Stop Christian Nationalism

As members of Donald Trump's Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, Mark DeFord, Udit Singh, Ajai Prakash and Maureen Prakash say that marriage must only be between one man and one woman. They say that marriage has to be that way because the Bible says so.

Actually, the Bible has lots of examples of marriages that don't fit the one man one woman model. Take the prophet Abraham, for example. This is the guy who is supposed to have founded the nation of Israel. You don't get more biblical authority than that.

Yet, Abraham was polyamorous. Abraham told his wife that they should go to Egypt, knowing that other men would want to marry her there. Abraham became friends with the Pharaoh and took the Pharaoh's gifts while the Pharaoh married Abraham's wife. Then, Abraham did it again, cucking his wife Sarah off to marry another king. Then, Sarah told Abraham to get a second wife so he could get her pregnant.

In the Book of Genesis, marriage is sometimes not one man and one woman. Sometimes, biblical marriage is three men and two women.

When Christian Nationalists tell us that Christianity can only accept marriage of one man and one women, it makes me wonder: Do Christian Nationalists actually read the Bible?

Republican Christian Nationalist Prophet Joseph Z says that the AntiChrist has personally chosen Tim Walz to be the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2024 because Walz is under the control of goblin puppet masters and Lizard Mafia Overlords.

Cosplay is okay. The problem is that Christian Nationalists take this stuff seriously, and they want to force it on everybody else.

Charlie Kirk wants to remind you that you have to obey an Asian sky god because he delivered you out of Egypt... but wait a minute. You were never in Egypt, were you? When Charlie Kirk says that environmentalism is just nothing more than a god that you worship, it's only because he has become such an obsessed fanboy of ancient Middle Eastern mythology that he has become incapable of paying attention to anything else.

No, TikTok is not a god. Environmentalism is not a false idol. Atheism is not a psyop from Satan.

Christian Nationalism is lost in a bizarre fantasyland. We need more serious political leadership from people who are willing to pay attention to the reality we're actually living in.

Why does JD Vance get weird over the idea that women might live happily with a cat instead of pumping out babies in a marriage? Why do Christian Nationalists get so obsessed with other people's sex lives? It's all about control.

When churches are able to control people's access to sex and affection, they can control every other part of people's lives too. That's why Christian Nationalism supports totalitarianism. The Christian Nationalist hunger for control cannot be satisfied until its control over society is complete.

In defiance of Christian Nationalist schemes for control, cats, and the single women and men of America, will not be leashed.

Donald Trump recently promised Christian Nationalists that if they elect him, they will never need to vote again, because he’s going to make sure the government is “fixed” in their favor. What many people didn’t note was the way that Trump then praised the Puritan pilgrims that settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He said they came to America for freedom, when in fact they came to America to establish a hellish torture-filled authoritarian city on a hill.

The city on a hill of Puritan times wasn’t a utopia. It was a place of misery that people were desperate to escape. Puritan leaders themselves made it plain that they were opposed to democracy. They wanted Christian theocracy instead. Puritan leader John Winthrop wrote:

“If we should change from a mixed aristocratic to mere democracy, first we should have no warrant in scripture for it: for there was no such government in Israel. We should hereby voluntarily abase ourselves and deprive ourselves of that dignity, which the providence of God has put upon us, which is a manifest breach of the Fifth Commandment, for a democracy is, amongst civil nations, accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government.”

Donald Trump’s Christian Nationalism movement is seeking to return the United States to the bad old days of Puritan extremism. Ben Zeisloft, a prominent Trump Supporter online advocate for Christian Nationalism, declared this a few days ago:

“We need to restore true blasphemy laws. For centuries the entire Western world had statutes that prohibited the brazen public blaspheming of the Triune God. Now most of the Western world has the same types of laws, except to protect sodomy and other forms of perversion. We need the former and not the latter.”

Then Zeisloft cited a specific law from colonial times he wants to be re-enacted: The Act against Atheism and Blasphemy from the Massachusetts Bay Colony of 1697. This law provided for the public torture and execution of atheists and blasphemers.

“Be it declared and enacted by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Representatives, convened in General Court of Assembly, and it is enacted by the Authority of the same, that if any person shall presume willfully to blaspheme the holy Name of God; Father, Son, or Holy Ghost; either by denying, cursing or reproaching the true God; his Creation or Government of the World: or by denying, cursing, or reproaching the holy Word of God; that is, the canonical Scriptures contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament; namely Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Samuel, Kings, Kings, Chronicles, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkak, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, Corinthians, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, Peter, Peter, John, John, John, Jude, Revelation: Every one so offending shall be punished by imprisonment, not exceeding six months, and until they find sureties for the good behavior; by fitting in the pillory; by whipping; boring through the tongue, with a red hot iron; or setting upon the gallows with a rope about their neck; at the discretion of the Court.”

Brad Sherman, an Iowa State legislator and member of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition, supports an extremist restoration of the cruel and violent Christian Nationalism of ages past. Sherman perceives the purpose of Christianity as to conquer and dominate everyone in the United States and around the world. He writes:

“We are called to be soldiers in God's army - and we are supposed to win. Jesus has given us the authority and commissioned us to ‘...make disciples of all the nations’… We are called to boldly proclaim Christian values, not only in our churches, but also in the public square and make disciples of all the nations. We are called to prepare the way for the King and His appearing, at which time every knee will bow and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord.”

At the end of last week, Donald Trump told a crowd at the Christian Nationalist Turning Point Action Believers Summit:

"Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won't have to do it anymore for more years. You know what? It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you. Get out. You've got to get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not going to have to vote."

Speaker 1: Donald Trump is depicting voting as a terrible burden, as something that people don't want to do and that they shouldn't have to do. If the government is run right, and he's promising that he's gonna run the government in such a way that Americans will not want to vote again, and they will not vote in another election because things are going to be fixed.

When we were young, we were taught that voting was a civic duty, that voting a way for us to be empowered. It was a chance for us to be heard. It's not a burden. It's not a terrible thing. It's not a pain in the neck to have a voice in our own government. It's a privilege. It's something we should be proud of. But Donald Trump doesn't see it that way. He sees voting and having a country in which Americans turn out to vote as a burden, as an obstacle, as something that we would all be better off if it was just done away.

Donald Trump wants to fix it so that Christians never have to have another vote, never have to turn out on Election Day ever again, because their way of doing things, the Christian nationalist way of doing things, is going to become permanent. And that's another indication in this speech that Donald Trump intends to effectively end democracy in the United States.

Donald Trump and his supporters at organizations like Turning Point Action's Believers Summit believe in Christian Nationalism. Christian Nationalism is their core moral and political ethical foundation. They don't believe in the values of the Constitution of the United States of America. They don't believe in the worth of democracy.

New Apostolic Reformation leader Lance Wallnau claims that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is possessed by a demon. On Fox News, Megyn Kelly claims the Christian god planned the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Instead of addressing the real challenges Americans face today, Christian Nationalists are trying to make the election of 2024 a referendum on ancient mythologies from thousands of years ago.

This spring, Tennessee passed a resolution calling on all the citizens of the state to make July 2024 a month dedicated to prayer and fasting, declaring the Christian god to be the king of Tennessee, in order to stop violent crime there.

We’re halfway through the month of July now. So, let’s look at the facts to see whether Tennessee’s month of prayer and fasting is working.

Crime reports from across Tennessee show that the state's high rate of violent crime is continuing. In the most recent violent crime in the state, a a 12 year-old girl was arrested in Humboldt, Tennessee and charged with first degree murder after she suffocated her 8 year-old cousin to death after an argument about an iPhone. If praying to stop violence has any effect, why couldn’t it at the very least have kept Tennessee’s children from killing each other?

They’ve got serious problems to deal with in Tennessee. Once again this year, the annual survey by CNBC ranked TN as one of the least livable states in the USA, with a score of F+.

Instead of taking concrete action to deal with Tennessee’s problems, state legislators are spending the month of July praying, and encouraging citizens not to eat.

Tennesse’s month of prayer and fasting shows that Christian Nationalism isn’t just a betrayal of the American way of life. Christian Nationalism is also a thoroughly ineffective form of government.

What Christian Nationalists did in Tennessee they want to do to the entire country. They want to replace good government with magical incantations.

America is in no condition to fool around with this kind of nonsense.

It’s time to put the fantasies of faith-based government aside and deal with reality.

The government of Tennessee can pray all it wants, but it isn’t helping. If the Christian god exists, he isn’t listening.

The facts show that Christian Nationalism is an ineffective form of government.

The Ziklag Elite is the first coordinated effort to unite wealthy donors to create a Christian Nationalist ruling class. The Ziklag Elite pushes for the Seven Mountains Mandate of the New Apostolic Reformation… and for special tax breaks and economic loopholes for America’s most powerful financial dynasties. The Ziklag Elite would create an American aristocracy in the name of Jesus.

Along the way, members of the Ziklag Elite want to create a Christian Nationalist big government system of centralized control over American culture. Members of Ziklag say that they intend to “take down the education system”, and to bring Hollywood under Christian Nationalist control.

Under the Ziklag Plan, 80% of American movies and television shows would be required to spread the message of Christian Nationalism. Ziklag also wants the federal government to require that all executives in movie and television studios are Christian Nationalists.

According to documents and video recordings obtained by ProPublica, in order to achieve its seizure of power, the Ziklag Elite plans to use its massive wealth to mobilize pro-Republican voters. Going even further, members of Ziklag have developed plans to prevent large numbers of other Americans from exercising their right to vote.

Ziklag’s Steeplechase project will encourage Christian churches across the country to break the law by making their congregations part of the Republican Party’s political machinery. A preacher working for the Ziklag Elite says that the group will “coordinate extensive pastor and church outreach through pastor summits, church-focused messaging and events and the creation of pastor resources …We need a church that’s willing to do anything and everything to get to the point where we reclaim that which was stolen from us.”

The Ziklaq Elite is also funded by other Christian Nationalist organizations. One of these is the extremist organization WaterStone, which is in turn funded by Fidelity Investments, which sends checks to the Christian Nationalist organization for six million dollars each. Fidelity Investments is heavily invested in other projects of Christian Nationalism extremism as well, having given at least $100,000 to the racist white nationalist magazine American Renaissance between 2015 and 2019.

Thank you to ProPublica for their research into the dangerous Christian Nationalism of Ziklag.

From Chuck Wichgers, Wisconsin State Legislator at the Republican National Convention, to David Brooks at The New York Times, everyone is preaching at you that America needs unity.

Unity is not what democracy is for.

Christian Nationalists and other conservatives crave for there to be just one answer and one source of power and authority for everything and everybody, but that’s just not how people work.

We disagree about things, and in a democracy, that’s how things are supposed to be!

David Brooks writes in the New York Time that a treasured cultural consensus has been lost, and that “science and reason failed to produce a substitute moral order that could hold the nation together.” What he never explains, however, is what makes cultural consensus matter. Why do we need one moral order to hold the nation together.

Democracy is about protecting difference, not about enforcing unity. Yet, David Brooks longs for a new religious power to bring Americans back in line, writing that, “this work of cultural repair will be done by religious progressives, by a new generation of leaders who will build a modern social gospel… the work of building that culture will take decades. Until then, we, as a democracy, are on thin ice.”

Christian Nationalists are never going to agree to a progressive religion modern social gospel. Progressive secular Americans will reject it too.

We shouldn’t be afraid of diversity. A pledge of allegiance to unity is antithetical to American democracy. Unity is an oppressive problem, not a solution.