It’s Election Day Eve, when, like Christmas Eve and Fourth of July Eve, things in the United States often get a little crazy. Just for that reason, we’ve posted on December 24 and July 3 many times before. In life, it can be the anticipation more than the day itself creating all the fun. Whatever Election Day results we get, they’re going to be extremely important indicators of the future, perhaps more so than any other Election Day in our lifetimes. We have heard and read this observation for months now. In spite of all the exasperation from the campaign, we’ll miss the buzz when the Election is over.
On our Praxis Circle blog, we have mentioned Christian Nationalism in seventeen posts since November 12, 2019, including five posts this year. My conclusion is that it’s time we put this topic to bed. It’s really a non-issue in America only drawing attention when abused by the Far Left and Right. Christian nationalism is not at all controversial or even slightly problematical to the average, ordinary, common-sensical American, and it does not need to be.
“Religion & Republic” by Miles Smith, along with a preview of a future Praxis Circle Book of the Month beneath it.
I will write our last post on the subject between the Election and year-end. It will briefly explain how Christian nationalism relates to this Presidential Election and to the Middle East situation. As a preview, Praxis Circle Contributor Rusty Reno at top provides an overview of our worldview position on this subject. And not to hide the ball on our political position: Today’s Wall Street Journal article by Nikki Haley explains our view of the Election.
In the meantime, please consider the following long quote from a recent book by Miles Smith (Davenant Press), Religion & Republic: Christian American from the Founding to the Civil War (2024).
In the Preface of this volume, I laid out my main historical contention: that the early United States was a republic of Christians committed to what I have termed “Christian institutionalism”—that is, they wanted to maintain Christian precepts in their nation’s various social and political institutions without sacralizing those principles or subordinating the American republic to a church.
The relatively brief survey we have taken since then has, I believe, made the case for my contention. We have seen that from the founding of the American Republic until the Civil War, Christians in the United States saw their country as deeply committed to the maintenance of Christian institutionalism in the state legislatures, the courts, Sabbath laws, diplomacy, missionary enterprises, and relationships with Native Americans, and in state colleges and universities. This commitment for Christian institutions transcended questions of state churches and establishment and disestablishment. As long as Christians remained committed to upholding Christian institutions in the civil, political, and social structures of the American republic, the United States would be a Christian nation. (Religion and Republic, pages 243 and 244)
We are still doing that.
We hope you have a fun and patriotic day tomorrow and that your home team wins. Please remember that it’s the Constitution and rule of law with its Biblical foundation that’s the backbone of America . . . and that’s for all Americans.
The United States remains a country for every citizen (“We the People”). Go U-S-A! 🇺🇸
