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The left hates Christians, even the liberal, nonjudgmental ones in nondenominational megachurches with pastors in skinny jeans. But because this is an election year and their presumed candidate and his vice-presidential backup option are such pathetically weak choices, the panicked left cannot afford to alienate all those Christian deplorables and drive them toward the Republican candidate. So their strategy, as always, is to divide and conquer. Thus, the left is ramping up hysteria about a segment of the Christian population they are painting as a clear and present danger to “democracy” (i.e., Democrat hegemony): Christian nationalists.
The label “Christian nationalism” is the new Progressive dog-whistle for “scary American patriots.” It signals to Progressives that Americans who love God and country – which used to be the norm before our descent into a post-Christian, post-patriotism culture – are a subversive danger to democracy. Christianity, after all, imposes a moral code that chafes Progressive libertines, and nationalism, with its emphasis on state sovereignty and secure borders, frustrates their globalist ambitions.
Whenever Christians wave the Stars and Stripes, wear a MAGA hat, or pray that God blesses our country, the Left hyperventilates over the specter of a fundamentalist theocracy on the rise. They envision America becoming a Handmaid’s Tale dystopia in which white male Christian mullahs hang homosexuals and imprison women for seeking abortions. The Left’s vision of the separation of church and state, therefore, is one in which Christian patriots and their values are best excluded from the halls of government power entirely.
The left believes if they can demonize a politicized segment of Christians as violent radicals by tarring them as being not real Christians – much like they insist that Islamic terrorists aren’t real Muslims – then they can isolate the Trump-supporting Christian nationalists from the “good” Christians.
As a prime example: on MSNBC last week, Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla said that the “base of the Republican Party has shifted” after former President Trump attracted a “more extremist element,” including “Christian nationalists.”
“The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists — not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalist is very different — is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court. They come from God,” said Przybyla [emphasis added].
See what she did there? By stressing that the politically active Christians are “very different” from the “good” Christians who aren’t, Przybyla seems as if she actually respects and cares about the latter.
She went on to warn MSNBC’s hundreds of viewers about “an extremist element of conservative Christians” who advocate against Progressive sacraments such as abortion and gay marriage – because Trump-supporting Christians aren’t nearly half the country; they’re “extremists.”
The Family Research Council and Catholic Vote subsequently demanded an apology in a letter to Politico blasting Przybyla for “trying to demonize the Christian community” with her comment that only extremist “Christian nationalists” believe human rights “come from God”:
Her statements constituted an attempt to spread misinformation about Christians by creating the perception that they hold unique beliefs that pose a distinct and, in her words “extremist,” threat to our country. Setting aside the inaccuracy of her commentary, she was manifestly trying to demonize the Christian community and sow fear through propaganda.
Quite so.
As another example, filmmaker and anti-Trump hysteric Rob Reiner just released his documentary God & Country, about “the threat of a movement that infuses Christian dogma with far-right politics,” as The Hollywood Reporter put it. The film’s trailer features an interviewee who declares, “This is not a movement about Christian values, this is about Christian power.” Reiner himself recently tweeted that “Christian Nationalism is not only a danger to our Country, it’s a danger to Christianity itself.” [Emphasis added on both quotes] The relentless messaging here is, Christianity is fine, it’s Christian nationalism that’s evil.
“To be clear,” God & Country director Dan Partland stated in an interview,
Christianity is not the problem, and having one’s faith inform one’s political beliefs is not the problem. The problem is the intertwining of a Christian identity with a political identity such that it can be hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. The danger to democracy led me to explore this topic, but what I learned in the process is that the threat may be even greater to the Church itself.
Again, as I wrote elsewhere, “The notion that Partland and Reiner are deeply concerned about protecting Christianity from the secularizing corrosion of earthly power is ludicrous… He and Partland are surely taking this seemingly sympathetic angle to present their film as being Christian-friendly.”
As the executive producer, Reiner brought significant celebrity power to the project, yet it crashed and burned in limited release on its opening weekend beginning February 16, raking in only $38,000 (and only $60,000 total since then). Maybe people aren’t so worried after all that the country will be turned into a Christian version of Iran.
It wasn’t for lack of trying, however. In an interview with Newsweek, which was eager to help promote God & Country, Reiner hammered the same note:
We have to make a distinction between Christianity and Christian nationalism. Because when you watch the film, you’ll see that we have some very, very respected, conservative Christian evangelicals who talk specifically about how not only is Christian nationalism hurting the country and hurting democracy, but it’s hurting Christianity itself. And they believe that it is a terrible attack on Christianity. [Emphasis added]
Reiner and his Hollywood comrades are constantly bashing Christianity; why is he suddenly protective of it? Because he and his Party need the “good” Christians to distance themselves from and isolate the “dangerous” Trump supporters.
“I’ve seen over the years that they’re incredibly organized, incredibly well funded, and have attained tremendous power,” Reiner continued to fear-monger:
And I saw that [with] Trump’s candidacy in 2016, again in 2020, and now it’s really hardened and solidified behind Trump. To me, this is a dangerous path for this country to go down and for the world go down, which is authoritarianism, the idea that it’s my way or the highway, and that you’re even willing to resort to violence to get your own way. We saw this exemplified on January 6.
And there you see Reiner tying Christian nationalism to what Progressives falsely insist was a violent, Trump-inspired insurrection on January 6, 2021.
Asked by Newsweek if he was surprised by anything in the process of producing the film, Reiner once again raised a distinction between Christians and the nationalists: “Well, the thing that I was most surprised by was to see conservative Christian leaders talk against Christian nationalism, because they believed it is not only hurting the country, but hurting Christianity.”
He added that during “a very dark period in my life decades ago,” he did a lot of reading on Christianity “and I came away personally with my own beliefs, which is the teachings of Jesus, which is love thy neighbor, do unto others as he would have done unto you.”
Reiner isn’t saying he became Christian, only that he likes the Christian emphasis on love and peace. Leftists like that aspect of Christianity because they can use it against their political opponents by making Christians live up to their own standards (this is Rule #4 in left-wing strategist Saul Alinsky’s influential Rules for Radicals, which was dedicated to Lucifer, “the first radical”: “Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”).
“So to me,” Reiner concluded, “this movement is going totally opposite the teachings of Jesus.”
The left doesn’t care about the teachings of Jesus, but they know that Christians do, so this is the manipulative angle we’re going to hear again and again in the state media like MSNBC and Newsweek: real Christians are “very fine people” who are “very different” from MAGA “extremists.”
The left loves the peaceful Jesus; they hate the Jesus who righteously drove the sacrilegious money-changers out of the White House – er, temple.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
Ron Kelmell says
The contemporary atmosphere of anti-Christain pressure will filter and therefore make believers stronger and clearer about what we have in Christ. I’ve already have had to ‘re-evaluate’ and have found greater grace for the day. So, to the antagonists I say, “Bring it!”
Mark Dunn says
A very good article. I read elsewhere that the documentary “God and Country” interviews people like Russell Moore, Al Mohler, men who are members of what some described as the evangelical deep state, or Big Eva (Big evangelical.) Liberal theologians love the sermon on the mount, but dismiss the rest of the Bible as fairytales. This has been a thing since (The mid 1700’s), and was started by the German school of higher Biblical criticism.
Jeff Bargholz says
Those left-wing dumbshits don’t even realize that The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution Of The United States are nationalist documents and all the Founding Fathers were nationalists. YOU CANT FOUND A NATION WITHOUT NATIONALISM.
After three years of authoritarianism from the Dirtbagocrat Alzheimer Joe administration, all but the dimmest of dimwitted Dirtbagocrats know who the real authoritarians are, although many are too corrupt and fanatical to care. The majority of Americans know damned well who the authoritarians and threat to America are. It’s OUR country, not theirs. They want to “fundamentally change America” – Destroy its entire fundament and rebuild it as fairy tale leftist utopia.
Fuck me but woketards are stupid.
Kynarion Hellenis says
Big Eva has become an anti-Gospel arm of the Left and the Democrat Party. No denomination has remained untainted. Christianity is being sifted.
James says
The National Socialist Workers Party of Germany hated Christians, so did Stalin’s Communists, not to mention Mao’s Communists. Castro was a fan. Why, because Christians realize they answer to a higher law and that their rights come from God. All these Godless wonders believe they are the center of the universe and cannot abide the concept that they are not the source of all wisdom and knowledge. Such is the extend of their ego.
When even one person stands up to challenge them their power begins to falter. None can stand forever, no matter how strong they may appear. None lasts for long. None can eliminate the faith of the people and replace it with the worship of Bhaal.
Beez says
RR believes the last century’s greatest lie: Nazis were Christians. There is laughter in hell.
Jeff Bargholz says
Yes, that’s as big a lie as the truly idiotic one that Hitler and his Nazi party were “right-wingers” rather than socialists.
Hitler had Churches persecuted and he nationalized as many of them as he could. Many individuals in the Nazi party were Christians because the Nazi party was the ONLY party but the party was NOT Christian.
danknight says
Christians … resisting baby murder, murder, and lies …
… are anti-Christian?
Who do these Atheist loonies think they’re fooling?
Anyone stupid enough to believe their BS …
… already votes Demokkkrat …
… if they can find a ballot harvester to take their ballot …
G-d save us from these murder loving lunatics.
Beez says
Reiner is full of shit. Nothing he says about Xians is true.
Jeff Bargholz says
He’s an inveterate liar and lies so much about Trump he can’t even keep his lies straight.
Jeff Bargholz says
I guess the Dirtbagocrat operative with the dumbass sign in the photo above didn’t have enough space to write his whole message: “Fake Christians Against Fake Christian Nationalism.”
Only misanthropic leftists could think an election can be won by calumnizing Christians, and only anti-American traitors think nationalism is bad. Dirtbagocrats combine all four vices. I remember when the D-Bags calumnized “Evangelical Christians” and they then helped Reagan get elected.
Not that there is a such thing as “Evangelical Christians” nowadays. All Christians believe in the Evangels/Gospels. It’s just a term the Dirtbagocrats use like “Christian nationalists” as bogeymen. Neither term works against Conservatives, Christians and Republicans. Only leftists are stupid enough to believe that bullshit and they all vote Dirtbagocrat anyway. The D-Bags are wasting their time and money, which is fine with me.
Patriots, real Christians and other decent people believe otherwise and there are more of us than there are of them, I reckon.
This latest campaign tactic is almost as stupid as their top one: trumpeting promises to protect the “right” of abortion out of one side of their mouths and promises to protect families out of the other. And D-Bag candidates always use their families as props and propaganda in their political ads IMMEDIATELY after promising unlimited abortions. DERP. And they promise to protect the “right” to contraception, which they bizarrely claim is “under assault by extremists.” Double DERP.
Jeff Bargholz says
Yes, it is a very good article.
The Dirtbagocrats and their fear monger propagandists stupidly think they can divide Christians and win votes with subversive nonsense about so called Christian Nationalists’ non existent “intertwining of a Christian identity with a political identity such that it can be hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.”
Sorry, D-Bag lefties, but every conservative, moderate, Republican and even most RINOs know that’s what you anti-American, illegal alien and Hamas loving woketards are doing in collusion with your Dirtbagocrat party, and not even knee-jerk and moderate Dirtbagocrat voters want Bidenflation, Biden Borders, endless wars and support for jihadi terrorist organizations. We all know what you woketards and your fake news media propagandists accuse others of is what you’re doing yourselves. THAT’S WHAT YOU ALWAYS DO. It’s your top political tactic and we all know it.
The cynics on the left and their Dirtbagocrat party only fool their own supporters with that stupid “Christian Nationalist” bullshit and they’re already Dirtbagocrats! Convincing their own voters of a lie about their hated sociopolitical opponents is futile.
The Dirtbagocrat party already has the political loyalty of knee-jerk voters so it only panders to the “woke” left but neither demographic was going to vote for Trump anyway. The party and its propagandists are just wasting their time and money, which I encourage and take pleasure from.
The Family Research Council and Catholic Vote, every FPM writer, every host on Real America’s Voice and Newsmax and conservative pundits everywhere know that ALL Christians and religious Jews believe their rights come from God and not the government, not just fairy tale “Christian Nationalists.” And oh, yeah, THE BELIEF THAT OUR RIGHTS COME FROM GOD AND NOT THE GOVERNMENT IS WRITTEN INTO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
So much for Christians being a danger to America, or even fabled “Christian Nationalists.
Mo de Profit says
Gab is Christian nationalist and sadly issued a complete savage attack against Jews after October 7th so I closed my account and unsubscribed immediately.
Jeff Bargholz says
Gab is a leftist site masquerading as a conservative one. It’s purpose is to trick conservatives and draw the crazies and frauds out to comment so it can try to discredit conservatives.
CowboyUp says
Back in the 80s, 90s, and 00s they called us “the religious right.” I like “the Christian Nationalists (patriots),” better. Thanks, morons.
Their worst Christian theocracy nightmare (which sounds almost as bad as the existing islamic theocracies they support), is better than what they offer.
Jeff Bargholz says
At the time of America’s founding, many municipalities and even states required membership in a Church to be eligible to run for public office, and was often required just to live in a particular municipality.
Those days are LONG gone. America becomes more secular by the day. As always, the leftists and their Dirtbagocrat party are promulgating reverse reality lies, which is their top form of subversion. America is in no danger of becoming a Christian theocracy, although as you noted, lefties are helping the islamopithecines so much that the koranimals think they can make America into an islamic theocracy.
If anything, America is in danger of becoming an atheist oligarchy or even a feudal country, which is what it would be if left-wing policies were implemented to their logical conclusion.
Neither outcome is likely to come to pass and not even lefties would want to live in a feudal society but they’ve always been fools without foresight. They live in the hedonistic now with all their ridiculous demands and impositions on the majority of us.
Judith2 says
10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
11 For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.
2 Thess. 3 : 10-11
But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
5 For every man shall bear his own burden. Gal 6:4-6.
Pray tell…how did anyone confuse this Christian teaching with the opposite teaching that is socialism or progressivism whereby thousands refuse to either bear their own burdens and others plan financial governing whereby they AND others eat plenty without working!!! Christianity has never condoned socialism…and even when they shared the wealth AT THE BEGINNING…it was among themselves…not with those who rejected Christ…all these premises are crazy and false…it’s not nationalism…it’s American constitutionality based on Biblical principles as seen above., of independence and self sufficiency and never Marxism. Period.
Judith2 says
10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
11 For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.
2 Thess. 3 : 10-11
But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
5 For every man shall bear his own burden. Gal 6:4-6
Christianity has no resemblance to socialism as these Biblical teachings show. Christianity is THE OPPOSITE of socialism …Christianity owns no welfare state and consists of self- sufficient independent citizens.. that is Christianity…as the USA used to be when there were REAL Christians…Catholic jesuits and other leftists have now turned their religion into socialism confusing compassion for the needy with a government controlled nanny state that is offensive to Christianity…and makes z country into a dysfunctional society of part workers burdened by supporting a flood of parasites.
Kasandra says
Wait a minute. If one rejects the concept of natural rights, then where do rights come from? Doesn’t this rejection mean that all rights come from the government which can parcel them out, or not, as it sees fit? And if that’s the case, doesn’t that mean the people holding those views are totalitarians? No thank you Mr. Reiner. Did you ever stop to consider that the logical endpoint of your views is that it would give the government the power to tell you that you had no right to make “Spinal Tap?”. No, I don’t think it did.
Jeff Bargholz says
Yes, exactly. Woketards like Reiner would suffer the most under the government tyranny that would result if all their stupid policy demands were implemented to their logical conclusion.
owensgate says
Mmmm.. Let’s see… I am a Christian, and I believe the USA is indeed, as Eric Hoffer said, “The only thing new in history”. I believe our nation was founded on Biblical principles by Bible believing Christians. I believe our nation should be first in line when Congress throws money around. I believe the USA should be first in war. first in peace, and second after God in the hearts of its countrymen. Not sure, but I think that makes me a “Christian Nationalist”. So, wadayagonna do about it??
Robert L. Kahlcke says
I’am a White Christian who supports Israel one thousand percent. If there is anyone who is unhappy about this they can kiss my A_S.
Down Easter says
“I’ve seen over the years that they’re incredibly organized, incredibly well funded, and have attained tremendous power, Where are these churches he is describing? This sounds like some fantasy land dreamed up in Hollywood.
Kevin says
Reiner’s description sounds a lot more like leftists and the communists attacking the Church.
Jeff Bargholz says
Left-wing projection at its most common. Leftism truly is a form of derangement.
Kevin says
Sadly, what’s happened to America in this generation can be seen in Leviticus 26 when God describes the judgements a nation goes through when they reject God’s laws.
Shai Ben-Tekoa says
“Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla said…’The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists…is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court. They come from God.’”
The ignorance of American legal theory and stupidity here is breath-taking. When Authority is from God, you have “unalienable rights” that no human despot, Fuhrer, dictator, Stalin, Ayatollah, Imam can take from you.
ArnoldF says
Mark, the Christian nationalism is a smear by leftists to label anyone who resists their agenda as somehow in line with fascism. That is a total lie. Christians are called to love God first, then family and neighbor/region/city/nation second. Christians are called to be Salt and Light in the culture, meaning the church is called to represent Jesus and live out the moral laws of God in front of the nation. The reason America and most of the West are totally falling into the sewer is that the Christians and the church forgot to be Salt to oppose the wicked who have raised their fists at God. Christianity is the only institution that has a sufficient mandate and resources to save the nation from impending destruction. I recommend to readers a Christian conservative Steve Deace and his podcast to understand that a return to Christian nationalism (not fascism as leftists accuse) is what is required to turn the country around. Those committed to wickedness will never understand this, just as the Caesars persecuted those who held fast to the Christian view of God.
Onzeur Trante says
Can we expect “Christian Nationalists” to be called Nachis for short in the days ahead?
Capitalist-Dad says
Count me in on Christian Nationalism, since it rightly rejects leftist lies. We need more conservative warriors like the Irish Prince in Braveheart, who was crystal clear on what motivated him to fight—just substitute leftists for “the English.”
Rachelle says
If the Christian population of this country is as focused and determined as most of Israel’s Jewish population, it may be reasonable to assume that they can and will fight and speak out for themselves. More power to them. At some point a backlash will set in. November seems a good date for that.
Martina Vaslovik says
The Lord Jesus Christ is my savior thankyouverymuch, and the only one I need.