracy).
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council consistently plays the Christians-as-victims card, claiming anyone using the term is anti-Christian and fomenting hate. During a late-February speech at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, Tenn., Donald Trump said that liberals — more specifically, a “radical left, corrupt political class” — is bent on attacking Christianity.
Jack Hibbs, a far-right anti-LGBTQ pastor, conspiracy theorist, and Christian nationalist who was invited by House Speaker Mike Johnson to deliver a prayer to the House of Representatives last month, has become a master of othering. On “The Line Up” program, Hibbs declared “that those who criticize or oppose Christian nationalism are a ‘systemic cancer’ in this nation and are carrying out the agenda of ‘the Third Reich under Hitler.’” Right Wing Watch’s Kyle Mantyla recently reported.
Hibbs went on to say:
“The people that are labeling us as Christian nationalists are the ones who are for the destruction of the gender of a child’s biological birth. They’re anti-family. They’re pro-LBGTQ. They are anti-borders.
“They all have this also in common. “They always mention democracy; they will never mention constitutional republic. They are for everyone’s rights and freedoms except those who they disagree with. These are literal cancers in a culture. These people are systematic—can I use their word?—systemic cancers.”
“Their plot and plan, if you know history—and you don’t have to know much—you just have to study what was the agenda of the Marxists or those of the Third Reich under Hitler. They’re doing exactly the playbook of Karl Marx: Label your enemy by intimidation and cause them to become embarrassed so they’ll be silent.”
At the recent CPAC, CPAC’s Mercedes Schlapp characterized American political struggles as “a spiritual fight.” She went on to mock what she called “this obsession with the leftist media” to target “the majority of people in this room as Christian nationalists.”
Despite the fact that the Founding Fathers and the delegates to the Constitutional Convention did not turn to God for help with their deliberations, Christian nationalists insist on spreading the myth that they did. And since their spreading of false history is easily refuted, they are more and more using reckless Goebbels-like smear tactics.
Writing for The Daily Signal, Arielle Del Turco noted that, “Gillian Richards, a researcher at The Heritage Foundation, wrote in The American Mind that ‘the term [Christian nationalism] is mostly used as a smear against conservative Christians who defend the role of religion in American public life.’”
The Christian Post’s Jason Mattera is convinced that the use of the term “Christian nationalists” is an attempt by liberals to “stir up another bout of hysteria over the so-called threat of “Christian nationalism.” Mattera maintains that the “’Christian nationalism’ charge aims to muzzle conservative Christian voices in the public square, painting us as some sort of authoritarian bogeyman with a lust for violence.”
In Nashville, Trump said: “Christians … can’t afford to sit on the sidelines in this fight.” Liberals are persecuting Christians because “they know that our allegiance is not to them. Our allegiance is to our country, and our allegiance is to our creator.”