It's not just "Strip Search" Sam Alito basing his decision to overturn Roe on a 17th-century jurist who condemned women to death for being "witches". It's not just Amy "Offred" Barrett, the Supreme Court's first Handmaiden, telling graduates of Notre Dame Law School that the sole purpose of a legal career is "building the kingdom of God". And it's not just right-wing christian Matthew Kacsmaryk rejecting twenty years of scientific data in favor of faith-based nonsense in order to ban mifepristone.
It's everywhere.
Preacher Sean Feucht wants to replace the secular, Constitution-based gov't of the US with a gov't based solely on scripture. Impose christian nationalism by force, where only true believers make the rules. The president of a seminary in Minnesota agrees. So do a lot of people in Idaho. Christian nationalist members of Congress like Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar and others shout it from the steps of the Capitol: it's the "cross or the sword!" In fact, according to polls, 7 out of 10 Republican voters nation-wide believe the US is a "christian nation." Democrats, at almost 50%, are not far behind.
Christian hate groups help political officials spread misinformation about the LGBTQ+ community. They put up homophobic billboards. They teach parents to reject their children, if their children happen to be lesbian or gay. They threaten to kill gays and lesbians. They pray for their "eternal damnation," and, to help the situation along, Pastor Dillon Awes of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas, recommends shooting LGBTQ+ folks "in the back of the head," execution style. Praise Jesus.
In Arizona, a christian organization was given legal permission to "hide" information related to its members who sexually abuse children. In Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Nebraska, christian-controlled legislatures voted to ban abortion after six weeks. In South Carolina, a christian-controlled legislature is pushing a law that equates aborting a "fetus" with murdering a "living [] person". In Ohio, a teacher at a public middle school refused to use her students' preferred pronouns because it "violates her religion". In Tennessee, Republican officials attribute the epidemic in gun violence to "demonic possession". In Texas, which has the highest level of violent crime in the nation, including the highest number of murders, the governor wants to put the Ten Commandments into public schools.
Speaking of public schools and Mosaic law, a distraught mother from Texas recently demanded the same thing, for roughly the same reason. The Decalogue should be posted in every classroom in every school in the state, she argued, because doing so will restore "order and morality".
Where to start?
How about actually reading the bible, or at least the Pentateuch, the original source from which the Commandments are derived? There's very little about morality in these five books. They're mostly about genocide, tribal violence, vengeance, theft, incest, rape and slavery, all whipped to a bloody boil by a sadistic celestial dictator. Exhibit A: god includes in his commandments a specific order not to kill, yet, not long after they're delivered, he demands that Moses "slay" everyone who worshipped the golden calf, roughly 3,000 men.
As for christian mythology, let's be clear. It's a system of belief that rallies adherents around torturing and then killing an innocent human being, in the hope that doing so will bring about their spiritual salvation. It must be said publicly, loudly, again and again: to be a christian is to worship human sacrifice. This is wickedness, not morality.
Consider a recent example, the Lori Vallow case, so-called "doomsday cult mom." From the perspective of a secular society, she's a murderous fiend, guilty of the most heinous crime of killing her young children. From the perspective of a christian, she's the embodiment of faith.
Forget all the nasty stuff being said about the woman. Focus on the fundamentals. When she swears again and again that she's a devout christian, believe her. Friends have testified she told them that she "saw angels" and was a "personal friend of Jesus Christ," experiences central to the faith. What's more, such is the nature of Ms Vallow's relationship with the godhead that he "visited her" shortly before she butchered her children and buried their remains in a shallow grave. An annunciation, of a kind. Of course they had to be killed. They were "possessed by evil spirits". To christians, this battle, the battle between good and evil, between angels and devils, is real, tangible, of this world. So, naturally, when god told Ms Vallow to kill her children, she acted. She obeyed. Like Abraham, only she followed through. Surely, for christians of all denominations, Ms Vallow's filicide demonstrates the kind of loyalty expected of those in service to a capricious, vengeful god.
For context, here's James Madison, considered the "Father of the Constitution", on why he opposed the State partnering with any religion: "The purpose of separation of Church and State is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."
Ceaseless strife.
It's not hard to pinpoint the cause of the strife to which Madison was alluding. Open any history book (unless you live in a christian, book-burning state) and you'll discover fairly quickly the reality behind the words. Our fourth president was referring to the religious violence that plagued Europe throughout its then-1800-year evolution. A few examples: the Saxon Wars in 784. The Rhineland Massacres in 1095. The Crown of Castile in 1502. The Second War of Kappel in 1531. The Schmalkadic War in 1546. The Knights' Revolt, the Peasants' War and the French Wars of Religion, also in the 16th century. The Nine Years' War, the Thirty Years' War and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the 17th century. The War of the Spanish Succession in 1701. And on and on and on, bloody slaughter after bloody slaughter, each one carried out in service to their god.
The "troubles" in Ireland is another, more recent example of how christian nationalism continues to be a force for misery and suffering. Two branches of the same faith, protestant and catholic, warring with each other for hundreds of years, burning each other at the stake, blowing up churches, bombing cars and buildings, murdering each other and each other's children in unrelenting waves of sectarian violence. Disagreements brought on by a clash of religious practices spread generationally, destroying families and whole communities, fanned to a fire by those who believe they are, like Ms Vallow, doing god's work.
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