Earlier this month, Right Wing Watch reported that religious-right activists are seeking to take advantage of the far-right majority’s control of the Supreme Court to start enacting Christian nationalist policies all across the nation.
Emboldened by recent Supreme Court decisions upholding prayer in schools, crosses erected on public lands, and flying Christian flags on public buildings, right-wing activists intend to “go on offense” by pushing Christian nationalist policies at all levels of government and society.
Among those leading the charge is Kelly Shackelford, president of First Liberty, which was integral to laying the groundwork for the right’s spate of Supreme Court victories. During a recent appearance on an Intercessors For America broadcast, Shackelford announced that his organization has launched a Restoring Faith In America campaign to mobilize far-right Christians to rush into the spaces opened by these court rulings and “occupy it”
“Everywhere that crosses went down, they go back up,” Shackelford declared. “Everywhere the 10 Commandments was taken into the closet, it comes back out. Everywhere that prayer was taken out, it goes back in. Everything has changed.”
“The problem is that people don’t understand this,” he continued. “It’s like God has won all this land for us—just massive land—and we just have to occupy it. This is about every person in every community in the country taking back their own communities. We are gonna have a nationwide campaign—really to educate people and empower them—called Restoring Faith In America, because that’s what this is going to do. As soon as people start realizing what they can do and one community does it, the other community is going to look at them and they’re going to do it. And people of faith everywhere need to be going and saying, ‘Hey, why don’t we have prayer at our school board meeting?’ Because there’s no reason not to. They can do that with a thousand different things where we can really restore faith in America. It’s going to be a major push.”
Christian Nationalists Launch A ‘Major Push’ from Right Wing Watch on Vimeo.