Readers Write: Christian nationalism, the 2024 election, peatlands

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Our founding fathers had it right. They had seen what happens when religion infects the halls of power, so they created a constitutional vaccine to prevent any variant of religious microbe from penetrating the fragile membranes of government. And for the most part, it was successful. The separation of church and state was preserved.

What has not been preserved is the infestation traveling in the opposite direction — the separation of state and church. We managed to keep Jesus out of empire, but we couldn’t keep empire out of Jesus. We kept religion out of government, but we rolled out the political welcome mat on the threshold of our churches.

It started innocently. A flag next to the soprano section in the choir loft. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” sung in glorious four-part harmony. A Pledge of Allegiance wafting over the communion table. Voting guides as supplements to scripture. Even Bibles with a constitutional concordance. Then Noah’s elephant and donkey stepped from the ark espousing party platforms, flooding sermons with red and blue directives.

And now? The virus of syncretism has fully invaded the bloodstream of our churches, leaving us with a full-blown pandemic. It’s a holy influenza. A streptococcal gospel.

Some call it Christian nationalism, but it feels more like national Christianism.

We took Jesus’ robe and dressed him in a congressional blue suit and an oval-office red tie. We slashed his Sermon on the Mount and put voter-friendly bullet-points on a teleprompter. We traded his revolutionary ideas of love, mercy and kindness and replaced them with pride, self-indulgence and power. And the “other,” the “least of these”? Well, they became an inconvenience to our comfort.

I’d like to believe that this has been the result of a naive, unconscious drift — a trickle-down effect that evaded the watchful eye of evangelicals. But it feels more intentional, like an orchestrated strategy.

We can’t swap Jesus for our candidate of choice and call it a negligent misstep. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when desires antithetical to the message of Jesus take supremacy over the words of Jesus. That’s when we discover that in creating the God of our desires, our desires have become our God. And that God is now subservient to the state — which is us.

No. The state didn’t fall victim to religion. The church fell victim to the power and pleasure of the state. And so we became purveyors of a star-spangled gospel, gallantly streaming an impotent theology where once lived an imperfect, yet differentiated, faith of our fathers.

Terry Esau, St. Louis Park

One should not be too surprised at the two assassination attempts made on former President Donald Trump’s life (”Trump’s would-be assassin left note,” Sept. 24). Not with all the vicious, hateful and dangerous rhetoric being spewed against Trump in this election cycle.

This sort of mean and insulting rhetoric stirs up a lot Trump haters, some whom suffer mental problems. Too many angry liberals, some in positions of influence, can lead to dangerous notions like causing bodily harm to one’s political opponents. One of the worst and totally ignorant accusations is comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler. Not only is this vicious, baseless and dangerous, it is an insult to the memories of the millions of innocent people who died under Hitler’s Nazi regime. Most were Jews, women and children included, but there were also others. My grandmother, in her late 70s near the end of World War II, was an ethnic Hungarian living in Yugoslavia. She died of starvation under the Nazi occupation of her village. To compare any American politician — I don’t care what party they belong to — to Hitler is to display a total ignorance of world history. People are trying to come to America by the millions, legally and illegally. In Nazi Germany, people were trying to escape from Germany! Where is the comparison? And to call Trump a racist is to insult the millions of Black and Hispanic voters who voted for Trump and will vote for Trump in this election. Are they racist? Are the 70 million Americans who voted for Trump racist?

I very seldom agree with Chris Cuomo, but he was certainly right when he called Trump recently and acknowledged the endless, baseless and dangerous rhetoric thrown at him in these dangerous, uncertain times. Enough of the name-calling. From both sides, of course. But Trump is the one who is being targeted from lunatics who are listening to his far-left haters. Are we being reduced to a third-world banana republic?

Tom R. Kovach, Nevis, Minn.

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When I was 10, I would watch All-Star Wrestling on TV. I worked myself into a tizzy at the chicanery that went on right in front of my eyes while ineffectual referees busied themselves elsewhere. The referee lecturing the good guy while his tag-team partner was illegally pummeled by both sneering opponents. The referee saying, “Now, now, you’d better stop that illegal chokehold or I’ll start counting to five. OK then. One ... two ... three ... four ...” The masked and malevolent Doctor X putting an iron bar in his elbow pad in full view of the camera. Then the blustery postmatch interviews full of lies and threats. I raced around the house howling to anybody who would listen (which was nobody): “Outrage! Treachery! Sham! Not fair!”

Then I turned 11. I sadly shook my head at anyone who would believe this cheap and sweaty theater.

Now, watching our latest election, I’ve reverted to my 10-year-old self. I gasp and sputter while the scofflaws flout the rules and boast about it. But business wear and judicial robes aren’t nearly as colorful. And I wish everybody would turn 11.

Chris Keprios, Minneapolis

As a retired Department of Natural Resources wildlife manager, I want to thank the Star Tribune for highlighting the critical role Minnesota’s peatlands play in our environment (“Peat sales bog state into a bad bargain,” Sept. 15). These unique wetlands, formed over millennia through the slow accumulation of plant material, are far more than just natural features — they are vital to our planet.

Peatlands are incredibly effective at carbon sequestration, storing nearly 40% of Minnesota’s terrestrial carbon. They also support thousands of plants and animals and act as natural reservoirs, storing vast amounts of water, reducing flood impacts and mitigating wildfires. In total, Minnesota’s 6 million acres of peatlands provide ecosystem services valued at $114 million annually.

Investing in peatland restoration isn’t just beneficial for the environment — it’s smart economically. The state has allocated $29 million to restore over 15,000 acres of peatlands. Yet, there’s a glaring contradiction: While investing in restoration, Minnesota continues to lease destructive peat mining rights at extremely low rates, ostensibly to fund education. With leases priced at under $12 per acre — yielding just $84 annually per school district — we barely recover a fraction of the restoration costs.

We can do better. We should prioritize peatland protection, so we don’t have to spend taxpayer money restoring them later. By freezing peat-mining leases and pursuing nonextractive ways of generating revenue — like carbon market payments or selling these Trust Fund peatlands to a conservation buyer like the federal government, a tribe or a conservation organization — we can support our schools and protect these ecological powerhouses for generations.

Gretchen Mehmel, Baudette, Minn.