Remember the word we often heard at elementary school spelling bees — “antidisestablishmentarianism” — said to be the longest word in the English language? Well, it isn’t, not anymore.
That honor now belongs to “acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene,” defined as “a tough rigid plastic used especially for automobile parts and building materials.”
The folks at Merriam-Webster.com say that “based on its component parts,” antidisestablishmentarianism would mean something like “opposition to depriving a legally established state church of its status.” Yet the publishers can find only three references to its actual use across the last century.
Bill Leonard
That means “antidisestablishmentarianism” fails to meet the “sustained and meaningful” requirement for inclusion in their dictionaries. The publisher concludes: “There’s hardly any record of its use as a real word.”
Not so fast, Merriam-Webster. In the year of your dictionary, 2023, “antidisestablishmentarianism” seems increasingly appropriate as a synonym for American Christian nationalism, a concerted effort to make Christianity the de facto, if not the actual, reestablished state religion in the land of the free and the home of the gerrymandered. In 2023, the antidisestablishmentarians aren’t just talking about Christian nationalism, they’re working hard to actualize it across the culture.
Where we’ve come from
In the ante-constitutional era, Christian establishmentarianism existed in eight of the original 13 colonies, evidenced by Puritan Congregationalism in much of New England and Anglicanism in the South.
“Christian establishmentarianism existed in eight of the original 13 colonies.”
Maryland, founded by Catholics, passed a “Toleration Act” in 1649 that granted religious toleration to Catholic and Protestant settlers, but warned that those who “blaspheme God, that is curse him, or deny our Savior Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, or shall deny the Holy Trinity the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or the God-head of any of the said three persons of the Trinity or the unity of the godhead or shall use or utter any reproachful speeches, words or language concerning the said Holy Trinity, or any of the said three persons thereof, shall be punished with death and confiscation or forfeiture of all his or her lands and goods.”
By contrast, the Baptist-authored, disestablishmentarian charter of Rhode Island, approved in 1663, declared: “No person within said colony, at any time hereafter, shall be in any wise molested, punished, disquieted or called in question for any differences of opinion in matters of religion, but that all and any persons may, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely and fully have and enjoyed his and their own judgments and consciences in matters of religious concernments throughout the tract of land hereafter mentioned.”
The First Amendment to the Constitution (1791) disestablished a national church, but certain states retained establishmentarian practices for a time. Massachusetts, the last holdout, maintained a Protestant establishment — complete with tax support — until 1833.
That was then; this is now.
‘False doctrine’
A May 4 article in Texas Monthly begins, “Opponents of church-state separation have been emboldened by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions and the growing acceptance of Christian nationalism on the right.” The story focuses on legislative efforts by Texas GOP legislators to expand the influence of Christianity by requiring “In God We Trust” and Ten Commandments postings in the state’s public schools; permitting schools to hire chaplains as school counselors without counseling certification; and allowing state funds for student tuition in private, religion-oriented schools.
“Some legislators have labeled the idea of separation of church and state a ‘false doctrine.”
Some legislators have labeled the idea of separation of church and state a “false doctrine,” or “a myth,” while supporters of posting the Ten Commandments blamed church/state separation for “school shootings, crime and growing LGBTQ acceptance.”
Texas Tribune reporter Robert Downen quoted a former state representative who testified, “We think there can be a restoration of faith in America, and we think getting Ten Commandments on these walls is a great way to do that.” He added: “We think we can really set a trend for the rest of the country.”
If we Christians have lost our way in “declaring good news” to Americans, do we really think the government can do it for us?
School board battles
Several North Texas school districts illustrate the divisions developing around these issues. The Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District in Tarrant County, Texas, has become a recent example of what might be considered certain antidisestablishmentarian political activities.
Last year, Patriot Mobile, America’s only “conservative Christian” phone company, organized a PAC to fund campaigns to elect school board members who are committed to bringing a new emphasis on faith into classrooms while opposing certain “woke” emphases on sexuality, gender and Critical Race Theory.
Their slate of board candidates succeeded in gaining a majority, a result encouraged by prominent Christian antidisestablishmentarians such as David Barton and Rafael Cruz, father of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. This year’s election, held on May 6, included three candidates sponsored by Patriot Mobile; three from a more progressive PAC explicitly opposed to “religious indoctrination” in public schools; and another three from a “moderate conservative” effort that eschewed all PAC support.
The result included a victory for two candidates from the Patriot Mobile-supported PAC, and one from the “moderate conservative” group.
Patriot Mobile also funded candidates who were elected in the nearby Carroll Independent School District board. The cell phone provider also presented the schools with posters imprinted with “In God We Trust” as now required by Texas law. When a parent offered to donate similar posters, one in Arabic, and the other with a rainbow flag background, the board rejected the offer.
National threat
The rise of antidisestablishmentarianism is not limited to the public schools and state legislatures. In a September 23, 2022, NBC News article, Allan Smith reported on the three-day National Conservatism Conference, or NatCon, a right-wing gathering aimed at “putting an end to the era of small-government conservatism while promoting religion at the center of public life.”
The group produced a document asserting: “Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private.” It added that non-Christian religious minorities “are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children.”
“That NatCon statement smacks of mere religious tolerance, not true religious liberty.”
That NatCon statement smacks of mere religious tolerance, not true religious liberty. Eighteenth century Virginia Baptist John Leland rejected the idea of religious “toleration,” the willingness of an established religion to grant second-class status to minority communions. He declared: “The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest, to grant indulgence; whereas, all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”
In the conference’s closing address, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler observed the country is divided between Christian theology and “woke religion that is raising itself up as the official state ideology,” adding that “insofar as conservatism as a movement has a future, it is a future that is going to be increasingly tied to explicit theological claims.”
Mohler’s statement offers clear evidence of the kind of establishmentarianism intended by these rightist groups and individuals. It is not Christianity itself that is to be implicitly or explicitly reestablished, but a particular type of Christianity, bound to a specific set of non-negotiable dogmas.
Whisper words of wisdom
These days, “when I find myself in times of trouble,” certain early Baptists “come to me speaking words of wisdom” like these:
First, they were nonconformists who often refused to abide by the rules of religious uniformity demanded by the state-based churches of their day.
Second, they rejected any laws of church or state that compelled financial or devotional support for a religious communion in which they had no voice.
Third, they defied any church that attempted to mandate belief by virtue of birth, economic status, political or culture privilege; and sought to separate from it.
That situation appears to bear out Roger Williams’ radical 1644 assertion that “true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either Jew or Gentile.”
Williams’ idea ultimately won out, didn’t it? At least for now.
Let’s keep our consciences contrary. Amen.
Bill Leonard is founding dean and the James and Marilyn Dunn professor of Baptist studies and church history emeritus at Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C. He is the author or editor of 25 books. A native Texan, he lives in Winston-Salem with his wife, Candyce, and their daughter, Stephanie.
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