The radicalized base of the Republican Party has increasingly adopted the rhetoric of Christian nationalism, an ideology that rejects the separation of church and state and asserts that the United States is a Christian nation with the right to privilege its faith over other beliefs.
Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and others on the political right identify proudly with it. However, the very idea of Christian nationalism is a malignant falsehood. One can be a nationalist. One can be a Christian. No one can be both. The Scriptures are clear on this point (Matthew 22:15-17). Christians worship only one God, not the state.
Christians worship Jesus Christ. His teachings regarding those on the margins of society, the poor and the rejected are unambiguous. We are commanded to love them. Any claim of Christianity without Jesus at the center is the work of the Anti-Christ.
Nowhere is the contrast between Christian and nationalist beliefs more striking than with the treatment of refugees seeking relief from war, persecution and economic injustice. Jesus commands his followers to treat them with dignity (Matthew 5-7). For nationalists, the response has been steel walls and barbed wire.
For over a century, nationalism has been inseparable from racism. In this country, it is the core conviction of the Ku Klux Klan. The America First Party of Gerald L. K. Smith was virulently racist as well as antisemitic. For Hitler, who praised segregation in America, it was a doctrine of the superiority of the “Aryan Race.” For Vladimir Putin, it is the mystical notion of a pure “Greater Russia.” White nationalists in America and Europe are more like pagans than Christians. They idolize power.
Christians have a moral obligation to oppose nationalism because it is evil — both in its origin and effects. It is found in hatred of the “other.” Ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, anyone whom the right fantasizes as seeking to “replace” them in society — all are demonized as inferior. Nationalism also justifies imperial wars for territorial gain, such as in Ukraine today, Poland in 1939 and Mexico in the 19th century. This is the very opposite of patriotism, where one loves one’s country for its values, like democracy, not for false claims of superiority or hegemony. It is most certainly not Christian.
But some false prophets invoke Christian nationalism, including Victor Orban in Hungary, who spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas to warn against “race mixing,” and Patriarch Kirill in Moscow, who justified Russia’s invasion by inveighing against gays seeking human rights .
We are fortunate that Pope Francis is someone who has articulated the truth of the moral struggle of our time in his encyclicals. We need other religious leaders to speak out and provide moral clarity in this moment. Regrettably, silence and even collaboration have too often been the response of clerics who fail this test of conscience.
Christian nationalists are reluctant to call their ideology by its proper name. It is fascism. We must call it out for what it is and oppose them before they succeed in tearing down the separation of church and state, which is the constitutional bedrock of our democracy.
As Christians, our duty is to confront the sin of nationalism, lest we risk our very souls through indifference. That is what is at stake.
Thomas Higgins lives in Oakland. He dealt with refugee issues on the senior White House staff of President Jimmy Carter. He is a trustee of a Catholic university and a board director of a national Catholic journal.
Source: www.mercurynews.com