Perhaps "Big Left's" most pernicious achievement has been its march through the institutions - academia, the media, the bureaucratic state, and even parts of Western religion.
And that march is paying some obnoxious dividends.
When a dumb liberal wants to try to name-call a conservative, the go-tos for the past few years have been the first and last resorts of the dim, entitled and badly-educated: "white supremacist", "fascist," and "Nazi". And the results of the devaluation and trivialization of these terms are becoming more apparent all the time.
But that's a subject for a whole different essay.
The boogeyman for the slightly less dim, more entitled, and still badly-educated lately has been "Christian Nationalism". Make no mistake, there are Christian Nationalist groups on the broad right, groups that formally abolish the line between church and state to various degrees. And they are about as common as, well, actual American Nazis.
It's a loaded term. Intentionally so, designed to be slapped onto any dissenting political thought, to shame and shut down disagreement:
"When the term 'Christian Nationalism' results in the rejection of ... expressions of Christian civilization, it indicates that the term is not only useless but dangerous."
— laudablePractice (@cath_cov) October 3, 2025
Link below. pic.twitter.com/X1iiajry73
Which is why Big Left, in this case Big Leftyreligion, in a classic case of "accusation as admission", is applying it to the entire right with all the subtle grace of a German R&B band.- while themselves co-opting the church toward political ends.
One of the Christian denominations most absorbed by Big Left is the "Evangelical Lutheran Church of America" (ELCA) - a Lutheran denomination based in (where else) Minneapolis that has spent the last forty years basically following the path of the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center, morphing into a Democrat pressure group (and, theologically, into Unitarians with bad coffee).
Last week, the bishops of the ECLA (Bishops - not just for Catholics anymore) issued a letter to their congregants, essentially making being a Republican (to borrow a wonderfully descriptive word from the Jews) trayf:
We are living through a time when vulnerable communities are being scapegoated and attacked. Immigrants and refugees are vilified, though Scripture commands us to welcome the stranger. People of color continue to bear the devastating weight of racism woven into the fabric of our society. Transgender people, beloved by God, are being targeted with laws and rhetoric that deny their dignity and even their right to exist. These assaults on our siblings are not political abstractions—they are deep wounds in the body of Christ.
This love also compels us to speak clearly against Christian Nationalism, which our Churchwide Assembly named as a distortion of the Christian faith and an unhealthy form of patriotism. Christian Nationalism confuses the Gospel with political power, turns God into a mascot for the state, and privileges some people over others based on race, religion, or birthplace. This is not the way of Jesus. The kingdom of God is not a nation, not a culture, not a political ideology—it is God’s reign of love, justice, and mercy for all people.
And the call they issue is pretty obviously coded: don't just love illegal immigrants and transgender people, but embrace and protect illegal immigration and the whole panoply of LGBT agendas. And that to do otherwise is "hatred," and "death".
And you thought Pope Francis was fun at parties.
And the ELCA is at the forefront of the Minnesota DFL (local for Democrats) push to impose draconian gun control on the law-abiding citizens of Minnesota (today - your state someday). They are the leaders among 500-odd clergy who signed a letter demanding that the state legislature ban "assault weapons" (I know, I know) and their magazines.
But it's here that there's just a shred of hope for the co-opted church.
Rev. David Lose of Mount Olivet Lutheran Church - an ELCA affiliate deep in the heart of white progressive Minneapolis (roughly four blocks from Annunciation Catholic school, the site of a spree killing by a Trump-hating transgender shooter) is seeing some problems in the forced ideological homogenization in the ELCA in particular, and the mainstream church at large. He sent out a call to caution in an op-ed in the Minnesota Star Tribune last week, calling out the discriminatory moral coding of the ELCA's letter. The whole thing is worth a read. I'll call out this bit here:
Not simply calling a special session, but that lawmakers act “with moral clarity and courageous leadership,” implying that anyone who does not agree with the petitioners lacks moral vision and courage. The slide from moral indignation to condescending contempt — at least in the eyes and ears of anyone who may disagree — is as swift as it is uncompromising and will likely only push opponents to greater entrenchment in their previously held positions.
Which is perhaps the most problematic element of “the pattern of this world.” Increasingly, the issues of the day are rarely framed as policy issues or even moral ones, but rather as identity issues. Both sides of the political aisle are expected to line up, tow the party line and disavow any conversation, let alone compromise, with opponents.
I'm obviously going to disagree with Reverend Lose about the morality of banning law abiding people's practice of their Second Amendment rights; regulating the law-abiding while leaving criminals unmolested is not only morally and statistically dubious, but more a matter of personal social aesthetics than dealing with crime and insanity.
But his call against the "shut up or get cut up" gaslighting being put out by the ELCA, and other mainstream denominations, needs to be amplified.
