It’s been said that in polite society it is unwise to talk politics or religion… We’re about to test that theory.
In the forests of “Penn’s Woods” springs enter streams and creeks headed to rivers that empty into oceans, bays and a Great Lake. The grand design of our planet is amazing when you see how small springs and streams merge into these awesome powers.
In the past few weeks, we’ve seen Ramadan, Lent, Passover and Easter, all major rites on the calendars of three major Abrahamic faiths. In the religious texts of all three faiths, springs and streams are repeatedly mentioned as the life blood in the heart of all that God has created.
But in 2026 one can see those springs as emblematic of something different. The smallest ideas can spring forth on a course converging with the current of like-minded people. At their worst, malignant thoughts and ideology flow and merge with others forming an ocean whipping up storms of division, hatred and rage.
In normal times, stemming the tide of prejudicial views is a big enough challenge. But when toxic rivers of that hateful rhetoric merge with a bastardized religious ideology, the flow takes on a breathtaking toxicity and hypocrisy. It creates an imaginary mandate from God to rationalize even the most absurd of actions.
In 2026, people are being led to see this nation only through the prism of their own faith. Christian Nationalism is on the march. The talking points are bold, citing an alleged Judeo-Christian founding of our country that is factually untrue. In brandishing religious intimidation, they ignore the truth of the two things they purport to value above all else: the teachings of Christ and the Constitution.
Now some are using their official government positions to elevate their faith to denounce and intimidate those who do not share it. They create the kind of de facto official state religion that runs counter to our American values.
Nothing could be more un-American than using governmental podiums, policies and social media accounts to elevate one religion over all others. After all, religious persecution by state religions elsewhere led refugees to flee here to build a place where all would be free to worship as we please.
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted by Thomas Jefferson in 1777. Religious freedom was the VERY first right mentioned in the FIRST Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” –The First Amendment
It is one of our governing documents’ most meaningful and important guarantees. It drew generations of hopeful immigrants toward Lady Liberty’s torch: a light in the darkness of religious and ethnic persecution.
Are we still living up to our values as a hopeful beacon, that “Shining City on a Hill” that Ronald Reagan spoke of less than four decades ago?
Now we have an intentional effort to elevate one religion while dehumanizing or delegitimizing people of a different faith. We have an administration and political leaders that created a narrative of false Christian persecution and victimhood to justify a backlash bordering on the dangerous establishment of an official state religion.
These false constitutionalists are trading on the fear of “the other,” intentionally casting them as mysterious, strange and somehow heathen. That dehumanization makes it easier to drop bombs with no conscience and excuse the mounting civilian death tolls.
Stereotypes are the currency with which we buy and build the weapons of religious prejudice that allow the mind to commit violence. And lest anyone get too comfortable, the long-established trade in Islamophobia and antisemitism is just the start.
The overt use of Christian religious rhetoric for an unjust war certainly sparked a reaction from the first American pope. Our defense secretary prayed for God’s help at a government podium “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”
“Overwhelming violence” against those who “deserve no mercy.” Christ was a champion of mercy for all.
During Palm Sunday services, Pope Leo stated “Brothers and sisters, this is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood”
Those words were enough to set off a flood of attacks on Pope Leo, as well as anti-Catholic rhetoric on social media platforms claiming Catholics practiced “idolatry” and weren’t “real” Christians. And five days later for Good Friday at the Pentagon, only Protestant services were offered at the Pentagon Chapel after years of also offering Catholic services.
Unintentional blurring of the boundaries separating church and state has happened before. But what is different now is the intentional push amid the unchecked power that resides in the executive branch of our government. There is an unwillingness of the legislative and judicial branches to rein in the excessive exercise of extra-constitutional executive powers.
Whether it be the First, Fourth or 14th Amendments, there is real concern for the future of constitutional rights in this country. Especially with an administration that never takes the blame and never takes accountability.
The inability to apologize for murdering protesters in Minneapolis or bombing a school of girls in Iran betrays a righteousness that never fears the consequences for actions. It should be a warning sign to us all. People incapable of admitting faults or expressing remorse are dangerous.
And one of the hallmarks of the faith they claim to profess is in the Lord’s Prayer that asks, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”.
The Lord’s Prayer is a testament to be inclusive using only the plural pronouns of WE and US. It asks only for our daily bread and forgiveness: no mention of wealth, no mention of power or victory over others. Those same values appear in the Gospel of Matthew when Christ teaches “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.”
But the current religious movement preaches from our government podiums with a vengeful meanness that contradicts both the Lord’s Prayer and the religious texts and Constitution they wield as weapons.
Man’s inhumanity to man is not new in our nation. We enslaved other people. We dismissed the humanity of the people from whom we stole this continent with lies, broken treaties, massacres and wars. Discrimination has always been rampant on the streets of our cities and towns when the “wrong” types of immigrants came here.
That inhumanity has returned armed with religion and online tools that help it go viral instantaneously. And it goes beyond religion.
We’re amassing millions of industrial real estate square footage to warehouse human beings. The Fourth Amendment is being bypassed on the streets and in buying data on our citizens from companies. We’ve attacked, detained and even killed people for exercising their free speech or because they don’t look or sound like “legacy” Americans.
Around the world, without due process or rule of law, we are bombing boats in international waters on suspicion of criminal activity. Humanity and the presumption of innocence is denied to these people.
The actions of warmongers and bigots brandishing religion to intimidate or wage war against innocent people prove the falseness of their faith. Preaching that one group of people are superior and more deserving of the blessings of American freedom is one of the ultimate hypocrisies of this country and the faith they profess.
This was never founded as Judeo-Christian nation. We all know that.
But what has been awakened is a misplaced moral certainty, and a meanness that often comes with it. We’ve turned our back on social programs for the poor and uneducated and the hungry and those seeking a better life. Recently, the U.S. attorney general claimed that citizenship was a privilege not a right. That is their mentality.
As part of the current trends, we’re seeing the buzz of pastors speaking out, hoping to curry favor with the administration and raise their own “brand”. On our current path, we’re going to see more of this. They try to incite a fervor to create a religious equivalency for the leader of a secular government founded with a mandatory delineation between religion and governance.
But that delineation is under threat.
In the past few weeks, a pastor who is a spiritual advisor to our defense secretary suggested that a Texas Democratic Senate candidate should be crucified. Whether the calls for violence target one man or an “entire civilization,” the use of one religion over all others to justify violence sends a chilling message.
It is another wellspring of dark thought flowing into a bigger current that threatens to flood us all. And if we ignore or allow the floodwaters to build, we risk a dam breaking that will overwhelm our freedom of religion and rights we’ve long taken for granted.
And the time for worrying about “polite society” has passed. Those who won’t talk politics and religion yield our future to those who will.
