Today is Friday, September 23, 2022. A troubling online article for The Nation lays out how Republicans are ready to declare the United States a Christian nation, despite being antithetical to the principles of this country’s foundation. This is another reason to reject this party in light of the upcoming midterm elections. The article is written by John Nichols and it’s entitled “Republicans Are Ready to Declare the United States a Christian Nation.”

The first paragraph reminds readers who are ignorant of American history that the first President, George Washington, made a commitment to the Jews of Newport that his administration would respect all religions and to maintain the separation of church and state that was outlined in the First Amendment to its new Constitution.

Washington made it clear to the congregation of Truro Synagogue, one of the oldest Jewish congregations in the United States, that this new country would not be a land where one religion would be favored while the followers of other faiths would be dismissed as “dissenters.”

This is the American creed and it is this fundamental principle that has spurred presidents to go out of their way to celebrate all religions, as Dwight Eisenhower did when he dedicated the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., way back in 1957. This led Eisenhower to declare, “under the American Constitution, under American tradition, and in American hearts, this Center, this place of worship, is just as welcome as could be a similar edifice of any other religion.”

Even one other Republican president, Ronald Reagan, affirmed the country’s founding creed in a speech at Temple Hillel in Valley Stream, New York, in 1984, saying, in part, “Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not to believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their behalf.”

Both of these former leaders of the free world were Republicans and were aware of the philosophy behind the separation of church and state which was sacrosanct, and they agreed with Democrats about this as well.

Fast forward to our insane age where new polling suggest that a majority position of American Republicans is that the United States should declare itself to be a Christian nation.

This poll, conducted in May of 2,091 Americans, by the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll group, asked, “Would you favor or oppose the United States officiating declaring the United States to be a Christian Nation?” Sixty-one percent of the repugnican respondents expressed support for the declaration, while just 39 percent said they were opposed. These are scary figures. This poll now affirms that a majority of those calling themselves repugnican are willing to toss aside the Constitution to declare this nation a Christian one. They seem not to care about the historical precedents of the country at all.

The academics who conducted the survey, professors Stella Rouse and Shibley Telhami, said in an interview with Politico that this belief is stronger in older generations.

This survey shines a spotlight on a growing movement in this country that is prepared to tear down the wall of separation between church and state and pronounce this pluralistic society to be a nation in which one religion – their own – reigns supreme.

While prominent conservatives such as Reagan and Barry Goldwater once defended religious pluralism and distanced themselves from the far-right fringe, we have the former insurrectionist who has frequently amplified antidemocratic and white supremacist memes that have long been associated with Christian nationalism. Who can forget the boob posing with an upside-down Bible in Washington’s Lafayette Square after Black Lives Matter protesters were violently removed in June 2020? Then there is the putrid Marjorie Taylor Greene, a diehard Dumpf ally, who openly declared, “I’m a proud Christian Nationalist.”

Thus “Christian Nationalism has been mainstreamed to such an extent that it is now the accepted faith of the party faithful.” And Greene is not the only elected Republican promoting the ideas associated with a movement that Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) terms as “the American Taliban.”

Then there is the case of Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert who appeared at a church in the state for a televised service, who snarlingly announced – and ignorantly, I must add – “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk that’s not in the Constitution.”

This inflammatory doppelgänger of Greene had the audacity to add, “The church is supposed to direct the government.”

We all know that Greene and Boebert are flatly wrong here, as is Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano (who is a real fascist, in my opinion) when he dismisses the separation of church and state as “a myth.”

The good news in all of this is the vast majority of Americans that are not fooled by a small contingent of repugnican lunatics like Greene, Boebert, and even Ron DeSant-ASS – who is actively promoting a Civics Literacy Excellence Initiative that wants high school students to be taught that the founders of the American experiment didn’t really believe in maintaining the “wall of separation” that Thomas Jefferson wrote about to Connecticut’s Danbury Baptists – and who do respect religious pluralism every bit as much as the founders did. By a solid 62-38 margin, respondents to the Critical Issues Poll said they opposed officially declaring this country to be a Christian nation. To make sure that the overall electorate reject the republican leaning toward Christian nationalism, it is incumbent upon Democrats now to start making an issue of the fact that the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Reagan is rapidly morphing into the party of Boebert, Greene, and Mastriano (God forbid he’s elected!) that is calling for the deconstruction of the wall of separation between church and state.

I found this online article about an alarming trend in this country very disturbing, especially after Elliot and I had just finished the first installment of Ken Burn’s three-part documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust which examined what occurred in Germany over 80 years ago, in which it declared the national “religion,” so it were, to be that of Nazism and anyone not subscribing to it was persecuted, primarily Jews. We cannot allow history to repeat itself here, with members of a lunatic fringe forgetting their oaths of office and their duty to uphold the Constitution. One can’t help while watching the series that chronicles events that happened many decades ago to see our present time reflected back in the telling of those events. The parallels between Hitler and the present deification of a cult repugnican leader are very clear to those who are brave enough to acknowledge them.

Anyway, here was a little food for thought.

For those who observe, Sunday marks the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year (5783). We usually say, “Shana Tovah,” which means “have a good year.”

I might not have a blog tomorrow since we are having a few people over for a pre-holiday meal. So let’s see what develops tomorrow.

Stay safe and be well.