Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

How the Left Exploits 'Christian Nationalism'
Amerivan Thinker ^ | 10 Sep, 2024 | Warren Beatty

Posted on 09/10/2024 5:07:43 AM PDT by MtnClimber

Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma, in a New Yorker cover article by Eliza Griswold, said, "The greatest ethnic dog whistle the right has ever come up with is 'Christian' because it means 'people like us,' it means white." The quote appeared in a paragraph that began with: "The election of Donald Trump intensified certain strains of Christian nationalism."

However, the Reverend Franklin Graham, son of the late Reverend Billy Graham, maintains; "'Christian nationalism' -- that's a coin that the media has come up with. It is to divide our country; it's to polarize people. Christian nationalism doesn't exist, it's just another name to throw at Christians. The left is very good at calling people names."

The Moral Majority led the Christian Right into the political arena. The organization was credited with an important part in Ronald Reagan's election. Reagan's combination of Evangelicalism and vision of American exceptionalism helped further cement the union between Evangelicals and the Republican Party. The Left and MSM recognized that Christians entering politics posed a threat, they required a 'scare' phrase so they coined one: ' Christian nationalism'

Christian nationalism (as a cultural condition defined by the Left) reached new heights when Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. He became an overt champion of Christian nationalism. Trumpism is, the MSM maintains, the latest version of Christian Nationalism. Trump says he will 'take back the country' from the outsiders and invaders who have taken control (whom the MSM says are immigrants, secularists, Muslims, and Mexicans). The Left views Christian Nationalism as a cultural threat because "Christian nationalists believe, in general, that America is Christian, that the government should keep it that way, and that Trump was -- and is -- their best hope to accomplish that."

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: leftism; r
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

1 posted on 09/10/2024 5:07:43 AM PDT by MtnClimber
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Since when has “Christian” been a bad word while “Muslim” and “Marxism” have become good words. Only in Bizarro World.


2 posted on 09/10/2024 5:07:53 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page. More photos added.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

From the left it’s intended as an insult.

Beyond that, what’s so bad about being a nationalist?

Here’s the current Webster definition (I’ll have to compare to an old dictionary sometime):

“a member of a political party or group advocating national independence or strong national government”

I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, I’d say it’s patriotic.

Here’s the definition of “patriot”:

“one who loves and supports his or her country”

So if I want the US government to govern the US as defined by its Constitution “strongly”, I see no problem here.

Maybe you could argue that a strong national government contradicts our constitutional order of federalism, but not if you define the “government” as that which is defined by it’s Constitution. Otherwise, you’re looking for some “other” government.

With that concept in mind, it’s the left who, for example, want to take abortion out of the hands of the states, would be the nationalists.

The only problem with that is that the left hates, not loves, the country.


3 posted on 09/10/2024 5:23:51 AM PDT by fruser1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
The greatest ethnic dog whistle the right has ever come up with is 'Christian' because it means 'people like us,' it means white."

Apparently Eliza Griswold has no clue as to what she is talking about. Christians come in every color, not just white, and perhaps not even predominately white anymore.

The problem with the left is that they see what they want to see, not what is the reality.

As a Jew, perhaps she had better tone down the rhetoric, because the left is coming after her too. Even if she is a Jew for Palestine, they will turn on her when she is no longer needed as the temporary ally.

4 posted on 09/10/2024 5:26:08 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Christians are not Globalists because God is the one who separated the nations. Christians are God’s Ambassadors to the nations. We advocate for our King who is coming back soon to judge the quick and the dead. If the nations we reside in reject our message and our King, we move to other nations.


5 posted on 09/10/2024 5:39:40 AM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Robert DeLong

U. of Oklahoma. Samuel Perry. Sam K. Viersen Presidential Professor. Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2015. Office: KAUF 328. Phone: (405) 325-1751. Email: samperry@ou.edu.


6 posted on 09/10/2024 5:40:10 AM PDT by Bookshelf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Robert DeLong

the larger problem with left is they DEMAND you see what they say you see in spite of you NOT seeing what they tell you you are seeing. is that gaslighting? remember friends,”conservatives seek agreement while liberals demand compliance” L.Star


7 posted on 09/10/2024 5:42:15 AM PDT by Qwapisking ("IF the Second goes first the First goes second" L.Star)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

It is because they fear the only true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.


8 posted on 09/10/2024 5:53:51 AM PDT by grcuster
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Qwapisking

I was taught as a child that one should live by christian ideals to maintain a moral society; the whole “do not lie, steal, murder thing. I was also taught that America was the most awesome nation on earth , the “shining city on the hill”. So being an America first Christian should be what we all aspire to. A Christian nationalist! Now I am being told that I’m the bad guy. I feel like the character in movie “falling down”. “I did everything I was supposed to do, and now I’m the bad guy?”


9 posted on 09/10/2024 5:56:59 AM PDT by ozarker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: grcuster
It is because they fear the only true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Exactly. John 15:18 - “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you."

10 posted on 09/10/2024 6:05:50 AM PDT by CommerceComet (Re-elect Donald Trump - AGAIN)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Say “Love” in a snickering devisive tone and it will sound evil.

That is all they are doing.

Both sides do it, LIBERAL!

PINKO is bad either way...associates more bad with the term that used to mean open minded but now follows the snicker of closed-minded.

Look at the Rainbow minus green.


11 posted on 09/10/2024 6:28:49 AM PDT by If You Want It Fixed - Fix It
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Bookshelf
Yes, Steven Perry said it, but the New Yorker magazine & Eliza agree with him and that's the reason they did the article. Birds of a feather.

Leftists use division to drive wedges between people, because division destroys unity.

12 posted on 09/10/2024 6:31:11 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Qwapisking

Actually they know normal people will never see what they see, because their true goal is to sow division. Because division destroys unity, and a nation divided can not last long with the division tearing it apart.


13 posted on 09/10/2024 6:33:10 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
The 1960 election was between Richard Nixon, a white Protestant, and John F. Kennedy, a white Catholic. Most people would say that both were Christians. Billy Graham was horrified at the prospect that Kennedy might win. I don't know if he was sufficiently reassured by Kennedy's speech to Protestant ministers in Houston.

There are still some Protestants who don't consider Catholics to be Christians.

The whole "Christian Nationalist" label is just leftist agitprop anyway.

14 posted on 09/10/2024 6:52:15 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Verginius Rufus

Exactly. What am I supposed to be? A pagan globalist?


15 posted on 09/10/2024 7:11:23 AM PDT by Persevero (You cannot comply your way out of tyranny. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Robert DeLong

While projecting racism they expose that it’s really them that are racist. Saying ‘Christian means white’ is a racist comment. It implies all other colors are not and would not be Christian’s, which is inherently anti-Christian.


16 posted on 09/10/2024 7:18:42 AM PDT by fuzzylogic (welfare state = sharing of poor moral choices among everybody)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

If “Christian nationalism” means not wanting to see my country overrun by Muslims who are out to ban my faith, then sign me up.


17 posted on 09/10/2024 7:27:12 AM PDT by Socon-Econ (adi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
"The greatest ethnic dog whistle the right has ever come up with is 'Christian' because it means 'people like us,' it means white."

Lady, normally I would ask you to define what you mean by "white" because you likely have no idea.

But in this case I will just point out that you are wrong. The majority of Christians are not white. Not unless you want to define white so broadly as to include the entire human race.

18 posted on 09/10/2024 8:04:03 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

If you were Satan, which religion would YOU make into a bad word, while allowing the others?


19 posted on 09/10/2024 8:50:33 AM PDT by Nea Wood ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: fruser1

The Left hasn’t a clue that “nationalism” is itself a leftist phrase, meaning centralized power in a national government, thus Teddy Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism.” Woodrow Wilson, himself a socialist, correctly called TR’s nationalism socialist.


20 posted on 09/10/2024 12:56:42 PM PDT by nicollo (Remember when we had to close tags?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson