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Religious Nationalism, or National Religiousness?

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather interesting point over at The Daily Dish:

“Mormonism is much more coherent a faith platform for the rightist religious popular front that the GOP increasingly is. Because it places Jesus in America and gives America a unique role in global salvation. Christianity – the actual religion, not its strip-mall bourgeois impostor – is universalist, not nationalist. What the far right means by American exceptionalism is a divinely blessed and guided country, whose enemies are God’s enemies, whose role in the bringing about of the End-Times is unique, and who therefore cannot truly do wrong.” [Italics his.]

Indeed. It reminds me of what P M Prescott said a few weeks ago:

“The Moral Mafia is claiming all of America as blessed by God so we can wage wars without guilt.” 

One question this raises in my mind:  Which, ultimately, is the driving force here? Are those whom Sullivan calls “Christianists” trying to create a Religious Nationalism, or are Nationalists just using the language of Christianity as a kind of veneer for their agenda?

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