Journalists & Scholars

WHY MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANS DON’T RISE UP TO CONFRONT CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
There are several reasons why more mainstream American Christians have not mobilized more to confront Christian Nationalism as a spiritual problem:

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Perhaps mainstream Christians will change their thinking when they learn that Christian Nationalists are very real threats to their religions. We see that threat clearly in the “dominionism” strategy but many mainstream Christians are ignorant of the threat that this strategy poses to American democracy and their personal religions. Since journalists have existing platforms that are accepted by mainstream Christians, journalists are uniquely positioned to alert mainstream Christians to those threats.

Whether mainstream Christians will listen or not remains to be seen. If journalists make spiritual truth the main themes of their truth telling efforts, mainstream Christians might respond well because these are issues that should resonate with their theologies. But, who knows, there could also be a backlash from religious leaders who resent intrusions by others to their teaching domains. Nevertheless, journalists are still the best, maybe the only candidates for reaching out to mainstream Christians with truth about Christian Nationalism.

Unless mainstream Christians see Christian Nationalist activities  as violations of God’s laws, those activities will be seen as just another political movement to be challenged with political activism and prayer.  As was true in the case of clergy sex abuse, how those activities will be viewed by Christians and the general public depends on how journalists see them and report them. 

Christian Nationalism is trending to be a religious scandal worthy of deep investigation as a criminal activity. That characterization is hard to imagine today, but, given their recent legislative successes, it is easy to anticipate that Christian Nationalists will continue to commit many more crimes on their way to achieving dominance over the Seven Mountains of American culture. The fruits of the scandal are evident for all to see, but public outrage for Christian Nationalism is not the same as the response to clergy abuse. Americans will not see Christian Nationalism as a  scandal until journalists elevate it to scandal status.

With some notable exceptions (i.e., 1/6/21 Capitol insurrection) Christian Nationalist’s bad behaviors are not crimes in the classical,  legal sense. They are criminal, nonetheless, with respect to God’s laws about how to love one another.  Although journalists are not in the habit of exposing sin, they are in the habit of exposing injustice. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to expect that sins/injustices of Christian Nationalists on their radar.

While some might debate the criminality of Christian Nationalist activities, there can be no debate that Christian Nationalists break God’s spiritual laws. When they wrongly misrepresent themselves as Godly people, they rob God as well as people who give them money and votes. That is what the Third Commandment is all about. Whether Americans become sensitized to these perspectives or not depends on the attitudes and reporting of journalists. 

Changing attitudes about Christian Nationalism will not be easy. The “live and let live” tolerance for religious beliefs is a powerful force.  Americans need to know, indeed deserve to know, that Christian Nationalism, like sexual abuse, is a symptom of abusive, oppressive religious beliefs that originate in the literal words of the bible. Careful reading of the bible confirms this fact. 

Careful reading of the bible also reveals that God gave ample warnings about the kind of oppression, affliction and injustice that religion perpetrates on its own people. These are facts that Jews and Christians should know but do not know because religious leaders will never preach about such things. That is a gap in knowledge that only journalists can fill. 

Careful study of the bible and world history reveal understanding that Judaism and Christianity have always been incubators for Christian Nationalism, sexual abuse, racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, cults, bigamy, conspiracy theories, religious conflict, hate crime, and a multitude of other social ills. Some of these offenses are codified in human civil laws. God calls the beliefs birthed and incubated in religion injustice because they violate his spiritual laws.

Most people know the laws of their birth or adopted cultures and obey them so that they will be accepted by the culture. Similarly, most civilized people know cultural injustice when they see it and do what is necessary to enforce those laws through formal and informal means. In general, Christian Nationalists are not like most people. Best they can they avoid obeying government laws and/or they use money and legislation to change laws that impinge on their beliefs. It may not be true of all Christian Nationalists, but if they could, many would prefer to live without government constraints of any kind. They call this philosophy “free market capitalism.” In political terms, they call it conservatism.

Not all political conservatives are Christian Nationalists, but for those who do identify as Christian Nationalists, the root of their philosophy is the arrogant belief that God has given them the wisdom and authority to change America’s cultural laws, civil laws, institutional laws and religious laws. And while they work to change these laws, they disrespect and break existing laws whenever and wherever they can. While covering their intentions with patriotic and religious rhetoric, Christian Nationalists conceal their intent to  dominate the Seven Mountains of American culture. Everything they say and do constitutes injustice and anarchy with respect to the Constitution and God’s spiritual laws. These are truths that journalists must investigate and report or all Americans will remain ignorant of the forces that are ruining their country and religions.

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