Donald Trump, a 77-year-old Bible salesman from Palm Beach, Florida, has emerged as the nation’s most prominent Christian leader. Trump is running for president as a divinely chosen champion of White Christians, promising to sanctify their grievances, destroy their perceived enemies, bolster their social status, and grant them the power to impose an anti-feminist, anti-LGBTQ, White-centric Christian nationalism from coast to coast. That Trump doesn’t attend church and has obviously never read the book that he hawks for $59.99, seems of interest exclusively to his political opponents.

What might catch the attention of some evangelical conservatives, however, is that Trump’s ostentatious embrace of White Christian militantism coincides with a precipitous decline in religious affiliation in the US. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, one-quarter of Americans in 2023 said they were religiously unaffiliated. “Unaffiliated” is the only religious category experiencing growth. In a single decade, from 2013 to 2023, the percentage of Americans saying that religion is the most important thing, or among the most important things, in their life plummeted to 53% from 72%. (...)

AI image shared with permission by good friend, exquisite photographer and imaginative techie:  Patrick Spears of NY.

Kansas legislators passed sweeping anti-trans legislation this week that has a religious-right coalition’s fingerprints all over it.

On Tuesday, the Republican-led Kansas legislature passed Senate Bill 180—which would make it illegal for trans people to use the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity and illegal to change their name or gender identity on drivers’ licenses—sending it to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s desk with a veto-proof majority.

SB 180, which opponents say attempts to erase trans people from society, was introduced by Kansas state Sen. Renee Erickson. Erickson is a graduate of the Family Policy Alliance’s Statesmen Academy, which promises to “equip (participants) with foundational Christian worldview training.” The Family Policy Alliance is also a leading partner in the anti-trans coalition that has dubbed itself “Promise to America’s Children.”

Formed in 2021, “Promise to America’s Children” vows to “protect” children who it says “are under attack” from “politicized ideas about sexual orientation and gender identity ideology.” The 23 groups that make up the coalition portray feminism and LGBTQ equality as threats to the Christian right’s narrow vision of “the natural family.”  With behemoth partner organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation, the coalition drafts model legislation and works with aligned state lawmakers to introduce them in their state legislatures. (...)

According to reporter Courtney Tanner of the Salt Lake Tribune, a parent submitted a formal request last December to get the Bible banned from Davis High School in Kaysville. The newspaper received a copy of it via a public records request. While the submitter’s name is redacted, the content of the request is glorious.

“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the parent wrote in their request, listing topics they found concerning in the religious text. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”

…

“Get this PORN out of our schools,” the parent wrote. “If the books that have been banned so far are any indication for way lesser offenses, this should be a slam dunk.”

The parent in question didn’t just say all this. Included in the demand was an 8-page list of specific verses that justified the request. (...)

The Rev. Gerald L.K. Smith loved Jesus so much he built a seven-story statue on the top of an Ozark mountain to honor his savior.

Smith loved America, too, but despised many of his fellow Americans. Especially those who were Black, Jewish or immigrants.

An ordained Disciples of Christ pastor, master showman, skilled fundraiser, prolific writer and “minister of hate,” Smith spent decades warning white Christians that they were in danger of losing their country to devious forces conspiring against them.

To combat those forces, Smith founded a political party, ran for U.S. Senate and churned out tens of thousands of copies of The Cross and the Flag, a monthly magazine dedicated to the cause of Christian nationalism.

For Smith, that work was defined not by Jesus or the Constitution. His main concern was preserving Christian power and what he called “traditional Americanism.” (...)

For hard-core Christian nationalists, new and old, the enemies list has often included Jews, Black Americans, immigrants and progressives, often labeled as Marxists.

“One of the key parallels is an us-versus-them mentality where we have to circle the wagons because we are being attacked,” said Whitehead. “And the only way to survive is to fight back to take control and gain power.”  (...)