12-17-24

Do you remember the scene from Wizard of Oz where Dorothy and her

companions were following the Yellow Brick Road into the dark forest….it was a

scary place and yes, there was some creepy stuff in there…..I mean witches, flying

monkeys, that’s just creepy stuff…..but the fear of the unknown was their biggest

enemy….do you remember the scene….they marched along working each other

into a near frenzy saying, “Lions, tigers and bears…oh my!”…..only when it came

down to it they were misdirecting their anticipatory fears…..they never saw a tiger,

never saw a bear, and the only lion they saw was a coward who became their

friend…..their fears were misdirected….they were focusing their concerns on

something that wasn’t there and meanwhile there were actual wicked witches with

flying monkeys!......misdirected anticipatory fear….it’s like when we are kids and

we imagine monsters under the bed….there are no monsters under the bed….just

our imaginations…..

Well the left is doing that right now…..the left is marching down the yellow brick

road and the scary mantra is one from their imagination…..you can see it in their

writings, hear it from their pundits, and watch it in their Tik Tok videos….the left

imagines the scariest of scary things coming to get them in the dark of night…..the

left sees….wait for it….Christians!

You heard me….those rascally Christians are on the march….set to take over and

bring holy wrath upon the heathenish leftist mobs….lions, tigers, bears and

Christians….oh my!

The left likes to call it “Christian Nationalism”….they spent a week dissecting the

deep hidden meaning of Pete Hegseths tattoo of a Jerusalem Cross…..scary stuff

that……

In February of 2023….National Public Radio, the uber-liberal media arm of the US

Government, funded with your tax dollars…..ran a story in which they made the

audacious, salacious and somewhat contumacious claim that “more than half of

Republicans support Christian nationalism”……say it ain’t so! You mean there

are people out there who believe in Jesus and love America?!....heresy!.....NPR

went on to describe it as a long held fringe viewpoint which has recently gained a

foothold in American politics, and particularly in the GOP…..according to the

survey that was the centerpiece of NPR’s screeching piece on the ills of being a so-

called Christian Nationalist the adherents of Christian Nationalism will supposedly

go to great lengths to impose their vision of the country

…..hmmm…..“Impose”…..I’ve never actually met someone who could ever

“impose” a Christian faith…..Here's the bottom line…..I love Jesus and I believe

that he is Lord, and I love the United States of America, and I believe that it is the

greatest country on the face of the earth…..I believe in the Bible and I support and

defend the Constitution…..Am I wrong for doing so? I don’t think so…..Can I do

both? Can I be a Christian and be a patriot at the same time…..I’m pretty

comfortable with it…..but the screechers will tell you that you can’t mix politics

with faith…..I would reply that my faith cannot be separated from me and if I am

in politics that my faith naturally goes with me…..You don’t have to believe what I

believe…..that’s the beauty of Christianity, it is a freely made decision, a matter of

choice in both heart and mind…….And you don’t have to love this country….the

Constitution guarantees you that right…..but the same Constitution guarantees me

the right….the actual right….to believe what I believe and to say so…..I am

perfectly content, and find no disparity in the idea that I can love the Lord and love

my country, and because I love the Lord I want my country to know him like I

do….it’s really as simple as that….does that make me a “Christian

Nationalist”?.....maybe so….I’ll wear that t-shirt every day of the week…..

“but Phil! What if you’re wrong? What if God’s not real?”…..really? okay. What

if I’m wrong? What have I lost? I have committed my belief system to a faith that

calls me to be “strong and courageous”….to seek wisdom….to be faithful to my

wife and to extend charity to others…..to take strong stands…to have hope…to

have a strong work ethic…..to not live in excess…..so really, if my faith isn’t real

(although I believe that it is) then what have I lost?…..nothing….. If I’m wrong

about God then I’ve lost nothing. But if non-believers are wrong about God, well,

they’ve lost everything…..so yep, I reckon I’m a Christian Nationalist – Guilty as

charged!

But I’ll tell you….the same knuckleheads that would conjure up the ridiculous

narrative that loving the Lord and loving America makes us dangerous are actually

moving forward with the intent to brand us that way…..in my estimation there is

an assault on Christianity that is ongoing right now…..the liberal progressives at

the Center for American Progress published a piece just last year that labeled

Christian Nationalism as the single biggest threat to America’s religious

freedom….what? oh, they went there……the claim was made in their tedious

screed that Christian Nationalists seek to undermine democracy and make America

a nation for Christians only which could lead to violence and discrimination

especially, they claim, against LGBTQ2IA+ people, women, and other religious

minorities….hmmmm…I’ll be honest I’ve never met a Christian who believes

that…..not one….I’ve met plenty who, like me, pray for revival….but never one

that said America is for Christians only……I’ve had friends and loved ones who

didn’t believe like me….I’ve gone to war alongside men who didn’t believe like

me….but nonetheless, the progressive left is determined that Christians who love

America are somehow the problem….. the nationally known Brookings Institution

hosted a forum not long ago on the threat of White Christian Nationalism…..oh,

now its racial too….in the opening lines of the introductory website for the forum

it stated that “the rising influence of white Christian nationalism in some circles of

American politics is posing a major threat to the health of our democracy and

culture.”……well, there’s some hogwash…..

But folks, they won’t be content until they can eradicate your deeply held beliefs of

God and country…..and I believe that the day is coming when we will have to be

prepared to choose…..the same America where your tax dollars paid for the NPR

attack on so-called Christian Nationalism, where the FBI internal memos directed a

strong investigative predisposition against traditional Catholics….where

grandmothers who pray outside of abortion clinics are put in jail…..that same

America is seeing a resurgence in faith…..despite the left’s never ending effort to

refute, rebuke, and resist the idea of a loving all-present God there is a turning right

now in America…..one recent study said that Bible sales are rapidly increasing and

that the highest number of those are going to first time buyers…..people who did

not already have a Bible are now putting them in their homes…..At the same time

we are seeing a radical wonderful resurgence of patriotism…..we are tired of being

told that we are no good….that we must apologize for being a great nation…..no

more of that! We’re done with feckless leadership…..America is back….and

Christianity is on the rise……you see, the reality is that the Bible gives us

perspective, and the Constitution guarantees our right to the free exercise of

faith…..period…end of story…..in America, unless we abdicate our rights the

default is always to err on the side of liberty…..in essence, I have to be a Christian

Nationalist…..Christ is why I live and America is where I live…..and if I separate

one from the other in my mind then I am likely to lose the protections of

both…..without God I am lost, and without the Constitution I can have my worship

of God denied by others……

Christian Nationalism……sure….if you need a label to put on someone who loves

the Lord and loves America and believes that the two go well together, go ahead,

label me that……If I’m wrong I’ve lost nothing…..but if they’re wrong they’ve

lost everything…..You get ready folks…..the day is drawing near

And that’s a wrap on the Rightside Way