Republicans Are Ready to Declare the United States a Christian Nation

[Nevilledog]

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John Nichols
@NicholsUprising
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“We establish no religion in this country. We command no worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate.”
— Ronald Reagan

Think about it: Reagan would be too rational for today’s Christian nationalist GOP.

thenation.com
Republicans Are Ready to Declare the United States a Christian Nation
Sixty-one percent of the party's base now favors ending the separation of church and state, as do a growing number of prominent Republicans.
5:32 AM · Sep 24, 2022

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/republicans-christian-nation/

NEWPORT, R.I.—Outside the Truro Synagogue in this historic New England community stand markers that honor the legacy of one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the United States. It was to the Jews of Newport that George Washington, in his capacity as the nation’s first president, confirmed the commitment of the new republic to respect all religions and to maintain the separation of church and state that was outlined in the First Amendment to its new Constitution.

“The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship,” wrote Washington in his 1790 letter to the Newport congregation. Washington relied on Old Testament language in his message, assuring that “the children of the stock of Abraham” would, like all believers in all faiths, “sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

Determined to avoid the conflicts that plagued Europe, where monarchs established and maintained favored state churches, Washington made it clear that the United States would not be a land where one religion would be favored while the followers of other faiths would be dismissed as “dissenters.” “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support,” wrote the president.

That is the American creed. It is this principle that has led presidents to go out of their way to celebrate all religions, as Dwight Eisenhower did when he dedicated the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., in 1957 and declared that “under the American Constitution, under American tradition, and in American hearts, this Center, this place of worship, is just as welcome as could be a similar edifice of any other religion.” And it is this principle that led President Ronald Reagan to use a 1984 speech at Temple Hillel in Valley Stream, New York, to affirm that

[w]e in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

*snip*

[Aristus]

1. They can declare anything they want.

The U.S. Constitution will not back them up on this.

[Duncanpup]

2. Exactly

[spanone]

3. Look at this shit our repug governor posted on twitter....Tennessee

Link to tweet

[modrepub]

5. Fasting?!?

That's a first. What 2 hours without food or the whole day?

...and they'll still cry out Christians are persecuted in this country.

[sakabatou]

4. The Founders are spinning in their graves

[sanatanadharma]

6. A God 'trusting' Christian does not need the imprimatur and protection of the State.

A God 'trusting' Christian does not need the imprimatur and protection of the State. A Christian Nation identifies with nation not God.
Jesus was clear about Caesar and God.
I am not a believer, but I do read a book or more.

[msongs]

7. greed, war, profiteering, ignoring words of jesus. yep, christian nation alright nt

[Genki Hikari]

15. All members of the religion ignore stuff their deity said.

One group follows the words they like. Others follow entirely different words they like. Each says the other is ignoring what was said, or that they aren't "real" members of the religion because they don't believe X (a classic No True Scotsman Fallacy).

Both (all?) sides are right about following X words--and both are wrong at the same time, because this particular deity said a lot of stuff, some decent enough, some downright horrible and cruel, and most somewhere in between.

Here's an example of what I mean: Would you agree with someone who says he's going to turn people against each other, even amongst their own families, based on whether or not they'll follow the same deity, or would you ignore that?

Well, divisiveness over who to worship is what the deity says he's all for. I know he says it, because it's in red letters. Matthew 10:34-38, to be exact. And yet at other times, he does a complete 180 to preach tolerance and acceptance. One group is all for the divisiveness. Others in the same religion ignore it.

So no, the Nat-Cs don't ignore the words; they merely subscribe to a different set of them than another group from the same faith follows.

[treestar]

8. Why they simply cannot just enjoy the fact that they can be as Christian

as they please, and be in any sect of Christianity without problems, is beyond me.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. Because "Christianity" is merely a tool for them to control the peasants.

The goal is to control everything for their benefit. Religion is a protected tool within the current system for them to use to destroy that system and replace it with one to their liking.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. "I'm a proud Christian Nationalist." tweeted Marjorie Taylor Greene!

Link to tweet

[Initech]

10. Not me! No way in hell would I join their totalitarian hell hole!

[Duppers]

12. And Eisenhower...

Link to tweet

[Hekate]

13. Sadly for us all, the GOP is a party that now belongs on the ash-heap of history

Looks like a good article — sadly I can’t get to either read it all online or download it to my e-files to read at leisure. Still, I’m bookmarking your post here.

The letter to the Truro Synagogue, like the Treaty of Tripoli, ought to be treasured documents taught to every schoolchild as a matter of course, on par with the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

As it is, I vaguely recall learning about the Truro letter; but even though I had a good public school education in the ‘50s - ‘60s, I never heard of the Treaty of Tripoli until I was an adult, when someone quoted it in a letter to my local newspaper. IIRC, “As the United States is in no way a Christian nation, we bear no enmity toward the Musselmen…” (an old term for Moslems)

Our Founders were consciously leaving the bloodbaths of Europe behind, for all time. This new breed of White Christian Nationalists is an abomination that will destroy us if we do not stamp them out first.

[Genki Hikari]

14. Every word out of Mr Evil (R****n) was a damnable lie

I know for a fact that Mr Evil didn't mean one word of that, because every other action from him said otherwise. Someone who really believed that, who really meant it, would never, ever align with the likes of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, because they certainly didn't agree with any of that BS Mr Evilwas spewing.

Repeating the lie doesn't make it true.