Only Real Christians are Welcome in General Flynn’s America

Ex-General Michael Flynn said at a far-right ReAwaken America tour: “If we are going to have one nation under God — which we must — we also have to have one religion and one religion under God.” Such a vision is utterly contrary to the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.

Flynn, having risen to the rank of Lt. General in the US Army, must have studied the US Constitution and the US Bill of Rights, which comprises the first ten amendments to the US  Constitution, particularly the first amendment:

• 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 separation of the church and the state shall be inviolable.
• “No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Suppose Ex-General Flynn is correct about having one religion and which one is correct. Should it be Evangelical since, in the 2020 election, 75% of white evangelicals voted for Trump according to exit polls? Because there are many branches of Christianity which should it be? Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, Unitarians, or Anglican?

But what of the millions of the Jewish faith, or the Mormons and the growing Muslim faith? Are they to be denied equal protection under the law?  Will they be required to convert to the true Christian faith of General Flynn? What of the different religions where they believe in a higher being but under a different name?

One could imagine if a Muslim or American Jewish leader made the same comment that the US  should have one faith and that it should be Islam or Judaism. Would the statement go unanswered, as Flynn’s remark seems to have been? I think not.

Ex-General Flynn’s remark “one Nation under God” is not the first time this has come up. The original version of the Pledge of Allegiance (written by a Baptist minister Francis Bellamy) states: I pledge Allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

It wasn’t long after the Pledge was published that different groups called for change. In 1923, a National Flag Conference presided over by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, ordained that “my flag” should be changed to “the flag of the US,” lest immigrant children are unclear just which flag they were saluting. The following year, the Flag Conference refined the phrase further, adding “of America.”

The most significant change was when Congress approved the addition of the words “under God” within the phrase “one nation indivisible.” The bill’s sponsors, anticipating that the reference to God would be challenged as a breach of the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, had argued that the new language wasn’t religious. Instead, “The phrase ‘under God’ recognizes only the guidance of God in our national affairs.”

I don’t think anyone should be surprised by Flynn’s comments. He’s simply repeating what some in the GOP have long championed. Their idea of “freedom of religion” is imposing their evangelical religious beliefs upon the rest of us. The theocrats are assaulting everyone’s religious freedom in the name of their religious freedom. When they say the US  was founded as a Christian or a Judeo-Christian nation, they tell us only real Christians need to apply.