Christians Have Very Good Reasons To Fear An Increasingly Hostile American Regime By Nathanael Blake for The Federalist
GNN Note – Christian oppression is very real in the U.S.
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David French seems to prefer chastising his Christian brothers and sisters to discussing the hard decisions that must be made in practical politics.
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Conservative Christians have won, so now it is safe for us to lose. This contrarian take comes from David French, the most prominent social conservative in the Never Trump remnant. French’s conservative Christian bona fides set him apart in a movement full of social moderates and liberals. I believe French shares (or shared) my values and priorities, which makes assessing his arguments more imperative than responding to someone such as Bill Kristol.
Sadly, after French’s long career of fighting for our rights, he is now accusing his fellow Christians of being cowards who have “turned to Donald Trump to fight for them.” This is, he declares, the result of our being filled with irrational fear even though “few political and legal movements have been more successful in the last 40 years than Christian conservatism.”
Huh. This success sure has felt a lot like failure.
French’s Flimsy Evidence that Our Fear Is Irrational
French provides three pieces of evidence for his claim: first, that Christian conservatives have veto power over the GOP; second, that Christian conservatives have secured extensive legal protection for our rights; third, that abortions are declining.
The first two points mistake desperate defenses of our rights for victory. That conservative Christians currently have the leverage to induce Republicans to make a few vague promises of protecting religious liberty does not mean we have won; it means we lost the broader battle and are barely hanging on to a right to opt out of the ceremonies of a hostile culture. Forty years ago, no major politician, Democrat or Republican, would have supported same-sex marriage, let alone compelled Christian artists and artisans to participate in promoting and celebrating same-sex weddings.
Likewise in the courts and legal system, French extols a “veritable thicket of laws that protect religious expression in public (and even private) spheres.” Even assuming the courts continue to protect us, this is only a valiant rearguard in our long defeat. Thank God and our lawyers for preserving our rights — Onward, Christian litigators! — but we require these protections because we are losing. On a host of issues, we’ve gone from fighting for a more Christian culture to fighting for our rights to live as a cultural minority.
