is the religious right sensing an opportunity?

We recently talked about Trump advocating for the Ten Commandments to be placed in public schools. Well, it get's better!

Headline:

Tennessee governor signs bill calling for 30 days of prayer and fasting in July
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has signed a bill calling for 30 days of prayer and fasting beginning July 1 in the Volunteer State. The resolution asks the people of the state 'to seek God’s hand of mercy healing on Tennessee.'

In what has been described as an “historic gesture,” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has signed a bill calling for 30 days of prayer and fasting beginning July 1 in the Volunteer State.

Tennessee House Joint Resolution 0803 asks the people of the state “to seek God’s hand of mercy healing on Tennessee.”

A letter signed by Tennessee state Senator Mark Pidy and Representative Monty Fritts accompanying the resolution invites “those who are physically able and spiritually inclined to do so to join in a 30-day season of prayer and intermittent fasting for the month of July as a means of humbling ourselves to receive God’s grace, mercy, and blessing in Tennessee and in our Nation.”

“We are respectfully inviting you to join with us in leading the people of God across Tennessee into a time of humbling ourselves, praying, seeking God’s Face, and repentance during July,” explain Pidy and Fritts.

The language of the legislators is reminiscent of 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

I get the feeling that the religious right is jumping the gun, sensing a Trump reelection and going all-in on inserting religion into politics, theocracy-style. This, to me, can only be a bad thing. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's is the ultimate template for the separation of church and state. While I think it's fine for a politician to use his free-speech right to proclaim himself a man of faith, anything that smacks of a public mandate made through political channels should be absolutely verboten. I get that politicians have evoked God since the founding of our nation, but what's happening in Tennessee strikes me as much more than merely evoking God. And it needs to stop now.

This, by the way, is how Republicans lose crucial, non-GOP votes.