Democrats have raised the ominous specter of the Christian Nationalist just in time for the 2024 presidential election season. For the left, “Nationalist” carries the horrifying connotations associated with Puritan, fascist, capitalist, Nazi, election/climate denier, white supremacist, and MAGA — it’s the coming scapegoat on which the Democrat high priests will impute all the weight of social and political sin.
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) conducted a national poll earlier this year for which they “interviewed more than 22,000 adults,” in an attempt to delineate the meaning of Christian Nationalist. However, PRRI’s methodology gets as close to the truth as early 20th-century phrenology, which classified and categorized racial purity based on human skull formation.
PRRI is morbidly clinical in its approach, ostensibly utilizing this data to constitute its American Values Atlas. From PRRI’s website, its canvas purportedly provides for the first time the ability to estimate support for Christian nationalism in all 50 states. Additionally, this new analysis examines how religion, party, education, race and other factors intersect with Christian nationalist views.”
The report states that “roughly three in ten Americans qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers.” The language is reminiscent of McCarthyism, which the left identified as an excess of the right during the “red scare” of the 1950s. Demagogues harangued about communist sympathizers lurking behind every bush. The furor resulted in the compelled congressional testimony of numerous Hollywood and political figures. Careers were ruined, and a witch hunt ensued for those not politically pure. If PRRI and Democrats have their way, the moniker “Christian Nationalist” will be this year’s version of “commie.”
In addition, the PRRI report finds, “At the national level, Christian nationalism is strongly linked to the Republican Party affiliation and holding favorable views of Trump.” Furthermore, PRRI casts the shadow of Christian Nationalist on “evangelical/born-again” individuals who frequently attend church, and are prone to “support political violence.” PRRI partnered with the highly partisan Brookings Institution to produce this incongruous report.
First, a definition of terms is in order. The Bible first records that the word “Christian” was first used in Antioch during the first century as an aspersion. (Acts 11:26) In this regard, Democrats and PRRI are in the same company with pagan Romans and Hellenistic Greeks, who sought to deride those who were ardent followers of Jesus Christ and his teachings. So, to understand what a Christian is, we must refer to the document that defines the term.
Christ regarded the Old Testament cannon as absolutely authoritative in matters of faith and practice (Luke 24:44,45) and quoted from them frequently. As did the apostles, through which the Holy Spirit produced what we know today as the New Testament. By the end of the first century, the entire cannon of the modern Bible was recognized as absolutely authoritative by the early church, and to be the inspired transmission of the mind of God to mankind. Today, a multitude of Bible versions exist, but the King James Version (KJV), New King James Version (NKJV), and the English Standard Version (ESV) are widely considered to be the best English translations.
Astoundingly, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls from 1947 to 1956, it can be confirmed with absolute certainty that the modern Bible is identical to the most ancient manuscripts. It is from this miraculous text that the term Christian finds its full meaning. To be a Christian, therefore, means to have personally accepted Christ as incarnate God, crucified, raised from the dead, and the Savior of one’s sin-stained immortal soul, apart from any reliance on self-righteousness. (Rom 3:23, 10:9-11; Eph 2:8; Heb 10:10-14) It is the belief and confession that “the just shall live by faith” (Rom 1:17), and that the only mediator between God and man is Christ Jesus. (1 Tim 2:5)
To this faith, most of our founding fathers subscribed, and it is on this faith that the Constitution was built, and through which our civil liberties have life. In short, as the Bible says, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Cor 3:17) Inalienable rights, the belief that you have rights because you are made in God’s image, is a peculiarly Christian idea, and apart from this concept, civil rights evaporate before the unbridled temporal power of governments. Being a Christian is fundamentally patriotic. In fact, George Washington credited the Exodus with inspiring the American Revolution, and stated that American independence may have never occurred apart from that Biblical example.
Merriam-Webster defines “nationalism” as “loyalty and devotion to a nation…exalting one nation above all others…” Our founding fathers were unanimous in their belief that America was exceptional among the constellation of nations, that our history was imbued by special providential acts. And, in the closing paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence our founders appealed to “the Supreme Judge of the world.”
Given the foregoing, labeling Trump and his supporters as Christian Nationalists should be worn as a badge of honor, just like the first century Christians in Antioch, who proudly proclaimed the teachings of their professed Redeemer, Christ the Lord. But, the objectives of Democrats are to deconstruct Christian influence wherever it’s found. And, to assault notions of American exceptionalism. They do so because they intend to insinuate a new paradigm that has nothing to do with Christian ideas of inalienable rights, or the civil liberties we seem to take for granted. The change they hope for was designed by Marx in his Godless laboratory of hubris, and preached from his basilica of statism.
PRRI is doing its part to marginalize Christians and their responsibility to engage with politics. They hope to frighten and dispirit Trump voters by associating their faith and politics with something that sounds radical or extreme. When, in point of fact, those who oppose MAGA are the radicals — old Marxian leftists dressed in bespoke suits.
Lastly, if Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump are Christian Nationalists, then count me in.