Jess Piper: Missouri Is a Christian Nationalist State, Despite the U.S. Constitution

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1. retired teacher says:

   July 21, 2024 at 9:57 am

   All people should be able to worship freely. However, given the fact that Christian Nationalism is a threat to democracy, perhaps it should be labeled a hate group along with M4L. Self-professed Christian Nationalists should not be eligible to hold public office since their beliefs violate the First Amendment. These extremists are working on flipping the levers of power, and they are becoming more emboldened and powerful. The Supreme Court is rubber stamping their policies, and the result is creating a more divisive, abusive, and, frankly, hateful society, all in the name of Jesus.

   “The ‘Christian’ in Christian nationalism is more about identity than religion and carries with it assumptions about nativism, white supremacy, authoritarianism, patriarchy, and militarism.”

   https://www.americanprogress.org/article/christian-nationalism-is-single-biggest-threat-to-americas-religious-freedom/

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   • Duane E Swacker says:

     July 21, 2024 at 11:43 am

     “Self-professed Christian Nationalists should not be eligible to hold public office since their beliefs violate the First Amendment.”

     Wow, just wow! Really? That kind of statement is what makes people think that the supposed left in this county is intolerant, prejudiced and/or otherwise Stalinesque in their beliefs. You’re dead wrong with that thought.

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     • retired teacher says:

       July 21, 2024 at 12:22 pm

       It’s not a position I like either. However, if felons can be disenfranchised, why should people that do not believe in the explicit principles listed in The Constitution be allowed to run for public office? These folks don’t intend to follow The Constitution, they intend to rewrite it, and they are actively putting all the pieces in place to do just that. The Supreme Court is ignoring law and precedent so that a few can trample on the rights of the majority, and it seems we have no tools at our disposal to defend democracy.

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     • Duane E Swacker says:

       July 21, 2024 at 12:31 pm

       Felons shouldn’t be disenfranchised, especially after they have served their sentence(s).

       No doubt that the SC as currently composed is on the xtian theofascist side 6-3.

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     • Bob Shepherd says:

       July 21, 2024 at 2:02 pm

       One of the weird things about a democracy is that in one, people can go to the polls and vote to end democracy.

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     • retired teacher says:

       July 21, 2024 at 12:59 pm

       Disenfranchisement of felons is common in The South and some parts of the Midwest. In FL the state tacks on a bunch fees most felons cannot pay in order to ensure they cannot vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Felony_Disenfranchisement_laws_per_US_State.pdf

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     • Duane E Swacker says:

       July 21, 2024 at 1:43 pm

       And that is a sad, (and bad) state of affairs.

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     • retired teacher says:

       July 21, 2024 at 1:06 pm

       My frustration is showing today!

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   • dianeravitch says:

     July 21, 2024 at 1:55 pm

     As a blogger pointed out several weeks ago, what we now call “white Christian nationalism” used to be called the Ku Klux Klan.

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2. pabonner says:

   July 21, 2024 at 11:46 am

   My father was an Episcopal priest who led the movement to desegregate all aspects of the Chattanooga Community. In an oral history he claimed God encouraged him to pick up the phone and use his network of Black ministers and city business leaders to get lunch counters integrated in 1960. He succeeded. Yet, John Bonner was an ardent advocate of the separation of church and state. When I was in elementary school we had weekly Bible class. Dad insisted that his children would stay in the library during such instruction. Dad never hung an American flag outside of our house. Not because he hated our country, but explicitly because he loved our Constitution. He also lobbied against the annual armed forces day parade held the Friday of Memorial Day. In my time in the South as an educator I have witnessed a constant push against the line placed by the Establishment Clause. Whether it was coaches praying before a game, prayers around the flag, or Christian themed assemblies, many of us simply did not participate or ignored these violations. As Tim Alberta so eloquently writes, Christian Nationalism is not Christian. In the gospels, Jesus tells his followers that the focus should be on our individual behavior for the sake of serving community. Jesus predicted unrest, not driven by the righteous, but by those who don’t understand what God is calling them to be yet simply see themselves chosen to tell everyone else what to do. I, for one, believe that our adherence to a separation of church and state is what makes our individual search for meaning, no matter the faith or belief, more vibrant and authentic.

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   • retired teacher says:

     July 21, 2024 at 12:54 pm

     Well said. The Texas pastors, many of whom are Baptists, have been big defenders of public education. They understand how important it is to bring different socioeconomic and ethnic groups together to promote tolerance and mutual understanding. Privatization is designed to separate young people by race and class.

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     • dianeravitch says:

       July 21, 2024 at 5:03 pm

       The Texas pastors (Pastors for Texas Children) believe in separation of church and state, which used to be a fundamental American value. The pastors understand that the church must be protected from the state, and the state must be protected from the church.

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   • Bob Shepherd says:

     July 21, 2024 at 1:48 pm

     Extraordinarily well said, Paul!

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   • Greg R. Flick (Rockhound2) says:

     July 21, 2024 at 2:36 pm

     👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

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   • dianeravitch says:

     July 21, 2024 at 5:10 pm

     Paul,
     I love your father.

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     • pabonner says:

       July 21, 2024 at 8:27 pm

       Both my father and my mother came from elite agrarian Southern families. Yet, they somehow became quite progressive in their outlook. This is a future memoir project I hope to take on someday.

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     • dianeravitch says:

       July 21, 2024 at 10:36 pm

       Paul, do it!

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     • Bob Shepherd says:

       July 22, 2024 at 1:58 am

       I would read that memoir.

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3. Lloyd Lofthouse says:

   July 21, 2024 at 2:30 pm

   Maybe Jess Piper could trade her farm for one in California owned by one of Traitor Trump’s MAGA Christian Nationalist cult followers. There are several rural counties that voted heavily for the traitor in 2016 and 2020, so there may be at least one MAGA lunatic who would be willing to trade to escape this blue state where there are twice as many registered Democrats than Republicans. California is the largest agricultural state in the country.

   “United States, at over $58 billion. The next highest states were Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, Indiana, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.”

   To start looking, all she has to do is pick one of the red counties.

   California Election Results 2020 | Live Map Updates | Voting by County & District (politico.com)

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4. quikwrit says:

   July 21, 2024 at 3:24 pm

   Christian nationalists see Jesus as a failure.

   Jesus preached His Way of living throughout the New Testament, as in The Sermon of the Mount [Matt 5:3-12] where He declared that “Blessed are the meek [meaning, the gentle; the considerate; the humble]” — but Christian nationalists view such teachings of Jesus as not having worked to make the world into the world they want; so, Christian nationalists have a “better” way: Instead of the humility that Jesus taught and lived, the Christian nationalists have decided on pride, as in The Proud Boys.

   Jesus told Peter to put away his sword and that “those who take the sword shall die by the sword” (Matt 26:52). But Christian nationalists view Christ’s teaching of putting away the weapons as having failed, so they have turned to arming themselves with more and more guns.

   What today’s Christian nationalists fail to understand is that if God had wanted Jesus to conquer evil with force, He would have sent Jesus to Earth, descending from the heavens on a golden throne amid clouds with flashing bolts of lightning and surrounded and backed up by a heaven-filling army of terrifying and unkillable angels.

   Instead, God sent Jesus to Earth to be born in a stinking stable to poor, totally obscure parents of total unimportance in a world dominated by the mighty Roman Empire.

   Christ’s Gospel of meekness, repentance, forgiveness, love, and service to others has failed: God got it wrong.

   Today’s Christian nationalists think that it is now up to THEM to make the world right — no more meekness, no more putting away the sword.

   Instead, Christian nationalists arm themselves with pride and guns and political power to intimidate and to force others to live the “right” way.

   Christian nationalists have sidelined the teaching of Christ and have turned instead to follow a person of pride, boasting, deceit, and trickery to show God and Jesus how saving the world should have been done.

   Blinded by their own self-righteousness, Christian nationalists have been unable to read the warning from Jesus in MATTHEW 7: 21-23 which reads: “And Jesus said: ‘Many of you will say to Me on Judgment Day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name drive out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly: ‘I never knew you. Depart from Me, you evildoers’!”

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   • pabonner says:

     July 21, 2024 at 8:14 pm

     Yep. Jesus also to;d his followers to tend to the the log in their own eye before tending to the splinter in their neighbors eye. Christian Nationalists lack that level of self awareness.

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5. Catherine King says:

   July 22, 2024 at 6:10 am

   Diane: “She has confronted state leaders, and they uniformly told her to move to another state.”

   There’s nothing left to say but: OMG! with no pun intended . . . only a direct 911-OMG! call. CBK

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