By SHANTI HUBBARD-BENNETT, age 13
Being a Christian is very important to some people, but should it be forced upon those who have different values? The 2024 election is coming up, and if Donald Trump gets reelected, there is a plan called Project 2025. Project 2025 threatens women, LGBTQ people, immigrants, the environment and will change a lot about the country. This is part of a trend of Christian nationalism we are already seeing.
What is Christian nationalism? Brad Onishi, a religion scholar who used to be an evangelical minister and Christian nationalist, told PBS, “Christian nationalism is an ideology that is based around the idea that this is a Christian nation, that this was founded as a Christian nation, and, therefore, it should be a Christian nation today and should be so in the future.”
Not every Christian is a Christian nationalist, but there are some in politics and government who would like it to be mandatory for everyone to think the same thing and have the same values as the government. For example, House Speaker Mike Johnson flew a Christian nationalist flag outside his office, and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew the flag at his vacation house.
In Louisiana, the government is telling public schools that by the start of 2025 the 10 Commandments have to be hanging up in every classroom. The government wants it to be a large poster with an easily readable font. The poster will come with four paragraphs talking about how the 10 Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.” In Oklahoma, Ryan Walters, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, is telling public school teachers that they have to teach the Bible.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has the support of a lot of Christian nationalists. A group of super-rich Christian donors is spending over $10 million to help Trump win in November. In April, Trump called Election Day “Christian Visibility Day, when Christians turn out in numbers that nobody has ever seen before.” If Trump wins, we can expect for people to lose certain freedoms, whether it’s reproductive rights, trans rights, or simply the right to go to school without any religion. Ammar Moussa, the director of rapid response for Kamala Harris, warned, “In Trump’s America, women will live in fear … teachers are told what books they can teach in the classroom and grown adults who they can love and marry.”
