Confront the threat of Theocratic Christian Nationalists with the Truth: Part One
The Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty
Virginia Anglicans attacking and “Re-Baptizing Baptists in the 1780s
Robert Henlein wrote:
“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.”
We are watching that take place across the country as MAGA Christian Nationalists ban books, make laws that explicitly deny the rights of non-Christians to free speech, protection from religious discrimination, educational opportunities, medical care, equal protection under the law, and numerous other civil rights and religious liberties.
I have been studying and writing about Christian Nationalism for years, in large part because I was part of Churches that were committed to it. That experience began in college when the Presbyterian Church I attended in the San Fernando Valley hosted some of the early Christian Nationalists promoting a mythological interpretation of America’s founding by English Colonists, and a complete misrepresentation of the influence of Christian beliefs, including outright lies allegedly about how Madison, Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Franklin and others intended to establish a “Christian Nation.”
Most of their teachings go back to the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, men who were hyper-Calvinists who believed that they were to establish their version of John Calvin’s Geneva theocracy in the New World. The fact that they had been an often persecuted minority in England only appeared to motivate them in persecuting Quakers, Baptists, Mennonites and other minority Christian groups, especially women who were often accused of witchcraft.
The late Gary North was a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement which had an outsized influence on Christian involvement in politics from the 1980s on. Though he is little known since he kept a relatively low profile, he was a leading advisor to Ron and Rand Paul and numerous other GOP leaders and conservative think tanks from the 1980s on. He said:
“The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant–baptism and holy communion–must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.”
What the Christian Nationalist leaders leave out is that these were not the beliefs of Jefferson who was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and the Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty, and Madison, the man who crafted the Bill of Rights, most importantly the First Amendment which established the freedoms, of speech, association, and religious liberty, but which also created the Establishment Clause which deliberately prevented the Federal Government from naming any denomination, or even more broadly the Christian faith as the state religion. Jefferson and Madison were assisted by the great Virginia Baptist leader, John Leland whose congregations were being physically attacked by Anglicans who were determined to make the new Episcopal Church, the former Church of England the State Religion of both Virginia and the new nation.
The Virginia Statute served as a model for the First Amendment. Passed in 1786 the statute read:
An Act for establishing religious Freedom
Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free;
That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do,
That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;
That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions, which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical;
That even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the Ministry those temporary rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind;
That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,
That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right,
That it tends only to corrupt the principles of that very Religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess and conform to it;
That though indeed, these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way;
That to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own;
That it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order;
And finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
Be it enacted by General Assembly that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities. And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.”
John Leland who like his predecessor in Rhode Island, Roger Williams, who fought against the theocrats of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote:
“The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. … Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”
Leland also wrote:
“Is conformity of sentiments in matters of religion essential to the happiness of civil government? Not at all. Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear–maintain the principles that he believes–worship according to his own faith, either one God, three Gods, no God, or twenty Gods; and let government protect him in so doing, i.e., see that he meets with no personal abuse or loss of property for his religious opinions. Instead of discouraging him with proscriptions, fines, confiscation or death, let him be encouraged, as a free man, to bring forth his arguments and maintain his points with all boldness; then if his doctrine is false it will be confuted, and if it is true (though ever so novel) let others credit it. When every man has this liberty what can he wish for more? A liberal man asks for nothing more of government.”
Thomas Paine, the author of the amazing little book “Common Sense” which was so much a part of the thought of our founders noted, “Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.”
If you value freedom those words may be hopeful; but if you don’t, they are a threat, a threat of unlimited government and religious power. The fact is, that all of us, regardless of our religious beliefs, or lack thereof must take them to heart when we proclaim our loyalty to the Constitution, and our belief in the First Amendment to it, if we don’t we actively proclaim our opposition to the ideals of our Founders, but I digress. The simple fact and problem is that authoritarians and theocrats hate the First Amendment, and have to twist it to ensure that only their rights are protected and enhanced. However, the Virginia Statute, and the First Amendment at meant by the Founders, threatens their desires of theocracy and unbridled state power, and so long as we believe it and fight for it, undermines their power. My friends, if you know history, that is not a bad thing. As John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton wrote: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men…”.
Robert Ingersoll was one of this most prominent skeptics in this country and an acknowledged atheist, wrote something quite profound in understanding the nature of what our founders intended and why there were protections both for and from religion in the Constitution:
“They knew that to put God in the constitution was to put man out. They knew that the recognition of a Deity would be seized upon by fanatics and zealots as a pretext for destroying the liberty of thought. They knew the terrible history of the church too well to place in her keeping or in the keeping of her God the sacred rights of man. They intended that all should have the right to worship or not to worship that our laws should make no distinction on account of creed. They intended to found and frame a government for man and for man alone. They wished to preserve the individuality of all to prevent the few from governing the many and the many from persecuting and destroying the few.”
Ingersoll correctly reflected the thoughts of Jefferson, Madison, Adams and even George Washington as well as early Virginia Baptist John Leland, and other pioneers of religious liberty like Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island.
I will continue this over the coming days because it is important. While Donald Trump rallies Christian Nationalists to his side, GOP Governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbot transform these theocratic ideas into law. The targeted severity and harshness of these laws couldn’t be better done by the Taliban.
I ask you to take the time to read as I post these articles and to share them. If you value Civil Rights, Religious Rights, the Rights of racial and religious minorities, women, and the LGBTQ+ community you must have an understanding of the facts, and not the theocratic myth that is the staple of MAGA Christian Nationalist politics today. This really matters.
Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting, and subscribing.