Bishop Robert Barron strongly criticized a Politico reporter’s commentary linking belief in divine origins of human rights to dangerous Christian nationalism.
The reporter claimed this belief, shared by the Founders like Jefferson, is now only held by extremist nationalists.
Christian nationalists “have a lot of power in Trump’s circle,” Heidi Przybyla said.
They are united in the belief “that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority. They don’t come from Congress. They don’t come to the Supreme Court. They come from God.”
The bishop argued this ignores that grounding rights in God rather than government protects against totalitarianism by preventing rights from being revoked by rulers.
Saying rights come from transcendent God, as the Founders held, is not religious sectarianism but a foundation of democracy.
While government secures rights, it does not create them.
By conflating this with nationalism, the left shows hostility toward religion.
“First of all, it was Thomas Jefferson who made that claim,” Barron said. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
The bishop warned going down this road jeopardizes viewing rights as permanent rather than subject to shifting political powers.
“It is exceptionally dangerous when we forget the principle that our rights come from God and not from the government,” he added. “Because the basic problem is if they come from the government (or Congress, or the Supreme Court) they can be taken away by those same people.”
“This is opening the door to totalitarianism,” Barron said.
He affirmed Americans should see rights as coming from God, not vulnerable government institutions.
“This is not some kind of religious nationalism or sectarianism,” he said. “It is one of sanest principles of our democratic governance: that our rights come from God. Yes, government exists to secure these rights — the Declaration says — not to produce them.”
“In their enthusiasm to go against Christian nationalism, they’re actually going against the foundations of our democracy,” he said.
“As an American, I want to hold that my rights come not from something as vacillating and unreliable as Congress and the Supreme Court; they come from God,” he added.
