John Edwards ran for president years ago talking of the “two Americas,” that of the rich and the poor. Now, through the machinations of our current president and his MAGA-oriented church, we are becoming a nation of two religions.
One religion is in, the other out, one protected and the other under threat.
Stephen Shoemaker
The recent arrest of national Black religious leader William Barber at prayer in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol is a vivid and alarming example of the efforts of those in power to divide our nation religiously and to determine valid and nonvalid religion with the state the final arbiter of true religion.
President Donald Trump has said, for example, that Sen. Chuck Schumer “isn’t Jewish any more.” And a certain ultra-conservative branch of the Catholic Church in America cheered the death of Pope Francis. I suppose he wasn’t really Catholic either.
U.S Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X just hours after the death of Pope Francis: “Today, there were major shifts in global leaderships. Evil is being defeated by the hand of God.” Vice President JD Vance, a recent convert to a certain kind of Catholicism, couldn’t have said it better.
Last week, it was creation of a new task force reaching all areas of governmental life to root out what is called “anti-Christian bias.” What is meant as anti-Christian bias is any expression of faith in the public square not in agreement with the administration’s goals and policies. It cuts across and through all religious traditions in America.
James Madison, one of our nation’s founders sometimes called “the founder of the Constitution,” fourth president of our nation and strong advocate of the freedom of religion and separation of church and state, liked to quote Voltaire to say if a nation had one religion, it would characteristically persecute all others and tyranny was around the corner. If it had two religions, they would fight each other. And if it had many religions, they would learn to get along. Such was the genius of our pluralistic democracy.
That crucial dimension of a pluralistic democracy is under attack both politically and religiously as one form of Christianity has theocracy as its goal with one kind of religion receiving preferred status. These Christians carry the banner of religious freedom while ignoring the other part of the First Amendment to the Constitution forbidding the “ establishment” of one favored religion.
“A pet state church is most convenient for autocrats.”
One might describe our two-religion nation in this way. The first, now ascendant, religion we might call The Church of America. It is comprised of those parts of the evangelical, Pentecostal and Catholic church, along with breakaway groups from the old Mainline Protestant churches who wish for their chief moral values to be codified into law, who want to restore to power a form of Christianity that keeps women in their proper role and perpetuates a male dominative society. This view takes an absolutist stance against the humanity and dignity of LGBTQ people. Moreover, it wishes to sustain the white supremacy that has been at work in the American church from its first days in America.
And, of course, a major mark of the The Church of America is its “America First” white Christian nationalism.
It seeks to divide denominations and religions and establish one true church, as Vladimir Putin has done in Russia and has sought to promote in America, covertly and overtly. A pet state church is most convenient for autocrats.
The other religion in America might be called the Pluralistic People of God. It spans denominations and religions in America. Its moral concerns revolve around justice and mercy and freedom from religious and political tyranny. Many have come to this nation, as in the early days of the Republic, to escape such tyranny.
The Pluralistic People of God are engaged in issues of public morality, but without seeking to be the one religious voice at the table. There is a difference between the political expression of religion and the political use of religion. One wants to influence public policy; the other religion is co-opted by the state to prop up its power and as such has become a political religion.
To try to create an America of two religions is a first step toward an America of one religion. Tyranny, political and religious, is the only outcome. John Leland, Colonial Baptist preacher and friend of James Madison, wrote: “Experience … has informed us that the fondness of magistrates to foster Christianity has done it more harm than all the persecutions ever did.”
The lion is always ready to lay down with the lamb, and the state eager to define religion for the nation. Only ruin follows .
Stephen Shoemaker most recentl served as pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Statesville, N.C. He previously served as pastor of Myers Park Baptist in Charlotte, N.C.; Broadway Baptist in Fort Worth, Texas; and Crescent Hill Baptist in Louisville, Ky.