USA Today Article on Christian Nationalism

Forum category

This article was posted on MSN. They tend to post articles from a wide range of opinion. The article was originally posted in USA Today and is by a Baptist Seminary professor. I appreciated his balanced approach.

What is Christian nationalism? Here's what Rob Reiner's new movie gets wrong. (msn.com)

The article provides some important data that puts the subject of Christian nationalism into some important perspective and challenges some of our prejudices on the subject of Christian nationalism.

Only 5% of Americans self-identify as Christian nationalists, and only 11% of Americans fit the category of “adherents.”

What is interesting is that even among Americans who fit the label, most display pro-Democratic ideals.

The survey also found that the conflation of conservative Christian Republicans with Christian nationalists is in error. While 60% of Christian nationalists are Republicans, 40% are either Democrats or independents. And only 17% of Republicans are adherents to Christian nationalism.

Discussion

Today on MSNBC, Heidi Przybyla says that if you believe that rights come from God, you’re a Christian nationalist.

Is that correct?

Yes, Dan, she is a writer for Politico and is very concerned about people believing that rights come from God and pointed out that many call this "natural law."

I would like to point out that the ideas of natural law did not originate with people in our generation though. The theory of natural law has a long history here in the United States of America. Some of you may be familiar with this quote from 1776:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That same document also has these words in its first paragraph:

to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them