Christians Against Christian Nationalism, a movement driven by church leaders and executives of faith-based groups, just put pen to paper to warn Americans that “Christian nationalism” is becoming a concern because, in their words, it often serves as a cover for “white supremacy and racial subjugation.”
Sounds dire. Until you peer past the curtain, that is.
This is a campaign led by far-left types who use their religious positions to push their far-left ideas.
This is a campaign filled with self-proclaiming Christians whose Christian ideals and beliefs are, in strict biblical teaching, very un-Christian.
Hmm. Suddenly, the “Christian nationalism” they spit on becomes a pin the proud patriot, and particularly, the proud Christian patriot, should wear.
Among the “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” endorsers: There’s the Rev. Dr. Paul Baxley, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, who supported the CBF’s opening of doors to gay church employees.
There’s Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, who openly backed the pro-LGBTQ bill, H.R. 5, The Equality Act, that would have barred discrimination based on “sex, gender identity and sexual orientation” — and who denounced President Donald Trump’s crackdown on refugees as “antithetical to our faith.”
There’s Tony Campolo, a founder of the Red Letter Christian Movement, who called for “full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the church,” as he put it, in June of 2015.
There’s Patrick Carolan, executive director of Franciscan Action Network, who just joined with more than 100 civil rights activists and social justice leaders to “pledge solidarity with LGBTQ Catholic school teachers,” Metro Weekly reported.
There’s Paula Dempsey, director of partner relations with Alliance for Baptists, who in 2017 said her staff were “thrilled” at the hiring of a lesbian couple to serve as senior members of a Washington, D.C., church — and that she hoped other churches would “have ministers who would identify as members of the LGBTQ community.”
There’s more. Many more.
But the big question is this: Just how “Christian” is this “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” movement in the first place?
After all, if these CACN types see the Bible as their rally call to fight against borders — which is another way of bucking the rule of law — why can’t they see it’s this same Bible that makes clear homosexuality, to God, is an abomination?
Grain, meet salt.
Or maybe, more to the point, conservatives, meet the newest leftist attack. It’s far-left ideology masked as religious righteousness. And it’s as wicked as it is clever.
An example? Here’s one. So when CACN endorsers write that “conflating religious authority with political authority is idolatrous and often leads to oppression of minority and other marginalized groups,” they’re not referring, say, to Sharia law, and how its Muslim adherents, working within the confines of government, toss homosexuals off buildings, or publicly cane women for the crime of walking in public without a face covering. No. They’re talking about Christian conservatives who stand for the rule of law.
They’re talking about Christian conservatives who believe in traditional marriage.
They’re talking about Trump, his supporters and those who believe in border controls.
They’re trying to draw moral equivalencies between religions that behead those of different faiths and religions of those in the Republican Party.
CACN endorsers say this: “Patriotism does not require us to minimize our religious convictions.” And this: “People of all faiths and none have the right and responsibility to engage constructively in the public square.”
They mean this: “Leave Rep. Omar Ilhan alone.”
They forget this: America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, with an emphasis on both the importance of the individual and the concept of original sin that are spelled out in the Bible. From there sprang our governing documents.
Truly, it’s easy to keep Christian preaching out of the public square. It’s easy to confine the formal teaching of the Bible from a religious perspective to Sunday morning pews.
What’s not so easy, though, is to remove Judeo-Christian principles from our government — while still keeping the government our founders envisioned intact. Bluntly put, the country would crumble from within without its moral compass of Judeo-Christian teachings, without its base values of Ten Commandments principles, without its guiding belief of individual rights coming from God, not government.
Without its borders.
Without its traditions, and yes, traditional values. Traditional, biblically sound values.
Calling out such viewpoints as Christian nationalism, either subtly or overtly, is to deride our entire nation.
The takeaway is this: On CAGN, beware the wolves in sheep’s clothing.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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