James Talarico

And to me, Christian nationalism is just the latest iteration of that, whether it's the Ten Commandments bill, whether it's the bill, I don't know if you read about this, a bill that we passed that allows schools to replace school counselors with untrained, unsupervised religious chaplains.

Sometimes people who go online and become a chaplain within five minutes.

You know, that to me, again, is an example of Christian nationalism.

It's using the state.

It's using political power to elevate one religious tradition over all the others.

It's using governmental power to dominate our neighbors instead of loving them as ourselves, which is exactly what we're called to do as Christians.

And then, of course, most recently we saw this bill that defunded public schools here in Texas to subsidize private Christian schools.

And to me, again, that is a bill that's right in the middle of this Christian nationalist movement to erode the separation of church and state and force a certain interpretation of Christianity on everybody against their wills.

Yeah, and –

I think no one would disagree that Christianity was influential in the founding of this country.

And it's still influential.

I mean, it's suffused throughout our culture, our politics.

It is a central part of who we are as a nation.

But I think it's really important to clarify that we were not founded as a Christian nation.

We were founded as a nation where you are free to be a Christian.

or a Jew or a Muslim or a Sikh or a Buddhist or an atheist.

I mean, that's the promise of America is that we are this multicultural melting pot where no one is told how to pray and no religion is elevated over the others.

Yeah.

And, you know, to be fair, the Declaration of Independence does mention a creator.

And now it doesn't necessarily mention the Christian God, but it does mention a creator.