Stop Christian Nationalism

Welcome to Stop Christian Nationalism.

Today is Easter, which is a holiday about baby bunny rabbits and fluffy chicks and candy, jelly beans, yummy eggs.

That's what the holiday is about for most people, but I know that a lot of Christians really think it's about how there was a prophet in Western Asia, who died, but then magically came back to life, and somehow saved the world from something that he caused in the first place by setting up a magical tree with the fruit that was right there in front of people, and they shouldn't have eaten it, and therefore we are all doomed.

I don't know what the heck that has to do with springtime.

Yeah, I just said heck. Heck. Why did I say heck?

I said heck because I've been trained that we're not supposed to say Hell, because that's not nice.

That's a swear word, Hell. Hell.

You know what Hell is?

Hell is a Christian concept.

In the last few days, Donald Trump has invoked Hell twice, in capital letters, H-E-L-L, not lowercase H, but uppercase H Hell, which refers to something that was an invention of Jesus.

Jesus is the person who invented the idea of a place where people who refuse to obey his authority, and his rules, and his power will be tortured forever without mercy.

You want to talk about the resurrection of Jesus? Let's talk about that.

Let's talk about the fact that with the resurrection of Jesus, we have the threat of damnation and Hell.

Here's what Donald Trump said early this morning in a tweet. I'm going to read this word for word, even though I'm going to have to mark that I've got an expletive on the podcast, so it's not supposed to be for the ears of children - although you will have lots of children going into churches where they will have this same message preached at them just without one word: “fuckin’”. That's the only word they won't hear in church.

Other than that, they'll be told that they're going to be ripped apart, burned alive if they don't obey if they don't do whatever church leaders tell them to do.

Here's what Donald Trump had to say this morning in a social media post, word for word.

“Tuesday will be power plant day, and bridge day, all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the Fuckin’ Straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch! Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump.”

And on Saturday, yesterday, here's what Donald Trump said on social media:

“Remember when I gave Iran 10 days to make a deal or open up the Hormuz Strait? Time is running out, 48 hours before all hell will reign down on them. Glory be to God.”

Glory be to God.

Hell is an invention of Christianity. Hell did not exist in Judaism before Jesus came around.

There was no place of eternal punishment for the failure to obey God or to obey religious leaders. Jesus invented that, and the whole point of his second coming, his resurrection, is to enact that punishment.

If you read the Bible, the New Testament has an awful lot of material telling people that if they don't obey Christian church leaders who are now here as the voice of Jesus on earth, they are going to be tortured. They're going to be crushed. They're going to be beaten with iron sceptres. They are going to be burned, and there will be no mercy.

Yes, that is a concept in the New Testament, the Christian part of the Bible: No mercy for anyone who disobeys.

So, when Donald Trump is citing Hell, capitalizing that as an actual Christian place, a Christian threat, he is embodying a core teaching of Jesus and of the Christian Bible, and of Christian church leaders, since, well, for as long as there has been Christianity, that there will be violence, punishment, pain for anyone who stands in their way.

I know you may all want to get together on Easter today, and pretend that Jesus is all about love and forgiveness and nonviolence, but if you pretend that, you're ignoring what Jesus himself said he was here to do, to divide, not to bring peace, but a sword.

That's from the gospels. Those are supposedly Jesus' own words.

Now, of course, the New Testament was not taken down as dictation from Jesus. The New Testament was not written by Jesus. The New Testament was written generations after Jesus was supposed to have lived and died. So really, the whole thing is an invention of Christian church leaders.

Maybe there was a guy who sometime said some of it, but the whole thing can't be said to be the real teachings of Jesus. It's about what Christianity actually is, which is a religion that has a set of teachings, some of which are nice and some of which are rotten, bloody and violent.

Here we have, on Easter weekend, the Christian Donald Trump, who, yes, has been a Christian for his entire life, who was brought up in a church in Jamaica, New York, that's on Long Island, that was racially segregated, that would not allow African Americans to become members or leaders of that church in any way, a church, a Christian church, that taught Donald Trump to hate.

That hate that he's now bringing onto the world, in the name of Jesus, with Pete Hegseth, who leads prayers to the Christian God and to Jesus, hoping that every bullet and every bomb that the United States sends kills somebody.

Now Donald Trump is writing that he's going to bring Hell to Iran.

That's not a secular idea. That's a Christian idea.

I hope, as you all have your ham, and your jelly beans, and you all bow your heads to prey at your Christian Easter dinner this afternoon, I hope you take a moment to pause, to think about the destruction, and the waste, and the chaos that this Christian religion has brought to the world. Fuckin’ Hell.

It's a Christian president, who says fuckin' Hell, and yes, that is Christianity today.

Are you willing to embrace that, or are you willing to confront it?

At that Easter dinner you have this afternoon, with your little kids there, and your mother and your father, maybe your grandparents there, do you have the guts as a Christian to pull out this statement, made by your Christian president, citing your Christian Jesus' Christian idea of torture and Hell and violence, righteous violence?

Do you have the guts to read word for word what Donald Trump has said this weekend, and have your kids hear that?

If you don't have the courage to read that out loud, then you need to do more than just hang your head in shame.

You need to think about why you belong to a religion that teaches that pain and suffering is moral, why you belong to a religion that teaches you must be obedient to people who are violent, cruel killers, why you belong to a religion that has put Donald Trump into the White House and given him power over the U.S. Military.

The pain and suffering and death that the world is experiencing at the hands of Donald Trump comes straight from the teachings of Jesus.

If Christian Americans do nothing to stop this, if they do not stand up and demand the immediate resignation or impeachment of Donald Trump, for the rest of history when we hear about the teachings of Jesus, when we hear about the moral vision of Christianity, we will think about the fuckin’ Hell that Donald Trump, America's most Christian president, has threatened to “reign” down on his enemies, as a leader in a Christian war.

(Yes, that’s how Donald Trump spelled rain - R-E-I-G-N, as in the reign of Jesus, King of King, Lord of Lords, the prime torturer in chief, residing over Hell.)

If even half of the Christians in America today stood up and demanded that Donald Trump be taken out of the White House, it would be done by the end of the week.

We need to think on Easter Sunday about why America's Christians are not doing that. 

The more insane the fascists who now control Washington, DC, get, the more they turn to Christianity, and to Jesus.

I want you to listen to an example of that, coming from Donald Trump this week.

Donald Trump is pushing for a bill to go through Congress. This bill, this proposed legislation, will take away the right to vote from anybody who does not have an original birth certificate or a passport.

It's a poll tax. It's a disenfranchisement of anybody who cannot afford to pay for those documents, anybody who happens to have lost them. It's also an effort to discourage women from voting, because the name has to match what's on the birth certificate, and if you have taken your husband's name in marriage, that's not your legal name anymore. So, you're going to have trouble voting.

Above all else, it is making it difficult for everyone to know what the rules are going to be when we try to vote, because Donald Trump doesn't want us to vote.

Donald Trump is insisting that no other legislation gets passed until that gets passed, and it's in this context that he made the following statement, pushing for this anti-voting bill.

“So I'm tying Homeland Security into voter identification with picture and proof of citizen, citizenship in order to vote, and those two items are the most important thing, having to do with Homeland Security. So it's part, it should be part of the homeland security bill, and I'm requesting that the Republican senators do that immediately. You don't have to take a fast vote. Don't worry about Easter going home. In fact, make this one for Jesus, okay? Make this one for Jesus. That's what I tell them. That would be a damn good thing.”

Do this one for Jesus. What the heck does this have to do with Jesus, you might be asking? That's crazy - Jesus would never support something like this.

Well, actually, if you take a look at the Bible, there's absolutely nothing in there that supports democracy, that supports the right of the people to influence their government.

In fact, the New Testament is full of statements from Christian leaders telling people to just obey their leaders. Just follow along and do what you are told, not to influence the government.

Some people are going to try to tell you, well, you know, they hadn't invented democracy yet. That is simply not true. If you believe that Jesus was a real person, a historical figure, you have to accept that that person was living within the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire came after the Roman Republic was destroyed. Everywhere that the Roman Empire was, people knew about the Republic, and they knew about the Greek democracy that had come before. They knew about these principles, that you could have a society, and a very effective one that was structured around people, influencing their own government.

Now, of course, the Roman Republic was not a perfect democracy, and neither was the Greek democracy, but these concepts were out there, and they were known to anybody who was living around there. Jesus very specifically proposed another model, which is him being Lord, and king, and being obeyed, and the Christian leaders who wrote the rest of the New Testament, all of those Christians who wrote that New Testament, in the name of Jesus or in the name of somebody else, they supported the model of monarchy and of absolute power, of the ruler over the world.

We're shocked when Donald Trump has this terrible bill and says that people should do it in the name of Jesus. The fact is that Jesus supported authoritarianism, not democracy, and you have to keep that in mind when you hear so many American Christians who are now in power, saying terrible, terrible things, and doing it in the name of religion.

A lot of liberal Christians will say: That's not our religion, that's not Christianity, that's nowhere in the Bible.

Well, I want you to listen to now, the Secretary of War, and I know a lot of people don't want to call him that because legally he's the Secretary of Defense, but what's going on with these attacks from Pete Hegseth and the military, it has nothing to do with defense. It has to do with offensive war. So, let's call him the Secretary of War.

Pete Hegseth has just released a video that is going to be put onto national television, using taxpayer money, and taxpayer money produced this video for the Pentagon, to proselytize Christianity, to the American people, and to soldiers in the military, and you'll hear that right away from the 1st line. Listen to this:

“Dear gracious God, I need you. Now, more than ever before, I need you, for I realize how great is my task, and how meager are my resources. Give me wisdom, I pray…”

It goes on and on like that, Pete Hegseth, praying to his Christian god for the military to be strong and for wisdom, always for wisdom, because so meager are his resources.

Right there I'm thinking, what the hell is he talking about? Pete Hegseth has, at his command, the largest, most wealthy military ever to exist in the history of humanity, and Pete Hegseth has burned through that military budget.

He's got nuclear weapons. He's got aircraft carriers. He's got rockets and bombs and bullets and so many weapons and huge numbers of people who are out there ready to obey his orders. How meager are his resources?

Then, because he's burned through all those resources, he's coming to the American people and saying he needs two hundred billion dollars more to fight this stupid war. How meager are his resources, he says when he’s praying to his god, the god who is supposed to be, by the way, the omnipotent ruler of the entire universe.

If Christians really believe they have meager resources and that the all powerful god of the entire universe is on their side, I don't get it.

No, Pete Hegseth, your resources are not meager. No, Pete Hegseth, you are not the underdog. You are the bully.

But he's praying for wisdom.

Right around the same time that this video got released, it was just around this morning, Pete Hegseth went to his monthly Christian, exclusively Christian, only Christians allowed, no other religions allowed, his Christian pentagon military U.S. Federal government-paid-for prayer service.

He gave a specific prayer there, and then he cited a particular Bible passage. I want to read that to you.

Here's what he prayed. He said, “Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation.”

“Let every round find its mark.” When he's talking about there, he's talking about bullets. That's every round of ammunition. Pete Hegseth is praying that every single bullet that is fired kills somebody.

You may be thinking, that's not what Christianity is about.

Pete Hegseth is actually not a complete idiot. He has a very warped morality, and that morality has been shaped by his Christian upbringing, and the association that he's had his entire adult life, being saved over and over again every time he does something that's embarrassing, but he's been Christian his entire life.

He's got that warped morality from the Christian Bible, Old Testament, and New Testament.

I want to point out the Bible verse that he chose to read after that prayer that he gave that every bullet that the American military fires, every round of ammunition kills somebody, in the name of Jesus.

He read a psalm. Oh, the Psalms, you might think, they're so comforting, the Psalms. We love to open the Bible and read the Psalms.

Let's listen to the Psalm that Pete Hegseth chose to read. It said:

“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed.”

Consumed, that means dead.

Let me read more of that psalm, so that you get a context of the kind of comfort and the spiritual wisdom that Pete Hegseth is expecting our soldiers to take from that.

This is Psalm 18. I'm starting it around verse 37, which is where Pete Hegseth started.

“I pursued my enemies and overtook them. I did not turn back till they were destroyed.”

This is another translation. Pete Hegseth said “consumed, this one says “destroyed”. You get the idea, but it goes on.

“I crushed them so that they could not rise.

They fell beneath my feet.

You armed me with strength for battle.

You humbled my adversaries before me.

You made my enemies turn their backs in flight, and I destroyed my foes.

They cried for help, but there was no one to save them to the lord, but he did not answer.

I beat them as fine as wind blown dust.

I trampled them like mud in the streets, you have delivered me from the attacks of the people, you have made me the head of nations, people, I did not know, now serve me, foreigners, cower before me, as soon as they hear of me, they obey me, they lose all heart, they come trembling from their strongholds.”

The comforting psalms, the compassionate Bible, the love of the Lord, and the wisdom of the Bible: This is what Christian nationalists tell you that they're going to teach the entire nation, that it's just all wonderful morality, when, in fact, Pete Hegseth, and Donald Trump, and their fellow Christian nationalists, who now control all three branches of the U.S. Federal government, the Bible passages that they cite, the prayers that they make in the name of Jesus, Show us a very different side of Christianity, a brutal, cruel, violent, totalitarian, fascist Christianity.

It's time that we face that.

These people are not ignoring the teachings of the Bible, they are fulfilling them, and that is why they are so nasty. 

We are now in the second week of the war that the United States launched against Iran, unprovoked.

Every morning, we get a new press conference from Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.

At every one of these press conferences, Pete Hegseth makes sure to engage in an act of Christian religious ritual of prayer.

Hegseth is using this war to promote his religion through the U.S. Federal government. That’s pretty tacky, but it's also pretty ineffective.

Listen to what Pete Hegseth had to say 3 days ago during one of these press conferences:

I’ll close with scripture, drawing strength from Psalm 144.

Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge.

May the Lord grant unyielding strength and refuge to our warriors, unbreakable protection to them in our homeland, and total victory over those who seek to harm them.

Amen. God bless our troops and this mission.

The first thing we hear from Pete Hegseth is that the God of Christianity loves war, loves violence, so much that this God is apparently training people to go to war, training people to engage in acts of violence, training, fingers for battle, hands for war.

This is an all powerful, all knowing God. Why would any God with unlimited power encourage people to engage in acts of violence? This is not a loving God. This is not a peaceful God. This is a God who loves to kill and wants to have people go and kill each other on his behalf.

Beyond that terrible violent attitude from this Christian God, we see that there is actual impotence behind all of the bluster. We see that the Christian God has no power to actually control people.

How do we see that?

Pete Hegseth just engaged in a little magical ritual of protection for American soldiers, didn't he? He prayed to the Christian God that there would be unbreakable protection to American soldiers, from God, unbreakable protection.

We know, as of last night, that 4 more soldiers from the United States military were killed as a part of this war when their plane crashed, going from a refueling mission in Iran over to Iraq. So, this god of war, this Christian god of violence that Pete Hagseth worships, is totally unable to provide the kind of protection that Pete Hagseth asks for.

Why is Pete Hegseth up there, making these prayers, if these prayers don't work, if they don't actually protect soldiers?

You know why he's doing it. Pete Hagseth is using this war in Iran, and the attention that it brings, as an opportunity to spread his own religion, his religion of violence and war. Our country is not only losing soldiers, we are losing a billion dollars per day with this war, and we're losing our international credibility.

This war, and its incompetence, its lack of planning, its careless bloodshed, show just a hint of the kind of disaster we can expect when we mix religion and government. 

Some people say government leaders should follow the teachings of Jesus.

Have they actually read all the teachings of Jesus? Do they know that Jesus taught his followers to hate their own children?

Transcript:

Welcome to Stop Christian Nationalism.

I want to address something that was said by a member of Congress just yesterday, representative Andy Ogles, who comes from Tennessee, a Republican, said,

“Muslims don't belong in America. Pluralism. Is a lie”

Pluralism is a lie.

The idea that we can have different kind of people.

The idea that we can have people who actually choose to have a religion that they want to have or choose not to have any religion at all because they don't like religion.

A member of Congress says that that is a lie that we cannot have that in America, and therefore, Muslims don't belong because America, he says, is only for Christians.

He's saying this as a member of the U.S. Federal government. He's saying this 2 months before Donald Trump is scheduling a national Christian prayer rally, no other members of any other religion other than Christians are invited to organize or participate in this.

At this prayer rally, Donald Trump is going to declare that the United States is under God, not the Constitution, not the law, but that we are under Christianity now, that America is a theocracy.

This is blatant Christian Nationalism.

Christian nationalism is the idea that the United States is an inherently Christian nation, and any other principles that do not fit with that idea have to be thrown out, things like the Constitution, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.

Christian nationalists will tell you that we should be a Christian nation because Christianity is a moral religion.

I want to remind you of this, because you're going to hear a lot of people say, on the left, progressives, they'll say, well, you know, those Christian nationalists, they just don't follow the teachings of Jesus.

And if they followed the teachings of Jesus, there wouldn't be a problem in having Christianity, inform our government and all of that because Christianity is just swell.

I wonder if those people have actually read the Bible, not just their favorite parts, not just the sermon on the Mount.

I wonder if they have read the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14, verse 26.

I'm going to do that for you right now. Here it is. This is Jesus talking here, okay?

“If any man comes to me and does not hate his father and hate his mother and hate his wife and hate his children and hate his brothers and sisters and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple.”

You know, Christians claim to be all about family values, I cannot for the life of me figure out how that is family values.

It's Jesus saying that you have to hate your own children.

Okay, sometimes people hate family members, but I don't know anybody who thinks that that's a good thing, that that makes people better.

Why would Jesus want people to hate their own children, to hate their wives, to hate their parents, their brothers and sisters?

Why would Jesus want people to hate so much, so many people?

In the context of the gospel of Luke chapter 14, it's pretty clear.

Jesus wants all the love to go to him. This is the position of a narcissist and a cult leader who wants to have total control. Cult leaders do this all the time. They separate people from their family members, because family members, that love, that's competition.

You know where they learned that practice from, they learned it from Jesus.

So when I see a Republican member of Congress, saying that we can't have pluralism, we can't have any competition, we can't have any difference, we all have to be Christians, and therefore Muslims don't belong here - nobody but Christians - when I see that, I don't see somebody who doesn't know the teachings of Jesus, I see somebody who knows the ugly, abusive, vile teachings of Jesus, because, you know, a lot of the time, that's what Jesus did.

He shouted at people. He insulted them. He went into the temple and beat people simply because they didn't practice religion in the way that he thought they should.

And in the book of Revelation, which the Bible says is, “the testimony of Jesus” (It doesn't get more Jesus than that) Jesus describes his plans in detail for mass, murder, genocide, and torture where people are tortured at length for months on end, and they are not allowed to die because Jesus wants them to suffer.

What we have happening in the United States right now with people implementing cruel policies in our federal government in the name of Christianity.

I'm sorry, because I know that this is not what a lot of people want to hear, but boy, it matches a lot of the teachings of Jesus, and we need to come to grips with that.

The best way to come to grips with that is to have separation of church and state.

If somebody wants to have a religion where they believe that they should hate their own children, well, you know, that's their business, and they should be free to do so.

I think it's not wise, but by no means should we have the U.S. Federal government forcing everybody to follow a religion that tells us that we need to hate our children in the name of Jesus. 

Some people say government leaders should follow the teachings of Jesus.

Have they actually read all the teachings of Jesus? Do they know that Jesus taught his followers to hate their own children?

Transcript:

Welcome to Stop Christian Nationalism.

I want to address something that was said by a member of Congress just yesterday, representative Andy Ogles, who comes from Tennessee, a Republican, said,

“Muslims don't belong in America. Pluralism. Is a lie”

Pluralism is a lie.

The idea that we can have different kind of people.

The idea that we can have people who actually choose to have a religion that they want to have or choose not to have any religion at all because they don't like religion.

A member of Congress says that that is a lie that we cannot have that in America, and therefore, Muslims don't belong because America, he says, is only for Christians.

He's saying this as a member of the U.S. Federal government. He's saying this 2 months before Donald Trump is scheduling a national Christian prayer rally, no other members of any other religion other than Christians are invited to organize or participate in this.

At this prayer rally, Donald Trump is going to declare that the United States is under God, not the Constitution, not the law, but that we are under Christianity now, that America is a theocracy.

This is blatant Christian Nationalism.

Christian nationalism is the idea that the United States is an inherently Christian nation, and any other principles that do not fit with that idea have to be thrown out, things like the Constitution, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.

Christian nationalists will tell you that we should be a Christian nation because Christianity is a moral religion.

I want to remind you of this, because you're going to hear a lot of people say, on the left, progressives, they'll say, well, you know, those Christian nationalists, they just don't follow the teachings of Jesus.

And if they followed the teachings of Jesus, there wouldn't be a problem in having Christianity, inform our government and all of that because Christianity is just swell.

I wonder if those people have actually read the Bible, not just their favorite parts, not just the sermon on the Mount.

I wonder if they have read the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14, verse 26.

I'm going to do that for you right now. Here it is. This is Jesus talking here, okay?

“If any man comes to me and does not hate his father and hate his mother and hate his wife and hate his children and hate his brothers and sisters and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple.”

You know, Christians claim to be all about family values, I cannot for the life of me figure out how that is family values.

It's Jesus saying that you have to hate your own children.

Okay, sometimes people hate family members, but I don't know anybody who thinks that that's a good thing, that that makes people better.

Why would Jesus want people to hate their own children, to hate their wives, to hate their parents, their brothers and sisters?

Why would Jesus want people to hate so much, so many people?

In the context of the gospel of Luke chapter 14, it's pretty clear.

Jesus wants all the love to go to him. This is the position of a narcissist and a cult leader who wants to have total control. Cult leaders do this all the time. They separate people from their family members, because family members, that love, that's competition.

You know where they learned that practice from, they learned it from Jesus.

So when I see a Republican member of Congress, saying that we can't have pluralism, we can't have any competition, we can't have any difference, we all have to be Christians, and therefore Muslims don't belong here - nobody but Christians - when I see that, I don't see somebody who doesn't know the teachings of Jesus, I see somebody who knows the ugly, abusive, vile teachings of Jesus, because, you know, a lot of the time, that's what Jesus did.

He shouted at people. He insulted them. He went into the temple and beat people simply because they didn't practice religion in the way that he thought they should.

And in the book of Revelation, which the Bible says is, “the testimony of Jesus” (It doesn't get more Jesus than that) Jesus describes his plans in detail for mass, murder, genocide, and torture where people are tortured at length for months on end, and they are not allowed to die because Jesus wants them to suffer.

What we have happening in the United States right now with people implementing cruel policies in our federal government in the name of Christianity.

I'm sorry, because I know that this is not what a lot of people want to hear, but boy, it matches a lot of the teachings of Jesus, and we need to come to grips with that.

The best way to come to grips with that is to have separation of church and state.

If somebody wants to have a religion where they believe that they should hate their own children, well, you know, that's their business, and they should be free to do so.

I think it's not wise, but by no means should we have the U.S. Federal government forcing everybody to follow a religion that tells us that we need to hate our children in the name of Jesus. 

At a conference of military officials from countries throughout the Americas today, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a new foreign policy in which the United States will seek to establish an international alliance of Christian Nationalist governments, using military force if necessary to create it. Hegseth said:

“President Trump has shown what is possible when you reject the status quo delusion that threats to our Homeland and our hemisphere are somehow secondary. America is prepared to take on these threats and go on the offense alone if necessary. However, it is our preference and it is the goal of this conference that in the interest of this neighborhood we all do it together with you, with our neighbors and with our allies who are eager and willing and capable. To do this, to work together, we must first acknowledge what was lost and then understand what needs to be restored. All the nations represented in this room are offsprings of Western civilization. Our nations are and always will be united by our heritage, our history and geography in this new world. We share the same interests, and because of this we face an essential test whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics: Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage.”

Pete Hegseth describes Christianity as if it is under siege by foreign enemies. In reality, there is no military threat to Christianity in the Americas.

Christianity is declining in the United States and elsewhere. That decline is taking place because of longstanding patterns of abuse by Christian preachers and the embrace of fascism by many Christian organizations.

There is no legitimate role for any military organization in efforts to place Christianity back in the socially central position it enjoyed during the Roman Empire and the subsequent centuries of Christian kings. Christian Nationalism in despotic monarchies resulted in atrocities around the globe, including the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, and colonial programs of genocide against non-Christian populations. The authors of the Constitution of the United States created separation of church and state because they knew the history of suffering caused by Christian-controlled governments.

What Pete Hegseth is talking about is using military force to impose Christianity on an entire half of the planet. Hegseth is planning to use the US military to go on the offense against non-Christians, not just in the United States, but everywhere between the southern tip of Argentina and the northernmost end of Greenland.

What “needs to be restored” in this area, Pete Hegseth says, are “Christian nations under God”. This is the same vision of international Christian Nationalism that Marco Rubio articulated last month in Europe, when he told representatives of European governments that they should follow the fascist example of Donald Trump because the United States and the nations of Europe have the same racial identity and are all Christian nations.

Under this international Christian Nationalism, people are presumed guilty, and executed without being given any chance for a fair trial. Stephen Miller shared the stage with Pete Hegseth at the conference today, and said that governments must no longer recognize the human rights of people accused of crimes. Under Christian Nationalism, the only right to survive is the right to strict social order. Miller told the gathering of military officials:

“The human rights that we protect are not of the savages that torture and rape and murder. The human rights that we protect are of the peaceable citizens who have an absolute human right to live in physical safety and security every day of their lives.”

In Christian Nationalist America, every abuse is justified by the name of Jesus. Today, as the death toll of civilians killed by America’s war against Iran rose above 1,000, a group of 20 Christian preachers praised Donald Trump and crowded around him to hold an official government prayer for him in the name of Jesus.

Pew Research released the results of a survey today, showing that 68 percent of Americans understand that it isn’t necessary to believe in any god for a person to be moral. 20 years ago, the majority Americans - 57 percent - believed that belief in God is necessary for morality. Today, only 31 percent do.

The conspicuous arrogance, cruelty, and violence of the Christian Nationalist fascists who currently control all three branches of the US federal government is helping Americans to understand that Christianity may not be an effective method of teaching decent moral values.

This special episode is a short musical version of the episode earlier today discussing the news that commanding officers throughout the US military have been ordering noncommissioned officers to tell soldiers that the war in Iran is being fought in order to provoke the End Times Battle of Armageddon so that Jesus can return to Earth and rule the planet as a god king as foretold by the Book of Revelation.

A report from journalist Jonathan Larsen reveals that there have been over 100 complaints from within the US military, from 40 different military units at 30 different locations, about extremist violent Christian Nationalist commands coming from top military officers. These complaints detail orders to instruct soldiers, sailors, and pilots in the US military that the war against Iran is being fought in order to provoke the battle of Armageddon in order to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus, who will then destroy the world.

One of these complaints reports:

“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be ‘afraid’ as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’.”

These complaints are being received by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that facilitates whistleblowers who have experienced Christian Nationalist indoctrination and discrimination from military officers and institutions. The Foundation says of Christian End Times propaganda currently being spread throughout the military:

“Our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times" as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation. Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.”

Today is the third day in the war by the United States against the country of Iran.

This is a war that was started by the United States with absolutely no provocation by Iran.

This podcast is offered from an American perspective. So, some people may say, Well, what about Iran? Has Iran done a lot of bad things? The government of Iran has. That is absolutely true.

The government of Iran is a theocracy. It's an Islamic republic, and a theocracy is inherently oppressive. It is a religious government without mercy.

I'm giving this podcast from an American perspective, and what we have to consider is what our choices are.

How do we deal with that terrible government, that oppressive government in Iran?

The answer of Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth in the Christian Nationalist government of the United States of America, has been to kill, to kill a bunch of Iranians, to wage war against them, rather than to try to support democracy there through other means, rather than to negotiate rather than to talk.

Violence has been the choice of this Christian nationalist government, and that tells us something very important about what Christian nationalism is, and what really American Christianity is

Let's remember as we always have to, when we talk about our government at this point, that it represents 60% of American Christians. 60% of American Christians voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and then again in 2020, and then again in 2024.

They did so with an explicit promise that Donald Trump was going to impose Christianity, to elevate it above all other religions, and certainly above non-religion, in the United States of America. This government, and this war, is representative of that vision.

It is a Christian war.

It's not just me saying that it's Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, as he likes to call himself, because as he says, he is not the Secretary of Defense. The military is no longer about defending America. It's about killing people.

That's what's happening in Iran.

Here's what Pete Hegseth had to say about that this morning.

“We are not defenders anymore. We are warriors trained to kill the enemy and break their will. Know this, above all, President Trump and I have your back, always. Through fire, through criticism, through everything. May Almighty God watch over you, and his providential arms of protection extend over you. God’s speed warriors!”

The Christian Nationalist Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, seems to think that what's happening with Iran right now is something like an argument in a chat room, with fake news.

Of course, it's much more than that for the actual soldiers out there, not somebody who's just standing in front of a camera like Pete Hegseth does as a former TV weekend newshost.

No, for actual soldiers out there, they're putting their lives on the line, and several have died already. Three jet planes were shot down over Kuwait as they were headed toward Iran to go bomb people in Iran. And of course, lots of Iranians are dying as well, including what may be about 150 little children in that elementary school in Tehran, that was bombed by the United States military.

There's a phrase that Pete Hagseth uses to talk about all this, God's providence. God’s providence simply means whatever God provides. Hegseth just hopes that God is going to provide for American soldiers, that it'll all work out.

It doesn't seem like much of a safety plan to send soldiers out into war, and then just hope that there is some kind of spirit being somewhere that's going to decide, hey, they'll be all right, and everything will be okay.

Sure, why not? Just go for it.

But it also has to make you think: What kind of religious vision is this that thinks that the providence of God provides for a bomb to fall on an elementary school full of 100s of little kids?

That is the providence of God?

Under the Christian government that we have in the United States of America, the theocracy that we have over here, we deplore the Islamic theocracy of Iran, and we should, because they've been ruthless, they've been bloody, they've been violent, they're terrible. But, you know, that’s exactly the kind of thing have the US military has done, sending bombers out to go kill families, to go kill civilians, to go kill little kids.

What would we say? What would we say about Iran? If they launched an attack over here, and one of their bombs blew up an elementary school in the United States of America?

That is exactly the kind of behavior that is being used to justify this war. Now the Christian government of the United States of America is doing that to another country, and that, Pete Hegseth says, is God's providence, which doesn't seem like he's got much of an actual plan.

If you have to rely upon the providence of God for everything to turn out in your war, that says that you really don't have any of the other details worked out.

And that perspective of the influence of religion on the sloppy planning by the United States military from the top and its Christian leadership is reflected by this further comment that Pete Hegseth made at the end of this morning's press conference. Hegseth was asked what he’s doing for the soldiers he is sending into harm’s way. He responded:

“First of all, my prayer for them is that I do pray for them. Um, my wife prays for them. Our family prays for them, our cabinet prays for them. None of this is done, um, on a whim. Um, I think we, I mean, I know we think about them with every decision that we make, and every recommendation that we make to the President of the United States. Those recommendations are made preferably, uh, and when I pray every day, for them and for this mission, I pray simply for the biblical wisdom to see what is right and the courage to do it.”

Biblical wisdom.

Pete Hegseth is running this war on the basis of biblical wisdom, which is to say that you've got intelligence that is 2,000 years old at best, and the integrity of the data behind that intelligence is not quite trustworthy, because it involves belief in magical spirits and demons going around, influencing people, and angels with wings, prophecies, and other magical mythical thingamabobs.

I mean, you want a war based on prophecies?

This is what the cabinet is doing? They’re praying?

This is what Pete Hegseth, as Secretary of War, is doing for the soldiers that he's sending to go kill people, and to put themselves in the line of fire, is he's praying, and hoping he, some kind of idea pops into his head that he thinks comes from a god. A spirit is talking to him and telling him how to run this war, and where to send his soldiers, and who to bomb, and what it's all for.

He's praying on it.

How much good do those prayers do for the dead soldiers? How much good do those prayers do for the dead people on the ground in Iran, and in the other countries that are now being attacked, thanks to the United States starting this war as a war of choice that did not have to happen?

Negotiations were underway. People were at the negotiating table.

Maybe it was a prayer that inspired this war. We may never know.

What we do know, thanks to this morning's press conference, is that the planning for this war is just on a wing and a prayer, and not much of anything else.

It’s kind of Christian improv form of warfare, just praying and seeing what happens and trusting that spirits are going to make all the bloodshed work out in the end.

How well do you think that's going to go? 

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The American military just started an unprovoked war with Iran and bombed an elementary school there killing between 50 and 100 little girls.

The day before, Pete Hegseth, the civilian commander of the American military, announced that trans kids are being kicked out of the Boy Scouts, and girls will soon be kicked out too, all in the name of the Christian God.

Hegseth said this fascism in the Boy Scouts is necessary to teach children values.

The man who just bombed an elementary school full of little girls has the audacity to lecture the Boy Scouts to not be nice to trans kids, because of VALUES.

That’s Christian Nationalism.

That’s fascism.

Pete Hegseth is making the Boy Scouts of America into the American version of the Hitler Youth, where they teach children to hate and to kill.

Jesus stormed the Temple in Jerusalem and violently beat people with a whip for practicing religion in a way he didn’t like.

The violence of Jesus inspired Adolf Hitler to slaughter Jews in the Nazi Holocaust. The violence of Jesus also inspired Donald Trump to encourage his followers to storm the US Capitol in the January 6 insurrection.

Adolf Hitler in Munich on April 12, 1922

“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian, I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter.”

Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, in 1925

“The Founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of His estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests.”