What Michael Flynn Proposes Is Akin to King George's Anglican Church
We Will Not Become Gilead
On Saturday November 13, 2021 Michael Flynn said the quiet part out loud. At John Hagee's Cornerstone Church in San Antonio Texas, a stop for the Reawaken America tour, Flynn said that America should have only one Church.
"If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.”. --Michael Flynn
Pastor Matt Hagee later issued an apology.
The Reawaken America Tour began in the Spring of 2021 in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, founded by Michael Flynn and Clay Clark. It is a continuing tour, having had multiple bookings in 2021, 2022, and 2023. (With more to come in 2024.) Two of the 2023 bookings were at the Trump National Doral in Miami, Florida. Among the featured speakers have been Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Roseanne Barr, Mike Lindell, Jim Caviezel, Paul Gosar, and Texas State Senator Bob Hall.
That stance is inherently anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and anti everything that isn't Christian. But how narrow is the Christian Nationalist definition of Christian? If we read the history of the founding of America, the definition of Christian can get pretty narrow.
In the colony of Virginia, the Anglican Church was official church, supported by taxes. Yet many new settlers were Baptists, and they preached their convictions. The assault of Swearing Jack Waller, Baptist preacher, by an Anglican minister, the Caroline County Sheriff, and a posse of lay persons is a matter of historical record. After he was horsewhipped, Swearing Jack cleaned himself up, went back into the meeting, and started preaching again.
Madison and Jefferson were aware of this. In a letter to William Bradford, James Madison wrote, "Pride ignorance and Knavery among the Priesthood and Vice and Wickedness among the Laity. This is bad enough But It is not the worst I have to tell you. That diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages among some and to their eternal Infamy the Clergy can furnish their Quota of Imps for such business. This vexes me the most of any thing whatever. There are at this time in the adjacent County not less than 5 or 6 well meaning men in close jail for publishing their religious Sentiments which in the main are very orthodox. I have neither patience to hear talk or think of any thing relative to this matter, for I have squabbled and scolded abused and ridiculed so long about it, to so little purpose that I am without common patience. So I leave you to pity me and pray for Liberty of Conscience to revive among us."
This was the backdrop for the religious freedom expounded upon by the first amendment. The framers of the Constitution could imagine that there would come a time when any constraint would be abused. So they allowed no constraints.
As for the thoughts of the clergy of that time, bear in mind that they had seen at first hand or heard of the abuses of the Church of England. Here's what another Baptist preacher had to say:
"Government has no more to do with the religious opinions of men, than it has with the principles of mathematics. Let every man speak freely without fear, maintain the principles he believes, worship according to his own faith, either one God, three gods, no god, or twenty gods; and let government protect him in doing so." --Reverend John Leland
The Founding Fathers had witnessed persecution of minority religions. Having seen the excesses of the Angican Church, they created a secular government, totally separated from religion. They recognized that one of the inherent rights of humanity is the freedom to worship whomever it chooses.
Now, some who are either ignorant of their history or wilfully blind to it would return us to something akin to His Majesty's Anglican Church of Colonial days. I don't think America will stand still for a return to His Majesty's official religion.
What the Founding Fathers gave us has little room for improvement. There are questions on which the various churches are even divided among themselves. Clarence Thomas has as much as said he's open to making contraception illegal again, as well as gay marriage, and revisiting women's rights.
There is also a division among churches about these questions. There is division among all religions about this. So which side is Michael Flynn going to pick. I can guess.
No General Flynn, we refuse to accept Gilead.
Notes
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/581443-michael-flynn-says-of-the-us-we-have-to-have-one-religion/
https://bjconline.org/s4-ep-22-inside-the-reawaken-america-tour/
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-christian-right-judges-2024-election-rcna111340
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/eric-trump-rachel-maddow-israel-antisemitism-rcna84207
https://www.baylor.edu/alumni/magazine/1501/index.php?id=936173
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-hotel-host-holocaust-denier-israel-war-1834336
https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions16.html
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/24/roe-wade-clarence-thomas-contraception-same-sex-marriage/
Good stuff! Hard to believe the kind of stuff that's up for debate these days.