The progressive left is attempting to smear Christians and to cause us to fear speaking up, using false labels as its bullying tactic.  We can expect that to increase as we near this fall’s presidential election. In fact, it’s already growing. Part of the campaigning effort of the left is to put Christians on the defensive to make us explain why we are not what they’re calling us.

But to the contrary: We need rather to go on the offensive and tell them what we actually are.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s no clear contemporary definition of the term “Christian nationalist.” This is deliberate, because defining it clearly would take away the power of the label. The term has been used for centuries, but it recently entered the American political landscape as a derogatory term for Christians who embrace conservative politics. Essentially, it’s just old-fashioned name-calling.

I won’t help the progressive left by defining their definition, but let me tell you what I believe:

Our rights come from God. The uniqueness of America centers on this groundbreaking belief: It is God who gives us our rights. When the Founding Fathers declared their independence from the British Empire, they wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” If you don’t agree that God gives us our rights, then you are out of sync with the Founding Fathers, the Declaration of Independence, and 247 years of American history!

This issue is supremely important. If government grants us our rights, then government can take our rights away.  However, if it is God who grants us our rights, then the role of government is to enforce the rights that we’ve already been given. For example, when America finally ended the scourge of slavery, it was based on the fact that all men are created equal by God — a right that the government could not take away.

Our national motto is “In God We Trust.” Despite efforts to convince the American public that E pluribus unum (out of the one, many) is the national motto, the official motto has been “In God We Trust” since 1956. “E pluribus unum” focuses our nation imprecisely on civil unity, while our official motto focuses on God and a right relationship to Him. The official motto communicates our reliance upon His providence for divine guidance of this nation and its leaders. The official motto should be displayed in every public building in America, reminding us that we rely on God to accomplish the destiny of our nation.

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Our Founding Fathers understood that our representative republic could never be maintained by an immoral populace. The very first amendment in the Bill of Rights (which could be understood as rights the government does not have) addresses this by stating that government should never and may never establish a state religion. The amendment also states that government cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion. This is so important–the amendment protects us in two ways. The government cannot force religion on us and cannot keep us from practicing the religion of our choosing. Religion is the basis of morality and is needed in our civil society, and the Founders intentionally acted to make sure that religion would be honored in America. This makes sense since many of the original colonies were founded by highly religious dissenters, like the Pilgrims and William Penn. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch recently emphasized this in the Coach Kennedy case. He wrote that religious speech is not to be censored and must be “tolerated” in our pluralistic society.

America is exceptional. In a recent Time magazine article, the author presents only two options for America: “Is America a divinely ordained promised land for European Christians, or is America a pluralistic democracy where all stand on equal footing as citizens?” The article then declares its conclusion: “Most Americans embrace the latter vision. But a desperate, defensive, mostly white Christian minority continue to cling to the former.”

This is a classic false dichotomy. There is a third alternative, which Christians like me believe and hold to: that “righteousness exalts a nation” (Proverbs 14:34), and “blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD” (Psalm 33:12).

Every nation is unique. Every nation has an exceptional destiny, not just America. But ultimately, it’s a question of whether or not that nation will actually live out its destiny.

Language is what the father of lies uses to spread untruth. Under his scepter, Christians who love America and are responsibly involved in politics may be branded with this derogatory and slanderous label. But we must take back the conversation by telling people exactly what we do believe and we can use American history to clearly communicate our beliefs.

Please share a prayer below for our freedoms and for the advancing of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(Dave Kubal is the CEO and President of IFA. Photo Credit: AndreyPopov/Getty Images via Canva Pro)