I should introduce myself properly before this part, because it matters here more than it did in Part One.
I am Episcopalian. I probably misspelled that. Which tells you everything you need to know about the depth of my devotion. But I do have my own relationship with God, it doesn’t require your children to memorize passages from a Chinese-printed Trump Bible, and it doesn’t require my wife to fetch anyone a beer.
What it does require, occasionally, is calling something out when it’s being done in God’s name that God would find deeply embarrassing.
So here we are.
Christian Nationalism has become the banner of this administration the way a flag gets planted on conquered ground. Thump that Bible — or is it Trump that Bible — in the name of hate and greed. It always works. It has always worked. From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the burning of crosses on lawns, someone has always found a way to wrap ugliness in scripture and call it righteousness.
From a pulpit, it sure sounds good.
I want to be precise about something. I have no argument with Christianity. I have no argument with faith, with prayer, with the comfort and community and moral framework that genuine religious life provides. What I have an argument with is the weaponization of Christianity for political ends by people whose behavior suggests they haven’t read past the cover of the book they’re thumping.
The Constitution says separation of Church and State. Not as a suggestion. Not as a starting point for negotiation. As a founding principle. You want your First Amendment rights? You want your Second Amendment rights? Then the rest of the document applies too, whether it’s convenient or not. That’s not a liberal argument. That’s just how documents work.
Let me tell you about Nancy Mace.
I received her campaign materials. Every single piece of communication from her campaign contained exactly two things: a declaration that she is a Christian, and a demand to deport Ilhan Omar because she allegedly celebrates the deaths of slain Americans and Jews. No proof offered. No policy proposed. No single word about what she would actually do for the people she wanted to represent.
Just: I am Christian. Hate the different. Deport the different.
She lost. Good.
But she is not alone and she is not the point. She is a symptom. The disease is the movement that produced her, funded her, and will produce ten more like her in the next cycle. The movement that has decided hate is a platform, fear is a policy, and Christianity is a costume you put on to make both of those things sound holy.
Not a single word about what they will do for you. Only what they will do to someone else.
Sound familiar? It should. We covered that ground in Part One with the Black Horse. The pattern is the same — no vision, no plan, no positive case. Just the enemy at the gates and your donation standing between civilization and destruction.
Here is what Christian Nationalism actually is, stripped of the scripture and the flags and the pageantry.
It is HATE.
Hate for anyone not like you. Hate for anyone who has more than you. Hate for anyone whose skin is darker than yours — as if that makes yours any whiter. Hate dressed in a Sunday suit, carrying a Chinese-printed Bible, standing in front of a flag, telling you God is on its side.
The horsemen we met in Part One — War, Famine, Disease — those are catastrophic. Those are the kind of things that end up in history books with casualty counts and timelines.
But hate is the disease that makes all of them possible. Hate is what convinces a population to look away while children go hungry. Hate is what makes a war feel righteous even when it isn’t. Hate is what fills the vacuum when competent public health officials get fired and replaced with people who agree with the podcaster.
Hate is the pre-existing condition that makes every other disease worse.
And it is being marketed to you right now, from pulpits and platforms and campaign emails, as Christianity.
I know half of you stopped reading two paragraphs ago. Too close to home. The mirror got uncomfortable. Feel free to call me a few choice names on your way out — I’ve heard most of them and the ones I haven’t heard I can probably guess.
For the rest of you — the ones still at the table — Part Three is where we ask the question nobody in power wants asked out loud.
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