Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.
Peter Wehner at The Atlantic:Michael Flynn: “I’m encouraged by pastors who are part of our effort .. and pastors who have stood up and fought back against this takeover by the govt. There’s no separation of church and state. The church and the state are one.” pic.twitter.com/pbMk6Zxs4r
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) October 29, 2022
In November, Flynn told a packed sanctuary at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God.” He has described this as “a moment in time where this is good versus evil.”
“Mike Flynn has emerged as a martyr and a mascot for the far-right contingent of the Christian-nationalist movement in the United States,” Samuel Perry, a sociology professor at the University of Oklahoma, a scholar of Christian nationalism, and himself a person of the Christian faith, told Frontline.
What is being done by many people on the American right in the name of Jesus is a desecration of the actual Jesus—the Jesus of the Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount, and the parable of the Good Samaritan; the Jesus who shattered social, cultural, and religious barriers and hung out with the “wrong” crowd; the Jesus who was drawn to the forsaken and the despised, the marginalized and the outcast; the Jesus who demonstrated profound mistrust of political power and who declined Satan’s offer of the kingdoms of the world. The Jesus who said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” and “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” and “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of the Lord.” The Jesus who won, even if haltingly and imperfectly, the affections of my heart many years ago.
It doesn’t seem to have dawned on too many Christian nationalists and MAGA “culture warriors” that the people with whom Jesus clashed most intensely, and who eventually crucified him, were those who wielded political and religious power.
