Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
The Baleful Head
(1890)

"Why, in all that's actually holy, would we ever decide
to downgrade ourselves into being merely a Christian nation?"

One sure and certain sign of EndDays arriving lies in sustained religious zealotry. Any time might spark a temporary blip in religious fervor, but a sense that EndDays are upon us curses many with a sincere sense that they might be in desperate need of immediate salvation. People will agree to the strangest things when they believe their eternity looms. Charlatans proliferate then, as preachers and politicians, each purporting to hold special dispensations, as if they’d previously died and even gone on to heaven, only to return to council any late arrivers. Scripture starts being used for the strangest purposes. A prince of peace might be introduced as some latter-day god of war. Soldiers might be exhorted to behave like Christians, that kind of Christian who acted more like a Roman soldier. The lyrics, “Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war,” lose their allegorical nature in favor of a more literal interpretation. The Ten Commandments get amended to allow a few of the usually more egregious infractions into the lexicon as exceptions, like the prohibition that used to insist Thou Shalt Not Kill no longer applying to upstanding Christian personnel.

The very concept of godly gets turned on its ear, and one wonders where we think we’re going, other than nowhere or Hell. Nothing seems to breed zealotry like certainty, especially any certainty that prophecy might actually, finally be fulfilling. An impending Second Coming does more than a Black Friday Sale to increase the volume of frantic shopping. A rumored Armageddon does wonders for pick-up truck and AR-15 sales. The Second Amendment never gets more fervently interpreted than when we’re confronting some trumped-up crisis of faith. Cue the Conservative Christian Proselytizers set on “saving souls.” Start interpreting the New Testament so that it more closely resembles the Old. Demand an eye for an eye. Insist upon stoning whores again. Command “Good” Christians to engage in more devout hating. Encourage them to become Bad Samaritans. Revile the sick. Punish the weak. Transform the temple into a Crypto Exchange. Time seems short. Morality, even shorter.

Our Founding Fathers were not born-again Christians. They were Big ‘R’ Republicans and bigger ‘D’ Democrats, who didn’t even believe in political parties, let alone have faith in organized religion to serve as the centerpiece of any great nation. They well understood the shortcomings inherent in the marriages of churches and states. The union might have worked great, but history showed the divorces were catastrophic, and there were always periodic divorces, for they had always been an integral part of sacred bonds. Americans would hold their governance sacred, something transcending mere religious affiliation. This would exact the price of tolerance, no small tax, particularly on the zealously religious. Our founding was steeped in a history of rancorous intolerance. E Pluribus Unim was more about beating our religious swords into communal plowshares than converting everyone into a single cohering religious conviction. Over the ages, God the Father had proven himself to be an insufficiently cohering commander to hold anything like a country together.

If the Lord can’t save us from religious zealots, then, I guess, we’ll just have to save ourselves. Those of us who seek more freedom from religion than any sort of freedom to practice any particular religion feel this one need most deeply. We do not voluntarily bow our heads in public prayer, for we find the practice insufficiently democratic, lacking in the freedom to do what we damned well please. I hold no animosity toward anybody’s God, and I suspect that nobody’s God holds all that much animosity toward me. It must be his self-proclaimed representatives here who foster the animosity I see. They seem to exclude accountability for themselves as they curse those who share their convictions to some specially curated Hell. The EndDays preface a definite end, but not the end of the world, just of the world we’ve known. A strange world might well emerge, one that will ultimately spawn some EndDays of its own. Those convinced they hold the only truth must be the ones most cursed by their beliefs. Religionism amounts to so much idolatry, replete with the statue of The Golden Incumbent in ill-fitting golfing attire.

As near as I can tell, the only reason to declare ours a Christian nation would be to increase the net subjugation, and our nation, this nation, was specifically founded to prevent subjugation’s rule. We are a nation of laws, acknowledged as imperfect. We seek to increase the net perfection, never to achieve perfection itself. We have no need for perfection or omniscience, embodied in God or otherwise, to guide our emerging judgment. Our judgment will continually prove to have been lacking as we find the means for improving it. We likewise have no need for Heaven on Earth or elsewhere, for we’re enjoined to pursue whatever happiness we desire. Which heaven could offer any better deal? We claim to be the unlikely, free to choose. What organized religion could possibly promise anything superior to self-determination? We have no need for anyone to choose for us. We might not be fully capable of exercising unerring judgment, but at least we remain free to maintain our own conscience. We require no judge to praise or damn us. Religionism seems indistinguishable from authoritarianism. We were originally organized to be the thorn in the side of that unholy power. Why, in all that’s actually holy, would we ever decide to downgrade ourselves into being merely a Christian nation?

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz