Ben Shapiro defends Christian nationalism
Shapiro: “When people say Christian nationalism” they mean “undergirding the values of the United States are a set of Judeo-Christian values, and when you jettison those values you destroy the United States”
Published
Citation From the September 29, 2022, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): This is why when people on the right use the phrase Christian nationalism, people on the left hear, ah, we're talking about religious fascism. Well, no, when people say Christian nationalism typically what they mean is not that the official church of the United States should be the Catholic Church, or that the church of the United States should dictate terms of service in the United States. What it means instead, when people say Christian nationalism is that undergirding the values of the United States are a set of Judeo-Christian values, and when you jettison those values you destroy the United States.
Again, I think it's bad branding because I think it's exclusive in a way it doesn't need to be. Specifically because, even if you're not religious, you can agree with the basic idea, even from a natural -- I mean, this is Catholic Church doctrine. You don't have to be Catholic to believe that natural law actually undergirds the idea of family, undergirds the idea of God as an important part of public life. You don't have to be some sort of crazed conservative nut to believe a country ought to control its own borders and that culture matters. All of these things matter.
And so it seems to me that instead of pretending that you're doing something new, what many of these people should do -- the people on the so-called illiberal right -- is they should point out that what they're actually doing is something very old. They're not doing anything that is brand new or world changing.