Change Hearts and Minds: The Only Way to Effect Lasting Change

BASICS OF AN UNTESTED STRATEGY
People who believe that the only way America can become safe from political and religious extremism is by changing the hearts and minds of Christian Nationalists would do well to consider this strategy:

We who recognize the threats of political and religious extremism agree to collaborate to do the following:

        • Discretely share truth about false beliefs that inspire and motivate religious extremists in our personal journalistic and social media platforms.
        • Discretely recruit conscientious, zealous people like us who want to help overcome religious extremism to share the truth about the false beliefs that inspire and motivate religious extremists.
        • Follow the principals of spiritual warfare.

‎
At its core, the strategy is really quite simple. The complicated part is the execution. Activists who believe that the strategy of changing hearts and minds is possible and necessary to defeat, or at least reduce, the influence of Christian Nationalism will find principles of how to change hearts and minds throughout the pages of Confronting Christian Nationalism. The basic idea is that individuals privately and covertly insert facts about American history, the Constitution, and bible into the mainstream of American journalism and social media. Why that should/must be done is explained further in this page. 

Examples of truths to be shared are found in these links:

‎
The reason we want to share these and other truths about the Constitution, history, religion and the bible is that, although Christian Nationalist strategies are loosely based on history and executed in the world of politics, government and religion, the roots of the movement are found in the literal words of the bible. These words are cited in Christian Nationalist doctrinal statements and ideology to give the impression that the movement is fully endorsed by and directed by God and Jesus. This is not true.

The literal words of the bible have been grossly misinterpreted by Christian Nationalists who imply that their political goals and strategies are fully consistent with God’s plans for America and bible teaching. These misinterpretations exist because Christian Nationalists do not understand that God never intended that the bible should be interpreted literally. God’s intent has always been that the literal words of the bible should only be interpreted as symbolic representations of God’s spoken words which are very different from the literal words of the bible. The discussion at the beginning of this page is a prime example of bible symbolism.

Since Christian Nationalists have chosen to justify their movement with bible references, they have left themselves open to correction that has the potential to destroy the roots of that justification in a two-step process:

      1. Expose wrong religious beliefs based on wrong interpretations of the literal words of the bible.
      2. Replace lies created from wrong interpretations with truths found in the symbolic interpretations of those literal words.

‎
Another way to describe this process is “changing hearts and minds.” Changing hearts and minds is an unconventional way of solving social/political issues, but, if there was ever a time that demanded employment of a radical, untested strategy, that time is now. America’s future and the future of democracy around the world depends on the success of this strategy.

Experience shows that liberal, progressive opponents of Christian Nationalism have not been successful in efforts to dissuade Christian Nationalist politicians and their adherents from their wrong beliefs through logic, reason and facts because Christian Nationalists and their adherents prefer to believe lies, distortions of truth and conspiracy theories instead of documented truth. Therefore, it has been impossible to persuade them or negotiate with them on most issues of public policy. Their hearts and minds are intransigent and become more so every time someone confronts them with logic, reason and facts.

Because logic, reason and facts have not been successful strategies for changing the oppressive policies of Christian Nationalists, we must ask: What strategy other than changing hearts and minds can be used to confront them?

Since it is all but impossible to reason or argue with Christian Nationalists about scientific facts, politics and history, the only remaining strategy for confronting Christian Nationalism is to expose the movement’s false religious beliefs and replace them with biblical truth.

Despite two thousand years of Christian history, and five hundred years of public access to bibles, there is no historical evidence that this strategy has been tried before. For people who claim to trust God and believe in the bible, it should be the go-to strategy for dealing with difficult people. But it is the one strategy that has not been tried, and is the only strategy that has the potential to change hearts and minds. Since it is in the bible, why not try it?

Changing hearts and minds is not a quick fix strategy. It is a long-haul, in the trenches, slog that recognizes that the roots of Christian Nationalism, although deep, old and calcified, are still vibrant and alive. The only way to kill these roots is to expose wrong bible interpretations as lies and replace them with the correct interpretations of God’s spoken words. This is the essence of their strategy: Replacing lies with truth.

This strategy is consistent with what the bible says about the truth setting us free. But even a simple scripture like this needs to be interpreted correctly. We must ask what it is that we need to be set free from? And what is the truth that sets us free? The answers are hidden deep in the scripture for those who will search for them.

    • What Christian Nationalists need to be set free from is the uncontrollable impulse to interpret the bible literally. When they learn how to interpret the bible symbolically, they will understand that they have been enslaved to this impulse by religious leaders who taught them that the only way to interpret the bible is literally and that the interpretations of the religious leaders are absolutely correct. In other words, Christian Nationalists are enslaved to religious leaders. See this link for more about bible misinterpretation.
    • The only power that is able to set Christian Nationalists free is the truth of how the bible should be interpreted. The truth exists in the spiritual understanding of the literal words. This spiritual understanding is revealed when people hear God’s spoken voice explain to them in their hearts what the literal words mean. In other words, when they hear God’s explanation of the literal words, they will see how enslaved to religious leaders (i.e., politicians and pastors) they are, and then choose to reject the teachings of those leaders who convinced them that Christian Nationalism doctrines came from God. Then they will exhibit in their politics and daily lives evidence that God’s Commands About How to Relate to One Another are written on their hearts.

‎
Regarding God’s Commands About How to Relate to One Another, and God’s Commands About Doing Justice for Others it is important to recognize that these commands are written clearly and unambiguously in the literal bible. There are subtleties and nuances that can be understood only when God’s laws are written on changed hearts, but these literal commands are among a few biblical texts that can be interpreted and applied both literally and symbolically. It is a shameful fact that many people, in America and globally, who do not even believe that God exists, do a better job of obeying those commands than Christian Nationalists.

When literal biblical texts, politics, logic, reason, the rule of law and good will towards all Americans fail to move hard-hearted Christian Nationalists to adopt policies that guarantee freedom and justice for all, biblical truth and God’s spoken word remain as untested strategies embodying the latent power to change Christian Nationalists’ hearts.

For lack of application of this strategy, Christian Nationalists are able to employ many lies to pursue their nefarious goals with near impunity. These are discussed in Understanding the US Constitution and Early American Religious History. These lies can also be overcome by facts, logic and reason when hearts and minds have been changed by God’s spoken word. 

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7