Should there be separation of church and state? Let’s ask Jesus himself. According to Matthew chapter 22 in the Bible, the story is told that certain religious leaders were hoping to entrap Jesus in a religious and political controversy. They asked him if his followers should pay taxes to Caesar, the head of the Roman government that controlled the region. Some zealots were arguing that they should refuse to pay the tax as a form of political resistance and protest. They hoped to draw Jesus into this controversy. So he asked them to show him the coin that would have been used to pay such a tax. He looked it over, saw the image of Caesar engraved upon it and made his famous reply, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus was making a distinction between religious and secular authority.
That distinction is being lost in the Republican Party leadership today, and it is by design. They are openly embracing a form of Christian nationalism in their party and want to see it take over the government of our country. They say they want to return to the vision of our founders who they believe established a Christian nation. Any objective reading of history simply does not support this idea. Some of the founders were Christian, but certainly not in the way they are viewed today. George Washington was influenced by deism, the belief in a “clockmaker” God who set the world in motion but was not involved in day to day events. Thomas Jefferson was a rationalist who wanted to edit his own version of the New Testament to keep the moral teachings but remove any reference to the miraculous. Most clearly stated, the First Amendment protects religion from government interference and vice versa! Republicans today are committing the mistake of looking in the well of history only to see their own reflection staring back at them.
Abraham Lincoln may have been the president most influenced by a religious worldview, but he ascribed to no creed and never joined any denomination. He believed that we live in a moral universe and that the divine is at work in it. He called upon the nation, “to confess our national sins and to pray for forgiveness.” In his second inaugural address he suggested that the Civil War may have lasted so long because God was looking for a way to balance out the moral stain of slavery on our nation’s character with a period of national suffering. In no way did he or any President ever espouse Christian nationalism. Until now.
Recently Missouri Senator Josh Hawley (R) stated, “Some will say I’m calling America a Christian nation. And so I am. Some will say I am advocating Christian nationalism. And so I do.” In Oklahoma, public schools have been ordered to put a Bible in every classroom and incorporate its teachings into lessons. In Louisiana, they must display the 10 commandments. It is clear that Trump and the Republican Party have embraced Christian nationalism as a means to power. And Christian nationalists are doing the same in return. One analyst has stated that “Christian nationalists don’t exactly identify with Trump: rather he is their wrecking ball…” A Republican member of Congress recently said on the floor of the House that if Trump is elected the country should “work our way back to 1960.” Ok, let’s do a history check here. In 1960 schools were segregated, Jim Crow was hanging on, LGBTQ+ persons had no legal protection of their rights, and women were forced to proceed with pregnancies no matter what the circumstance. The Civil Rights Act had not yet been passed and neither had the Voting Rights Act. Is this what they mean about “Making America Great Again?”
Another analyst has stated, “Christian nationalism is a white supremacist political ideology masquerading as religion.” “They are pretend Christians,” said the editor of the conservative evangelical periodical Christianity Today. Ebo Patel, the founder of Interfaith America states, “The big idea of Christian nationalism is that God made America for a particular kind of white Christian with a particular ideology and worldview.” Members of this movement have openly stated that their preferred candidates do better when fewer people vote, so they are working to actively suppress the vote.
The only way to stop this movement is to vote, and to vote in big numbers for Democratic candidates. We have two national mottos, “In God We Trust” and “Out of Many, One.” We cannot sacrifice the latter because of a twisted, anti-historical reading of the former. Do we want a country that benefits a few who have the “right” beliefs or do we want a country with liberty and justice for all?