Palm Sunday Bible class at East Side Church of Christ meant we were going to get use rubber cement. That liquid adhesive smelled so good, slathering it onto the brush was in itself a religious experience. My fellow little Christiansin- the-making and I liberally applied the glue on the construction paper. The end result was a scene of cutout Jesus, the donkey, and the blades of green grass, our “palm leaves” to show God’s son making his triumphant way into Jerusalem.
One week later, we glued three crosses to the construction paper. That was some kind of plot twist for a child. Maybe that’s when I first learned about mob mentality. Regardless, one of the reasons I continue to embrace my Christian faith as an adult is the story of Jesus’s final days.
God’s son rode a donkey. God’s son felt the adoration of people who would, just a few days later, turn on him and call for his death. Then, the Son of God would quietly return and walk the earth as humbly as he had before his crucifixion. Even a non-believer must admit the story is compelling.
As I said last year before Easter remembrance: this country needs another resurrection.
American Christian Nationalists would have you believe this to be their noble mission. As a Christian who happens to also live in this country, let me offer a counterpoint to the zealots who wear their Christianity in ways that Christ did not.
Passing laws to have “In God We Trust” emblazoned in public school halls is overreach, the very thing many despise about government. Proposing legislation to replace trained, certified school counselors with chaplains in order to promote a religious agenda is a slippery slope. Giving county commissioners (not librarians) the power to decide what books belong in a county library is, in a word, idiotic. Many of the cultural wars that divide us now are a result of Christian nationalism’s alarmist power moves. “To Kill a Mockingbird” in a school library scares these people more than a school shooter with an AR-15 killing 9-year-olds and their teachers.
Christian nationalism is a movement that uses God for its agenda, not His purpose. The Taliban has done the same. I thought Americans understood the dangers of using religion as a tool rather than a lifestyle based on service motivated by love—as Christ did to perfection.
Resurrect Jesus’s humility and wisdom. Our Savior is crucified every time we forget his mission and implement our own.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
