When God Becomes the State: How Religious Nationalism Risks the Republic
By Rebecca M. Bell
“The only thing this world needs is to know God.”
It’s a common refrain— framed as comfort, but really an ultimatum.
The claim sounds simple enough: turn back to God and the world will right itself. But whose God? And whose version of “right”? The quiet threat underneath this message is what makes it so potent: if you don’t share the speaker’s faith, you’re not just lost— you’re part of the reason the country is failing.
America’s Original Split
From the start, the United States has wrestled with two competing myths.
One is the myth of the secular republic: a nation built on pluralism, where government stays out of religion so religion can stay free.
The other is the myth of the chosen nation: America as a Christian project with a divine destiny, blessed only as long as it stays faithful.
The founders were clear— there would be no national church, no religious test for office. Yet history keeps bending toward revival. “In God We Trust” first appeared on currency during the Civil War. “Under God” was added to the Pledge in 1954, in the shadow of the Cold War, to mark a line between us and the “godless communists.” Each time, the move wasn’t about saving souls— it was about consolidating power.
The Danger of Sacred Politics
When God becomes the measure of citizenship, dissent becomes heresy. We’ve seen this before:
Salem witch trials: moral panic turned neighbors into enemies.
Manifest Destiny: divine rhetoric justified the theft of Native land.
Jim Crow sermons: pulpits preached segregation as God’s natural order.
Today’s culture wars are cut from the same cloth. Politicians declare that only God can save the nation, then pass laws narrowing who counts as a “real American.” LGBTQ rights are rolled back. Women’s bodies become state property. Schools are pressured to teach one faith’s creation story as fact. The goal isn’t simply moral reform— it’s moral monopoly.
Pluralism Is the Point
America was never meant to be a monoculture. It was meant to be a commons where Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists—all of them—could live without fear of state-sanctioned punishment for believing differently. That is the radical promise of the First Amendment.
Pluralism is not weakness. It’s what keeps us from tearing each other apart. When one group claims the microphone of God and uses it to dictate law, democracy buckles.
If America Falls
If this country unravels, it will not be because we didn’t pray hard enough.
It will be because we let one group’s God become everyone’s law.
Because we decided there was only one right way to live, to love, to be.
The most patriotic act we can perform is to defend freedom of conscience— even for those whose beliefs unsettle us. The founders understood that. The question is whether we still do.
Pluralism is patriotic.
In defense of everyone’s freedom to believe— or not.
—Rebecca M. Bell
www.rmbellwrites.com
Filed Under: #Pluralism #SeparationOfChurchAndState #AmericanHistory #ReligiousNationalism