California Governor Gavin Newsom invoked the biblical command to care for the poor at a press conference in Sacramento last Tuesday. If the individual saying such a thing was most anyone other than the chief executive of the Golden State, one might call him an avowed and open Christian nationalist.
Speaking alongside California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Kim Johnson, Gov. Newsom announced legal action against the Trump administration as the federal government’s shutdown impacted SNAP benefits.
Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program expired on November 1, the first funding lapse in the program’s 60-year history. Roughly 42 million Americans currently receive SNAP aid.
The lack of funds results directly from congressional Democrats’ refusal to reopen the government.
At the press conference, Gov. Newsom pointed to his time at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit institution. He was raised Catholic.
“I spent a little time at a wonderful Jesuit university. If there was anything I remember about my four years with Fr. Coz, is that the New Testament and Old Testament have one thing dominantly in common,” Newsom contended, citing Matthew, Isaiah, Luke and Proverbs in particular. “It’s around food. It’s about serving those that are hungry.”
“It’s not a suggestion in the Old [and] the New Testament. It’s core and central to what it is to align to God’s will. Period. Full stop.”
“These guys need to stop the B.S. in Washington,” Newsom continued. “They’re sitting there in their prayer breakfasts. Maybe they got an edited version of [President] Donald Trump’s Bible, and they edited all of that out. … Cruelty is the policy.”
For years, many on the Left have breathlessly warned about the rise of “Christian nationalism” as an extreme threat to our republic.
“The problem with Christian nationalism isn’t with Christian participation in politics but rather the belief that there should be Christian primacy in politics and law,” wrote David French in the august pages of The New York Times last year.
“It can manifest itself through ideology, identity and emotion. And if it were to take hold, it would both upend our Constitution and fracture our society.”
Writing in CNN last month, senior writer Zachary Wolf charged the Trump administration with “blurr[ing] the lines between church and state.”
“Christian nationalism is the concept — rejected by many scholars — that the US was formed as a Christian nation and that Christianity should imbue its laws,” Wolf summarized.
The Brookings Institution held a panel on the topic in 2023, warning that “rising influence of white Christian nationalism” is posing “a major threat to the health of our democracy and our culture.”
Last year, while hosting “Velshi on MSNBC,” Melissa Murray accused Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito of advancing a “theocratic state,” while deeming Christian nationalism an “existential threat to our democracy.”
“The ideology of Christian nationalism has clearly infiltrated every level of government, and that’s the goal” Murray charged. “[This violates the] constitutional promise of a separation of church and state.”
Little did Murray know that just one year later, Christian nationalism would become so dominant an ideology that the far-left governor in the worker’s paradise of California would embrace it wholehearted, Bible thumping like he’s a Pentecostal revivalist.
Sarcasm aside, anyone with one eye squinted can see clearly what’s going on.
The same individuals and institutions who ostensibly fear a “theocratic state” and Christian nationalism are wholly silent when those on the Left push political arguments based on “the Old and New Testament” and what is “core and central … to God’s will.”
For the Left, it’s all fine and good when “devout, practicing Catholic” former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi argues for abortion based on her faith. “God gave us all the free will,” Pelosi said in 2018. “So, I am a rabid supporter of a woman’s right to choose and a similar issue of the LGBT community.”
There was no outrage on the Left when President Joe Biden, who allegedly always carried a rosary in his pocket, said in his 2007 memoir that Catholic principles have “always been the governing force” in his political career.
Leftists today demand the total “separation of church and state.” Until they don’t. Christian nationalism, apparently, is only bad when certain people do it.
Last week, Gov. Newsom used his personal faith, four books of Holy Scripture and “God’s will” to demand funding for SNAP benefits. That’s your “Christian nationalist” starter kit.
Thanks to the California governor, those of us on the Right should never fear being deemed a “Christian nationalist.” And we can surely use Scripture and faith to advance our arguments. Not that we really need to. Most of the time, common sense will do.
Photo from Getty Images.
