Thread by @DavidAFrench

Darn it, @DouthatNYT, I was all set to write a piece today about the vaccine mandate cases, and then you had to publish a very good response to my Sunday newsletter. So here's my reply, and a quick thread /1: frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/americas-chr…

My key point isn't that America has gotten more just as it's become less Christian, it's that it's become more just as the white Protestant grip on power has weakened. That's allowed other voices to be heard, including other Christian voices /2:

In part because of the power of those other voices, America has made great strides in becoming a more just and fair nation. Jim Crow is over. Invidious discrimination is largely banned. The Bill of Rights are more potent and enforceable than ever before /3:

Of course the history of post-1954 America isn't a relentless march of progress. Roe is a stain, but the religious history there is complicated. Multiple white Protestant denominations supported abortion rights. Thankfully Catholics were institutionally unwavering. /4.

But contra @roddreher, my argument isn't precisely that "America has become more authentically Christian as Christian power has receded." It's that other voices (including Christian voices suppressed by white Protestants) have been indispensable in making America more just. /5

America needs an authentic Christian political witness. But Republican Evangelicalism has profound problems. And one of those problems is longing for a misremembered past. In many ways their powerful past is not the present we should desire. /end