**** The Issue At Hand
I imagine some Americans were quite concerned with the 2009 Newsweek article by Lisa Miller. Its title proclaimed, “We Are All Hindus Now.” Miller’s first sentence underscored this point: “America is not a Christian nation.” The author even goes on to quote the Rig Veda.
Since then, heeding the warnings of leading evangelical pastors, there has been a radical upsurge to “take back America.” William Wolfe, Christian author, draws a line in the sand at a panel discussion on Christian Nationalism: “Laws have to have a moral foundation. It’s either going to be the Biblical Christian moral foundation or its going to be a moral foundation made up by man.”
Franklin Graham firmly believes that the USA was founded on biblical principles, and wants to bring prayer to the schools. And Pastor Robert Jeffress emphasized, during Faith Week of 2020, that America was founded “primarily by orthodox Christians, and they founded this country on the unchanging foundation of God’s eternal truth. . . . they believed that our success as a nation depended upon our faithfulness to God’s eternal word. . . America was founded as a Christian Nation.”
The above quotes are all core to Christian Nationalism. It can initially appear benign, because many Christians believe America is a Christian nation. But not all of them think that their religion should control the government. Jeffress specifically referred to the Founding Fathers as “orthodox Christians” because he and many likeminded pastors believe that the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and other founding documents were divinely inspired, and that the government today needs to be steered by the right type of Christian leaders.
Of course, Thomas Jefferson couldn’t have been too orthodox since he cut out Bible verses to create a bible that better suited his sensibilities. Jefferson’s firm stance against religion in government is well known. He writes, “I am for freedom of religion and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.” And “Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
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The Mahabharata Project 
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