"The US Christian Flag"

[ from the "US Christian Flag" designer's website ]

"YOU are the USA Regiment, Army of God.  THIS IS HIS LAND & YOU ARE HIS PEOPLE --raise your flag!  CHRISTIAN AMERICANS, BAND TOGETHER! "

"The Pledge of Allegiance  

I pledge allegiance, to the Christian Flag,

of the United States of America,

and to the Lord, who made us great and free.

I purpose, to band together, with all believers,

to protect the truth and liberty of God.

June 13, 2005  Please note:   there is clearly confusion among many.  This pledge, flag, and its mission is not to replace our government pledge OR Old Glory.  We are NOT trying to overthrow our government or force anyone to be a Christian.   We are, however, honoring our LORD and protecting our Christian heritage and liberties.  We are allowed to do that under our Constitution.   The State cannot dictate to our church that we may not. When that day ever comes, You and I will all be in a desperate condition.  May we please agree upon that much?"

by Bruce Wilson on Thu May 11, 2006 at 03:50:54 PM EST

Excellent! Thank you Michelle!

Very important information here, I've ordered several copies to distribute to friends who've thought I was crazy and/or overreacting as I would try to explain this radical transformation taking place. In fact my phone began ringing during your Fresh Air broaddcast.... "turn it on, she's saying everything you've been telling us!"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5398604

Listen to the broadcast, buy the book, tell your friends!!!

by Vesica on Thu May 11, 2006 at 10:04:42 PM EST

It's really hard to explain to most people about the threats to democratic process posed by Christian dominionism and theocracy, but the idea of "Christian Nationalism" as explained in Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming strikes a chord and does the job.

Congratulations on a great book that makes it clear that "Christianity is a religion. Christian nationalism is a political program, and there is nothing sacred about it." I plan to spread that quote around.

Chip Berlet: Research for Progress - Building Human Rights
by Chip Berlet on Thu May 11, 2006 at 11:23:33 PM EST

I just wrote a ten page paper for my American History paper (i know it's not so much, but i am only in grade 11) about the rise of the religious right in America, and i agree with this woman's ideas, if only i could have thought of a term as cohesive as christian nationalism. Anyways, i'm sure her book would have been a good source for me, and those of you interested in this book should check out Duane Oldfield's "the Right and the Righteous" and Kevin Phillips "American Theocracy"

Around the county, evangelical and likethinking conservative christians are taking over America directly through the Republican Party. This is not the majority of America, this is one small segment of the population who have been very effective in swinging the last two presidential elections for the Republicans. We've been seeing it since Pat Robertson ran for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 1988 and even though he lost, his dirty money was able to buy him whole states by infiltrating the state Republican Parties.

The founding fathers did not want there to be a dominant religion in America. They were secularites at best. Sure our country is founded in Christianity, but its idiotic to say that they had any intention for a dominant religion. The way people use them in their arguments is disgusting, and should no longer be tollerated.

by hirsh39 on Fri May 12, 2006 at 06:02:29 AM EST

You state "Christian nationalists believe in a revisionist history, which holds that the founders were devout Christians who never intended to create a secular republic" in your second paragraph.

My understanding of the word "revisionist" is
"Advocacy of the revision of an accepted, usually long-standing view, theory, or doctrine, especially a revision of historical events and movements", which sounds exactly what you are advocating.  Our Founding Fathers were not Christians and anyone who believes differently needs to take off their blinders.  Our Founding Fathers were Deist pure and simple.  Whenever Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, et al refer to god in a speach they are not talking about the god of Abraham, but rather the creator of this universe.  Deist beleive in an "Absentee Landlord" creator, which means they believe in a creator who does not interfere in the daily lives of people.  

I'm sick and tired of the Ultra Right-Wing nuts claiming this is a Christian nation founded on Christian beliefs.  This is a nation founded on the principle of freedom from tyranny and oppression, in all it's forms.  People need to start reading their history books a little more, and not the ones provided in public schools, before they begin claiming "separation of church and state, according to this history, is a fraud perpetrated by God-hating subversives."

by snoogans on Fri May 12, 2006 at 08:49:05 AM EST

Hi there

My name is Lucas and I am from Montreal. I always stick up for America against many of your bashers poiniting out all your good stuff. Thats been increasingly hard with the whole rise of an insane Southern theocracy, the trampling of your democracy, etc., I was kind losing a little faith.

This site has made my year. Thank fuck you exist - I was getting very nervous.

I just wanted to get that in there.

Love Lucas

by LucasK on Fri May 12, 2006 at 10:48:44 AM EST

And with people like him running the GOP in Texas, the rest of the country still wonders how folks down here can keep electing the likes of Tom DeLay.

What they fail to understand is that everything is relative -- and that compared to someone as extreme as Barton, DeLay looked like a moderate.

Sometimes I have to laugh just to keep from crying.

by moiv on Fri May 12, 2006 at 01:13:39 AM EST

With any small bit of research, a competent human being can quickly find that the Founding Fathers of our great Country were NOT in fact Christians.

One would quickly find that most of the Founding Fathers were in fact, Deists.

Don't be sheep people, learn the truth by doing a little research.

by Athevol on Fri May 12, 2006 at 06:46:32 AM EST

Actually it sounds like crypto-fascism to me.

by drg1138 on Fri May 12, 2006 at 08:21:05 AM EST

Christian nationalism is different from fundamentalism?

Just how lost can these people be? How lost can they be to put down in black and white that they believe in revisionist history?

Not that which did happen, but that which they believe should have happened.

The original idea of church and state separation, was to keep the state out of the church's affairs.

My, oh my, how that one's been dumped on its ear?

Stuff like this is so totally depressing to me.

I've got fundies, and other deep believers in my own family. I really do try to get into their heads and minds and fathom just where they are, and who they are, and how they can think the way that they do. And all the while it's oh so obvious to me that if they'd been presented with something else, then that's what they'd be basing their lives on.

How come this is as plain as day to me? And, oh so totally lost on the millions of "true believers" out there.

Their mindset is so totally perplexing and alien to me.

And this from someone who spent ten years on two continents in catholic schools.

How is it that I never connected with any of it? Not from the first minute as a five-year old, that I set foot inside a catholic school door and was directed to turn to page 1 and start chanting from the catechism? I simply don't have an answer for it.

The closest I can get is that we're predisposed to whatever it is in life that we're predisposed to. If we come with a religious gene, then I guess we come with a religious gene.

And corrollary to this, beliefs hinge on which region of the planet we were born in.

How could it possibly be any other way?

The strife and the muddle will continue.

by biglot on Fri May 12, 2006 at 09:01:45 AM EST

Here's the link to Michelle's Fresh Air show:

Ne w Book Examines Christian Nationalism

I'm just about finished reading the book. It's quite riveting.

by Lorie Johnson on Fri May 12, 2006 at 09:16:26 AM EST

I'm a pretty ardent Catholic, and I can say that this line of thinking (Christian Nationalism) is completely against Christ's teachings. It's so obvious, I have to have pity on these people because they are so misguided.

Christians should be IN the world, not OF the world, meaning we have to be here and participate, but we should not seek to run secular affairs. Christ even said, "Render unto Ceasar what is Caesar's" -- meaning "Do what you have to do to exist in this world, but do not be too concerned with running its affairs".

We are called to speak the truth and illuminate the world about the love of God and how Sin tears us apart, creates hate instead of love, misery instead of happiness, dispair instead of Hope.

As you may recall, Catholics have got excited about involvement in secular affairs on several occasions in history and EVERY SINGLE TIME it was a complete disaster. Humanity and the Church itself suffered for it.

Now you have protestants who have rejected their roots and gone astray and now they're doomed to repeat the same crimes.

All this boils down to the sin of PRIDE --- they think that they can do better and alter God's plan. Pride is the deadliest of all sins because, as you're seeing, it replaces God's will with the individual's will.

by cmyers on Fri May 12, 2006 at 09:16:58 AM EST

As a minor heads up to the folks paying for the bandwidth, apparently this article, and Talk2Action as a whole, made it on fark.com this morning.

Fark.com, as an aside, is quite possibly one of the most heavily visited sites on the Internet, and articles featured on Fark and on Slashdot tend to get very heavy visitation.  We will probably be doing a lot of educating people over the next few days.

Good job, folks.  All of you :3

by dogemperor on Fri May 12, 2006 at 01:17:11 PM EST

at last, our work is paying off. Each week some new insight into the attacks on our country and our churches emerges and attracts new ears and new voices. Michelle, this is marvelous, and I am leaving my office immediately to purchase your book. I just this week signed a contract with a New York publishing firm to write one on how this manifests itself in the inner workings of our local congregations. We hope to have it out by next spring. Having fought this battle alone for too many years, it is refreshing and energizing to continuously find new allies. And the more voices that emerge, then the more the message is heard, and the less we are all seen as lonely conspiracy theorists: that card just can no longer be played. As one of my local pastors said to me yesterday, people that used to think we were making this stuff up are putting the pieces together. He tells me he reads this site every day now, and many of his colleagues are joining him. Good stuff!
Shalom, Rev. Dr. John C. Dorhauer "Time makes ancient good uncouth; we must onward still and upward who would keep abreast of truth." from Lowell, "The Present Crisis"
by John Dorhauer on Fri May 12, 2006 at 04:41:06 PM EST

Thank you for bringing to attention this troubling movement. I never knew it in this manifestation of a written theology, though I have seen the effects they have had on young minds first hand.

I have seen the act of 'witnessing' in my high school and college (both in Georgia). Students (and parishioners) are encouraged by their pastors to stand openly in busy places and proclaim loudly (read: yell) their faith and our perceived sins. Often they focused on a selection of extreme biblical views applicable to their `audience.'

In high school many students did this during breakfast in our cafeteria before classes, often despite the obvious discomfort of other students. The administration's initial response was that of indifference. In college, many times, there was an individual who stood outside the cafeteria speaking far more `damnation' and even apocalyptic warnings, though fully endorsed by a gaggle of near-campus ministries.

I discussed his actions often with like-minded students, who had only to say that it was profound. Other students sought to have him silenced, but were met with near disgust by the staff. Some students made it a mission, then, to share the same venue for their own beliefs, only to be met with threats from students and warnings of expulsion from the administration.

I realize this may be a normal, healthy activity for young southern zealots and such indifference is to be expected of a small-town community. However, increasingly I find such methods and goals spreading to the arena of political activism and finding their ways into the decision-making of public officials. I realized, then, there was a program, rooted in both societies, to undermine political processes through organized religion.

The Christian community is highly influential, though I believe most Christians do not wish to push their beliefs on others. However, as a fundamental part of that faith, it is hard to ignore their organizations' increasingly ambitious and accelerating actions to this aim. I'm glad that there is a campaign to educate people about the threat of religious beliefs tacitly affecting the actions of our nation.

by jcampbell on Fri May 12, 2006 at 10:07:04 PM EST

thank god i live in canada.
well, not god, i don't believe in him/her so much anymore.

someone's description of people yelling bible verses in Georgia really struck me as awful. No offence to all of you Southrons, but I don't know if a Jew like me could survive it among the evangelicals down there. And someone preaching during breakfast at school cafeteria? I generally have a no prostelyzing before 9 AM rule in my life. I'm glad to live in a country and attend a high school where faith is more or less left off the table. Pray all you want, i just don't want to hear about it.

Someone above mentioned the ERA act which was shot down about 20 years ago and the fallacies which some church/es had spread about it. Funny because up until Reagan became president the GOP(God's own Party) was in favour of the ERA act. Maybe it was Reagan feeling like he had to throw Fallwell and the other moral majority folks a bone for helping him win an election. Now the ERA act is gone, just the start of the Republican party becoming the Chrisitan Party. Within a few years, the majority of Republicans were anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, and Reagan was touting his "family values". All bullshit. The religious right is the republican party, right down to their shit-eating-grin leader George W. and his Christian coalition friends.

I hope Jeb doesn't get elected, there would be way too many American women coming up here for abortions.

by hirsh39 on Fri May 12, 2006 at 10:35:14 PM EST

I just finished reading Kingdom Coming yesterday, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone concerned about the very real threat the Christian right poses to the separation of church and state.

She mixes in personal conversations with a lot of well-researched data, making it an enjoyable and informative read.

I found the book particularly useful as someone who is just starting to learn more and more about the influence of the Christian right, because Goldberg brings to light so many key people, ideas, and organizations that are essential to be aware of.

I thorougly enjoyed this book, and look forward to seeing what else Goldberg comes out with in the future....


by bright on Wed Nov 01, 2006 at 11:08:30 PM EST

you can go to

http://www.scribd.com/doc/98080359/Theocracy-Rising-Dominionists- Christian-Nationalists-and-Reconstructionists-Their-Intentions-Po litical-Power-and-the-Threat-They-Pose

Also this ebooklet is a concise treatment on the subject of what the Founding Father's believed about religion and Christianity:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Commandments-Founding-Fathers-ebook/dp/ B00AFLG0LW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371170104&sr=8-1&k eywords=the+ten+commandments+of+our+founding+fathers

by Villabolo on Thu Jun 13, 2013 at 08:39:54 PM EST

(from a reader in San Francisco, California) for this posting and all these wonderful comments!  I especially enjoy reading the comments from those of you who you live in less liberal areas than mine, with the result that I have a better understanding of what's happening with regard to religion in your areas.  And I thank those of you who give links and references to reading materials on the subjects that Talk2Action is concerned with. I would like to recommend a book I recently read about the Planting Fathers and the Founding Fathers and their relationship to Christianity and other religions: The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America by Frank Lambert, a professor of history at Purdue University.  You can read the reviews of it on Amazon.com to get a better idea of what the book is about and how well it has been received.  I think the author gives a very well-balanced account of this period in the history of our nation.

by gfross on Fri Jun 14, 2013 at 04:16:08 PM EST

I'm enjoying Michelle's book_Kingdom Coming_!  Am now reading the chapter on evolution.  I've also been reading a book called_A lawyer presents the evidence for the afterlife_ by Victor Zematt and Wendy Zematt.  One of the chapters discusses the relationship of the research being done in quantum physics and the research that scientists have done during the last 150 years on the experiences of people with the afterlife.  If, as quantum scientists say, there is no linear time, how does that affect the concept of evolution?  Do wave/particles evolve?  And what about the "spiritual" experiences that so many people who have had NDEs or OOBEs describe?  I'm not giving any answers here; I'm just asking questions.

by gfross on Thu Jun 20, 2013 at 05:04:13 PM EST

The United States, with the exception of the Southwest, Florida and Louisiana, was settled and remains culturally dominated by Protestant Christians.  Even areas originally colonized by other groups, French Catholics in the Great Lakes or Orthodox Russians in Alaska, are now culturally Protestant Christian.

More importantly, much of the colonization, particularly in the British Colonies was driven by religious strife in the 17th Century: "dissenters" in Massachusetts Bay; even more dissenting dissenters in Rhode Island and Plymouth Plantation; Quakers in Pennsylvania; Catholics (early on and to some degree) in Maryland; Methodists and Baptists on the Frontier in the 18th Century; and even Latitudinarian Royalist Anglicans in Virginia after the English Civil War.

Since their motivation for colonization was religious, Protestant Christian concepts and memes shape our political discourse, for example, John Winthrop's imagery of a "City on a Hill."

However, these people often defined themselves by their lack of orthodoxy.  New religious views sprang up periodically, as with the Great Awakening of the 1740s and 1750s and the Second Great Awakening of the 1810s-1830s.  and the widespread acceptance of Deism in the years between the Revolution and the War of 1812.

Thus, no matter what your faith or lack thereof, part of how you relate to your country is through Protestant Christian viewpoints and many of the new faiths that bloomed during the Second Great Awakening, for example, The Church of J-s-s Chr-st of Latter Day Saints, make the Constitution a part of their revelation.  In short being American, makes us all culturally Protestant Christian to an extent.

To some degree, because part of that Protestant Christian experience was oppression, a part of that ethos is tolerance:  Dutch Colonial Governments in New York and New Jersey welcomed Jewish immigration because the Reformed Christian Dutch had known religious oppression by Spain;  the non-violent (but frequently despised) Quakers showed broad tolerance in Pennsylvania; the Unitarian Christian Jefferson sponsored Virginia's legislation on religious freedom which formed the model for the First Amendment.

However, since our view o ourselves as Americans borrows so much from the Protest Christian tradition, it is hard to know where one ends and the other begins; to separate Justice Brennan's "ceremonial deism" from Establishment.    

by John Minehan on Sat Jun 22, 2013 at 11:48:33 AM EST

Isn't Dominionism a very strange philosophy when Jesus Christ said: "My kingdom is not of this world..." And Phil 3:20: "For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ." His commission was only for us to go into all the world and teach others to be His disciples. The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses,--extortion, intolerance, and grinding cruelty. Yet Christ attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses, nor condemned the national enemies. He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our example kept aloof from earthly governments. Not because He was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually, and must regenerate the heart. Not by the decisions of courts or councils or legislative assemblies, not by the patronage of politicians, is the kingdom of Christ established, but by the implanting of Christ's nature in humanity through the work of the Holy Spirit. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:12, 13. Here is the only power that can work the uplifting of mankind. In the matters of conscience the soul must be left untrammeled. No one is to control another's mind, to judge for another, or to prescribe his duty. God gives to every soul freedom to think, and to follow his own convictions. In Christ's kingdom there is no lordly oppression, no compulsion. The angels of heaven do not come to the earth to rule, and to exact homage, but as messengers of mercy, to cooperate with men in uplifting humanity.

by johnnyshiloh on Sun Jul 21, 2013 at 01:30:27 PM EST

This article is very much enough to know about what Christian nationalism is. I found this article really informative and also share something interesting regarding Christian nationalism. I am expecting more articles from you! Thank you very much!

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