Imagine going into your kitchen, taking out the largest mixing bowl from your cabinet, and pouring in the most toxic chemicals from your workshop or from under the sink.
What you would end up with is an explosive, dangerous concoction emitting putrid fumes. If you were then compelled to drink it anyway, that would be an accurate analogy of what has happened in the United States with the cultural onslaught of radical religious organizations, as outlined in Jared Huffman’s No Prophets.
Michael Chancellor
Unfortunately, this toxicity is spilling into the American religious experience, which was once anchored in the Bible. For 200 years, the United States has been a safe haven for diverse religious expressions, both those brought to its shores and those emerging within its borders. The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights set that liberty and freedom deep into the foundation of this nation.
Today, however, a perversion of that amendment has allowed religious bad actors to erode the Enlightenment ideas that form the true foundation of both our country’s founding and its success. Like all human endeavors, our history has not been a perfect journey; over the centuries, we have struggled with the mistreatment of indigenous peoples, the horrors of enslavement and the trauma of wars.
Yet what we face in our time is fundamentally different. It is a denial of the core motivations that created our democracy — a dangerous, false narrative and an active effort to dismantle the load-bearing walls of our system of government.
Our founders fled the tragic, repeating cycle of human suffering that occurs when the power of the state becomes enmeshed with the power of the church. What finally evolved in the colonies was a profound solution: Two great forces moving forward side-by-side, respecting each other, but never merging.
“Fear is breaking down those separations, mixing state and religious power to the detriment of both.”
Until now. Fear is breaking down those separations, mixing state and religious power to the detriment of both.
One of the first casualties coming to fruition in my state and across the nation is the abandonment of the Enlightenment’s greatest gift: Inquiry. It is this spirit of inquiry that led to scientific discoveries, breakthrough medical advancements and profound insights about ourselves and the universe.
The freedom to ask questions always has both liberated and frightened us. Enlightenment ideals were woven into our Declaration of Independence, forming the framework of our Constitution, the Bill of Rights and our concepts of justice and the rule of law. Crucially, they also birthed an education system free from religious constraints, driven instead by freedom of the mind.
I’ve labeled this recent retreat the corralling of the wild stallion called “Why?” This stallion was born out of our God-given curiosity, moving us from cave dwellers to captains of industry and inspiring innovations that have made life easier and more productive. Now, some frightened believers mistakenly think following where “why” leads will somehow dismantle God. But the problem with human existence never has been curiosity; it always has been the misuse of the human will.
“Modern radical Christian nationalism is simply driven by fear.”
Curiosity and the will must collaborate. Many of our greatest breakthroughs have occurred when the human will was harnessed to bring new discoveries into reality.
Modern radical Christian nationalism is simply driven by fear: Fear that God will be exposed as the little man behind the curtain, fear that God will be seen as too old and ancient to be relevant, or fear that God is not there at all.
Mobilized by these anxieties, the tentacles of this perverted ideology have declared war on multiple fronts. They have attacked education at every level — from kindergarten to doctoral programs — fearing what open inquiry might reveal, even while hypocritically benefiting from the very technology and science that make daily life easier.
Consider the refusal to take COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, even while welcoming those same medical advancements without question to fight cancer; or jetting around the world while ignoring the inquiry, innovation and engineering that allowed us to soar above the birds in the first place.
God never has been afraid of being labeled too old, outdated or unwanted. Saint Augustine was right when he wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
No matter how much we learn, create or achieve, a deep restlessness will always remain within us — until we finally rest in God.
Michael Chancellor served 33 years as pastor of four Baptist churches in Texas, six years as a mental health manager in a maximum-security Texas prison before becoming a therapist in private practice in Round Rock, Texas. He now lives in Taylor, Texas.