There is an article at outkick.com titled “SI [Sports Illustrated] SAYS PRAYING FOOTBALL COACH IS DESTROYING AMERICA.” I’m sure you’ve heard of Coach Joe Kennedy and his right to pray by himself after a football game. His case is going before the Supreme Court. Greg Bishop at Sports Illustrated called his praying an “erosion of a bedrock of American democracy.” Later, the word “democracy” was changed to “separation of church and state.”
As I say in my book, Who’s Got Dibs on Your Kids?, there is nothing in our founding documents establishing a separation of church and state. But that’s a whole other topic.
Do you remind your kids to say a prayer of thanks before they eat their lunch? Do you worry if someone calls your child a Christian? Some are turning that label into a pejorative. However, coming out against Christians as a body might generate an uprising. So, what do they do? They add a descriptive word such as nationalism or fascism.
“National,” on the face of it, seems like it should be a good thing. Are we not proud of our nation, the United States of America?
The suffix “ism,” according to dictionary.com, is used: “. . . denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence, etc.” That sounds like ism added to national should be a devotion to our nation and adherence to its laws. Put national and ism together—nationalism—is that a bad thing?
Again, according to dictionary.com, it is not a bad thing. Here are the definitions for nationalism:
- Spirit or aspirations common to the whole of a nation
- Devotion and loyalty to one’s own country
- Patriotism; excessive patriotism
- Chauvinism
- The desire for national advancement or political independence
- The policy or doctrine of asserting the interests of one’s own nation viewed as separate from the interests of other nations or the common interests of all nations [Think: America first.]
- An idiom or trait peculiar to a nation. [We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.]
I applaud dictionary.com’s list of those values, except maybe excessive patriotism, although I’m not sure what that would be. But with all the admirable qualities dictionary.com assigned to the word nationalism, they insert “chauvinism.” Now we usually think of chauvinism as one gender thinking the other gender is inferior in some way to their gender. It means more than that. It also means “zealous and aggressive patriotism or blind enthusiasm for military glory.” Compare that to all the other descriptions for nationalism. Why did they put that in there? It is inconsistent with all the other definitions in the same dictionary.
I was disappointed when I read an article, titled “What Is Christian Nationalism?” at Christianity Today. It claims,
Christian nationalism is the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way. Popularly, Christian nationalists assert that America is and must remain a “Christian nation”—not merely as an observation about American history, but as a prescriptive program for what America must continue to be in the future. Scholars like Samuel Huntington have made a similar argument: that America is defined by its “Anglo-Protestant” past and that we will lose our identity and our freedom if we do not preserve our cultural inheritance.
Perhaps there is a radical group in our country that believes those views. I’m not one of
them. I know that our country was founded on the principles that we have a Creator who has bestowed on we humans “certain unalienable rights.” The article in the Bill of Rights regarding religion reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Emphasis mine.)
Please note that it does not mention Christianity. It also says Congress can make no law establishing a religion, and it cannot prohibit our freedom to exercise our religion as we choose. So, if there are people who think differently, I suppose they could be identified a Christian Nationalists, but I believe that would be a small minority. All Christians do not identify with such radical beliefs.
We turn now to the word “Christofascism.” I thought this was a new term, and I had no idea what it was supposed to mean. Where have I been? I discovered it first became used by a German woman in the 1970s. Slangdefine.org describes Christofascism as “Evangelical, semi-theocratical movement or temperment [sic] of Americans who stand against:
- abortion
- sexual education
- homosexuality
- science
- anti-Zionism
- the separation of church and state.”
Let’s take a look at what those who impose those terms on others mean. Crosspolitic.com says, “[T]he label Christian Nationalist isn’t misunderstood, complicated by multiple layers of cultural history. It’s been deployed as a weapon against conservative, people-and-place-loving, Bible-obeying Christians.
At opendemocracy.net you will read, “Overturning Roe v Wade is just the beginning. They won’t stop at abortion. The Republican Party is poised to impose a Christofascist theocracy upon all Americans – limiting the rights of women and LGBTIQ+ people.”
The unherd.com makes a comparison between Christianity and Islam:
Secular opponents to the pro-life stance are (not for the first time) seeing semblance between ‘Christofascism’ and Sharia Law: both are perceived as patriarchal and oppressive systems that control women’s bodies and threaten human rights, democracy and other cornerstones of their particular interpretation of ‘Western values’.
Depending on the age of your children, you can’t expect them to understand all that generates hateful speech. But if someone does condemn them for their religious beliefs, you can tell them not to feel bad about it, and explain in terms they can understand why some like to call people names. That doesn’t mean they are what they are called. It only reflects badly on the one doing the name-calling.
The article by Rhett Burns titled, “Are You A Christian Nationalist?” says if someone calls you a Christian Nationalist (or Christofascist) to try to denigrate you or your children, you should own up to it. Tell them they are right. That is exactly what you are! He feels it will take the wind out of their sails and end the argument.
I’m thinking a bit about your son or daughter looking at the name caller with a calm demeanor and responding, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
Which approach is best? Or do you have a different solution?