Dear Friend,
I’ll start with some terrific news, then get right into the rest. In case you missed Nick’s email earlier this week, it’s time to reserve your spot at our 2025 National Convention in Minneapolis, April 17–20. We’re thrilled Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison will be joining us, and I, for one, am really looking forward to being recharged by your company, all the interesting conversation, and our empowering community.
Our much-beloved American Atheists logo was a nod to the era and a statement about valuing scientific inquiry and reason. Its atomic whirl is open-ended in recognition of the answers we don’t yet have. I’m taking some creative liberty here, but does it also say something about our innate need for solidarity when we’re each so very small and the human desire for legacy in spite of our finite existence? Connection with others is an act of survival (even our primate cousins know there’s power in numbers) and, I’ll argue, of resistance.
In From Dictatorship to Democracy, Dr. Gene Sharp explained how oppressive regimes take advantage of the atomization of people:
a mass of isolated individuals… unable to work together to achieve freedom, to confide in each other, or even to do much of anything at their own initiative. The result is predictable: the population becomes weak, lacks self-confidence, and is incapable of resistance… People are often too terrified to think seriously of public resistance. In any case, what would be the use? Instead, they face suffering without purpose and a future without hope.
That’s why I’m eager to see folks like you in Minnesota this April. Because isolation, fear, and inaction simply won’t do — not now, not for us Nones.
Christian nationalism has risen, right to the top — and not, as they claim, because it’s a meritorious cream (white as it may be). On the contrary, it sought power because of the steady decline of U.S. Christians and gained power in spite of the widespread unpopularity of its political agenda. Even so, its leaders feel entitled by a so-called electoral mandate, a made-up god, and mostly by their own hubris.
Just this week, President Trump attended two national prayer breakfasts; announced a new, “very big deal” Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty; tapped NAR televangelist Paula White to lead the White House Faith Office; and signed an executive order directing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and other loyalists to “eradicate anti-Christian bias” in the federal government and “prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society.”
In his scripted remarks, the president referenced Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Roger Williams, and other staunch advocates for pluralism and the separation of church and state. But his off-the-cuff comments revealed these invocations of religious freedom are a deliberate obfuscation of Christian nationalists’ true plan to rewrite our history and laws in order to impose their extreme and narrow dogma onto all of us. This administration has already repeatedly butted heads with faith leaders, but they view atheists and nonreligious Americans with an especially hostile and bigoted disdain. We are, in their view, an un-American enemy.
Take a look at some of Trump’s recent statements: “The opposite side — they oppose religion, they oppose God.” “People of religion are going to be happy again.” “I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief. Let’s bring religion back. Let’s bring God back into our lives.” “[We will] protect Christians… and defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.”
That gaping, 28-percent-of-the-American-people-sized hole in Trump’s promise is not an oversight. This Christian nationalist regime plans to deny — not defend — the rights and religious freedom of non-believers or any non-loyalists.
Unfortunately, the separation of powers designed to safeguard our democracy from such an ideological takeover cannot function when it, too, has been taken over. For example, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh have flaunted their allegiance this week by swearing in a number of Trump’s appointees. Traditionally, this is a duty performed by the vice president, who’s been busy homilizing about medieval Catholic theology and promulgating the lie that Humanists International used U.S. dollars to promote atheism overseas.
And what of other checks and balances? The Trump Administration’s rhetorical and fiscal attacks on non-governmental organizations are especially worrisome. The health of a democracy is directly correlated to the well-being of civil society, including independent media, nonprofit organizations, trade unions, sports clubs, and, yes, churches. Groups like these fill critical gaps in information, direct services, and mutual aid. The nonprofit sector provides the infrastructure through which a population can assemble and organize. To power-grabbers, that makes organizations like ours especially threatening. A tipping point in a crisis like this is if anti-democratic forces succeed in silencing or subverting civil society (perhaps by designating organizations “money-laundering operations” or terrorists).
Like most authoritarian regimes, the Christian nationalist movement can only hope to retain its power if people like you and I allow ourselves to be atomized. I know it’s tempting to hole up, but we’re learning in real time our freedoms can be lost far more quickly, cheaply, and easily than they were won. It took over two centuries of great minds and bold dissidents to build all this and a couple weeks for some 20-somethings to wreak havoc.
But as Dr. Sharp wrote, “The putschists require legitimacy, that is, acceptance of their moral and political right to rule.” So, I urge you not to retreat but to stand with us – at our convention, in one of our 230+ chapters, and through your contributions. Because American Atheists intends to be as defiant as ever. We’ll keep resisting religious extremism in courts, capitals, and classrooms to uplift atheist voices, to uphold our godless Constitution, and to defend the rights of all Americans.
In solidarity,
Melina Cohen
Director of Strategic Communications & Policy Engagement
American Atheists is a 501(c)(3) non-partisan, nonprofit educational organization that relies on the support of members like you. Contributions are tax-deductible. Our Federal Tax ID Number is 74-2466507 and our Combined Federal Campaign number is 52217.
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