Authoritarian Threats
Christian Nationalism vs. Religious Liberty
One blog summary of the current worldwide authoritarian threat cites four core interrelated factors:
(1) Patriarchy (2) Christian nationalism (3) Traditional norms regarding sexuality and gender (4) White supremacy
It is appropriate that a good book on authoritarianism is entitled "Strongmen." Traditional norms are not big on gender equality.
History compared to "tradition" shows women had powerful roles in many ways. We see this even in the Apostle Paul’s epistles, where he honors women as essential players in the early Christian movement. But, like the current conservative majority on the Supreme Court, this is not the "history and tradition" involved here.
As a worldwide movement, logically, it is not always going to be about "white" supremacy. Leta Hong Fincher, for instance, has written about how current Chinese leadership has attacked feminism. And, in our country, white supremacists can have non-white enablers, including Hispanics who are at times coded "white."
Christian nationalism is not the same as Christianity. It is the belief that church and state should be united with a certain breed of Christianity as the official religion. We have an Establishment Clause to help avoid this fate. The Supreme Court and the Speaker of the House are not big fans of that provision.
The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty shows that religion and religious liberty can go another way. The group joined secular freethought forces to write a report about Christian Nationalism and the January 6th insurrection.
I have a long-held belief that "religion" is a broad concept. We need not dwell on that too much since even the average person defines it broadly. Nonetheless, it is useful to touch upon that since the concept has received somewhat unfair reactions.
Daniel C. Maguire's book Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions provides an open-ended definition of "sacred" and "religion." The sacred is the "superlative of the precious." I know that sounds vague but experts understand these terms are open-ended with unclear borderlines.
People often think of "religion" as tied to God and doctrine. Buddhism need not have a god. Most people still think of it as a religion. Unitarians are a religious group. Some people in that religious faith (sic) do not believe in a god or afterlife.
We need not dwell on that too much since even the average person defines “religion” fairly broadly. Likewise, religious liberty includes making choices about religion.* An atheist without religion is practicing religious liberty. Christian nationalism is a threat to religious freedom as well as Christianity itself. At least, a threat to an ideal version of it.
It is fitting that a blog dealing with religious legal news regularly has posts discussing sexuality and reproductive rights. Again, this all tends to come together in the end.
As to the top link's prediction about our country splitting apart in 10-40 years, who the heck knows? If I'm alive in 40 years, I will be rather old. Too far for me to judge.
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Note: There are various ways to deal with the issue.
First, you can say "religion" means the common understanding of God and the afterlife and that opposition to it is part of the freedom to settle for or against.
Second, conscience [and so forth] can be deemed an important liberty on its own, partially since it is so important to the first. “Religion” can involve various aspects that separately are protected akin to the ‘penumbras” honored in Griswold v. Connecticut leading to a right to privacy.
Finally, "religion" can be defined broadly to include beliefs having a comparable place in one’s life as supernatural beliefs. One term used here is “ultimate truths.”