Hello, my name is Julie Nichols. As an expansion to what Patheos stated about me in my introduction, I serve children with developmental, learning, and cognitive disabilities as a pediatric specialty therapist. I also serve as an advocate for them and in affirming ministry for disabled, LBGTQIA+ youth, and their families to support their right-to-life and human dignity needs. A large number of neurodiverse children and their families, such as families who have children with Autism, also have LBGTQIA+ family members at 3-6 times higher rate than the broader population although the LBGTQIA+ spectrum is not a disability/disorder spectrum. This does not make anyone “less than” another person but equally-different although our political climate has framed those who are as different as “the less than others,” especially in hard-right Texas politics. This certainly does not include all Republicans. I believe that each person who walks this earth is equally-created in the Imago Dei, in the Image of God, no exceptions.
I hope my column/blog may be helpful to some who are struggling with the current events of the church and American politics unjustly intertwined. Many American Christians are totally walking away from the American church and their faith right now, more so due to how right-winged politics have corrupted many churches than secularism pulling people away from churches. According to the latest Gallup poll in 2020, Church membership in America falls below the majority for the first time ever at 47%.
This column/blog will also explore past and continued current events, how different faith traditions are affected, and how many (not all) conservative parts of “right-winged white American Christianity” are badly intertwined with American politics in the far right of the Republican party, especially in Texas. This includes many but not all of American Evangelicalism, some High-Church Protestantism, a little under half of American Catholicism, and small percentage of Eastern Orthodoxy in America who are mostly white, those parts who have been deliberate bedfellows with the Republican party for the last 40 years, with Donald Trump, and his re-election with the purpose to “get even” with the “the other side” and force “Christian” religious dogma on all of secular American society. I have been sharply criticized for addressing the political scene in many of my writings, but this marriage has developed over 40 years, finally surfaced with Trumpism, and that’s impossible to ignore and not deconstruct in order to move forward. American Christians and greater society cannot just can’t ”get over” large parts of the American Christian church (not all) being politically-weaponized increasing for four decades. Some call this marriage Christian Nationalism while I call it religious fascism because I do not want to associate authentic Christianity with the political scene we have been and are currently experiencing. Christian Nationalism (religious fascism) in- short says that white, Christian, Native-born straight people are “better than” everyone else and “deserve” more basic human rights than anyone else who are “less than” in their eyes. In the eyes of Christ and His teachings, this is the exact opposite of who He is and what He taught in the Gospels because Jesus places the most vulnerable first, not last.
Religious fascism is growing all over the world right now. I believe religious fascism is antithetical to authentic Christianity, Catholic Social Teaching, the heart of the Gospel message, and everything Jesus Christ said and did. After being a life-long moderate Texan Republican, witnessing how badly minority groups outside the womb were/are treated and discarded during the Trump era and even sooner, I became a Democrat to stand with the marginalized outside the womb. The Democratic party isn’t perfect, but I believe it better-aligns with the Gospel, especially the Sermon on the Mount, which I will describe below.
The day Trump mocked the disabled reporter in 2015, especially how this is connected to my profession as a pediatric specialty therapist, my eyes started opening to a broad spectrum of social injustices, especially in the areas of racism, legislative attacks on transgender children in Texas, and a dangerous lessoning of gun restrictions in Texas. I also changed my party affiliation because I believe many (not all) white religious leaders in the hard right-wing of the Republican party have taken 15 to 20 Bible verses which speak about the subjugation of women and sexuality, and they have waged war on the poor and the disenfranchised who are supported and defended by 2,000 Bible verses and Catholic Social Teaching. Many leaders, predominately leaders in the Religious Right and the Moral Majority steeped in racism, took the issue of abortion and a few others related to religious freedoms and sexuality, and they used these as weapons to coerce other Christians to vote Republican out of “Christian Duty” growing to the point of abuse over the last 40 years. The Religious Right did this in exchange for life-giving services and safety for millions of vulnerable Americans over decades in the areas of: disability, nationalized healthcare (not socialized), Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, WIC, food stamps, living wages, gun safety, environmental safety, etc….and they call these safety nets and safety precautions “Socialism” or even “Communism” yet America is the richest country in the world who can well-afford to care for the most vulnerable in our society, and we can well-afford to keep our citizens safe. Yet, the hard political right discards all of this in the name of fruitlessly ending abortion and voting against people outside the womb instead of for marginalized people and our environment. It doesn’t seem to matter who they hurt as long as they obtain political power. The Church/non-profit cannot and will not support the Common Good of society alone. I know this from serving disabled children in my profession, raising a disabled son for 20 years, battling Parkinson’s Disease myself, and being the only Republican in a Democratic field for 25 years although I am a Democrat now.
The hard political right elected one of the most abrasive, dishonest, corrupt, hateful, un-Christian bullies they could possibly elect (Donald Trump) in the name of Jesus Christ to “get even” with Democrats. including the most vulnerable, while mimicking his cruel and hateful behavior towards others who do not agree with or look like “white straight Christian Americans.” Essentially, a hierarchy of fear and contempt towards other races, women, people of others faiths, and “the other less than people” have been created for four decades by the hard-political right intertwined with large swaths of the fundamentalist white American Churches throughout some (not all) of the church spectrum I mentioned above. This is something the late Rev. Billy Graham, who was also a Democrat until he died in 2018, warned sternly against. As Pope Francis says, “The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty.”
I am hoping that my column/blog will bring hope and light during times of political friction from within, outside the Church, and in broader American society and especially in Texas society. Make no mistake that history and politics can deeply shape our culture and even our faith worldviews. Even though shifting, growing, and changing to a more progressive Gospel-centric worldview was very difficult for me starting in 2015 over a seven-year period, the results have enriched my spiritual walk, developed relationships with a richer and wider diversity of people, and more tightly bonded my relationship to our Creator who is the Lover of all mankind, not just some of mankind. I am hoping that my column/blog will help you do the same if you so desire.
Love and blessing—Julie Nichols
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