The National Association of Christian Lawmakers is a collection of right-wing state and federal legislators and religious-right activists dedicated to electing “godly leaders in our nation at every level” for the purpose of seeing its “biblical worldview spread across the nation.”
The NACL was founded by unabashed Christian nationalist and former Arkansas state senator Jason Rapert, who is quite open about his intention to do everything that he can to ensure that Christians who share his far-right worldview “take authority” over every aspect of this nation.
Last week, the NACL held its annual conference at Liberty University, during which Rapert embraced the Christian nationalist label and got choked up at the thought of one day soon seeing a NACL member sworn in as president of the United States.
“I really challenge you to find me one book out of the 66 books in the Bible that was not either written by a politician, to a politician, or about a politician,” Rapert declared. “Moses. King David. Daniel, that’s been talked about here. Even Paul, he stood before and argued before the courts; I mean, he was put in jail, all those things. Those are stories about people that changed their nation, and I happen to believe that in Genesis, when he told us to go out and take dominion and authority over everything in the Earth, birds in the air, fish in the sea, and everything that creeps over the Earth and even the creeps, that he meant it. And we need to stand to do it.”
“I’m praying that one day, I get to see one of you,” Rapert continued, holding back tears. “I can see the West Wing, and one of you taking that podium and calling back on the God of our Founding Fathers and welcoming the Holy Spirit back into the White House where it needs to be. Some say, ‘Are you talking about a theocracy? You one of those Christian nationalists?’ Let me tell you something: those Founding Fathers, they loved God, and they loved this country and if you’re going to call me a Christian nationalist, so be it, baby. I’ll wear that because we need people that are willing to say, ‘We don’t care what you say, but we’re going to stand up for what is right and we’re gonna be those people that will not bow down!'”
Rapert’s assertion that nearly every book in the Bible was “either written by a politician, to a politician, or about a politician” provides a telling example about how Christian nationalists conflate spiritual leadership with political leadership as justification for their effort to create a modern nation that functions entirely according to their particular religious worldview.
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