Danger! Danger! Christian Nationalism and Project 2025

I think I have been hanging around my grandson too much.  He’s rubbing off on me.  My grandson loves superheroes . . . all sorts of superheroes.  I can’t blame him.  Superheroes are cool and they have some amazing skills that I envy.  One superhero that I have always enjoyed it Spider-Man.  Who would want to be the infamous web-slinger zipping around like Tarzan?  Plus, I like the fact that he can sense when things are going awry . . . you know, he has his Spidey senses.  How cool is that!

As the political season heats up, my Spidey senses are going off the chart.  Alarms are sounding all around me.  Sirens are blaring.  Distress signals are being issued.  Something is out of whack . . . something isn’t right.  I am feeling anxious.  I think that if I was Peter Parker I would want to disappear.  Something big is going down.  At least that is what my Spidey senses are warning me.

 

Okay, I will admit.  I do not have the super-power of hyper-vigilant senses.  I have not been bitten by a radioactive spider.  I am not Peter Parker.  I cannot sling webs, though I have been known to sling other stuff.  Despite this, I cannot help but feel that as this political season continues to brew that there is something “big” coming down the pike.  Something “big” that will affect everyone and everything we hold dear as American citizens.  The circus has arrived, and it is getting more extravagant each step towards that fateful election day.

 

The great debate for the past couple of weeks was the “debate”.  I will be honest; I did not watch the debate.  I have already stated that I am disappointed in both political parties that they could not do better than the two candidates that are running.  I believe that both parties could have done better.  Both candidates are old . . . too old.  I did not want to waste my time watching two old farts go through the motions of stating the same old baloney we have heard for the past four years thrown at each other.  I would rather sit back and watch Statler and Waldorf exchange quips on the Muppet Show. 

 

Whatever!  We are now in the midst of the debate over the “debate”.  Both sides are quibbling over the capacity of their candidate to run for president.  The news media is beating it to death.  There are calls from all around for the candidates to withdraw for whatever reasons you want to name.  What did anyone expect?  Neither candidate is top notch, they are old, and we have been riding this dead horse into the ground.  We are wasting our time.  Spinning our wheels.  It is a great deflection . . .

 

. . . and my Spidey senses are going off the chart!

 

As we waste our time debating whether or not the two candidates should be running, we are missing the bigger issues.  Yes, there are bigger issues out there that need some serious attention . . . otherwise we are going to be in a world of hurt as a nation.

 

Two issues are screaming for attention . . . Christian Nationalism and Project 2025.  They sort of go hand-in-hand.  They are kissing cousins.  Almost illicit in their companionship.  But while we are focusing on the capacity of the two candidates for office, we are hissing the boat here.

 

My primary calling throughout my life has been as a pastor.  As a pastor I worked hard to keep politics out of the pulpit and church despite the fact that most politics go against the teachings and life of Jesus. I would say that as a pastor I succeeded most of the time, and in those times I did not . . . the congregation and individuals let me know with no uncertainty that I had crossed the line.  It was not my job as a pastor to guide people in their political views or activities.  Instead, I would encourage them to be informed . . . to ask questions . . . to discuss and discern before making a choice.  Now, in retirement, I have free reign to do whatever I want when it comes to politics.  What I have found is that it doesn’t do any good to shoot off what I believe in in hopes of pounding someone into submission to my political leanings.  It makes more enemies than friends.  I would rather sit down, discuss, discern . . . have a conversation.  In the end we may not agree but at least we listened and attempted to understand one another.

 

Christian Nationalism shoots off all sorts of warning bells for me, especially as a person of faith and one who claims to be a follower of Jesus.  Nothing about Christian Nationalism fits into the game plan of Jesus.  It is not in his teachings, nor is it in the life he lived.  It has nothing to do with religion at all and especially Christianity as one would imagine that Jesus would want it to be.  It is not supported by scripture.  God does not favor one nation or group of people over others.  One description of Christian Nationalism states: “Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation.”

 

It is about power and control.  It is not about faith.  It is about politics . . . and not politics as we have declared as a nation from the beginning.  What is rising up and making itself central in this present political climate is scary.  Scary because it does not represent the majority of the citizens of this nation, nor does it represent the majority of those who call themselves Christian.  It is an abomination.  If it is allowed to go unabated and unchallenged it will destroy all that we hold dear as Americans.  That scares me and causes me to lie awake at night.

 

Don’t know much about Christian Nationalism?  I would suggest that you take the time to watch the documentary, Bad Faith, that shares information about this movement in the United States.  I think that you will find the film to be thought-provoking, enlightening, terrifying, upsetting, and most of all a point to begin thinking for yourself about this call to “save America”.

 

Of course, a movement needs a game plan.  That game plan comes in the form of Project 2025. This one almost slipped by me.  In all honesty I had never heard of it until a couple of weeks ago.  It wasn’t on my radar, but then I started to see posts on my friends’ social media.  They were all calling for people to stand up against this proposal of how to run the country once the elections were over.  My understanding is that the majority of people in the United States probably would not have heard about it until one of its endorsers, Kevin Roberts—president of the Heritage Foundation, was quoted as saying, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”  That set off alarms.  Now my Spidey senses are running amuck.

 

If you think that Christian Nationalism is scary, read this game plan.  It is scarier than a Stephen King novel.  Project 2025 is a huge 922-page document to re-imagine the federal government, crafted by a cadre of conservative organizations piloted by The Heritage Foundation.  This tome calls for undercutting checks and balances, super-charging executive branch power, gutting the civil service, embedding political loyalists to the cause throughout the government and ramming through a host of right-wing policies.  It would change democracy as we know it forever and move our nation one huge step closer to tyranny.  Once again, something the majority of American citizens does not want.  According to the plan, this change would come, blitzkrieg-style, in the first six months of 2025.

 

This plan would be carried out on four fronts:

• Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
• Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
  
• Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
• Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

Broken down to simplistic bullet points, I doubt if there is much about this that seems offensive . . . until you actually read the game plan.  Within the first six months of the new political realm the goal is to completely gut and restructure the nation’s form of government into something that will take away much of the way that our nation takes care of its people and business.  The result will be a loss of freedom for everyone.  Economically times will be difficult.  Life as we know it will be gone.  It won’t be business as usual.  It is scary reading . . . real scary reading.  Take a look for yourself.   

Unfortunately, I am no superhero.  If I were I would sweep in and save the day.  Nope, this is calamity that only we the people can save ourselves from.  It is up to us—the real “silent majority”—to get rid of.  For so often we have been hearing that these issues have been spawned from those who do not feel that their voices have been heard.  As true as that is, those voices are actually a minute group of our citizenship.  In a recent issue of Time Magazine writer Karl Vick wrote that American are less divided than one would think.  Through research he basically stated that the majority of the people in our nation, regardless of what their political affiliation was, were in agreement on the issues and what was important.  In other words, there was way more in common than different.  The difference was in how everyone viewed everyone else . . . which was typically through political lenses focusing on perceived negatives.  We Americans are more alike than we want to admit . . . we all want the same things.  The problem is that we are an apathetic group.

 

Those behind the Christian Nationalism movement and Project 2025 are not stupid.  They have come to understand that with the apathetic tendencies of most Americans—especially when it comes to politics and elections, they do not need to get the majority of American citizens to agree with them or join their movement, they only have to win the battle among those who are actually participating.  That is a much smaller number.  About two-thirds of those eligible to vote in the last election actually voted.  These people only had to win the majority of those who voted.  In this way, they won . . . and will win.

 

This is not true representation of our nation’s population.  Far from it.  Poll after poll show that much of what is believed by Christian Nationalists is not believed by the majority of American citizens.  Nor is much of what is shared in the grand game plan, Project 2025, embraced the American majority.  But instead of speaking up and making themselves known, the people remain silent and non-responsive.  If this continues to be the case . . . well, then, get ready for the circus because it will be coming to town.

 

We must save ourselves.  That is the bottom line.  We cannot sit back and wait for the superheroes to come and save the day.  They are not coming.  No, we—as American citizens—must become informed, have conversations, be encouraging and supportive, and embrace our common hopes and dreams.  We must stand up and speak.  If we don’t . . . who will?  It is in our hands and if we cannot get our act together . . . it is going to be scary.