You have two choices, said the Christian Nationalist: "Obedience or rebellion."

During a recent interview on the Christians Engaged livestream, Texas State Rep. Matt Schaefer claimed that every elected official in the country—from President down to dog catcher—must “worship God” and do everything in their power to force the law to fall in line with conservative Christian ideology.

Right Wing Watch has the clip:

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“The first biblical command for all rulers and all persons in authority is to worship God,” Schaefer said. “It’s all over the Bible. Look at the cycle of Israel and all the kings and the rulers that came along; when they obeyed, they had blessing, and then when they disobeyed, they had curses. The overriding command to every person, and every king, every state representative, every county commissioner—doesn’t matter what level—is to worship God and to love him. If you’re not doing that, then you’re out of his will.”

“All government is established by God, and if you’re not doing it his way, then you’re in disobedience,” he added. “There’s only two courses: there’s obedience or rebellion. Those are really the only two options for any elected official.”

Then call me a rebel.

It’s not just that he’s wrong (even though he’s extremely wrong). It’s that he’s saying all this about one of the only countries in the world that explicitly separates itself from God in its founding documents. Outside of perfunctory mentions of a higher power, the Constitution openly rejects the idea that anyone needs to worship God (much less a specific one) in order to serve in public office.

Later in the clip, Schaefer offered an example of Bible-based policy: We have to take care of orphans. That sounds very nice… until you learn that his definition of an orphan is an embryo after a woman decides to go through with an abortion.

“… as Christians, we have a biblical mandate to visit the orphan in their distress. And we do that through public policy. We do that through our elected representatives. How can you neglect that? How can we neglect the orphan inside the mother’s womb when we have a chance to vote on people who will decide whether that is legal or not?”

That argument might make more sense if Schaefer hadn’t previously sponsored a bill allowing people to carry guns without permits, a situation that would inevitably create orphans. Or if he hadn’t responded to a mass shooting that left eight people dead (creating more orphans!) by promising to do absolutely nothing to prevent future acts of gun violence. Or if he didn’t oppose mask mandates despite a deadly virus that took millions of lives.

Schaefer’s Christianity has also pointed him toward a different kind of cruelty. In 2015, before Roe v. Wade was overturned, he proposed an amendment to a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks even if the “fetus has a severe and irreversible abnormality.”

In other words, even if the fetus had no chance of survival, Schaefer wanted to force women to go through with the pregnancy anyway. During debate on his amendment, when critics said he would only cause pregnant people more misery, Schaefer defended his amendment by saying suffering was “part of the human condition, since sin entered the world.”

This is what Christian Nationalists do: They use their faith to justify anything, even emotional torture. They use God as a weapon to push bills that would never make any rational sense on their own.

In response to the criticism of his words, Schaefer said on Friday that he rejects the Christian Nationalist label… but added, “I stand by every word I said.”

Comments like that are why it’s fair to call him a Christian Nationalist whether he likes the term or not.

If there’s any silver lining here, it’s that Schaefer won’t be running for re-election this year (though he said he may consider returning to politics if a State Senate seat ever opens up in his district). Unfortunately, he’ll almost certainly be replaced by someone who shares his Christian extremism rather than anyone who actually gives a damn about the people in Texas.