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A prominent right-wing Christian leader now says he made a mistake when he said blasphemy would be outlawed in his fictional theocratic government.
Those comments were made by Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in a book called 5 Views on Christian Nationalism, in which five well-known conservative Christians were asked what a hypothetical country run under Christian rules would look like.
Mohler explained the setup this way:
… it asked the contributors to respond to a hypothetical future scenario in which the United States has failed and small regional nations have emerged. In one of these nations, evangelical Protestants comprise about 75% of the population. The U.S. Constitution no longer operates. What order should be put in its place?
During a promotional event for the book in Idaho in early August—you can read a full transcript here—Mohler said he wanted the supremacy of Christianity acknowledged in any new Constitution. Not acknowledging it in our current one, he says, was a “historical error.” That also means citizenship "should be deeply grounded in a situation in which you have the acknowledgement of Christianity as as the background truth claim that makes all these things possible.” He added that politicians could come from any religious background… as long as they agreed that Christianity was the basis for their new nation.
What about Jewish people who didn’t share his theological beliefs? They would of course be welcome in his society. Just… not fully.
The new constitution “would allow non-Christians, specifically Jewish citizens, to enjoy full citizenship and comprehensive participation in the political order, retaining the full measure of religious liberty and requiring only their formal acknowledgement of the Christian foundations of the republic, its constitution and its laws,” Mohler wrote in the book. “But its acknowledgement must be substantial.
“Thus, without apology, the basic moral principles and precepts of biblical Christianity would be fundamental to the state and to its laws,” Mohler wrote in the chapter he authored. “In general, this would require a mere acknowledgement of the first table of the law (specifically the first four of the Ten Commandments) and obedience to the second table (commandments five through ten).”
He actually wrote in the book that there should not be a religious test for public office as long as those serving in public office offer “public and authentic acknowledgement of the nation’s formal commitment to the God of the Bible, specifically the Holy Trinity” and “an acknowledgement of the binding moral authority of the Bible, including both the Old and New Testaments.”
See? Everyone is equal! Some are just more equal than others.
And what about people who don’t believe in God? Or who reject the Christian God entirely?
Blasphemy would be criminalized, with Mohler arguing “the government has the full right to restrict and punish blasphemy as an act or expression that represents a fundamental rejection or repudiation” of the foundation of the republic.
So we’d be put in jail in his utopia. (Along with gay people, because he made clear that same-sex couples would be violating biblical rules and therefore also be guilty of a crime.)
We can exist, as long as we’re silent.
We can serve in public office, as long as we lie about our beliefs and our nation’s history.
He apparently also said in the book that atheists “cannot fully contribute to the American order.” I guess that makes sense. It’s hard to contribute when you’re imprisoned for your thoughts.
This is the leader of one of the most influential seminaries in the country saying that we should work toward a country where non-Christians are quite literally persecuted for not going along with his revisionist history and for pointing out that his beliefs are flat-out wrong. These guys constantly whine about being persecuted by secular politicians, yet here they are fantasizing about how they’d put atheists behind bars if they had ultimate power.
I’ve never heard atheists say anything of the sort, even while arguing that our Constitution calls for a secular nation.
I guess some of us take the idea of religious freedom more seriously than others.
But not everyone went along with Mohler’s extremism.
Christian Post Executive Editor Richard Land, the former president of Southern Evangelical Seminary, denounced the comments in his own article, saying they quite literally went against Southern Baptist teachings. If Mohler’s plan was implemented, Land explained, even Thomas Jefferson would be disqualified from holding public office.
While I would prefer all officeholders to meet at least Mohler’s guidelines, the only Baptist and constitutional way to do that is by electing them to office, not disqualifying those who do not meet these spiritual standards.
Who is going to adjudicate Mohler’s suggested legal standards? What does “authentic acknowledgment” mean? What are the “acceptable” parameters of belief or unbelief?
How is Mohler’s proposal different from liberals who seek to disqualify Christian believers from running for office because it violates their twisted understanding of separation of church and state?
(No liberals are trying to do that. But yes, the double standard would be obvious if that were true.)
In any case, Mohler must have received enough backlash that he now admits he went too far, saying “I think I blew it.” (He tries excusing it by arguing “I am not built to address hypotheticals like this,” though that didn’t stop him from contributing to the book. And that’s never stopped conservative Christians from insisting the sky is going to fall if progressive laws are passed regarding LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, voting rights, etc.)
I should have just stated that doctrinal and theological judgments are matters for the believing church and left the government out of it…
I was not calling for conventional blasphemy laws, and I have never advocated or supported any such legislation. I have supported religious liberty for all citizens energetically and forcefully. Needless to say, I fully support our current constitutional order. That is not in question.
That’s a weird thing to say after he definitely called for conventional blasphemy laws that criminalize those who reject his Christian beliefs. It doesn’t help his case that he drags Land into his bizarre persecution fantasies by saying he should have known better since they both believe that, “in this age, gospel Christians are most at risk of being punished under such laws at the hands of aggressive secularists.” (No they’re not. This is a lie. There isn’t a single conservative Christian who would want to swap places with Muslims right now when it comes to how conservatives in the government treat them.)
At no point, though, does Mohler explain why blasphemy and religious tests for public office wouldn’t be logical outgrowths of his fantasy theocracy. You can’t say the Constitution should require acceptance of certain Christian beliefs, then pretend you don’t want consequences for those who say otherwise. The fact is: In his Christian Nationalist hellscape, people who don’t share his views would be treated as second-class citizens, and that’s precisely what he wants. He thinks everyone would be better off like that. And now he’s trying to walk it back without admitting that the very premise of his beliefs—that our country was founded on conservative Christian principles—is completely wrong.
He wants praise from Christians for wanting a Christian Nation. And he wants to avoid criticism from the rest of us by claiming there would be no punishments for rejecting the notion that we live in a Christian Nation.
He can’t have it both ways.
Nevertheless, Richard Land was satisfied with the revision: “I am delighted, as many other Southern Baptists will be, that Dr. Mohler has clarified his position.”
What was clarified, exactly? Who knows.
Side note: In 2011, some Islamic nations demanded that the United Nations outlaw blasphemy, which many of them already punish with life imprisonment or death. Even if it sounded like a good idea in theory (since the Bible also treats blasphemy as a cardinal sin), one Christian leader wrote, those demands must be rejected. After all, “anti-blasphemy laws place the power of theological coercion into the hands of the state, and this is deadly dangerous.” That person added that “anti-blasphemy laws are deadly barriers to the proclamation of the Gospel,” because the whole point of accepting Jesus is the accepting bit. You have to do it by choice.
That Christian leader was Albert Mohler, who, until about five minutes ago, argued that blasphemy would be a terrific idea as long as his people (and definitely not Muslims) get to decide who’s guilty of it.
Maybe now Mohler can get around to apologizing for ever associating with Doug Wilson and his church’s publishing arm Canon Press. For what it’s worth, Wilson responded to this whole kerfuffle by saying no correction was necessary because “Sensible blasphemy laws actually protect the good order and stability of the commonwealth.”
That’s the country these people want to live in. The rest of us need to do everything we can to push back because they’re the ones in power and they’re not going to give it up willingly. While they would be fully protected to believe what they want under secular law, none of us are safe under their version of an American paradise.
Meanwhile, Canon Press thinks this is all just hilarious publicity, offering a Sharpie with every book purchase so that readers can “cross out Dr. Mohler's former views that blasphemed the sensibilities of some Baptists.”
I mean, come on... the fact that they have divided the world into US and THEM and the US fucking hate the rest of us THEM and want to murder all of us THEM in their ideal "kingdom" should be rather obvious by now.
They want a tyranny run by themselves with complete control of everything.
They truly despise the American Constitution and think liberty and human rights should only apply to their group.
Of all the forms of government humans have dreamed up, none is worse than theocracy. People who support such lunacy always assume it will be their particular tribe calling the shots for everyone else. Blasphemy is a victimless crime and an accusation theists use when they’re losing an argument.