“Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness
Is multiplied, men’s love will grow cold.”
Matthew 24
There is reputed to be an ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times,” “interesting” synonymous with troubling.
The times we live in are indeed troubling, and while there are many solutions offered to our troubles, some are good and some are wrong. There is precedent. During the dark years of the Great Depression, for instance, numerous antidotes for the miasma of despair of those times came to the surface, some offered in good faith but simply unrealistic, like Technocracy and the Townsend Plan, others more virulent, such as the right-wing rantings of the infamous radio priest Father Coughlin.
While there may be no single good solution to our troubling times, there are some bad ones, among the most virulent the rise of Christian nationalism, an idolatrous theology that replaces the Christian’s fidelity to God with a jingoistic devotion to country. In the case of “white” Christian nationalism, the teachings of Holy Scripture are turned topsy-turvy in order to contort the basic teachings of Christ to foster a vicious program of racism.
There can be no Christian nationalism, given the two words represent opposing world views.
Christian nationalism fosters the proposal that the Constitution of the United States was founded strictly by Christians with the aim of creating a Christian nation, a questionable premise given the outspoken deism of Benjamin Franklin and other founding fathers. In reality, the United States was intended not to be a Christian nation but a nation wherein one is free to be a Christian and to promote Christian concepts and values while according the same rights to the adherents of other religions and philosophies.
The Episcopal Bishop of Western North Carolina has recently labeled Christian nationalism, “A threat to our collective humanity and a blasphemous use of the name of Jesus.”
Blasphemy attributes evil to God. Given that Christian nationalism identifies God with such evil things as racism and at the present an idolatrous loyalty to a secular leader, it qualifies as blasphemous. Christian nationalism replaces charity with a venomous malice, seeks to sow discord rather than foster brotherhood.
There was a time not too many decades ago when any survey of American religions would have identified only three: Catholicism, Protestantism and Judaism. In today’s world, one’s neighbor may be a Hindu physician or a Sikh engineer from India, a Buddhist professor from Thailand. He may be black, white or brown. Insecure persons are threatened by this new reality rather than echoing Shakespeare’s Miranda in “The Tempest”, “Oh brave new world that has such people in it.”
Insecure persons who imagine themselves threatened by a diverse society are attracted to Christian nationalism, and it is never to be forgotten that insecure, threatened people are dangerous people.
Christian nationalism would place an iron band around freedom of expression and thought, dictate the contents of books, films and programing. It draws upon religious fundamentalism and white supremacy in order to force a Christian state, a perversion of Christian teaching and values.
Regarding censorship, Christian nationalists would be well advised to examine the words of John Milton, the greatest of Christian poets, in his “Areopagitica”, “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”
In other words, one does not defeat even the worst of concepts by vainly attempting to erase them but by confronting them in the marketplace of ideas. To do otherwise suggests insecurity regarding one’s own professed beliefs.
The Gospel of St. Matthew as well as others speaks of Christ’s forty days of fasting and temptation in the desert wastes following his baptism by St. John the Baptist. In the final temptation, the devil offers Christ all the kingdoms of the earth if he will only fall down and worship him. His lure is, of course, soundly rejected. Christian nationalism would have him succumb to the devil’s offer. Those who espouse Christian nationalism, despite layers of piety and platitudes, serve not Jesus Christ but the Prince of Darkness. It is to be hoped that they will renounce Satan and his lures and find Jesus Christ.
Of course, one is free to espouse any belief, no matter how bizarre or menacing, but no self-proclaimed Christian should ignore the words St. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, “Be careful that your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”
With so many young people abandoning Christianity and checking “None of the Above” when asked about religious preferences, substituting a sort of misty-eyed syncretism for any genuine spiritual commitment, Christian nationalism can only contribute more to such confusion and estrangement.
Christian nationalism, representing a coupling of ethnocentrism, xenophobia, homophobia, an unwholesome preoccupation with the private sex lives of strangers and a slavish devotion to President Donald Trump, can serve only to further alienate any young person in possession of a moral compass and an acceptance of members of a diverse society.
There is a school of thought that Judas betrayed Christ to the mob because he sought to force his hand in restoring the Davidic kingdom. Jesus often repeats, “My kingdom is not of this world. Those who would co-opt Christianity in order to establish a form of Christian totalitarianism are unsuspecting allies of Judas, betraying Christ yet again.
In President Trump’s case, his ego rivals even that of Napoleon Bonaparte, who crowned himself emperor rather than allow the Pope to do the honors. Trump refused to put his hand on the Holy Bible while being sworn in at his inauguration. Even God is not to be honored above Donald Trump, at least in Trump’s own eyes and it seems in the eyes of Christian nationalists.
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My enthusiasms include fly fishing, natural history and wilderness backpacking. In 1996, I published privately a memoir, Trails of Laughter/ Trails of Tears, featuring my wilderness adventures and misadventures.I serve when needed as a Licensed Eucharistic Minister in the Episcopal Church.
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