I felt compelled to share Jill’s excellent post on the subject of the separation of religion and state. One of the things she highlights is the drive to establish Christian Nationalism as the true face of America, even though that would actually fly in the face of the Constitution, and US history. I have yet to see a theocracy provide the sort of tolerant government that would actually treat everyone equally and fairly, and there are no signs of that happening via the Christian Nationalist movement in the USA.
Coalition of the Brave 
Thank you so much for sharing this one, Ben! I hesitated to write it, for fear of offending someone, but it’s something that has been weighing on my mind for some time now and seems to be getting worse with each passing month. Thanks again!
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“Christian Nationalism’ is a Democrat Party boogeyman meant to bamboozle weak minded idiots. There is no such thing as “Christian Nationalism.”
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Except of course, it can be found embedded within the GOP at virtually every level.
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Ben, Christian Nationalism is a figment of your imagination. If not, support your claim with evidence.
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I suggest you study said evidence SoM, and educate youself:
https://news.sky.com/story/a-spiritual-war-are-christian-nationalists-threatening-to-turn-the-us-into-a-religious-state-12924092
Christian Nationalists are active across social media: https://gab.com/CNofUSA
Christian Nationalism has strong support from Republicans: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/09/most-republicans-sympathetic-christian-nationalism
https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-pennsylvania-religion-nationalism-8bf7a6115725f508a37ef944333bc145
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Ben, All your citations are examples of circular reasoning. All your citations are leftist propaganda that presuppose the existence of something that does not exist.
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I take it you did not look at any of the evidence I provided?
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Ben, Propaganda is not evidence. Properly done, your exposé would quote actual Christian Nationalists talking about Christian Nationalism.
But since Christian Nationalism does not exist, you must hallucinate it out of thin air.
Your contempt for people’s intelligence is typical of your kind.
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I will take that as an admission that you have ignored the evidence, thank you.
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I take your comment as an admission that you cannot find any actual Christian Nationalists talking about Christian Nationalism.
Ben you are pathetic.
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I don’t need to find Christian Nationalists speaking about Christian Nationalism for Christian Nationalism to exist. Your reasoning is painfully flawed if that is the line of logic you are following, and since you are resorting to insults, I will take that as further admission that you have not actually looked at the evidence. Further failures to conduct yourself reasonably will result in you being banned from this site, just as you were from my personal blog.
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Ben, Yes you do, if you want to be credible.
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Your logic makes no sense. Read the links I provided. Someone need not declare themselves to be a Christian Nationalist in order for them to be a Christian Nationalist, and Christian Nationalism most certainly exists, as per the evidence I supplied you with. If you choose to play fast and loose with how you interpret that evidence, that is up to you.
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Ben, You are missing the point. For example, we know for sure that the CIA worked with FBI and the Democrat Party starting in 2015, to sabotage Donald Trump’s candidacy and presidency with the Russia Pee Pee Hoax not only because of conclusive evidence but because the CIA and FBI directors said so.
The Christian Nationalist hoax is just an attempt by the Democrat Party-Deep State to justify the legal persecution of Christians.
And unscrupulous people like you are happy to broadcast the hoax. This is truly reprehensible.
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You are now *evading* the point, ignoring evidence, and wallowing in conspiracies. Since you do not take this conversation seriously, you will have no further part in it.
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Thanks for inviting me here Ben. Absent some of the typos, here is what I inadvertently let at the original blog site and meant to post here (if you have not guessed, yes, I’m old):
Do y’all ever wonder if this argument is unending? We really can’t even agree on the meaning of terms. What is a religion? What is God? What common system do we base our moral world view upon? Can rationalism be a “religion”, particularly if we are asking more of the epistemologies of rationalism (the scientific method, legal process, philosophy, good journalistic practice, etc.), than they systemically allow?
Here’s an illustration that might explain my queries. Suppose I’m a Buddhist, and that I think that everyone in every walk of life, from government to business to science, would benefit from formalizing the psychological insights and “real” life hacks that Buddhist mindfulness practice provides. In that hope, I set about enshrining these Buddhist religious practices into everyday life through targeted legislative changes. For example, every student in every school, along with their secular curriculum, by law is to be taught to meditate for a certain amount of time every day so that they can learn to connect with their bodies and to see that that connection expands to every other being and ultimately to everything else in the universe.
Based upon this Buddhist world view, I furthermore set about changing public policy so that we see that the environment is not only important TO us, it, in a very “real” sense, IS us, so that we all learn to recognize our connection to every other creature, but especially to our fellow humans. In that vein, I make it my mission to enact laws that seek to limit the suffering of animals and people everywhere, that protect the environment, that end waste and that call for all of us to live a simpler life absent the consumerist need for constant economic growth, and that instead focus us on balance, compromise and indeed, all the manifestations of that little four letter word, “love” entails (including compassion, empathy, humility, sacrifice, etc).
Would most of you agree to these practical legal measures that Buddhist practice might proscribe, even though technically formulating these practices into legislation either dims the boundaries between a church and the state or in som ways, absolutely breaks those boundaries? Would not many of the Christian practices that Jesus actually taught through His parables, His example and His more didactic sermons, such as The Sermon on the Mount, lead us to similar legislation? Isn’t a claim that we can separate our practical secular lives from our moral and spiritual foundations, oxymoronic to the inherent epistemological limitations of those rational methodologies, thus making reason into the just another religion that has to be barred from government?
I don’t have an answer to these questions, although I’ve probably given more study and thought to them than most people. But just maybe, if we are going to get past screaming across the void at each other, the first thing that we should do is acknowledge that there are no easy answers to this problem of Separation of Church and State, and be willing to make compromises that allow for the balancing of conflicting rights and responsibilities. I’m not sure any of this is very straightforward.
For a fictional illustration of this kind of a mindful society and its problems, see Herman Hesse’s “The Glass Bead Game”. For a nonfictional contemplation, see Marcelo Gleiser’s “The Dawn of a Mindful Universe “.
I’m happy to shut up and read your opinion now.
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Welcome Tony, to my ‘other’ den, so to speak!
I can readily ignore typos, seeing as I make a few of them myself! Once I made a verbal type that confused the word ‘nibble’ with the word ‘nipple’, and my loved ones have never let me forget it…
I do see your point, especially when you frame it via the Buddhist ideology. I do believe religion can be a positive force in society, though I fear the way that fundamentalists (especially those draped in the cloaks of Republican conservatives) go about it is to be uncompromising to any group who does not share their beliefs (and this would include other Christians). The book banning efforts, the roll-back of Roe vs Wade, the pressure on birth control, the threats against LGBT rights… these are forms of interference that I cannot ever see as positive acts, and good arguments to keep the partition between Church and State.
If it were the case that all religions were to be given equal representation in a theologically-led state, then that would at least be completely fair, if chaotic! The chief situation in the USA tends to revolve around hard-line Christians, at the expense of everyone else. I guess that summarises where I’m at more succinctly.
Like you, I have no answers to so much of this. I have my opinions and thoughts, and I have my hopes and wishes for the future, namely that everyone can find a way forward that does not involve stripping rights and freedoms from others. I have looked up The Glass Bead Game, and may yet take a closer look at that.
Thank you as always for your thoughts.
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