In the face of rising involvement of the evangelical Christians in the politics, there is discussion of Christian Nationalism. Below are worth reading articles in NYT.

Ross Douthat

Amid all the talk about the potential influence of Christian nationalism in a second Trump administration, and in the country as a whole, the phrase’s popularity has far outrun any coherent definition.

My colleague David French made an effort to remedy that issue in his column this week. I’m going to make my own attempt here, by suggesting four broad ways one could define a term like Christian nationalism:

Definition One: The belief that America should unite religion and politics in the same manner as the tribes of Israel in Leviticus and Deuteronomy (the more extreme case) or Puritan New England (the milder one) — with religious law enforced by the government, a theocratic or confessional state, an established form of Christianity, and non-Christian religions disfavored.

Definition Two: The belief that America is a chosen nation commissioned by God to bring about some form of radical transformation in the world — the spread of liberty, the triumph of democracy — and that both domestic and foreign policy should be shaped by this kind of providential aim.

Definition Three: The belief that American ideals make the most sense in the light of Christianity, that Christians should desire America to be more Christian rather than less and that American laws and policies should be informed by Christian principles to the extent possible given the realities of pluralism and the First Amendment.Definition Four: Any kind of Christian politics that liberals find disagreeable or distasteful.

Concluding paragraph; This doesn’t mean religious conservatism wouldn’t influence a second Trump administration; of course it would. But it would be the influence of an important but weakening faction in a de-Christianizing country, not a movement poised to overthrow a secular liberalism whose real problems lie within.

Full article;

Article by David French on Christian Nationalism

To understand what Christian nationalism is, it’s important to understand what it is not. It is not Christian nationalism if a person’s political values are shaped by the individual’s Christian faith. In fact, many of America’s most important social movements have been infused with Christian theology and Christian activism. Many of our nation’s abolitionists thundered their condemnations of slavery from Northern pulpits. The civil rights movement wasn’t exclusively Christian by any means, but it was pervasively Christian — Martin Luther King Jr. was, of course, a Baptist minister.

The problem with Christian nationalism isn’t with Christian participation in politics but rather the belief that there should be Christian primacy in politics and law. It can manifest itself through ideology, identity and emotion. And if it were to take hold, it would both upend our Constitution and fracture our society.

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posted by f.sheikh

An activist who thrived on agitation, he feared irrelevancy in exile. Winning new respect as he continued to lambast the Kremlin from behind bars cost him his life.

Why, after surviving a fatal poisoning attempt widely blamed on the Kremlin, had he returned to Russia from his extended convalescence abroad to face certain imprisonment and possible death? Even his prison guards, turning off their recording devices, asked him why he had come back, he said.

“I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs,” Mr. Navalny wrote in a Jan. 17 Facebook post to mark the third anniversary of his return and arrest in 2021. “I cannot betray either the first or the second. If your beliefs are worth something, you must be willing to stand up for them. And if necessary, make some sacrifices.”

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posted by f.sheikh

Since 2008, rather than a direct rule, the Army has ruled through politicians and changed regimes as its interests dictated. As the Army is entrenched, not bothered by public shaming, and is ruling through politicians, it is not possible to bring any revolution against the Army.

For the last one decade, PTI has depended upon agitation and dharma politics to bring some kind of revolution, but it has not produced any productive results for the followers, the nation, or the masses. Rather it has produced opposite results and some PTI leaders are in jail.

After February elections, PTI followers are still clinging to the hope of some revolution, which is unrealistic. It will be cruel and heartless on the part of Imran Khan and PTI to continue to play with the hopes and dreams of his followers and give them false hope of a revolution with catchy slogans of “ haqiqi azadi”, and continue the policy of agitation politics. The country has been on standstill for the last decade. The best course is for the PTI to return to Parliament and let the democratic process begin, no matter how imperfect it may be.

PTI alone cannot succeed in taking back full political power from the Army. It should join hands with other parties to revive Benazir-Nawaz like pact of not seeking help or co-operating with Army and gradually chip away at the Army’s hold on politics as it succeeded in Turkey. This is the best course and PTI owe this to its followers, nation, and the party itself.   

The night before my father, Ronald Reagan, died, I listened to his breathing — ragged, thin. Nothing like that of the athletic man who rode horses, built fences at the ranch, constructed jumps from old phone poles, cut back shrubs along riding trails. Or of the man who lifted his voice to the overcast sky and said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Time and history folded over themselves inside me, distant memories somersaulting with more recent realities — the 10 years of his journey into the murky world of Alzheimer’s and my determination to abandon the well-worn trail of childhood complaints and forge a new path. To be blunt, I had resolved to grow the hell up.

I can still remember how it felt to be his child, though, and how the attention he paid to America and its issues made me jealous.

Long before my father ran for office, politics sat between us at the dinner table. The conversations were predictable: Big government was the problem, the demon, the thing America had to be wary of. I hated those conversations. I wanted to talk about the boy who bullied me on the school bus, not government overreach.

In time I came to resent this country for claiming so much of him. Yet today, it’s his love for America that I miss most. His eyes often welled with tears when “America the Beautiful” was played, but it wasn’t just sentiment. He knew how fragile democracy is, how easily it can be destroyed. He used to tell me about how Germany slid into dictatorship, the biggest form of government of all.

I wish so deeply that I could ask him about the edge we are teetering on now, and how America might move out of its quagmire of anger, its explosions of hatred. How do we break the cycle of violence, both actual and verbal? How do we cross the muddy divides that separate us, overcome the partisan rancor that drives elected officials to heckle the president in his State of the Union address? When my father was shot, Tip O’Neill, then speaker of the House and always one of his most devoted political opponents, came into his hospital room and knelt down to pray with him, reciting the 23rd Psalm. Today a gesture like that seems impossible.

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posted by f.sheikh