christian-nationalism | dr. p.l. (paul) thomas

[Header Photo by Rob Coates on Unsplash]

“No one can be authentically human

while he prevents others from being so.”

I am not a Christian; I am not a religious person.

I have always held sacred the essential guarantees of the American Dream built on our individual liberties and the separation of church and state that is necessary for the integrity of both the church and the state.

The current and intensified efforts by Christian conservatives and Christian nationalists have moved past making the misleading claim that the US is a Christian nation, created by Christian founders, and toward establishing the sort of Christian nation that erases our democratic principals and appears more like the dystopian theocracy found in The Handmaid’s Tale.

In this new reality, I am willing to support and advocate for the sort of Christian nation that I have not seen from any Christians claiming the US is a Christian nation or calling for the US to become.

It is a beautiful idea in its simplicity, built on the foundation of two principles—one Christian and one democratic.

First, the Christian principle: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

And the second, the democratic principle: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (The Declaration of Independence [1]).

I know that what I want is to be safe and also free to be the person I know I am; I also know that life and liberty are nothing if each of us is not also free to pursue what makes us happy.

And none of that should be infringed upon by others or the force of government.

That life, liberty, and happiness is for me, but I cannot seek ways to impose what I believe is right for me onto anyone else. Notably, I do not have the right to use the force of government to impose my beliefs onto anyone or everyone else.

The essential role of government by a free people is to insure that freedom for everyone even as it looks different from person to person.

Even though I strongly disagree with fundamentalist Christians and Christian nationalists, I believe they have and must maintain the right to pursue those beliefs among all consenting adults who agree with them.

Safely, freely, and without the imposition of others or the force of government.

They should not, again, seek the force of government to impose those beliefs on anyone else. To me, that is a perversion of “Christian nation” that is a democracy into Christian nationalism that become a theocracy.

“Do to others what you would have them do to you” is a beautiful and concise expression of Christian love that, for me, is fully compatible with the grounding democratic principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Free people do not have to choose between being a Christian nation and being a free people—that is, if we genuinely believe in both.

[1] I find the passage in full after this key phrase significant also:

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.