The Christian Right’s 250-Year Fight Against America
Beginning in the late 18th century, “Covenanters” considered the Constitution flawed for its failure to acknowledge God; the Confederacy’s pro-slavery theologians saw the Declaration of Independence’s rhetoric about human equality as an affront to a God-ordained racial hierarchy; in the mid-20th century, Christian Reconstructionists saw nearly the entire U.S. legal system as antithetical to Old Testament law.
The Reformed Presbyterians — better known as the Covenanters — during the early Republic, took a stance of conscientious objection to the federal government. Their complaint was that the Constitution failed to acknowledge God and the rulership of Christ, and that, by not having a religious test, it allows for unbelievers or “infidels” to hold federal office and even rise to the position of president.
They regarded the First Amendment as problematic. The establishment clause forbidding Congress from setting up a state religion meant to them that civil government was not fulfilling its duty to support the church. And the free exercise clause meant that the government was permitting and licensing infidelity.
So, for all these reasons — and also for the Constitution’s tacit acceptance of slavery, which Covenanters regarded as sinful — they thought that the Constitution and the government it created were illegitimate. So they refused to participate in it as far as they could, including by not running for or accepting government offices and by not voting, until the nation repented from this original sin and established a truly Christian constitution.
Illiberal Christian thinkers went on not only to critique but to replace the American political order with a regime in accord with their theological beliefs. Some of them believed that all that was really required was a bit of constitutional tinkering — an amendment that would explicitly announce the United States as a Christian polity. But others argued for a more whole-scale transformation of the nation into a Catholic confessional state or a Calvinist theocratic republic.
Last Wednesday morning, a surreal scene unfolded at the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — a man with two Crusades-themed tattoos and the author of a book calling for a modern “American Crusade” — inaugurated a new, perhaps monthly Christian prayer and worship service at the Pentagon auditorium. Hegseth’s personal pastor — who leads a Tennessee church associated with theocratic (and self-described “paleo-Confederate”) theologian Doug Wilson—flew in to lead the prayer service, where he suggested Donald Trump was divinely appointed to the presidency. And in his opening remarks, Hegseth led a prayer to “King Jesus,” telling military staff gathered for the purportedly voluntary service that “where we need to be as a nation” is praying “on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.”
The display followed an already active first four months of the Trump administration’s efforts to make America “more religious” than ever before, as Trump vowed in a Truth Social post Easter morning. In February, Trump created a White House Faith Office and a Department of Justice task force to eradicate “anti-Christian bias.”
Roughly two weeks later, Trump proposed that the country “forget about” the separation of church and state while announcing the creation of a new commission on religious liberty populated almost entirely by MAGA-allied Christian Right figures.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/christi...n-heretics
Christian nationalism is being forced into OK schools. It's a war on reality
Oklahoma Republicans are staging a war on reality in their public schools, and every American who cares about religious freedom and democracy should be ashamed. State officials are trying to force the Bible and the Christian nationalist “1776 Commission” report into public classrooms, turning education into religious and political indoctrination.
I work daily with young Americans who believe deeply in the separation of church and state. The percentage of Americans who identify as secular grows by the day, and they understand what is at stake when politicians attempt to impose a single religious worldview through government power.
Nearly half of Gen Z identifies as religiously unaffiliated. These students are not “less American” because they are secular, just as students of minority faiths are not “less American” because they worship differently from the Christian majority. Forcing a Christian religious framework into public education sends a dangerous message: that full citizenship and acceptance are reserved only for those who conform. This attack is disguised as patriotism, but in reality is pure propaganda. It is a deliberate effort to rewrite history, erase injustice and glorify a narrow, exclusionary vision of America.
Oklahoma’s students deserve better. They deserve an education that prepares them to think critically, engage with complexity, and participate fully in a pluralistic society. They deserve classrooms that reflect the real, diverse America they are inheriting, but instead could be forced to endure a whitewashed fantasy crafted by politicians desperate to cling to power.
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/opinion/...748497007/
Beginning in the late 18th century, “Covenanters” considered the Constitution flawed for its failure to acknowledge God; the Confederacy’s pro-slavery theologians saw the Declaration of Independence’s rhetoric about human equality as an affront to a God-ordained racial hierarchy; in the mid-20th century, Christian Reconstructionists saw nearly the entire U.S. legal system as antithetical to Old Testament law.
The Reformed Presbyterians — better known as the Covenanters — during the early Republic, took a stance of conscientious objection to the federal government. Their complaint was that the Constitution failed to acknowledge God and the rulership of Christ, and that, by not having a religious test, it allows for unbelievers or “infidels” to hold federal office and even rise to the position of president.
They regarded the First Amendment as problematic. The establishment clause forbidding Congress from setting up a state religion meant to them that civil government was not fulfilling its duty to support the church. And the free exercise clause meant that the government was permitting and licensing infidelity.
So, for all these reasons — and also for the Constitution’s tacit acceptance of slavery, which Covenanters regarded as sinful — they thought that the Constitution and the government it created were illegitimate. So they refused to participate in it as far as they could, including by not running for or accepting government offices and by not voting, until the nation repented from this original sin and established a truly Christian constitution.
Illiberal Christian thinkers went on not only to critique but to replace the American political order with a regime in accord with their theological beliefs. Some of them believed that all that was really required was a bit of constitutional tinkering — an amendment that would explicitly announce the United States as a Christian polity. But others argued for a more whole-scale transformation of the nation into a Catholic confessional state or a Calvinist theocratic republic.
Last Wednesday morning, a surreal scene unfolded at the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — a man with two Crusades-themed tattoos and the author of a book calling for a modern “American Crusade” — inaugurated a new, perhaps monthly Christian prayer and worship service at the Pentagon auditorium. Hegseth’s personal pastor — who leads a Tennessee church associated with theocratic (and self-described “paleo-Confederate”) theologian Doug Wilson—flew in to lead the prayer service, where he suggested Donald Trump was divinely appointed to the presidency. And in his opening remarks, Hegseth led a prayer to “King Jesus,” telling military staff gathered for the purportedly voluntary service that “where we need to be as a nation” is praying “on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.”
The display followed an already active first four months of the Trump administration’s efforts to make America “more religious” than ever before, as Trump vowed in a Truth Social post Easter morning. In February, Trump created a White House Faith Office and a Department of Justice task force to eradicate “anti-Christian bias.”
Roughly two weeks later, Trump proposed that the country “forget about” the separation of church and state while announcing the creation of a new commission on religious liberty populated almost entirely by MAGA-allied Christian Right figures.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/christi...n-heretics
Christian nationalism is being forced into OK schools. It's a war on reality
Oklahoma Republicans are staging a war on reality in their public schools, and every American who cares about religious freedom and democracy should be ashamed. State officials are trying to force the Bible and the Christian nationalist “1776 Commission” report into public classrooms, turning education into religious and political indoctrination.
I work daily with young Americans who believe deeply in the separation of church and state. The percentage of Americans who identify as secular grows by the day, and they understand what is at stake when politicians attempt to impose a single religious worldview through government power.
Nearly half of Gen Z identifies as religiously unaffiliated. These students are not “less American” because they are secular, just as students of minority faiths are not “less American” because they worship differently from the Christian majority. Forcing a Christian religious framework into public education sends a dangerous message: that full citizenship and acceptance are reserved only for those who conform. This attack is disguised as patriotism, but in reality is pure propaganda. It is a deliberate effort to rewrite history, erase injustice and glorify a narrow, exclusionary vision of America.
Oklahoma’s students deserve better. They deserve an education that prepares them to think critically, engage with complexity, and participate fully in a pluralistic society. They deserve classrooms that reflect the real, diverse America they are inheriting, but instead could be forced to endure a whitewashed fantasy crafted by politicians desperate to cling to power.
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/opinion/...748497007/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
