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| Image text: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth." Image source. |
Here's a post from Hemant Mehta about Christian Nationalism: Doug Wilson has ludicrous ideas for how the U.S. could become a Christian Nation. I'm writing about this because there's one line in it that's just so completely bonkers I can't get it out of my head.
So, it's a post about Doug Wilson. If you don't know who Doug Wilson is, first of all, I'm happy for you. But anyway, I recommend this 2018 post from Libby Anne: It Is Long Past Time For Evangelical Leaders To Condemn Doug Wilson’s Views On Slavery And The South. Wilson says that slavery was a good thing, and he has a bunch of other terrible opinions too. (Gross, how will I explain Doug Wilson to my children?)
Mehta's post is about how Wilson is advocating Christian Nationalism. Wilson has a bunch of suggestions for what the US government should do, and one of them, the one that's so bonkers I need to blog about it, is this:
Or, Wilson suggested, “the Apostles’ Creed could be incorporated into the Constitution.”
... The Apostles' Creed? Uh, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth..." You know that's how the Apostles' Creed goes, right? Like it starts with "I believe" and lists out the basic things that Christians believe, mostly about what Jesus did. How on earth would that go into the Constitution? I'm objecting to this from a grammatical perspective- if you plop this into the Constitution somewhere, what would the pronoun "I" even be referring to? And how does it relate to anything else at all in the Constitution? It's a bunch of belief statements. That's not what the Constitution is.
(Obviously I also object to it because the government should not have a religion.)
I *guess* what Wilson means is that the Constitution should say that government officials are required to recite the Apostles' Creed, or something like that. (Ugh how am I gonna explain that to my children?) But when I read that in Mehta's blog post, the first thing that came to mind was some bizarro universe where you're reading the Constitution and it's talking about the responsibilities of Congress or whatever, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." ???
And actually, now I'm realizing that everything about Christian Nationalism feels like this. Wanting to take symbols of Christianity and paste them onto the US government, without caring about what they actually mean. Making a big deal about how it's so important to be a Christian, without talking about what it actually means to be a Christian, what Christians are supposed to do, what it means to follow Jesus. You ever notice how Christian Nationalists talk a lot about Christianity and not about Jesus?
It's about selling "God Bless the USA" bibles just because the bible is a symbol in a culture war, not because you actually care about reading the bible and following what it says. (I agree with all the comedians who made jokes about "I'm surprised that bible didn't burst into flames when Trump touched it.")
It's about using your Christian identity to create an "us vs them"- like Christians are better than non-Christians, and Christians should control the government. (And there's also racism mixed in with this- like only white people count as real Christians.) Is that how Jesus lived? Is that what he told us to do? Do Christian Nationalists even care about what Jesus said?
The apostle James said, "Faith without works is dead." If you identify as a Christian, but you don't do any of the good things that Jesus said we should do, then what does it matter? Your Christianity is meaningless.
If we really want to make political policies consistent with what Jesus said, I have a few suggestions. Immigration: The bible says we should help immigrants. Health care: The bible says we should help sick people. And yet, strangely, the Christian Nationalist position on those issues is the opposite of that. Like they just think "Christian" is a cool thing to be, and makes you better than other people, but they never think about how to actually follow Jesus.
Faith without works is dead.
The apostle James also said, "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder." If you believe in God, if you recite the Apostles' Creed, well, whatever, I'm not impressed with that. Even demons believe in God. Who cares? Jesus certainly doesn't care. What matters is what you do.
And Christian Nationalists take the Lord's name in vain when they say this is what Christianity is about, with no mention of the things that Jesus actually taught. No mention of "Love your neighbor as yourself."
Taking Christian things and sticking them onto the government, using them as symbols for why we're better than other people, without understanding what those symbols actually mean. Putting the Apostles' Creed into the Constitution because it sounds like a very Christian thing to do, even though it makes no sense. Faith without works is dead.
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Related:
In Some Alternate Universe, I'm Writing a Post About Masks and "Causing to Stumble"
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