"CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM”: A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS—-AND OUTSIDE OF
THE AMERICAN POLITICAL TRADITION
BY
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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In
recent days, we have been hearing a great deal about something its
advocates call “Christian Nationalism.” Those who advocate this view
believe that America is meant to be a “Christian nation,” and they claim
that their goal is to “take back” the U.S. “for God.” An unusual
assortment of people advocate this ahistorical position. Rep. Marjorie
Taylor Greene (R-GA) has repeatedly referred to herself as a “Christian
nationalist” as have, among others, Reps. Lauren BOEBERT (R-CO) and Mary
Miller (R-IL). White nationalist Nick Fuentes, who recently visited
with Donald Trump in Florida, has expressed support for “Christian
Nationalism.” He was a participant in the “Unite the Right” rally in
Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 and is a Holocaust denier and admirer
of Adolf Hitler. According to the Tampa Bay Times, even Florida
Governor Ron DeSantis has promoted a civics course for educators which
emphasizes that the nation’s founders did not desire a strict separation
of church and state. Doug Mastriano, the defeated Republican candidate
for governor of Pennsylvania, has called the separation of church and
state “a myth”
The
advocates of this position get both Christianity and American political
history wrong. When the first human being is created, he is simply
called “Adam,” which is Hebrew for “mankind.” Adam and Eve are not
Hebrews or Egyptians, they are not either white or black. The Bible
stresses that they are mother and father of all peoples, of all
ethnicities. They represent all people of all backgrounds.
The
Christian perspective may be found in Hymn 480, which I remember as
being featured at the service at Washington’s National Cathedral in
honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. at his death. Its text, in
part, is:
In Christ there is no east or west,
In him no south or north,
But one great fellowship of love
Throughout the whole wide earth.
Join hands, companions in the faith,
Whatever your race may be!
Who loves and serves the one in him,
Throughout the whole wide earth.
In Christ now meet both East and West,
In him meet South and North,
All Christly souls are one in him,
Throughout the whole wide earth.
If
the advocates of “Christian Nationalism” don’t understand the
contradiction of terms that phrase embodies, they seem equally unaware
of early American history the strong commitment to religious freedom and
separation of church and state.
It
all began in Virginia. I first studied this history many years ago
when I was in law school and did an article reviewing this history for
the William and Mary Law Review. Reviewing this history is instructive.
In
1783, George Washington reflected that, “The establishment of civil
and religious liberty was the motive which induced me to the field of
battle.” Virginia pursued a new understanding of religious liberty as a
universal right.
Before
the American Revolution, under British control, Virginians were required
to attend an established Anglican Church to which all citizens,
including dissenters, had to pay taxes. Dissenting ministers could not
preach without a license. Baptists were publicly ridiculed by ritual
dunkings in rivers that mocked their practice of adult baptism. In June
1776, George Mason led a committee drafting the Virginia Declaration of
Rights at the Virginia convention that was writing the state
constitution. The document declared that the natural rights of all
humans and proclaimed essential civil liberties, including religious
freedom. Influenced by John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, Mason
wrote that, “All men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the
exercise of religion, according to the dictates of consciences.”
A
young committee member named James Madison argued that merely
tolerating minority religious beliefs was not enough. Having witnessed
religious persecution under British rule, he offered an amendment
expressing a revolutionary ideal of religious liberty as an inalienable
right: “All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion,
according to the dictates of conscience.”
Madison’s
amendment was enshrined on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, but his
proposal to disestablish Anglicanism as the official state religion was
rejected. Yet ordinary Virginians from dissenting denominations,
including Baptists, Presbyterians and Lutherans, soon added their voices
and flooded the Virginia Assembly with petitions calling for
disestablishment, meaning the end of an officially sanctioned government
church and its funding.
In
early 1777, Thomas Jefferson became a leader in the cause of religious
liberty and drafted his Bill for Establishing religious freedom , which
would end the government sponsorship of the Anglican Church and allow
Virginians to practice faith however they chose. Influenced by the
Enlightenment, Jefferson believed religion was a matter of personal
conscience and equated religious liberty with freedom of thought. His
bill opened with the principle that “the opinions and belief of men
depend on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed
in their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free.” Thus,
the mind was free from government restraint, and the “opinions of men
are not the object of government.” The General Assembly debated
Jefferson’s bill in 1779, but then shelved it for several years.
In
1784, James Madison wrote an anonymous pamphlet arguing that religious
assessments were a violation of natural rights: “ The religion of every
man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man, and it
is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This
right is in its nature an unalienable right.” The tide turned against
assessment. Congregations sent dozens of petitions against the bill,
killing the idea decisively.
Jefferson
was in Paris as ambassador to France so Madison was the primary voice
in the legislature advocating for the Virginia Statute For Religious
Freedom, which became a forerunner to the First Amendment. He rallied
enough support for the bill to have it pass into law on Jan. 16, 1786.
The Virginia statute read: “No man shall be compelled to frequent or
support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall
be enforced, restrained, molestened or burthened in his body or goods,
nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or
belief…We are free to declare and do declare, that the rights hereby
asserted are of the natural rights of mankind.”
Virginia’s
stand helped shape the First Amendment against any national
establishment of religion and guaranteeing separation of church and
state. The Virginia statute also served as a model for other states
that would disestablish government sanctioned churches.
Even
a brief look at the history of Christianity and the legal tradition of
religious freedom and separation of church and state written into law in
the U.S. Constitution, shows us that the advocates of “Christian
Nationalism” are neither embracing an historically accurate
understanding of Christian teaching or of the concept of religious
freedom embraced by the Framers of the U.S. Constitution. They may be
confusing Christianity and the U.S. Constitution with something else,
something which appears to be the antithesis of both.
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