A new report purports to celebrate religious liberty for all; in reality it disparages orthodox Christianity and undercuts the freedoms of all morally traditional people of faith.
The use of the term ‘Christian Nationalism’ is meant to slander all those who claim to follow Christianity and believe in the exceptionalism of America. I don’t understand that. I’m not a believer in Christianity but support anyone who wants to do so. I grew up with a public education that taught America as a force for ‘good’.
I reject those following any extreme faith that calls for the destruction of our society and government. If one ‘hates’ the country they should take the opportunity to move to whatever they consider a better’ place - rather than destroying our way of life.
How are those working inside a Trump commissioned activity supporting communist " progressive" ideology? It seems that it is incumbent upon us all to be watchful of all notions where any religious ideology might be imposed on the rest. No one in the Trump administration seems to be " against religion expression" ( my description). Church and State are separate, last time I heard. The only perceived threat is by Christian Nationalists. And that's probably conspiratorial and an exaggeration. If I could have a say- truly- , I would put a stop to many Islamic demands that their religious idiosyncrasies be given more latitude than all others.
There is a familiar, wearying comedy in watching competing sects of true believers squabble over who holds the sacred deed to "Religious Liberty." In one corner, we have the progressive clerisy, five Democratic politicians and fifteen religious officials, waving a report that promises "Religious Liberty for All" while treating traditional moral dogma as a biohazard. In the other, we have Mr. Todd Huizinga on Restoring the West, rushing to defend Donald Trump’s "Religious Liberty Commission" (RLC) as a paragon of pluralist virtue, shocked, shocked!, that anyone might suspect a conservative government commission of having a theological thumb on the scale.
The spectacle would be merely amusing if the underlying stakes were not so serious. Both sides proceed from the false premise that "religious liberty" is a supernatural gift that requires the state to carve out special exemptions for ancient superstitions, rather than what it actually is: a straightforward subset of basic, secular civil rights.
Consider Mr. Huizinga’s defense of the RLC. He points out, with earnest triumph, that the commission held hearings featuring Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist witnesses. We are expected to applaud this ecumenical roll call as proof of open-mindedness. But assembling a panoply of priesthoods is not a defense of liberty; it is merely an exercise in multi-faith corporatism. The history of religious privilege is not redeemed by broadening the cartel. Whether a government commission caters exclusively to white Evangelicals or graciously extends its audience to imams and rabbis, the core vice remains: the state is involving itself in the business of credentialing religious belief and treating supernatural claims as a special category of privileged conscience.
Where Huizinga hits a vein of truth is in identifying the glaring hypocrisy of his progressive opponents. The authors of the CAP report invoke the "separation of church and state" and "human dignity," yet their enthusiasm for liberty visibly cools the moment someone uses that liberty to express orthodox Christian views on sexuality or family structure. For many on the cultural left, "pluralism" has come to mean absolute freedom for every modern lifestyle preference, combined with absolute intolerance for the ancient dogmas that object to them. They denounce "Christian nationalism", a real and dangerous strain of American authoritarianism, yet often do so in language that treats traditional religious adherence itself as an inherently subversive act.
Yet Huizinga falls into his own trap. He laments that progressives place "human choice above divine authority," revealing the ultimate objective of his own camp. He does not merely want the state to leave believers alone, a cause any consistent secularist would join. He wants "divine authority" recognized as a force that commands deference in the public square.
This is where the entire debate goes off the rails. The state has no business evaluating "divine authority," because "divine authority" is a fiction invoked by mortals to give their personal convictions an unchallengeable pedigree. When a Christian, a Muslim, or an atheist enters the public realm, they do so as citizens, equal under the law. The believer has every right to speak, preach, and organize according to their conscience. What they do not have is a right to be insulated from criticism, nor a right to demand that the state validate their dogmas as "foundational" to the republic.
The genius of the American founding was not that it reverenced religion as "the freedom on whose shoulders all other freedoms stand," as Tom Farr claims and Huizinga quotes approvingly. The exact opposite is true. Liberty of conscience stands on the shoulders of secular law, free expression, and individual autonomy. Religion is the beneficiary of freedom, not its author.
If we are to preserve a genuinely free society at "America 250," the remedy is neither the selective tolerance of the progressive left nor the pious grievance of the conservative right. It is a rigorous, unapologetic secularism that protects the right of every citizen to believe any absurd thing they choose, while firmly denying any religion, traditional or modern, the power to use the machinery of the state to enforce its doctrines.
So a secular state has no doctrines, other than the negative ‘freedom’ that comes with their absence. I think you’ll find that is not true and probably impossible, that even a secular state has a developed set of positive principles or beliefs based on some kind of religious foundation. The whole secular human rights apparatus can be shown to be rooted in Judeo Christian traditions of thought, for example.
Ah, the old, comfortable intellectual sleight of hand: the claim that secularism is merely a parasitical growth living off the vital tissues of religious tradition, unable to invent a single decent value on its own.
It is a remarkably resilient myth, but it collapses the moment one subjects it to even a casual historical scrutiny.
To suggest that human rights are born of the "Judeo-Christian tradition" is to misread history so completely as to turn it upside down. Where, precisely, in the Pentateuch or the Pauline epistles do we find the principles of universal human rights, trial by jury, freedom of speech, or the equality of women?
The Old Testament gives us explicit, divinely sanctioned rules for the proper management and beating of slaves, instructions for the ritual slaughter of neighboring tribes, and death penalties for everything from picking up sticks on the Sabbath to minor filial disrespect. The New Testament, far from offering a charter for human emancipation, exhorts slaves to obey their earthly masters "with fear and trembling," introduces the cheerful concept of eternal fire and brimstone for honest doubters, and instructs women to keep silent in the assembly.
If human rights were latent within scripture, one has to wonder why it took the church nearly two millennia to notice them, and why, at every step along the way, those who actually fought for those rights had to do so against the fierce, burning resistance of ecclesiastical authority.
The universal human rights we enjoy today were not handed down on stone tablets from a mountain top; nor were they extracted from the teachings of the Church Fathers. They were hammered out against the clergy by Enlightenment thinkers, heretics, and secular radicals who had grown weary of religious wars, inquisitions, and divine-right monarchies. Spinoza, Voltaire, Paine, Jefferson, and Wollstonecraft did not look to Sinai for their philosophy, they looked to classical antiquity, human reason, and the empirical reality of human suffering under the yoke of holy men.
Furthermore, to reduce secular liberty to a mere "negative freedom", a vacuum waiting to be filled, is to completely misunderstand what secularism actually achieves. Secularism is not an absence of morality; it is the prerequisite for genuine morality.
A moral code enforced by the threat of eternal torture or the promise of heavenly rewards is not morality at all, it is merely a system of celestial bribery and terrorized self-interest. True ethics begins only when we cast off the idea of a divine overseer, look one another in the eye, and decide how we ought to live together as conscious, mortal beings on this fragile planet.
The positive principles of a secular society are neither vague nor merely reactive. They are positive, heroic, and self-standing:
The absolute sovereignty of individual conscience, free from the tyranny of both king and priest.
The commitment to empirical reason and free inquiry, which insists that no dogma is immune from questioning or ridicule.
The principle of human solidarity, grounded in our shared nature as evolved primates, rather than a top-down mandate from a cosmic autocrat.
To say that a secular state cannot exist without a religious foundation is to mistake the prison walls for the architecture of freedom. Religion did not invent human compassion, fairness, or justice; it merely hijacked them, branded them with its own celestial logos, and threatened to withdraw them if we refused to bow to its altars. We have outgrown the warden, and there is no reason on earth to keep giving him credit for the light coming through the window.
yes many I know are becoming aware of this but not readily accepting the facts you atate.
I Pray that it is not a little too little too late - to reverse the trend ( believing false narrative with no real factual evidence) that is at least a decade old. Hope springs eternal.!
The use of the term ‘Christian Nationalism’ is meant to slander all those who claim to follow Christianity and believe in the exceptionalism of America. I don’t understand that. I’m not a believer in Christianity but support anyone who wants to do so. I grew up with a public education that taught America as a force for ‘good’.
I reject those following any extreme faith that calls for the destruction of our society and government. If one ‘hates’ the country they should take the opportunity to move to whatever they consider a better’ place - rather than destroying our way of life.
How are those working inside a Trump commissioned activity supporting communist " progressive" ideology? It seems that it is incumbent upon us all to be watchful of all notions where any religious ideology might be imposed on the rest. No one in the Trump administration seems to be " against religion expression" ( my description). Church and State are separate, last time I heard. The only perceived threat is by Christian Nationalists. And that's probably conspiratorial and an exaggeration. If I could have a say- truly- , I would put a stop to many Islamic demands that their religious idiosyncrasies be given more latitude than all others.
There is a familiar, wearying comedy in watching competing sects of true believers squabble over who holds the sacred deed to "Religious Liberty." In one corner, we have the progressive clerisy, five Democratic politicians and fifteen religious officials, waving a report that promises "Religious Liberty for All" while treating traditional moral dogma as a biohazard. In the other, we have Mr. Todd Huizinga on Restoring the West, rushing to defend Donald Trump’s "Religious Liberty Commission" (RLC) as a paragon of pluralist virtue, shocked, shocked!, that anyone might suspect a conservative government commission of having a theological thumb on the scale.
The spectacle would be merely amusing if the underlying stakes were not so serious. Both sides proceed from the false premise that "religious liberty" is a supernatural gift that requires the state to carve out special exemptions for ancient superstitions, rather than what it actually is: a straightforward subset of basic, secular civil rights.
Consider Mr. Huizinga’s defense of the RLC. He points out, with earnest triumph, that the commission held hearings featuring Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Buddhist witnesses. We are expected to applaud this ecumenical roll call as proof of open-mindedness. But assembling a panoply of priesthoods is not a defense of liberty; it is merely an exercise in multi-faith corporatism. The history of religious privilege is not redeemed by broadening the cartel. Whether a government commission caters exclusively to white Evangelicals or graciously extends its audience to imams and rabbis, the core vice remains: the state is involving itself in the business of credentialing religious belief and treating supernatural claims as a special category of privileged conscience.
Where Huizinga hits a vein of truth is in identifying the glaring hypocrisy of his progressive opponents. The authors of the CAP report invoke the "separation of church and state" and "human dignity," yet their enthusiasm for liberty visibly cools the moment someone uses that liberty to express orthodox Christian views on sexuality or family structure. For many on the cultural left, "pluralism" has come to mean absolute freedom for every modern lifestyle preference, combined with absolute intolerance for the ancient dogmas that object to them. They denounce "Christian nationalism", a real and dangerous strain of American authoritarianism, yet often do so in language that treats traditional religious adherence itself as an inherently subversive act.
Yet Huizinga falls into his own trap. He laments that progressives place "human choice above divine authority," revealing the ultimate objective of his own camp. He does not merely want the state to leave believers alone, a cause any consistent secularist would join. He wants "divine authority" recognized as a force that commands deference in the public square.
This is where the entire debate goes off the rails. The state has no business evaluating "divine authority," because "divine authority" is a fiction invoked by mortals to give their personal convictions an unchallengeable pedigree. When a Christian, a Muslim, or an atheist enters the public realm, they do so as citizens, equal under the law. The believer has every right to speak, preach, and organize according to their conscience. What they do not have is a right to be insulated from criticism, nor a right to demand that the state validate their dogmas as "foundational" to the republic.
The genius of the American founding was not that it reverenced religion as "the freedom on whose shoulders all other freedoms stand," as Tom Farr claims and Huizinga quotes approvingly. The exact opposite is true. Liberty of conscience stands on the shoulders of secular law, free expression, and individual autonomy. Religion is the beneficiary of freedom, not its author.
If we are to preserve a genuinely free society at "America 250," the remedy is neither the selective tolerance of the progressive left nor the pious grievance of the conservative right. It is a rigorous, unapologetic secularism that protects the right of every citizen to believe any absurd thing they choose, while firmly denying any religion, traditional or modern, the power to use the machinery of the state to enforce its doctrines.
So a secular state has no doctrines, other than the negative ‘freedom’ that comes with their absence. I think you’ll find that is not true and probably impossible, that even a secular state has a developed set of positive principles or beliefs based on some kind of religious foundation. The whole secular human rights apparatus can be shown to be rooted in Judeo Christian traditions of thought, for example.
Ah, the old, comfortable intellectual sleight of hand: the claim that secularism is merely a parasitical growth living off the vital tissues of religious tradition, unable to invent a single decent value on its own.
It is a remarkably resilient myth, but it collapses the moment one subjects it to even a casual historical scrutiny.
To suggest that human rights are born of the "Judeo-Christian tradition" is to misread history so completely as to turn it upside down. Where, precisely, in the Pentateuch or the Pauline epistles do we find the principles of universal human rights, trial by jury, freedom of speech, or the equality of women?
The Old Testament gives us explicit, divinely sanctioned rules for the proper management and beating of slaves, instructions for the ritual slaughter of neighboring tribes, and death penalties for everything from picking up sticks on the Sabbath to minor filial disrespect. The New Testament, far from offering a charter for human emancipation, exhorts slaves to obey their earthly masters "with fear and trembling," introduces the cheerful concept of eternal fire and brimstone for honest doubters, and instructs women to keep silent in the assembly.
If human rights were latent within scripture, one has to wonder why it took the church nearly two millennia to notice them, and why, at every step along the way, those who actually fought for those rights had to do so against the fierce, burning resistance of ecclesiastical authority.
The universal human rights we enjoy today were not handed down on stone tablets from a mountain top; nor were they extracted from the teachings of the Church Fathers. They were hammered out against the clergy by Enlightenment thinkers, heretics, and secular radicals who had grown weary of religious wars, inquisitions, and divine-right monarchies. Spinoza, Voltaire, Paine, Jefferson, and Wollstonecraft did not look to Sinai for their philosophy, they looked to classical antiquity, human reason, and the empirical reality of human suffering under the yoke of holy men.
Furthermore, to reduce secular liberty to a mere "negative freedom", a vacuum waiting to be filled, is to completely misunderstand what secularism actually achieves. Secularism is not an absence of morality; it is the prerequisite for genuine morality.
A moral code enforced by the threat of eternal torture or the promise of heavenly rewards is not morality at all, it is merely a system of celestial bribery and terrorized self-interest. True ethics begins only when we cast off the idea of a divine overseer, look one another in the eye, and decide how we ought to live together as conscious, mortal beings on this fragile planet.
The positive principles of a secular society are neither vague nor merely reactive. They are positive, heroic, and self-standing:
The absolute sovereignty of individual conscience, free from the tyranny of both king and priest.
The commitment to empirical reason and free inquiry, which insists that no dogma is immune from questioning or ridicule.
The principle of human solidarity, grounded in our shared nature as evolved primates, rather than a top-down mandate from a cosmic autocrat.
To say that a secular state cannot exist without a religious foundation is to mistake the prison walls for the architecture of freedom. Religion did not invent human compassion, fairness, or justice; it merely hijacked them, branded them with its own celestial logos, and threatened to withdraw them if we refused to bow to its altars. We have outgrown the warden, and there is no reason on earth to keep giving him credit for the light coming through the window.
yes many I know are becoming aware of this but not readily accepting the facts you atate.
I Pray that it is not a little too little too late - to reverse the trend ( believing false narrative with no real factual evidence) that is at least a decade old. Hope springs eternal.!