The Christian Nation That Wasn't
From George W. Bush to Trump: A Twenty-Year Reckoning
It was 2004, my senior year of high school, and we were bracing for another presidential election. I turned 18 exactly eight days too late to vote, which broke me. Some of my friends could, and I was profoundly jealous. I cared—a lot. I railed against George W. Bush and rooted hard for John Kerry, who I truly believed would be a better president.
On November 2nd, I watched the election get called earlier than I’d expected. Part of me wishes someone like Nate Silver had existed back then to tell me Kerry had no shot—but another part of me wishes election forecasters didn’t exist at all. Either way, Bush sailed to re-election, and his supporters became insufferable.
What got under my skin most was how the Republican Party, especially in the early 2000s, claimed moral authority over everything. I remember writing an editorial in English class titled “Morality?”, where I questioned how a party that neglected the poor and tolerated environmental destruction got to claim the moral high ground.
I was a Christian kid myself, and it enraged me how “Christian” and “Republican” had become synonymous with each other.
Twenty years later, they still cling to the same labels, but they've lost the moral high ground. Ironically, I now find myself missing the days when the GOP at least pretended to have guiding principles. Today, the party feels completely rudderless—and often cruel.
Any pretense of a “Christian nation” is gone, especially as they roll out policies that deport people into dangerous, often life-threatening conditions. There’s no way to spin this as something Jesus would do. He wouldn’t.
Say what you will about George W. Bush, but at least his immigration policies showed some regard for human dignity.
I’m not sure how to say this without sounding contradictory, because I believe firmly in the separation of church and state. I believe in freedom of—and from—religion.
But sometimes, I wish we could all just sit down and read the Sermon on the Mount. The Christian case against these heinous deportations policies is even clearer than the legal one. What’s happening to both legal and undocumented immigrants in this country is a direct rejection of Christ’s teachings.
I usually reach for nuance over bluntness. But at some point, we have to ask: how can someone who claims to follow Christ continue to support a party that embraces this man and these policies?
I don’t ask that rhetorically—I really want to know.