Religious Families Who Defy the Christian Nationalist Mold

Here in the featured picture, we have a progressive religious writer named Rick Pidcock who writes for Baptist News Global.  For Halloween, he dressed as a Christian Nationalist worship leader with his wife dressed as a “The Handmaid’s Tale” character to rightfully mock Christian Nationalism and                          Project 2025/Agenda 47. Rick’s wife works the bread winning career while the dad (Rick) is a stay-at-home father of five kids and does his writing for the Baptist News Global. He regularly writes about the toxic patriarchal masculinity of right winged Christianity which says that “he as the head of the household” must be the bread winner while his wife stays home and cares for the children under his “commanding leadership.” In the modern family, even within most Christian families, this ideology will not work; it will mostly cause harm.

Rick Pidcock’s family is defying the ridiculous notion that all families must look and act the same as the traditional “Christian” family. My own family is not a traditional nuclear all white family.  Even though my husband and I have been married for 30 years, we have multicultural, Neurodivergent, and LGBTQ+ young adult children and their spouses/partners. Rick Pidcock’s family, my family, and millions of American families defy the multi-generational notion that all families must think, act, and conform the same way.

 

The Christian Nationalist agenda is attempting to undo and destroy the many variations of the modern family we see today except the traditional nuclear family. In addition to the traditional nuclear family, we also have blended families, adoptive families, grandparents as serving as parents, single parent families, LGBTQ+ families, and other variations of the family. Society and religious communities must face the reality we are living today instead of insisting that everyone conform to the white, heterosexual, male-dominated, “Christian,” and Republican family.  Although the traditional nuclear family is the minority now, it is still an equally-valid form of the family, but it’s one of many.   As Presidential Historian Alan Lichtman says, “we are rapidly becoming a majority-minority country.”

 

All families regardless of structure and identity should be treated equally. People of goodwill, whether they are religious or not, need to provide equal opportunities for everyone.  The more I expand my social lenses, and the more I see, the more I realize that inclusion of everyone is a safety issue, a right-to-life issue, a human dignity issue, and a loving our neighbor as ourselves issue.

 

To not treat all people and all variations of the modern family as equally-sacred is to place less value on some people than others. This is antithetical to the Gospel of Christ and the core teachings of every major world religion to love our neighbor as ourselves.   To place less value on some than others is also to align with fascism (and even Nazism) which is a great danger to particularly LGBTQIA+ people and their families, most racial groups, various types of non-traditional families, religious minorities, and more. History will repeat itself if we don’t support democracy and religious freedom for all without exception.