FULL AUDIOBOOK - Tim Alberta - The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory - Part 1

[Music] Harper Collins and Harper audio present the kingdom the power and the glory American evangelicals in an age of extremism by Tim Alberta this is the author [Music] in loving memory of Pop Reverend Richard J Alberta a sinner like his sons and the devil taking him up unto a high mountain showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and the devil said unto him all this power will I give thee and the glory of them for this has been delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will I give it if thou therefore Wilt worship me all shall be thine and Jesus answered and said unto him get thee behind me Satan for it is written Thou shalt shalt Worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Luke 4: 5-8 prologue it was July 29th 2019 the worst day of my life though I didn't know that quite yet the traffic in downtown Washington DC was inching along the Mid-Atlantic humidity was sweating through the windows of my chauffeured car I was running late and fighting to stay awake for 2 weeks I'd been sprinting between television and radio Studios up and down the East Coast promoting my new book on the collapse of the post George W bush Republican party and the ascent of Donald Trump now I had one final interview for the day my publicist had offered to cancel it wasn't that important she said but I didn't want to it was that important when the car pulled over on M Street Northwest I hustled inside the stone pillared building of the Christian Broadcasting Network all in a blur the producers took my cell phone miked me up and shoved me onto the set with news anchor John Jessup camera rolling Jessup skipped past the small talk he was Keen to know given his audience what I had learned about the president's alliance with America's white evangelicals despite being a lecherous impenitent scoundrel the 2016 campaign marked by his mocking of a disabled man his xenophobic slander of immigrants his casual calls to violence against political opponents Trump had won a historic 81% of those white Evangelical voters but as I'd written in the book that statistic was just a surface level indicator of the foundational shifts taking place inside the church a relationship that was once nakedly transactional Christians trading their support sans's enthusiasm in return for specific policies had morphed into something else entirely Trump was no longer the lesser of two evils a grin and Barrett alternative to four years of President Hillary Clinton and three pro-choice Supreme Court Justices polling showed that born again Christian conservatives once the president's softest backers were now his most unflinching advocates Jessup had the same question as millions of other Americans why as a believer in Jesus Christ and as the son of an Evangelical Minister raised in a conservative church and a conservative Community I had long struggled with how to answer this question it would have been easy to say something like well John most evangelicals are Craven Hypocrites who would heere only to selective biblical teachings wield their faith as a weapon of cultural Warfare and only pretend to care about righteousness when it suits their political interest so it's no surprise they would Ally themselves with the likes of Donald Trump but that wouldn't be fair it wouldn't be accurate the truth is I knew lots of Christians who to varying degrees supported the president and there was no sarily describing their diverse attitudes motivations and behaviors they were best understood as points plotted across a vast Spectrum at one end were the Christians who maintained their dignity while voting for Trump people who were cleare eyed in understanding that backing a candidate pragmatically and credential need not lead to unconditionally promoting empowering and apologizing for that candidate at the opposite end were the Christians who willfully jettisoned their credibility while voting for Trump people who embraced the charge of being reactionary Hypocrites still fuming about Bill Clinton character as they jumped at the chance to go sluming with a playboy turned president most of the Christians I knew fell somewhere in the middle they had all to some extent been seduced by The Cult of trumpism convinced of the false choices that accompanied his rise drained of certain convictions in the name of others infected with a relativism that rendered once firm standards suddenly quite malleable yet to composite all of these people into a caricature was misleading something more profound was taking place something was happening in the country something was happening in the church that we had never seen before I had attempted ever so delicately to make these points in my book now on the TV set I was doing a similar dance Jessup seemed to sense my reticence pivoting from the book he asked me about a recent flare up in the Evangelical world in response to the Trump administration's policy of forcibly separating migrant families at the US Mexico border Russell Moore a prominent leader with the Southern Baptist convention tweeted those created in the image of God should be treated with dignity and compassion especially those seeking Refuge from violence back home at this Jerry fwell Jr son and namesake of the Moral Majority founder and then president of Liberty University one of the world's largest Christian colleges took great offense who are you Dr Moore he replied have you ever made a payroll have you ever built an organization of any type from scratch what gives you authority to speak on any issue this being Twitter and all I decided to chime in there are Russell Moore Christians and Jerry fwell Jr Christians I wrote summarizing the back and forth Choose Wisely brothers and sisters now Jessup was reading my tweet on air do you really see evangelicals divided into two camps the anchor asked I stumbled a bit conceding that it might be an oversimplification I warned still of a fundamental disconnect between Christians who view issues Through The Eyes Of Jesus versus Christians who process everything through a partisan political filter it was painful as the interview wound down I knew I'd botched an opportunity to State plainly my qualms about the American Church truth be told I did see evangelicals divided into two camps one side faithful to an eternal Covenant the other side seduced by Earthly Idols of nation and influence and exaltation but I was too scared to say so my own Christian walk had been so badly flawed and besides I'm no Theologian Jessup was asking for my journalistic analysis not my biblical EX aesus better to leave the heavy lifting to the professionals walking off the set I wondered if my dad might catch that clip surely somebody at our home Church would see it and pass it along I grabbed my phone then stopped to chat with Jessup and a few of his colleagues as we said our farewells I looked down at the phone which had been silenced there were multiple missed calls from my wife and oldest brother dad had collapsed from a heart attack there was nothing the surgeons could do he was gone the last time I saw him was 9 days earlier the CEO of Politico my employer at the time had thrown a book party at his Washington Manor and Mom and Dad weren't going to miss that they jumped in their Chevy and drove out from my childhood home in southeast Michigan when he sauntered into the event my old man looked out of place a rumpled Midwestern Minister baggy shirts stuffed into his stained khakis rubbing elbows with Beltway power Brokers in their customized cuff links but before long he was the star of the show holding court with diplomats and Fortune 500 lobbyists making them howl with a reverent onliners it was like a Rodney Dangerfield flick come to life at one point catching sight of my agap stare he peaked over gave an exaggerated wink then delivered a punchline for his captive audience it was the high point of my career the book was getting lots of Buzz already I was being urged to write a sequel dad was proud very proud he assured me but he was also uneasy for months with the book launch drawing closer he had been urging me to reconsider the focus of my reporting career politics he kept saying was a sorted nasty business a waste of my time and god-given talents now in the middle of the book party he was taking me by the shoulder asking a congressman to excuse us for just a moment dad put his arm around me and leaned in you see all these people he asked yeah I nodded grinning at the validation most of them won't care about you in a week he said the rec scratched my moment of rapture was interrupted I cocked my head sideways and smirked at him neither of us said anything I was bothered the longer we stood there in Silence the more bothered I became not because he was wrong but because he was right remember dad said smiling on this Earth all glory is fleeting now as I raced to Reagan airport and boarded the first available flight to Detroit his words echoed throughout my entire body there was nothing contrived about Dad's final admonition to me that is what he believed that is who he was once a successful New York Finance year Richard J Alberta had become a born again Christian in 1977 despite having a nice house beautiful wife and healthy firstborn son he felt a rumbling emptiness he couldn't sleep he developed a debilitating anxiety religion hardly seemed like the solution Dad came from a broken and unbelieving home he had decided halfway through his undergraduate studies at Rutter's University that he was an atheist and yet one weekend while visiting family in the Hudson Valley my dad agreed to attend church with his niece Lynn he became a new person that day his angst was quieted his doubts were overwhelmed taking communion for the first time at Goodwill Church in Montgomery New York he prayed to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God and accept him as his personal savior dad became unrecognizable to those who knew him he rose early hours before work to read the Bible filling a yellow legal pad with verses and annotations he sat silently for hours in prayer my mom thought he'd lost his mind a budding young journalist who worked under Howard cell at ABC radio in New York mom was suspicious of all this Jesus talk but her maiden name Pastor was proof of God's sense of humor soon she accepted Christ too when Dad felt he was being called to abandon his Finance career and enter the ministry he met with Pastor Stuart pman at Goodwill as they prayed and Pastor Stu office dad says he physically felt the spirit of the Lord swirling around him filling up the room he was not given to phony supernaturalism in fact dad might have been the most intellectually sober reason-based Christian I'd ever known but that day he felt certain that the Lord anointed him soon he and Mom were selling every material item they owned forsaking their High salary jobs in New York and moving to Massachusetts so he could study at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary for the next few decades they toiled in small churches here and there living off food stamps and the generosity of fellow Believers by the time I arrived in 1986 dad was Pastor Stu's associate at Goodwill we lived in the church parsonage my Nursery was the library where towers of leather wrapped Toms had been collected by the church's pastors dating back to the mid 18th century a few years later we moved to Michigan and Dad eventually put down Roots at a recent startup Cornerstone Church in the Detroit suburb of Brighton it was part of a minor denomination called the Evangelical Presbyterian Church the EPC and it was there for the next 26 years that he served as senior pastor Cornerstone was our home because mom also worked on staff leading the women's ministry I was quite a little literally raised inside the church playing hideand-seek in storage areas doing homework in the office Wing bringing high school dates to Bible study even working as the church janitor during a year of Community College I hung around the church so much that I decided to leave my Mark at 9 years old I used a pocket knife to etch my initials into the brick work of the narx Cornerstone wasn't a perfect Church the older I got the more skeptical I'd grown of C individuals and attitudes and activities there but it was my church the last time I'd been there 18 months earlier I'd spoken to a packed Sanctuary at Dad's retirement ceremony armed with good-natured needling and PG-13 anecdotes now I would need to give a very different speech arriving at home I met mom in the entryway she buckled into my arms the high school sweethearts were a few months from celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary we held each other in that entryway for a long time finally I suggested she get some rest keeping mom steady as we climbed the staircase I could still smell dad's aftershave when we reached the master bedroom I noticed the door across the hall was swung open it was dad's study I reached in and flicked the light switch there on a coffee table in front of the small sofa was a Bible and yellow legal pad we walked over and sat on the sofa the pen he'd used hours earlier rested a top the legal pad there were scribbled notes and observations but at the very top of the page in his most careful penmanship dad had written one verse do not cast me away when I am old do not forsake me when my strength is gone mom and I looked up at one another in his final hours on Earth my father who was 71 years old had been meditating on Psalm 71 I tucked her into bed we said a prayer then I turned off the lights and walked down the hall opening the door to my childhood bedroom unfolding my laptop I tried to get started on a eulogy but the words would not come I shut the laptop lay down and wept standing in the back of the sanctuary my three older brothers and I formed a receiving line Cornerstone had been a small church when we arrived as kids not anymore Brighton once a sleepy Town situated at the insection of two expressways had become a prized location for commuters to Detroit and an arbor meanwhile dad with his baseball allegories and Greek Linguistics lessons had gained a reputation for his eloquence in the Pulpit by the time I moved away in 2008 Cornerstone had blossomed from a few hundred members to a few thousand now the crowds swarmed around us filling the sanctuary and spilling out into the narx where tables displayed flowers and golf clubs and photos of dad I was numb my brothers too none of us had slept much that week so the first time someone made a glancing reference to rush limo it did not compute but then another person brought him up and then another that's when I connected the dots apparently the king of conservative talk radio had been nameche checking me on his program recently a guy named Tim Alberta and describing the unflattering revelations in my book about President Trump nothing in that moment could have mattered to me less I smiled Shrugged and thanked them for coming to the visitation they kept on coming more than I could count people from the church people I'd known my entire life were greeting me not primarily with condolences or encouragement or Mourning but with commentary about Rush limbo and Donald Trump some of it was playful guys remarking how I was the same Mischief maker they'd known since kindergarten but some of it wasn't playful some of it was angry some of it was cold and confrontational one man questioned whether I was truly a Christian another asked if I was still on the right side all while dad was in a box 100 ft away it got to the point where I had to take a walk a righteous anger was beginning to pierce the fog of melancholy it felt like a bad dream inside of a bad dream here in our house of worship people were taunting me about politics as I tried to mourn my father I was in the of certain friends that day who would not claim to know Jesus yet they shrouded me in peace and comfort some of these card carrying Evangelical Christians not so much they didn't see a hurting son they saw a vulnerable adversary that night while fine-tuning the eulogy I would give the following afternoon I still felt the sting my wife perceived as much the unfappable one in the family she and encouraged me to be careful with my words and cautioned against mentioning the day's unpleasantness I took half of her advice in front of an overflow crowd on August 2nd 2019 I paid tribute to the man who taught me everything how to throw a baseball how to be a gentleman how to trust and love the Lord reciting my favorite verse from Paul's second letter to the early Church in Corinth Greece I told of Dad's instruction to keep our eyes fixed on what we could not see reading from his favorite poem about a man named Richard Corey I told of Dad's warning that we could amass great wealth and still be poor then I recounted all the people who'd approached me a day earlier wanting to discuss the Trump Wars on am talk radio I spoke of the need for discipleship and spiritual formation I proposed that their time in the car would be better spent listening to Dad's old sermons if they needed help finding biblical listening for their daily commute I suggested with some sarcasm the pastors here on staff could help why are you listening to Rush limbo I asked my father's congregation garbage in garbage out there was nervous laughter in the sanctuary some people were visibly agitated others looked away pretending not to hear my dad's successor a young Pastor named Chris winens wore a shellshocked expression no matter I had said my peace it was finished or so I thought a few hours later after we had buried dad my brothers and I slumped down onto the couches in our parents living room we opened some beers and turned on a baseball game behind us in the kitchen a small platoon of church ladies worked to prepare a meal for the family family here I thought is the love of Christ watching them hustle about comforting mom and Catering to her sons I found myself regretting the rush limbo remark most of the folks at our church were humble kind-hearted Christians like these ladies maybe I'd blown things out of proportion just then one of them walked over and handed me an envelope it was left at the church she said my name was scrolled across it I opened the velope inside was a full page long handwritten screed it was from a longtime Cornerstone Elder someone my dad called a friend a man who mentored me in the youth group and had known me for most of my life he had composed this note on the occasion of my father's death to express just how disappointed he was in me I was part of an evil plot the man wrote to undermine God's ordained leader of the United States my criticisms of President Trump were tantamount to treason against both God and Country and I should be ashamed of myself however he assured me there was still hope Jesus forgives and so does he if I could use my journalism skills to investigate the Deep State he wrote uncovering the shadowy cabal that was sabotaging Trump's presidency then I would be restored he said he was praying for me I felt sick silently I passed a letter to my wife she scanned it without expression then in a violent spasm she flung the piece of paper into the air and with a shriek that made the church ladies jump out of their Cardigans cried out what the hell is wrong with these people in search of answers to that question I took dad's advice and pivoted away from political journalism there would be no sequel to the Trump book Moving my young family back to Michigan a few months after the funeral I knew there was another project that demanded my attention dad had implored me to apply my talents to subjects of more eternal significance and I could think of nothing more eternally significant than the crackup of the American Evangelical Church this would not be an examination of Christianity RIT large whatever the problems plaguing the Catholic Church the Orthodox Church the black church the rainbow flag flying Progressive Church and there are many these are distinctive and diverging Faith Traditions what I could offer was a window into my faith tradition it happens to be the tradition that is the most polarizing and the least understood the tradition that is more politically relevant and domestically disruptive than all the others combined evangelicalism to a certain extent definitional overlap does exist some Catholics self-identify as Evangelical given the social connotations some non-white Christians count themselves as evangelicals due to denominational background or theological disposition though research shows that black Christians are far likelier to identify as Born Again than Evangelical a look at the broader Christian Church would incomplete without investigating and contextualizing these convergences yet a look at the broader Christian Church would not yield a satisfying explanation of the turmoil within its commanding faction of conservative white Protestants however imperfect the designation for brevity's sake these are the evangelicals whom I set out to Chronicle following my father's death derived from the Greek Evangelion which means good news or gospel the English word Evangelical was typically used to distinguish reformed Protestants with their revivalist aims from the stayed customs of Catholicism indeed Martin Luther invoked the Latin translation of the term when breaking from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century during the first so-called Great Awakening in colonial America clergymen shared a conviction to evangelize the masses believing and unbelieving alike with a purifying fervor by the early 19th century evangelicalism had become by far the dominant expression of Christianity in the overwhelmingly Protestant United States according to the institute for the study of American evangelicals at weaton College even as evangelicalism exploded its definition remains somewhat ambiguous in his book understanding fundamentalism and evangelicalism historian George Marsden observed that in the decades following World War II an Evangelical was anyone who likes Billy Graham when Graham himself was asked to define the term he responded actually that's a question I'd like to ask somebody too in 1989 a British scholar named David bebington posited that evangelicals were distinct because of four principal characteristics biblicism treating scripture as the essential word of God Cru centrism stressing that Jesus's death makes atonement for mankind possible conversion ISM believing that Sinners must be born again and continually transformed into Christ likeness and activism sharing the gospel as an outward sign of that inward transformation this framework now commonly called the bebington quadrilateral was widely embraced including by the National Association of evangelicals but it also Drew its share of criticisms efforts to formulate a more effective definition have failed time and again to the present day there remains no real consensus around what it means to be an Evangelical there was a time when this eological confusion proved a strength prompting a growing number of Protestants to to set aside organizational rivalries and join beneath a common decentralized Banner yet such ambiguity was ripe for exploitation powerful people began to sense that if doctrinal differences were so easily set aside then perhaps there was something else not just something spiritual but something cultural that United these evangelicals and indeed there was by the 1980s with the rise of the Moral Majority a religious marker was transforming into a partisan movement Evangelical soon became synonymous with Conservative Christian and eventually with white Conservative Republican this is the ecosystem in which I was raised the son of a white Conservative Republican Pastor in a white Conservative Republican Church in a white Conservative Republican Town my dad a serious Theologian who held Advanced degrees from Top seminaries bristle at this reductive analysis of his religious tribe he would frequently state from the pulpit what he believed in Evangelical to be someone who believes the Bible is the inspired word of God and who takes seriously the charge to Proclaim it to the world from a young age I realized that not all Christians were like my dad other adults who went to our church my teachers baseball coaches friends parents didn't speak about God the way that he did theirs was a more casual Christianity a hobby more than a lifestyle something that could be picked up and put down and slotted into schedules their Pastor realized this much pushing his people ever harder to engage with questions of canonical Authority and trinitarian precepts and calvinist Doctrine Dad tried his best to run a serious Church there were no spiritual shortcuts at Cornerstone every Sunday of my life had begun with the congregation reciting in one voice the ancient Church Creeds the lyrical doxology and the scripture passage from that week's sermon then before Dad began preaching we would stand and pray with the words Jesus taught his disciples Our Father who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from Evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever amen that penultimate verse the kingdom the power and the glory has haunted me since childhood its magnificence can be appreciated only in the context of the possessive pronoun thine this is inspired by the King James version henceforth in this book scripture will be presented in the new international version that word thine implies something more than mere ownership it connotes exclusivity everything that Satan offered Jesus in the wilderness to give him power over all the kingdoms of the world and the glory that comes with it Jesus rejected why because the only authentic version of those things belongs to God what the devil tempted Jesus with 2,000 years ago and what he tempts us with today are cheap counterfeits God has his own kingdom no nation in this world can compare God has his own power no amount of political cultural or social influence can compare God has his own Glory no exaltation of Earthly beings can compare these are non-negotiable to the Christian faith one of the Bible's dominant narrative themes uniting Old Testament and New Testament prophets and disciples prayers and Epistles is the admonition to resist idolatry at all costs Jesus frames the decision in explicitly binary terms we can serve and worship God or we can serve and worship the gods of this world too many American evangelicals have tried to do both and the consequences for the church have been devastating Christians are always falling short of God's standard I have been an offender of the worst sort if not for Grace his unlimited unconditional Grace I would be condemned in my sins doomed to permanent separation from my Creator but Grace is precisely the gift I have received and along with me countless millions of Christians around the world Perfection is not our mandate sanctification the process by which Sinners become more and more like Christ is what God demands of us and what that process requires most fundamentally is the rejection of one's worldly identity whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me Jesus says in the Book of Matthew for whoever wants to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for me will find it the crisis of American evangelicalism comes down to an obsession with that worldly identity instead of fixing our eyes on the Unseen since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians we have become fixated on the heon now instead of seeing ourselves as Exiles in a metaphorical Babylon the way Peter describes the first century Christians living in Rome we have embraced our Imperial citizenship instead of fleeing the temptation to rule all the world like Jesus did we have made deals with the devil why or as my wife might ask what the hell is wrong with us in search of answers I would spend much of the next four years embedded inside the modern Evangelical movement I Ted half empty sanctuaries and standing room only auditoriums I shadowed big city televangelists and small town preachers and everyday congregants I reported from inside hundreds of churches Christian colleges religious advocacy organizations denominational nonprofits and assorted independent Ministries each of these experiences offered a unique insight into the deterioration of American Christianity but the farther I traveled from home the clearer it became the best explanation for what afflicts the church was evident at my church part one the Kingdom chapter 1 Brighton Michigan my kingdom is not of this world John 18:36 Chris winens was in trouble it was a frigid afternoon in February 20121 and winens the senior pastor of Cornerstone Evangelical Presbyterian Church sat down across from me in a booth at the Brighton Bar and Grill it's a comfortable little haunt on Main Street in my hometown backing up to a wooden playground and a Mill Pond but winens didn't look comfortable he looked panicked even a bit paranoid glancing around him as we began to speak soon I would understand why dad had spent years looking for an era parent several associate pastors had come and gone Cornerstone was his life's work he had led the church throughout virtually its entire history so there would be no settling in his search for a successor the uncertainty wore him down dad worried he might never find the right guy and then one day while attending a denominational meeting he met a young associate pastor from Goodwill EPC the very Church where he'd been saved and where he' worked his first job out of Seminary the pastor's name was Chris winens dad hired him away from Goodwill to lead a young adults Ministry at Cornerstone and from the moment winens arrived I could tell he was the one barely 30 years old winens looked to be exactly what Cornerstone needed in its next generation of leadership he was a brilliant student of the scriptures he spoke with precision and Clarity from the pulpit he had a humble easygoing way about him operating without the outsize ego that often accompanies First Rate preaching everything about this young Pastor the boyish sweep of brown hair his delightful young family seemed to be straight out of Central Casting there was just one problem Chris weens was not a Conservative Republican he didn't like guns he cared more about funding poverty programs than cutting tax rates he had no appetite for the unrepentant antics of President Donald Trump of course none of this would seem heretical to Christians in other parts of the world given his staunch pro-life position winens would in most places be considered an archetype of spiritual and intellectual consistency but in the American Evangelical tradition and at a church-like Cornerstone the whiff of liberalism made him suspect Brighton Michigan is a bubble within a bubble the surrounding County Livingston is the most reliably Republican voting jurisdiction in the state for the last three decades anyone looking to escape the high crime of Detroit and the high cost of its contiguous counties headed west to Livingston and if they could afford it to the quiet little Berg of Brighton the town is deeply conservative deceptively wealthy and almost exclusively white its biggest church Cornerstone became a microcosm of the surrounding area there was no meaningful diversity inside the church ethnically culturally or politically until weens came to town dad knew the guy was different a trained musician winens liked to play piano instead of sports and had no taste for hunting or fishing frankly dad thought that was a bonus winens wasn't supposed to Simply plate cornerstone's aging base of wealthy white congregants the new pastor's charge was to evangelize to cast a vision and expand the mission field to challenge those inside the church and carry the gospel to those outside it Dad didn't think there was undue risk he felt confident that his hand-chosen successor gifts in the pulpit and his manifest love of Jesus would be more than sufficient to smooth over any bumps in the transition he was wrong almost immediately after weens moved into the role of senior pastor at the beginning of 2018 the knives came out any errant remark he made about politics or culture any slight of trump or the Republican Party real or perceived invited a torrent of criticism longtime members would demand a meeting with Dad who had stayed on in a support role and unload on winance dad would ask if there was any substantive criticism of the theology almost invariably the answer was no a month into the job when Wiens remarked in a sermon that Christians ought to be protective of God's creation arguing for congregants to take seriously the threats to the planet the dam nearly burst people came to Dad by the dozens outraged demanding that winens be reigned in dad told them all to get lost if anyone had a beef with the senior pastor he said they needed to take it up with the senior pastor dad did so himself buying Wan's lunch at Chili's and suggesting he tone down the tree hugging it was a tumultuous first year on the job but Winan survived it he tightened the screws and checked his ideological impulses realizing that his good intentions had gotten the better of him the people at Cornerstone were in a period of adjustment he needed to respect that and he needed to adjust too as long as dad was in his Corner winens knew he would be okay and then dad died 18 months later as we sat together picking at hot sandwiches I was starting to understand the dismay I'd seen on his face at the funeral wiins told me that he was barely hanging on at Cornerstone the church had become unruly his job had become unbearable it wasn't long after dad died making wine in the unquestioned leader of the church that the covid-19 pandemic arrived in the vortex of fear and uncertainty Michigan's Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer issued sweeping shutdown orders that implicated houses of worship churches everywhere had to choose obey the government and close for a period of time or violate the order and remain open winens felt it was a no-brainer Whitmer wasn't ordering Christians to do something sinful or immoral or Unholy scripture says to respect governing authorities so that's what Cornerstone would do the decision didn't go over well some in his congregation swore that the virus was a hoax cooked up by globalist Elites who wanted to control the masses others merely believed that church was too important too essential in the parli of the times to be shuttered for any reason ever what these groups shared was a prophetic certainty promulgated by the Evangelical movement for decades that Godless Democrats would one day launch a frontal assault on Christianity in America this belief wasn't limited to Pentecostals and their so-called charismatic spiritual practices or to Fringe fundamentalists or to dominionists the nent hardliners who seek to merge church and state under biblical law no this was accepted Dogma for Conservative Christian of every tribe in affiliation and it was only a matter of time they knew until secularists weaponized the government to eradicate the almighty from public life in the spring of 2020 that prophecy was being fulfilled and weak spineless pastors like Chris Winan's were letting it happen when Cornerstone reopened after several weeks of online Sunday worship a chunk of the congregation was missing the numbers dwindled further in the months ahead as debates over shutdowns gave way to disagreements over masking and social distancing more and more people left the church believing their new pastor was being too deferential to government Health guidelines Winan was reeling and the ground beneath him was about to get a whole lot shakier in May 2020 an unarmed black man named George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by a policeman who knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes as he gasped I can't breathe the incident sparked a summer of unrest protests for racial Justice and Scattered outbreaks of violent rioting prompted millions of Americans to pick sides writing social media posts and putting up yard signs that invariably alienated neighbors family members and fellow churchgoers turbocharging the chaos was Trump's campaign for reelection the sitting president of the United States was adamant that Democrats were plotting to rig the contest against him and he made clear that the ramifications of this reached Beyond electoral politics Trump had campaigned in 2016 on a promise that Christianity will have power if he won the White House now he warned that his opponent in the 2020 election former Vice President Joe Biden was going to hurt God and Target Christians for their religious beliefs embracing dark rhetoric and violent conspiracy theories the president seized upon Notions of America's prophesied apocalypse enlisting leading evangelicals to help frame a cosmic spiritual clash between the God-fearing Republicans who supported Trump and the secular leftist who viewed the 45th president as the last obstacle standing between them and a conquest of America's judeo-christian ethos the consequences were real and devastating people at Cornerstone began confronting their Pastor demanding that he speak out against government mandates and black lives matter and Joe Biden when Winan's declined more people left the mood soured noticeably after Trump's defeat in November 2020 a crusade to overturn the election result led by a group of outspoken Christians including Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis who was later censured by a judge after admitting to spreading numerous lies about election fraud and author Eric Mattax who told fellow Believers that martyrdom might be required to keep Trump in office royed the Cornerstone congregation a popular Church leader was fired after it was discovered that she had been proz for kinon the far-right online religion that depicts Trump as a Messianic figure battling a satanic cabal of Elites who cannibalize children for sustenance when the church dismissed her without announcing why the departures came in droves some of those abandoning Cornerstone were not core congregants but plenty of them were they were people who served in leadership roles people Wiens counted as confidants and personal Friends by the time Trump supporters invaded the US capital on January 6th 2021 in an attempt to thwart the transition of power Wiens believed he'd lost control of his church it's an exodus he told me a few weeks later sitting inside Brighton Bar and Grill the pastor had felt Despair and a certain liability watching the attack unfold on television Christian imagery was ubiquitous at the scene in Washington riers forming prayer circles singing hymns carrying Bibles and crosses the perversion of America's prevailing religion would forever be associated with this tragedy as one of the legislative of ring leaders Missouri Senator Josh Hy explained in a speech sometime after the blood had been rubbed from the capital steps we are a revolutionary Nation precisely because we are The Heirs of the revolution of the Bible it all could have been prevented wens thought if pastors like him had been more forceful in pushing back on the craziness that had penetrated the church he wrote a scorched Earth sermon to give the following Sunday calling out the forces responsible for corrupting Cornerstone with lies and schemes and subversive political agendas but winens never delivered it the church was falling apart and he feared such a sermon could destroy any chance at healing I told wean something I didn't believe it will be okay I said hang in there weens asked me to keep something between us he was thinking about leaving Cornerstone the psychological Onslaught he said had become too much recently he developed veled a form of anxiety disorder and had to retreat into a dark room between services to collect himself after talking with his father a physician winens met with several trusted Elders shared his illness and asked them to stick close on Sunday mornings so they could catch him if he were to faint and fall over I thought about Dad and how heartbroken he would be then I started to wonder if Dad didn't have some level of culpability in all of this clearly long before covid-19 or George Floyd or Donald Trump something had gone wrong at Cornerstone I had always Shrugged off the crude hysterical sky as falling Facebook posts I would see from people at the church I had found it amusing if not particularly alarming that some longtime Cornerstone members were obsessed with trolling me on Twitter now I couldn't help but think these were warnings bright red blinking lights that should have been taken seriously my dad never had a social media account did he have any idea just how lost some of his sheep really were I had never told winens about the confrontations at my dad's viewing or the letter I received after taking Rush limbo's name in vain at the funeral now I was leaning across the table unloading every detail he narrowed his eyes and folded his hands and gave a pained exhale mouthing that he was sorry he could not even manage the words we both kept quiet for a little while and then I asked him something I'd thought about every day for the previous 18 months a sanitized version of my wife's Outburst in the family room what's wrong with American evangelicals Wiens thought a moment America he replied too many of them worship America having spent the previous decade covering the Republican party in Congress and on the campaign Trail I could hear a Bible verse coming before it formed in the candidate's throat they would use scripture to make the case for capitalism Proverbs 134 a sluggards appetite is never filled but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied and to legislate against abortion Psalm 13913 for you created my inmost being you knit me together in my mother's womb and to mobilize the faithful for the culture wars Isaiah 520 woe to those who call evil good and good Evil all these examples and the great majority of what voters would hear from GOP politicians came from the Old Testament that never struck me as a coincidence Jesus in his three years of teaching talked mostly about helping the poor humbling oneself and having no earthly ambition but to gain eternal life suffice it to say the Beatitudes from The Sermon on the Mount blessed are the meek blessed are the merciful blessed are the peace pakers were never conducive to a stump speech this isn't to suggest that Old Testament passages are somehow backward or illegitimate many of these writings Timeless in their wisdom have shaped my own views of the world I just always found it strange that these Christians relied so infrequently on the words of Christ it was during Trump's takeover of the Republican party and his four years in office that this Reliance on Old Testament language became troubling there was justifiable alarm among many Christians when Trump clinched the GOP Presidential nomination the immorality in his personal life aside Trump had spent his campaign inciting hatred against his critics hurling vicious ad hominum insults at his opponents boasting of his never having asked God's forgiveness and generally behaving in ways that were antithetical to the example of Christ if Trump possessed any of what Paul dubbed the Fruit of the Spirit love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control it wasn't hanging low enough to be picked Trump's Evangelical allies the handful of high-profile pastors and figureheads who'd supported his campaign from its Inception knew this needed to be addressed if the Evangelical Community was going to Rally around the GOP nominee for decades the religious right had imposed exacting moral litmus tests on public officials taking particular in tormenting the 42nd President Bill Clinton whose duplicity and womanizing allegedly made him unfit for office Godly character they had told us was a requirement when it came to running the country ignoring the sins of trump was not a sustainable approach instead they deployed a novel strategy Evangelical leaders embraced Trump's shortcomings at a meeting of more than 500 prominent Christian conservatives in June 2016 at the Marriott Marquee Hotel in New York City Trump was introduced by the likes of Franklin Graham son of famed Evangelist Billy Graham and Mike Huckabee a Baptist preacher turned populist Arkansas governor turned Fox News host turned Trinity Broadcasting Network host as the latest in a long tradition of flawed men who were being used by God to advance his purposes the blueprint was obvious enough because the scriptures were filled with examples of great leaders who had grave personal failings Trump could be considered an imperfect instrument of God's Perfect Design for America talking with attendees at the Marriott that day I heard unceasing comparisons to David to Solomon and to King Cyrus the Persian leader who protected the Israelite people despite not personally worshiping their lord it was a clever way to cover all bases whether or not Trump believed that Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate the Spotless lamb who was sacrificed for the sins of the world then raised from the dead 3 days later and really who could know what was on the candidate's heart he was an agent of the almighty born for such a time as this or dained to fight on behalf of God's people and their shining City on a Hill the danger of this rhetoric deployed by people who knew better is that it dovetailed with the most pernicious theological and political intuitions of those who did not the notion of America declining as a nation due to diminished religiosity was nothing new church leaders had spent a half century warning that to ban prayer in public schools and to legalize abortion and to normalize drugs and pornography and unwetted sex was to invite God's Wrath or at the very least his indifference but now the signs of his judgment were proliferating there was the shame of Clinton's carnal exploits in the Oval Office the islamist terror Attacks of September 11th 2001 and of course the rise of President Barack Obama a man whom millions of evangelicals believed to be a secret Canyon at best or a Sleeper Cell Muslim extremist at worst Franklin Graham managed to both question Obama's birthplace and speculate on his Devotion to Islam by the time Trump declared his candidacy in the summer of 2015 descending an escalator that would be the Envy of Aaron's golden calf the twin narratives of America at the abyss and Christianity in the crosshairs were ubiquitous within evangelicalism Trump instinctually understood this surrounding himself with faith leaders who split their time between church pulpits and Fox News green rooms Trump set about catering to the panicked masses of American Christendom he pledged to appoint pro-life Supreme Court Justices he promised to overturn and ab obscure statute the Johnson amendment that he claimed would allow the government to silence conservative pastors and shut down conservative churches he vowed to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem a prospect packed with spiritual and geopolitical implications Trump almost certainly did not grasp even if he was keen on the Electoral upside perhaps most consequentially he chose Mike Pence the governor of Indiana as his running mate once a failed politician who repented after running a dirty campaign for congress Pence rehabilitated His Image by hosting a successful Talk Radio Show in Indiana he was elected to congress in 2000 and wasted no time distinguishing himself as a small government absolutist who could not stomach the excesses of his own party despite being known as an ideological Crusader on Capitol Hill Pence was always better understood as a born again Evangelical he believed that God had a plan for him a plan for America and a plan for Israel and saw his unlikely partnership with Trump as a way of advancing all three Pence made no apology for mixing faith and politics though he was always quick to prioritize I am a Christian a conservative and a republican he would say at the beginning of every speech in that order as Pence headlined rallies around the country in late 2016 I was interested Less in his opening line which I'd heard a thousand times and More in his signoff after slamming the clintons so much for positive campaigning and extoling the broad shoulders of trump pleading with people to get out and vote Pence would remind his audience of what was at stake in the coming election he would claim that their beloved nation was slipping away then in a solemn tone he would tell them it wasn't too late if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their Wicked Ways Pence would say quoting God's voice in the second book of Chronicles then I will hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land the crowd would Roar in response it was a risky appli a of scripture God is speaking in that passage to Solomon the king of Israel after the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem this is a specific word of forewarning issued at a uniquely sacred moment from God to the ruler of his Covenant Nation for Pence to appropriate this language and apply it in the context of an American political campaign dozens of centuries later meant one of two things either the Republican nominee for vice president didn't know his Bible History or he did and he believed that God's relationship with Israel was somehow parallel to God's relationship with the United States Pence knew his Bible History A lot of people believe there was a religious conception of this country a Biblical conception of this country Pastor weens told me and that's the source of a lot of our problems two things can be true first most of America's founding fathers believed in some deity and many were devout Christians drawing their revolutionary inspiration from the scriptures second the founders wanted nothing to do with theocracy many of their families had fled religious persecution in Europe they knew the threat posed by what George Washington several weeks into his presidency in 1789 described in a letter to the United uned Baptist Churches of Virginia as the horrors of spiritual tyranny Washington was hardly alone from Skeptics like Benjamin Franklin to committed Christians like John J the founders shared John Adams view that America was conceived not under the influence of heaven or in conversation with the Creator but rather by using reason and the senses that is not the biblical story of Israel God established Israel through the means of a covenant with him Wiens explained unpacking the Old Testament narrative this was God's chosen Nation created for God's chosen people living by God's chosen laws after the chosen people repeatedly strayed from those chosen laws instead honoring the codes customs and gods of other nations God allowed the destruction of ancient Israel through hundreds of years of Exile and oppression the Jewish people yearned for a return to this Covenant relationship it was Jesus of Nazareth a carpenter's son raised in the Roman occupied province of Galilee who came to deliver the news the Old Kingdom was gone for good in its place he promised something even better a kingdom not of this world and not just for Jews but for everyone who accepts Jesus as their personal mediator between God and Mankind the significance of this development cannot be overstated we are taught in the book of Hebrews that God by providing Jesus as the New Covenant has made the first one obsolete in his letter to the Philippians Paul an exemplary Jew circumcised on the eth day of the people of Israel of The Tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of Hebrews describes this identity one so precious to him as garbage compared to what Jesus now offers that offering of Grace salvation citizenship in an eternal Kingdom ought to be enough to quell the temporal desires of those who identify as Christians but it often isn't wean said and for the same reason that God's covenant wasn't enough for the ancient Israelites thousands of years earlier God's people have always been tempted to be like the rest of the Nations it was true back then and it's true now winens told me there's a pretty consistent pattern in scripture of what that looks like I want to be in power I want to have influence I want to be prosperous I want to have security and even if God gives me some of those things I'll try to achieve even more through worldly means for much of American History white Christians had all of those things given that reality and given the miraculous nature of America's defeat of Great Britain its rise to superpower status and its Legacy of spreading freedom and democracy and yes Christianity across the globe it's easy to see why so many evangelicals believe that our country is divinely blessed the problem is blessings often become indistinguishable from entitlements once we become convinced that God has blessed something that something can become an object of jealousy obsession even worship at its root we're talking about idolatry America has become an idol to some of these people wi and said if you believe that God is in Covenant with America then you believe and I've Heard lots of people say this explicitly that we're a new Israel you believe the sorts of promises made to Israel are applicable to this country you view America as a covenant that needs to be protected you have to fight for America as if salvation itself hangs in the balance at that point you understand yourself as an American first and most fundamentally and that is a terrible misunderstanding of who we called to be this can happen anywhere weens explained but the conditions in America are especially ripe for National idolatry the freedoms in our Bill of Rights we like to call them god-given now think about what that means in the context of gun control he said if someone's trying to take away something God has given you well shoot that's pretty upsetting but is there a god-given right to bear arms or is it a cultural right if I went to the UK or most other places in the world they would say it's a cultural right in America many Christians believe it's a god-given right so you can see how even in that one small example we start running into problems a small example perhaps but one with cascading implications the Second Amendment is among the most sacred of our national texts a governing Maxim regarded as infallible by the American right I wondered aloud how many Christians could recite that language verbatim compared with how many could do the same with one of God's laws say the second commandment which forbids worship of Idols the Second Amendment wian said shaking his head by a landslide winens was quick to clarify something I have affection for America I'm glad I live here but my citizenship is not here it cannot be here he said we're clinging to Something in America that is a sad parody of what Jesus has already won we have a kingdom awaiting us but we're trying to appropriate a part of this world and call it a kingdom winens pointed out the window God told us this place is not our Promised Land he said but they're trying to make it a a promised land to be clear plenty of nations are mentioned in the Bible the United States is not one of them most American evangelicals are sophisticated enough to realize that to avoid talk of a new Israel to reject the idea of this country as something consecrated in the eyes of God but many of those same people have nonetheless allowed their national identity to shape their faith identity instead of the other way around to some extent I watched it happen with my own father once a fine young athlete dad came down with tuberculosis at 16 years old it hospitalized him for 4 months at one point doctors thought it would kill him he eventually recovered and with the Vietnam War breaking out he joined the Marine Corps dad was the son of a poor Sicilian immigrant who had no formal education but somehow built a thriving restaurant business their family was patriotic and Dad saw fighting for Old Glory as a sacred obligation but it wasn't meant to be at the officer candidate School in quanico Virginia he fell behind in the physical work his lungs were not healthy he could not keep up receiving an honorable discharge dad went home saddled with a certain shame in the ensuing years he learned that dozens of those second lieutenants he trained alongside atwan as well as a bunch of guys he'd grown up with were killed in action it burdened him for the rest of his life this experience and his disgust with the hippies and the drug culture and the war protesters turned Dad into a Law and Order Conservative then he became a born- again Christian marinating in the language of social conservatism during his time in seminary this was the Heyday of the Moral Majority he emerged a full spectrum Republican dad was Unapologetic about his beliefs though he was careful about partisan preaching his biggest political concern was abortion his mother trapped in a broken and emotionally abusive marriage had attempted to end his pregnancy in 1947 she had a sudden change of heart at the clinic and walked out a riddle he would always attribute to Holy intercession but he also waited into the culture wars gay marriage education curriculum morality and public life throughout my childhood dad always talked about politics through the lens of Ethics he believed that integrity was a prerequisite for political leadership he was so relieved when Bill Clinton's second term ended that he and Mom hosted a small viewing party in our living room for George W Bush's 2000 inauguration to celebrate the return of morality to the White House Over time however his emphasis shifted once Sunday in early 2010 when I was home visiting he showed the congregation an ominous video in which Christian leaders warned about the Menace of Obamacare I told him afterwards that it felt inappropriate for a worship service he disagreed we would butt heads more regularly in the years that followed it was always loving always respectful yet clearly our philosophical paths were diverging a reality that became unavoidable during the presidency of Donald Trump dad would have preferred any of the other Republicans who ran in 2016 he knew that Trump was a narcissist and a liar he knew that he was not a moral man ultimately dad felt he had no choice but to support the Republican ticket given his concern for The Unborn and the Supreme Court majority that hung in the balance I understood that decision what I couldn't understand was how over the next couple of years he became an apologist for Trump's Antics dismissing critic is Ms of the president's conduct as little more than an attempt to marginalize his supporters dad really did believe this he believed that the constant attacks on Trump's character were ipsofacto in attack on the character of people like himself which I think at some subconscious level created a permission structure for him to ignore the shows of depravity for my part as a trump critic as a member of the media and most importantly as a Christian all I could do was tell Dad the truth look you're the one who taught me to know right from wrong I would say don't be mad at me for acting on it to his credit dad was not some lazy knee-jerk partisan he was vocal about certain issues gun violence poverty immigration the trappings of wealth that did not play to his constituency at Cornerstone to his even greater credit whenever he turned political especially around election time he was quick to emphasize the proper Christian Perspective God doesn't bite his fingernails over any of this he would say neither should you dad's Kryptonite as a Christian and I think he knew it though he never admitted it to me was his intense love of country he did not think America was a new Israel but he did believe that God had blessed the country uniquely and felt that anyone who fought to preserve those blessings was doing the Lord's work this made for an unfortunate scene in 2007 when a young man from Cornerstone a marine named Mark Kidd died during a fourth Tour of Duty in Iraq public opinion had swung sharply against the war and Democrats were demanding that the George W Bush Administration bring the troops home my dad was devastated by kid's death they had corresponded regularly while he was overseas and always met for prayer in between his deployments his grief as a pastor gave way to his grievance as a republican supporter of the war he made it known to local Democratic politicians that they weren't welcome at the Marines funeral I am ashamed personally of leaders who say they support the troops but not the commander-in-chief dad thundered from his Pulpit at Cornerstone earning a rockus standing ovation do they not see that discourages the Warriors and encourages the terrorists it touched off a firestorm in our community most of the church members were all for Dad's remarks but even in a conservative town like Brighton plenty of people felt uneasy about turning a fallen Marines Church Memorial into a partisan political rally patriotism in the Pulpit is one thing lots of sanctuaries fly an American flag on the Rostrum this was something else this was taking the weight and the gravity and the Eternal certainty of God and lending it to an ephemeral and questionable cause this was rebuking people for failing to unconditionally follow a president of the United States when the only Authority we're meant to unconditionally follow particularly in a setting of stained glass windows is Christ himself I know Dad regretted it but he couldn't help himself his own personal story and his broader view of the United States as a Godly Nation a source of Hope in a despondent world was impossible to divorce from his pastoral minist Ministry every time a member of the military came to church dressed in uniform dad would recognize them by name ask them to stand up and lead the church in a rapturous round of applause this was one of the first things wiins changed as senior pastor he would meet the military personnel after the service shaking their hands and individually thanking them for their service but he refused to Stage a corporate Ovation in the sanctuary this wasn't because he was some bohemian anti-war activist in fact his wife had served in the US Army wian simply felt it was inappropriate I don't want to dishonor anyone I think Nations have the right to self-defense I respect the sacrifices these people make in the military wian told me but they would come in wearing their dress blues and get this wild Standing Ovation and you contrast that to whenever we would host missionaries they would stand up for recognition and we would give them a golf clap winens paused measuring his words again I don't want to dishonor anyone but we give standing ovations inside the church with the flag flying to the person who has been designated to go to War for America and then we give a golf clap to the missionary we give a golf clap to the Ambassador we're sending out who represents the kingdom we're supposed to have our citizenship in and you have to wonder why what's going on inside our hearts I asked winens to answer his own question think about Jesus's disciples he said they debated in front of him who is going to sit at your left and who is going to sit at your right they believed they were about to assume power they thought that when Jesus became king they were going to get to run things in his kingdom but Jesus had to keep telling them over and over that his kingdom was not here the disciples didn't get it even as Jesus stunned his would be exec tioner the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate with words that changed history my kingdom is not of this world they were crushed and inconsolable believing the prophecy of a promised ruler had died along with him it wasn't until Jesus reappeared to them describing how the prophecy was in fact now fulfilled that the disciples realized what real power looks like once they finally understood after Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead and ascended into heaven it changed their Faith wean said and here's the thing the word faith is not just about belief faith is about Allegiance when you declare faith in Jesus you transfer your Allegiance in the first century Roman context that's what they did they transferred their allegiance away from Caesar and the gods of Rome and certain laws of the Jewish leaders and pledged allegiance to Jesus surrendering Earthly power came at a cost for the disciples most of them were murdered for following Jesus winens faced real difficulties but not martyrdom as 2021 went on WE continued our conversation about Cornerstone and the American church he learned to cope with the emotional and physical stress taking long walks around the Church Softball field praying the Psalms and asking for the Lord's protection he decided to stay on the job at least a little while longer not wanting to walk away from a problem that God was calling him to help solve still he told me the effort he had undertaken convincing people to transfer their allegiance away from America and toward Jesus was coming at a cost lots of his congregants had already left Cornerstone and more were trickling out each week many were relocating to one particular congregation down the road a Revival minded church that was pandering to the whims of the moment led by a pastor who was preaching a blood and soil Christian nationalism that merged two kingdoms into one the church is supposed to challenge us winens told me but a lot of these folks don't want to be challenged they definitely don't want to be challenged where their Idols are if you tell them what they don't want to hear they're gone they'll find another church they'll find a pastor who tells them what they want to hear none of this is new in his second letter to Timothy the Apostle Paul recognizing that his death was near offered his pupil some parting wisdom about the fickle nature of a religious audience for the time will come when people will not put up with sound Doctrine he wrote instead to suit their own desires they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear in a strange way wian said he found encouragement knowing that so many churches were enduring the same stress as Cornerstone he shared stories of denominational meetings of conversations with close friends in the ministry in which pastors of every age experience level and ideological makeup confessed to being on the verge of quitting the whole of the American Evangelical movement he told me was in turmoil I pressed for details I wondered if there was one Church Horror Story that stood out from the rest winens fought a smirk then he asked me have you ever been back to good will chapter 2 Montgomery New York get behind me Satan Mark 8:33 I did not know John Torres but he knew me still can't believe you called out Rush limbo like that Torres the senior pastor of Goodwill Evangelical Presbyterian in church said as he shook my hand until Pastor Chris weens brought up Goodwill and told me about the story of his embattled mentor I had never heard torres's name now as we stood chatting in the hallway of his church outside a room where an addiction recovery meeting had just kicked off it was like we'd known each other for years technically we had Torres didn't just recognize me from attending the funeral he had been Goodwill's music director when my dad was the church's associate pastor he had held me when I was a baby Torres who wore a crew cut and a permanent waggish grin had been raised in a non-religious home studying music under a famed composer at the University of Connecticut he felt a drift lost interest and dropped out of school it was the outof left field conversion to Christianity that reignited torres's passion for music he joined a Christian band toward the Northeast and pursued a career as an Evangelical musician when that failed he would have had better odds chasing a conventional dream like playing Centerfield for the New York Yankees Torres responded to an ad in the paper keyboard player local church meeting with Stuart Pullman the senior pastor of Goodwill Torres felt an uncanny connection with the place the two men HIIT it off pman whom everyone in the area congregants and non-churchgoers alike knew as pastor Stu hired Torres on the spot before long Torres took over as choir director but Pastor Stu had a bigger promotion in mind he told Torres that God had made something apparent to him the young man was meant to go into the ministry he should think about applying to Seminary and preparing for Life as a preacher Torres was flabbergasted a relatively new believer he scarcely felt at ease attending church joining the Goodwill staff had been nerve-wracking enough now the senior pastor was telling him that God wanted him to preach it made no sense Torres thought he had long hair and didn't own a suit and caught lots of grief about both from dick Alberta the associate pastor surely this was a mistake it wasn't under the patient tutelage of Pastor Stu and my father Torres began to recognize the talent the potential the plan for his life he returned to a local College to finish his undergraduate study then went straight to Alliance Theological Seminary in nyak New York he stayed on staff at Goodwill and hustled between side jobs to pay for school tuning Pian cleaning horse stalls doing housework for church families he later joined the Air National Guard eventually obtaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and to this day serves as chaplain at the nearby Air Force Base in Newberg when he wasn't studying at Seminary he was drilling with Dad and Pastor Stu the two pastors and the eager Apprentice discussed and debated every theological historical cultural and political topic imaginable disagreement was common and enjoyable each of them had come from unique backgrounds each of them had unique views of the church and the country and the world uniformity of belief was necessary in but one sense Jesus Christ had died for their sins and was resurrected for their justification before God Pastor Stu was a Democrat the three of us we would talk about it all the time your dad didn't care just like Stu didn't care that your dad was a republican Tores told me that's the church I knew sure most people who attend an Evangelical Church tend to be Republican occasionally politics would become an issue but it was rare today politics is changing the definition of what a Christian is we're setting the Bible aside and using a different standard as we talked Horus gave me the tour of Goodwill eventually we walked out of the church across a vast parking lot and approached a small Chapel this was the original Sanctuary he explained to me the place where Goodwill members had gathered for centuries until the Magnificent new Worship Center was erected in 2010 this was where my dad had accepted Christ and later began his preaching career my mom called it Holy Ground for our family walking inside I felt transported in time the lights were dim and the air was Dusty 13 rows of upholstered wooden pews were divided in half a distressed blue carpet providing an aisle toward the one-step stage at front there a communion table draped in purple cloth was flanked by a white piano and a simple wheat stained Pine Pulpit at back was a small Riser another communion table several chairs and a cross affixed to the wall arching above the rostrom were woodblock letters spelling out the message delivered by a heavenly host on the first Christmas night glory to God in the highest and on Earth Good Will toward men on the back walls of the sanctuary hung intricate pearl-colored tablets they commemorated some of Goodwill's former pastors dating as far back as the mid 18th century the church had nearly been destroyed from within and from without on numerous different occasions One Pastor Reverend Andrew King had led Goodwill during the years of the American Revolution others had preached before during and after the Civil War you think those guys had some division to deal with Torres joked the smile soon vanished he stood eyes fastened on one of the plaques talking as much to me as to himself I've always wondered he said how long can a a church survive the trouble at Goodwill had started when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 Torres sensed an uneasiness in his conservative and predominantly white congregation he wasn't thrilled with Obama's Victory himself once a Democrat Torres had drifted rightward in recent years due primarily to the issue of abortion it was a sermon my dad preached in the late 1980s Torres said that left him wholly convicted on the issue what persuaded him even more was seeing the work dad put into the pro-life cause despite having no money and four young children of their own he and my mom gave all that they had to Women in Need whatever stage of motherhood they were in in 1984 they established the first Crisis Pregnancy Center in Orange County New York as Torres spoke his eyes welled with tears he and his wife adopted their two daughters through a related Christian Ministry those two daughters happen to be black whatever his disagreements with Obama on policy matters Torres said he recognized the historic significance of the man's Ascent to the presidency he and his wife Shannon cried on Election night Overjoyed that their daughters would have the first family as Role Models their Elation was not shared in the church many of his members were hostile even hateful toward the incoming president and he sensed that race had much to do with it tor has never talked Politics on Sunday mornings but when Rufus Smith a highly respected black Pastor who was leading an EPC mega church in Houston wrote a letter to his white counterparts explaining the meaning of Obama's Victory to black Christians Torres decided to make an exception he basically said I know you might not have voted for Barack Obama but there's something about little black girls running through the hallways of the White House calling at home that has a profound spiritual effect on us and I just want to communicate that to my brother in the clergy it was a beautiful letter so I read it to the church Torres said we charged to pray for those in authority over us whether we agree with them or not I felt it was important to share with our people that for our black brothers and sisters we had arrived somewhere special as a nation the backlash was sudden and severe A Chorus of Goodwill members rebuked Torres for reading the letter several left the church alt together chastened and thoroughly disheartened Tores decided to revert to his old rules no politics in church he would stick to scripture apparently that's what his people wanted he began to realize however that this wasn't necessarily the case during Obama's 8 years in office Torres observed more and more partisan hubub inside the church some of it was harmless enough but some of it was unhealthy and even unsafe the murmurs of Obama as a Muslim Manchurian Candidate appointed by Satan himself on a mission to destroy America and American Christianity taures couldn't decide whether to confront this talk it was clearly untrue the byproduct of too many nights spent marinating and hateful right-wing media but Torres didn't want to turn his church into a cable news set and he worried that engaging this nonsense would only create more of a distraction he resolved to just keep pushing Jesus in higher and higher doses hoping to rebalance perspectives and restore some normaly it didn't work Torres knew when Trump charged the political scene in the summer of 2015 that things were going to get worse the candidate was serving up a cocktail of discontent one part cultural displacement one part religious persecution one part nationalist fervor that would prove irresistible to certain people he pastored people who were scandalized by shifting public norms and by the prospect of Christians losing their status in a secularizing America nevertheless Torah stayed the course he preached the gospel and blocked out the noise even after Trump won and people came to him some wanting the pastor to mirror their Joy a few hoping he would share their concerns most merely curious for his thoughts on the president Torres didn't bite he refused to let Trump set the agenda inside his church yes he was disturbed by the man's behavior but if he commented on one controversy Torres feared he would be expected comment on every controversy he prayed for an end to the insanity he prayed for an end to the fear and hatred and Discord what he received was a pandemic Torres struggled with the idea of shutting down Goodwill this was a time when people needed his church the most not just the members but members of the community people who relied on Goodwill for help of every sort Torres worried about people catching covid-19 at his church church but he also worried about a different sickness one that could spread just as rapidly one that prayed on hurting people who would be sealed off in their homes with nothing to do but surf the Internet and swim in bad information the pastor tried to make lemonade he held Marathon Zoom meetings with anxious church members and worked hard to make the Sunday live stream energetic and uplifting he staged drive-through worship services in the Goodwill parking lot hoping we could have a time of great Revival amidst all the conflict all the while tensions mounted some people were furious with him for submitting to the Edict of the state's Democratic governor broadcasting their wrath on Facebook Torres had never looked at the social media accounts of his members now he found himself open mouthed stunned and sickened by what he was seeing it wasn't just anger over Co protocols it was sheer derangement people were trafficking in conspiracies over everything from the global Elites who'd planned the pandemic to the global Elite who sacrificed children and drank their blood for sustenance often they were one and the same having been exposed to this digital idiocy Torres might have avoided the topic of George Floyd's murder nothing good was going to come from commenting on the racial Justice demonstrations breaking out across the country he was better off playing it safe keeping consistent in his approach not antagonizing anyone but Torres couldn't help himself the same feeling that had inspired him to read the letter after Obama's election a nagging sense that racism dwelled someplace deep inside the heart of the Evangelical Church compelled him to speak out again we take a long view of human nature Christianity is about changing the way we look at ourselves and look at other people if you have any kind of racist ideas as a Christian you can confront those sins repent and become more like Christ Tores explained to me think about the British slave trader who wrote A Amazing Grace you know I once was lost but now I'm found was blind but now I see Torres decided to shoot a video of himself interviewing Rufus Smith the black mega church pastor who was his EPC colleague and friend they talked about the scourge of slavery about America's history of racial oppression about the biblical mandate for Christians to lead the way toward reconciliation if we're going to be a church if we're going to be a church in America then this is an issue that's ours Torres said on the video it was published on the church's website and Facebook page that day the pastor told me I became an apostate the push back was Private at first individual church members began calling Torres texting him emailing him asking for a meeting the conversations took on a familiar Rhythm the member would ask Torres if he knew about Floyd's personal history if he knew that Floyd was a drug addict and a convicted criminal then after Torres would respond that it was irrelevant that sinning and falling short of the glory of God as all men do is no defense for Murder by the state the member would interrogate Torres did he think America was a racist country why wasn't he standing up for law enforcement would he denounce the rioting and looting on the news finally the member would suggest an apology Torres should confess his he to the church body and ask for forgiveness Tores began to suspect that the effort was synchronized sure enough a group of disgruntled church members soon joined together in formal Rebellion they recruited congregants to the cause and adopted aggressive new tactics one of them secretly audio taped a meeting with Torres to the great satisfaction of the cabal in which the pastor shared that he' been reading a book stamped from the beginning the definitive history of racist ideas in America by ibram X kendi an academic and civil rights activist this was a Smoking Gun the cabal went to Goodwill's Board of Elders and alleged that Torres was a Marxist who was teaching critical race Theory they demanded he be fired rebuffed by the elders the cabal wrote a letter to the EPC denomination repeating the claims and seeking torres's removal from the church their letter found a stack of similar missives at the denominational headquarters as it turned doubt Torres wasn't the only Pastor in the crosshairs of his congregation I went to this meeting with pastors of large churches in the EPC and everyone's telling the same story everyone's got some of their members saying he's woke he's teaching critical race Theory he's a liberal a socialist a Marxist Tores said it was actually pretty funny because we're all realizing these words don't mean anything anymore they're just smears the humor did not last enraged by the elders refusal to fire Torres the cabal resorted to Guerilla methods for months they waged an innuendo campaign aimed at undermining his authority they openly antagonized him using Church networks to organize a trip to Washington DC for the January 6th protest against the election result they printed Flyers itemizing the pastor alleged transgressions and passed them around Goodwill finally two members of costed Torres one Sunday morning in full view of the congregation shouting and pointing in his face and calling for him to repent one instigator screamed that Torres was sewing racial hatred in the church my oldest daughter is standing right there listening to this and she's like hello do you see me Torres recalled the whole church was shaken by the incident Torres now believed there was a credible threat of violence his wife feared for the safety of their family after Consulting with his Elders Tores addressed an email to one of the men requesting that he stay off the church property for good in response The Man created a photoshopped image of Goodwill Going Up in Flames literally the church on fire he posted the image on social media and blasted it around via email Torres felt defeated this extremism represented nowhere near a majority of the church to cabal numbered no more than 20 a fraction of the hundreds of people who attended Services every week but these troublemakers were not a bunch of Fringe Eastern Christmas Eve churchgoers one of them worked on his staff another taught confirmation classes several were close friends people he'd spent years praying with laughing with hanging around with they had even gone on a trip together to the Holy Land now some of them were turning his church into a war zone Torres was spiraling for the first time he began to question God those questions came up Torres said voice trembling eyes closed recalling his dialogue with the Lord what's going on what did I miss I felt like I was tracking with you but apparently I'm not you called me into this vocation but now it seems like I'm not any good Torres thought about quitting in fact the idea of walking away from Goodwill consumed him the church was bleeding attendance Civil War tends to thin out a congregation and he feared an outright collapse Torres did not want to be responsible for destroying a three centuries old institution perhaps there was a different Pastor he thought a better Pastor who could Salvage the situation the Elder board wouldn't hear of it seeing the pastor's fragility the elders arranged for him to take a four-month sabatical Torres reluctantly agreed for the first 3 months he did nothing but Shuffle around his home stewing in my own failure finally his wife convinced him to get out of town he spent the final month of sabatical in Key West Florida reading and praying and wondering if he could still lead Goodwill he was shocked Upon returning to receive a protagonist's welcome from the church body the congregation was noticeably smaller but also noticeably healthier A procession of members approached Tores hugged him said they'd been praying for him some of them apologized they hadn't been a part of the cabal Tores explained but they hadn't pushed back on it either maybe they were sympathetic to some of the complaints against him maybe they simply didn't want to get involved either way they hadn't backed up their Pastor it took him having an emotional breakdown and nearly quitting the church for them to extend their support Torres could have been upset instead he was relieved here's the thing I always figured it was 5% that was crazy no more than that Torres said we have a lot of strong Christians here some of them like Trump some of them might be worked up about CRT or whatever else but they would never do that crazy stuff back in the Pulpit at Goodwill Taurus still felt the quiet anxiety he needed to protect the church and himself from any more suffering he didn't regret speaking up after George 's murder but he saw how even the perception of choosing political sides had fractured Goodwill the only certainty was that there would be more uncertainty elections Wars acts of God Torres knew that he needed to set the eyes of his flock on Jesus what he didn't know was how to keep them there the sunlight flooded Goodwill's Sanctuary this space was the centerpiece of an ambitious building project that the church undertook in Stabler times large highdef screens lined either side of a blue carpeted multi-level stage the cream colored walls were accented by custom Chestnut woodworking everything from the Towering ceiling arches to the miniature silhouetted steeple behind the Lecter to the modest cross inside it was of a matching tone six sections of tan chairs fanned out across the cavernous Auditorium plus additional seating in the overhead gallery gave Goodwill a capacity of 1,000 or more but most of the chairs were empty a few minutes before the start of the 11:00 service there were maybe 100 people a generous estimate seated in the sanctuary Torres had warned me that some of his members were still watching online still reluctant to come back for inperson worship that was believable only to a point it was March 2022 and the covid-19 vaccines were wiely available however large torres's online viewing contingent it was apparent that his church had been gutted by the infighting of recent years as I found my seat an older gentleman approached he introduced himself as Perry songer an elder at the church he told me he'd been a member since 1980 and that he too had held me as a newborn in the church nursery Torres had told him that I was visiting but songer a stout older man with wisps of white hair thrown across his forehead still seemed fuzzy on the why I recounted my conversations with Torres uh yeah all the stuff about woke Theory and whatnot songer nodded chewing on the side of his lip then he Shrugged I'm still not sure what that means but people sure are mad about it the title of torres's sermon was the one we didn't plan on his reading came from The Book of Mark chapter 8 the story picks up with Jesus having just performed a series of spectacular Miracles asking his disciples what the people believed him to be when they replied that most thought him to be a prophet Jesus challenged the disciples but what about you who do you say that I am then Peter answered you are the Messiah this was a critical moment in the life of Jesus the first time any of his disciples dared to speak out loud that he was Israel's prophesied savior immediately Jesus warned them not to reveal his identity to the masses because the time was not right then he began to explain to the disciples his purpose on Earth he would be rejected by the Jewish leaders killed by the authorities and resurrected on the third day the disciples understandably were in disbelief this group of Misfits had put their lives on pause to travel with an eccentric young Rabbi who worked miracles now they had finally figured out who he was the long anticipated Messiah and he replied by informing them that he would soon be killed Peter the scripture says took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him Peter told Jesus that he was wrong that he would not could not suffer such a cruel fate when Torres reached this part of the reading his voice hissed to emphasize Jesus's reaction but turning and seeing his disciples he rebuked Peter and said get behind me Satan Torres said for you are not setting your mind on the things of God but on the things of man the context here is Paramount for some 700 years the Jewish people had been awaiting the king that God had promised them before the fall of Israel this ruler would come from the line of David and restore security and prosperity to the chosen people because of the prophetic description in the ancient texts a prince of peace who would conquer all of God's enemies the Jews were expecting a strong man an indomitable potentate whose political power and Military might could not be rivaled when the disciples realized that their personal Rabbi was in fact this future ruler of Israel their self-image no doubt began to swell their imaginations began to run wild soon Jesus of Nazareth was going to sit on a throne scepter in hand and they would sit alongside him they would be the king's key lieutenants highest counselors and most influential proxies the Mike penses and Jared kushers of Jerusalem for that thought bubble to suddenly burst for Jesus to tell them that actually he would soon be tortured and executed must have felt to the TW disciples like a Celestial Sucker Punch Jesus didn't care his entire Ministry rested on the commitment to build a kingdom and the caveat that it would not be found here remarkably he chastises Peter the disciple closest to him the rock upon whom Jesus vowed to build the church with identical language that he used with the devil during his temptation in the wilderness get behind me Satan Jesus said after the devil had offered him dominion over all the nations Peter was pursuing victory in the world Jesus was promising victory over the world if Peter could be singled out as Satan for putting an Earthly Kingdom ahead of an eternal Kingdom Torres warned we are all fair game it seems harsh doesn't it get behind me Satan Torah said wincing as he repeated the quote Jesus is saying this to Peter but he's speaking to the belief system inside of Peter and that belief system is inside all of us indeed the things of man Peter worried about 20 centuries ago are the same things that preoccupy us today wealth Prestige control all of this Tores said competes with Jesus for our hearts everything to which we attach significance in this life family country politics bodily Health even the clothes we wear and the food we eat can become a substitute religion whatever is tempting you to go astray to sin you can go full bore like Jesus did and call it Satan tell it to get behind you you can say that to your Temptation say that to your sin Torres told his congregation because you know what get behind me means it means I'm not following you it means I'm going to follow Christ The Preacher's admonition was straightforward by setting their minds on the things of man Christians are telling Jesus to to get behind them there was one thing that bothered me about the service the night before Torres had told me about a dilemma he and his staff were facing with Russia's invasion of Ukraine underway church leaders planned a special offering on Sunday morning to raise funds to send to missionaries doing humanitarian work on the ground there an older Ukrainian woman attended Goodwill and still had family there she agreed to tape a video message that could be played for the congregation but during the taping after telling of the suffering in her country and asking Christians to pray for Ukraine the woman began tearing into Russian President Vladimir Putin she called him a war criminal who was slaughtering innocent civilians Putin is a war criminal he was slaughtering innocence Torres knew this and so did his staff but they worried about diver putting attention away from The Plea for prayers and humanitarian Aid and antagonizing some of Goodwill's congregants in the process the thing is we know there are some people here who would say no no Putin's the good guy zalinski is the bad guy that's what Tucker Carlson told us Torres said referring to the outlandishly dishonest media personality who was then still the top attraction at Fox News now we could try to fight that battle but I'm not sure that's our job because at that point maybe it distracts from all the other great stuff she says on the video and people who might have been willing to donate they aren't willing to donate and ultimately maybe we're just hurting the cause the next morning when Torres played the video ahead of the special offering for Ukraine the woman's rant against Putin was edited out sensing my disappointment as we talked after the service Torres invited me back to his home for a longer dialogue joining us was Martin Sanders a close friend of the pastors and a longtime player in the Evangelical movement Sanders had spent decades speaking and teaching around the world and was now the director of the doctor of ministry program at Alliance Theological Seminary in New York Sanders was also a cigar afficianado pulling out three oversized stoies he suggested we move the conversation to torres's front porch he too was interested in what his friend had to say these are people I'm called to Pastor Torres explained to us I've got to work with them meet them where they are I've got to be careful about not playing the game by their terms I really think that once I start down that road opening the door to any sort of political disagreement they win because now we're on ideological Turf we're not on theological Turf Torres conceded that he might have been too cautious in this case he said the church leadership might in certain instances determine that something extra biblical was so urgent so relevant and so clearly consistent with Christ's teachings that it warranted discussion in the church still he said the past few years had taught him to air on the side of theology if you start playing by the rules of another game then suddenly you're playing that other game if you bring a football onto the baseball diamond and start throwing it around are you still playing baseball Torres said I don't know I don't think so Sanders nodded along in agreement the past few years had been painful for him too Sanders had come to Goodwill nearly 20 years ago at the urging of his wife Diana Who Loved torres's preaching and thought it would be a good fit for their family her husband and Torres became fast friends when Diana died of cancer in 2014 Sanders sought refuge in traveling and teaching which took him away from Goodwill as things were going south for Torres Sanders told me he was relieved if not a bit surprised that his friend survived the ordeal this has been a long time coming for the American church and John dealt with the worst of it Sanders said blowing smoke into the Blustery spring Breeze but this stuff is everywhere everywhere Sanders who does Consulting work for pastors and churches all over the country offered a captivating illustration recently his childhood Church in smalltown Ohio had commissioned a project on the future of their mission Sanders advised them to put down and writing the five key principles of a solid Bible believing church at that very same time Torres had been asked to counsel an all Latino congregation in the South Bronx he gave them an identical assignment here's what I found interesting Sanders said the two churches had none of the same five key principles not even close the church in Ohio they left no room for anything that was different from their experience white conservative Midwestern American they had totally lost sight of people who aren't like them and I said what you've done is you've baptized your worldview and called it Christian Sanders an older white Evangelical himself said it's hardly coincidental that most of the churches in chaos are old white and Evangelical these are the congregations he said that have spent decades marinating in rhetoric of Armageddon for the church enemies coming for us having come to Faith in the mid1 1970s Sanders told us he has noticed a substantial shift in perception as to where the threat to Christianity originates whereas it was once feared that Sinister geopolitical forces would Target America as a means to extinguishing its Holy Light to the world The Narrative began to shift as the Moral Majority gained clout in the 1980s leading voices on the religious right argued that Christ's Kingdom could only be Advanced if American Believers were willing to fight for it by the time the Iron Curtain fell and the United States was left standing as the world's sole superpower it was clear to evangelicals that the only enemy left to defeat was the one within for a lot of these people if you've got a philosophy or a world view to oppose that became the mission of the church Sanders said the scary thing now Tor is interjected is that the enemy is inside the church right and they'll say it's because the stakes have gotten so high Sanders said that's what you saw on January 6 that's why if you're an Evangelical you think it was okay to Club the cops or break the windows and it wasn't Nancy Pelosi they were after it was Mike Pence a fellow believer this is the biggest change I've observed in the last few years the enemies aren't those outside of the church it's people in your church who don't think exactly the way you do just the other day Sanders told us a friend who pastors a large congregation in Cleveland called him to vent a longtime member of the church had asked for a meeting and broken some difficult news I'm afraid we have to leave the church after all these decades the man said because you're not interpreting the Bible in light of the Constitution Torres let out a groan I'm telling you I thought I had seen it all sex scandals embezzlement disagreements over every kind of church doctrine but we never dealt with that stuff before he said usually the people who had strong points of view they were focused on the mission of the church and what the church believed but that's become secondary I asked Sanders if he had a theory as to why American Christianity had become so uniquely dysfunctional when I spent some years living in Canada I became friends with a renowned Canadian sociologist Sanders said he would always say he wrote books on this that Americans always want to be number one they always go for the gold Canada shoots for bronze settles for fourth then talks about how well they represented themselves Sanders Shrugged Americans always think they deserve to win and so naturally the church has become about winning too he stopped and jabbed a cautionary finger toward the sky now let me tell you the good side of that Sanders said I talk with church leaders regularly and what they've said to me is some of the people in our churches who've lost the plot or in some cases downright lost their minds they're the ones giving the most time to the homeless shelter down the street they're the ones coming here on the weekends to cook meals for Hungry people and so you have this contradiction within the American church I turned to Torres this is why I concluded he didn't want to turn the Ukrainian fundraising effort into a dispute over Vladimir Putin exactly he said they might have been watching Tucker Carlson all week but they're still going to write a check on Sunday morning that's the best of the American Christian psyche even if it's also the worst of the American Christian psyche these are good people Sanders insisted they have the Father's Heart they want to be like Jesus but they've lost their way a little bit we need to bring them back so how could Tores bring them back how could he make them forget about winning and focus on following Jesus the whole idea of a messiah coming was that he was going to arrive and there wouldn't be a living Roman anywhere it was going to be a blood bath all the Romans were going to be dead Torres replied and yet Jesus had a very different program his kingdom is so different from what we envision as a kingdom we think in terms of beating the other side of winning the argument the problem is if you win the argument You've Won nothing Jesus could have chosen to win the argument he could have come down from the cross as the jeering onlookers dared him to do proving that he really was the son of God he could have confronted Caiaphas the Jewish high priest after the resurrection proving that he really did rebuild the Temple in 3 days but he didn't Jesus chose to submit himself to a brutal dehumanizing death once resurrected he chose to appear to his Believers instructing them to take a message of Salvation to all the nations emulating his example of loneliness and servanthood and self-sacrificial love Torres took a final puff of his cigar all the winning in this world doesn't make a difference if you beat your opponent if you crush them in some political argument what do you have to show for it a better country the pastor asked shaking his head you think so but you don't chapter 3 Lynchberg Virginia then give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's Luke Luke 20: 25 a month after he graduated from high school Doug Olsen stood at the top of Liberty Mountain looking out over his future home olssen had become born again when he was 11 years old accepting Jesus Christ as his savior during a summer church program in his native Lewistown Pennsylvania he eagerly embarked on a new life as God's adopted son Olsson analyzed the scriptures with intensity skipping typical children's activities to study alongside the adults inside his church even as his congregation split over denominational differences the conservative Baptist Association was not for many in lewn conservative enough Olsen was a unifying figure everyone knew the young man would do great things for the Lord when it came time to choose a college olon narrowed his options to three Christian Schools his first two choices were Lancaster Bible College an easy drive from his home in central Pennsylvania and Bola University in Southern California a premier training ground for missionaries and evangelists the third option Lynchburg Baptist College in Virginia there was no obvious reason to enroll there the school had been founded just a few years earlier in 1971 olssen had never even heard of Lynchberg until his father who had visited for a conference came home raving about the work God was doing there there olon grew more intrigued as he studied up on the school and its leader over the past 20 years Jerry fwell had taken a startup Congregation of three dozen people and turned it into one of the South's biggest mega churches if fwell could replicate that model with Lynchberg Baptist College which was now being renamed Liberty Baptist College Olsson figured he'd be getting in on the ground floor of something special when Olsen committed to the school his father planned A celebratory trip for the entire family to Lynchburg it was the summer of 1976 and fwell had been advertising on his radio and TV programs a blockbuster event on July 4th to commemorate the nation's Bicentennial olssen didn't know quite what to expect as the family sedan snake through the hills and hollers east of Appalachia when they finally arrived at Liberty Mountain the site was like nothing the 18-year-old Olsen had ever imagined leg more than 25,000 people swarmed the open pasture land a sea of humanity robed in red white and blue flags and Banners and festoons were draped across a great platform stage its centerpiece was a full scale replica of the Liberty Bell shiny and sturdy as Philadelphia's original the fruit of an ambitious fundraising campaign Olsen could hardly fathom all the heart stirring sights and sounds and then the program commenced welcoming the masses to Liberty Mountain The Gospel Choir of Thomas RH Baptist Church sang praise to the Lord and this his sweet land of liberty BR Laken the famed fundamentalist preacher and mentor to fwell declared that another Great Awakening could be at hand when it was his time to speak however fwell warned the crowds that nothing was promised to them America was under assault from second liberal Elites and Godless government bureaucrats and Christians needed to start fighting back the nation was intended to be a Christian Nation by our founding fathers fwell thundered this idea of religion and politics don't mix was invented by the devil to keep Christians from running their own country fwell offered a reading from the second book of Chronicles If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and prey and seek my face and turn from their Wicked Ways then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and will heal the land when the program ended fireworks spewed forth from the Mountaintop Illuminating the flags and church Steeples that dotted the landscape below everything fwell was selling Olsen bought I fell in love he recalled decades later with the idea of Liberty that that enthusiasm was soon curbed when the Olsen returned to Lynchberg after Labor Day excited to move their oldest son into his new home they were dismayed to find themselves at a boarded up hotel in a tough part of downtown The Condemned building was all that Liberty could offer its newest students Olson flopped a mattress onto the floor and unloaded boxes of his clothing and books assuring his parents that he would be fine they drove off with tears in their eyes not tears of joy but tears of concern and bewilderment the July 4th celebration was suddenly a distant memory this seedy neighborhood in downtown Lynchberg bore no resemblance to that bucolic scene on Liberty Mountain their son had signed up to be part of something he didn't fully understand olssen had reason to worry too he could not have known that fwell would soon emerge as one of the most consequential figures of the late 20th century that his synthesizing of Christianity and conservatism would Royal America's political landscape and radicalize its Protestant subculture that his small school in Lynchberg Virginia would eventually develop into a multi-billion dollar Behemoth and become the embodiment of both the great promise and wasted potential of the Evangelical Church none of this was conceivable to the college freshman sleeping in that condemned Hotel studying his surroundings Olsson simply wanted to know did fwell have a vision born into a frontier family of bootleggers alcoholics and atheists Jerry Layman fwell was hardly the prototype for a preacher as a child fwell hated those occasions when his mother forced him to attend church when his father died of therosis of the liver Jerry was just 15 years old he stopped going altogether his mother the lone devout Christian in the extended Clan prayed daily for her son's salvation then one Sunday morning in 1952 3 years after his father's death fwell joined a group of friends at Park Avenue Baptist Church he responded to the altar call and prayed to receive Jesus in the context of the times falwell's decision seemed typical Church attendance was soaring in the post-war era Billy Graham the brilliant young evangelist was drawing Stadium siiz crowds for his revivals around the country the only remarkable thing about falwell's story was that that in an age of spiritual Dramatics his own conversion was utterly dull there was no vision no blinding light no Miracle he wrote in his autobiography I didn't even feel particularly emotional once interested in engineering fwell abruptly switched vocational Lanes he enrolled at a Missouri Bible College and began training under a pair of fundamentalist and segregationist preachers in the absence of outward religious fervor the best explanation for falwell's career turn was his attraction to the nature of ministry work he was a people person an extrovert who loved to shmoo and argue and persuade he was also a born salesman despite his youthful aversion to churchgoing fwell constantly overheard the radio programs echoing around his mother's house such as Charles Fuller's old-fashioned Revival hour and found himself fascinated by the market dynamics at play in 1956 fwell started his very own congregation in Lynchburg calling it Thomas Road Baptist Church and began airing his own local radio show within months he had broken into an experimental new Medium television airing his Sunday sermons on wlv lynchburg's ABC affiliate in a town crammed with churches Lynchberg was thought to have more than a 100 at the time falwell's media Savvy proved a differentiator his congregation swelled from 35 at the first service to more than 800 one year later physical expansion followed Thomas Road commenced a building campaign that never truly ended growing from a 1500t facility into the nearly 900,000 ft Colossus that spans multiple blocks in Lynchburg today television was the rocket fuel not long after the founding of Thomas RH fwell had expanded his telecast into four states plus Washington DC and was reaching hundreds of thousands of viewers each Sunday by the mid 1970s falwell's oldtime Gospel Hour was shown on more stations throughout the United States than any single telecast fwell was not flashy in the Pulpit nor was he especially eloquent substantively his sermons emphasized what he called the fundamentals of the faith the Virgin birth the resurrection of Christ the inherency of scripture and mostly avoided extra biblical commentary in keeping with the fundamentalist Doctrine of his Independent Baptist tradition fwell preached separatism the idea that followers of Christ are distinct set apart called to a citizenship in heaven that takes precedence over Earthly identities he frowned upon Civic activism and expressly denounced political entanglements in 1965 at the climax of the Civil Rights Movement fwell delivered a sermon scolding his colleague Reverend Martin Luther King Jr for sullying their profession the goal of the church fwell decreed is not Reformation but transformation a fact that certain clergy would do well to recognize as a god-called preacher I find that there is no time left after I give the proper time and attention to winning people to Christ fwell said preachers are not called to be politicians but to be Soul winners he cited Jesus's own words as evidence render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods fwell said reading his vintage translation from the New Testament in other words fwell continued he said pay your taxes forget politics and serve me with all your heart fwell and his congregants could afford to forget politics he had launched his ministry during an idilic age for the white American Christian Boris had been fought and one incomes and education levels were taking off opportunity in the form of jobs housing Transportation abounded social progress did not yet imperil the nation's Christian values the most immediate cultural threat came in the form of a one-time gospel singer who now gyrated his hips on stage in truth fwell had never been a political back in 1958 just his second year of pastoring fwell denounced the brown V Board of Education Supreme Court decision of 1954 saying the Devil Himself was pushing ping integration and that the true negro did not want it what will integration of the races do to us fwell asked his all-white congregation it will destroy our race eventually as the years went on fwell was selective but hardly silent with his partisan punditry he aligned himself with Senator Joe McCarthy alerting his flock to the risks of communist infiltration he chastised King for having left-wing associations although he would later retract his comments about segregation and race calling it false prophecy and welcoming black families to his church falwell's trajectory was bending inexorably toward the flag waving figurehead he would become by the mid 1970s there was no use in trying to separate politics and theology in fact fwell realized combining the two might be the way to save both the country and his upstart college given the astonish ing success of his ministry the church the broadcasting Enterprise the flourishing private K through2 Academy he oversaw at Thomas Road fwell had felt confident about his foray into higher education that confidence soon proved misplaced it became apparent shortly after fwell opened Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971 that this entrepreneurial Endeavor was quite unlike his others no plates were being passed no donations were being dialed in the school whose primary source of Revenue was meager tuition payments rapidly accumulated debt it owned property including a piece of candler's mountain which fwell envisioned as the site of a future campus but had no funds to build this forced its students to live and learn in dilapidated long abandoned buildings which in turn made it harder to recruit new students within a few years of its founding the school was in danger of collapse there were other reasons fwell had such a hard time luring young people to Central Virginia he was a fundamentalist and adherent to The Independent Baptist code which outlawed among other things movies dancing drinking smoking and one-on-one dating for all the success fwell had in reaching older traditionalist Christians with his TV show he was now dealing with a very different demographic fundamentalism was outmoded to many younger Believers inspired by the likes of Billy Graham they gravitated toward a broader more modern Christianity less about rules and more about relationships it was joyful and civic-minded and proudly pro-american for the first time significant numbers of young adults who had been raised in diverging Traditions Pentecostals with their emphasis on charismatic expression fundamentalists with their old-fashioned rituals Southern Baptists with their cultural etiquette Mainline Protestants with their social awareness were amalgamating under a shared if Loosely defined label evangelicals In This Moment fwell saw opportunity he had limited the college's reach by stressing its fundamentalist roots and Regional identity in 1975 with the bicentennial approaching fwell considered a change inspired by the shrewdness of a friend Arthur deas a multi-millionaire businessman who' founded the National Liberty Corporation a life insurance giant that used a Valley Forge Pennsylvania mailing address even though it was headquartered in Philadelphia fwell undertook a makeover of the school's image Lynchberg Baptist College became Liberty Baptist College it would later be shortened to Liberty University the school's colors changed from green and gold to red white and blue with Olympiad undertones 1976 was a triumphant year for Old Glory on the world stage punctuated by a young decathlete named and Bruce Jenner breaking the world record fwell stressed the school's motto training champions for Christ he began touring the country with a Choir performing at rallies and concerts in Star Spangled attire the roaming Ensemble raised millions of dollars from oldtime Gospel Hour devotees to fill the school's budget shortfalls it was a promising blueprint the next year an election year fwell turned the choir routine into a traveling church service he called it the I love America Tour and took it to 112 locations nationwide that's when things started to turn around recalled Jerry fwell Jr Who as a teenager would accompany his father on these road trips nobody wanted to send their kid to Lynchberg the school needed a national appeal and that patriotic angle sold a lot of people to understand the long unfolding crisis at Liberty an institution known today less for charity and Christian disciple making than for corruption and Republican King making is to understand that in the half century since its rebranding the university has struggled to execute on the supposed double meaning of its name patriotism divorced from piety is feudal after all those who win the world but lose their souls are champions of nothing in the heart of Campus through the main doors of Damas Hall a Regal brick building featuring tall white columns students are greeted with a wall length inscription from second Corinthians where the spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty but according to fwell Jr his father's namesake and also his successor as University president there was no double meaning intended it had nothing to do with theology it was a marketing thing my dad was appealing to a sense of patriotism that was big in Christianity at the time he told me the younger fwell added champions for Christ was just a tagline it wasn't a vision for the University when Newsweek called 1976 the year of the Evangelical it was both an observation of the present and a remark on the past historians and religious Scholars had long understood the American story in the context of its great Awakenings the first broke out in the British American colonies during the 1730s with Echoes of the Protestant Reformation which had destabilized the aristocratic Roman Catholic Church two centuries earlier front preachers democratized the Revival process calling for a renewed focus on Holiness and individual salvation the second Awakening in the 1790s offered similar revivals but with far greater breath its emphasis on converting the UN Church spawning Myriad new Christian organizations and associations that became Central to the young nation's Civic life the third Awakening generally thought to be the least impactful at least theologically speaking stressed missionary work and moral activism in the latter half of the 19th century it gave rise to the prohibition movement and the so-called Social Gospel which presented Christianity as a cure to poverty and other societal ills in the early 20th century however American religiosity went into recession clashes with modernity became recurring and problematic never more so than in 1925 when after Tennessee banned the teaching of evolution in schools the American American civil liberties Union recruited a young science teacher John Scopes to be indicted for violating the law the uing trial was a media phenomenon former Secretary of State William Jennings briyan a fundamentalist Christian and three-time presidential candidate who had retired from politics to focus on defeating the scourge of Darwinism led the prosecution's case in a surprise move Clarence Darrow Scopes renowned lawyer called Brian himself to testify Brian's wobbly performance on the stand his loose understanding of science paired with a fringe interpretation of the biblical account of Earth's creation produced a moment that was recreated in newspapers radio broadcasts and Telegraph reports that permeated the country Brian won the conviction of Scopes though it was later overturned as was Tennessee's law but lost badly in the court of public opinion the Scopes trial became short iconographic of the 20th Century's Embrace even worship of technology and science by the time Liberty University opened in 1971 fundamentalism was enjoying a Resurgence this was partly thanks to mass communication media that brought fwell and his comrades into the living rooms kitchens garages and Automobiles of tens of millions of Americans but it was also because the very nature of fundamentalism was changing preachers who once prescribed total toal Detachment from worldly Affairs were now trafficking in jeremiads of civilizational collapse winning huge audiences of older conservative Christians who feared that the American apocalypse was nigh education had become a national flasho the Supreme Court's 1962 ruling in angle vers fatel which banned prayer in public schools inflamed the intensifying fights over curriculum relating to Evolution history and human sexuality fwell began floating his belief that public schools should be abolished entirely detecting a secular plot to brainwash the Next Generation fundamentalists yanked their kids out of local K12 programs and launched alternative christiany at a frenetic clip foreshadowing the antipathy toward public education that evangelicals have come to practice at a massive scale today for fwell however this change wasn't happening fast enough he had concluded rightly based on the research that most fundamentalist Christians remained uninterested in politics many were not even registered to vote and those who were showed no reliable appetite for engagement fwell hoped to bring his tribe along but he couldn't ignore the potential that existed elsewhere in 1976 the pollster George Gallup found that one in three Americans identified as Born Again Christians and that an even larger share of the electorate agreed that the Bible should be interpreted literally fwell sensed that a fourth grade awakening could be at hand but only if he broadened his existing tent if Christians were going to reclaim America and if he was going to save his school he would need to cast a wider Vision so in the year of the bicentennial fwell initiated a public relations Blitz aimed at capitalizing on love of country and exploiting fears of secularism to raise his and his fledgling schools profile fall well picked a surprising Target Jimmy Carter the Democratic candidate for president was a Sunday school teacher a devout Southern Baptist from Georgia who identified as born again at a time when few politicians of either party did so fwell didn't merely throw his support behind the Republican Gerald Ford he set out to destroy the Democratic nominee specifically fwell railed against Carter for giving an interview to Playboy magazine in which the politician admitted to having looked on a lot of women with lust and committed adultery in my heart many times describing it as beneath the Dignity of a candidate for the nation's highest office in reality the source of falwell's antagonism was standard partisanship long before the southern strategy transformed the political loyalties of white conservatives in places like Lynchberg fwell had been a staunch Republican believing the party's business-friendly dogma and Law and Order policies more than offset the elite cultural sensibility that alienated so many Southerners I thought Goldwater was too liberal he wrote in one of his books given how the country had turned on Republicans after Watergate fwell was destined to be disappointed in 1976 Carter won the election but with the culture wars beginning to rage fwell sensed an opening to turn Democratic rule into a referendum on American morality Doug Olsen didn't see it at first he had even voted in 1976 the energy on campus centered on Christ in carrying out the mission as his disciples the Freshman had thrown himself into classes and church and volunteering in the community activities that made Lynchberg feel like home despite the initial shock of his new environment lodging at a condemned Hotel walking to class through a gauntlet of Beggars and drunks and drug addicts Olsson had taken to life at Liberty his classmates were on fire for the Lord his professors were brilliant and godly he especially liked the school's president fwell or doc as the students dubbed him fwell did not have any advanced degree though he was conferred several honorary doctorates Olson saw in fallwell what even his fiercest critics would concede a heart for people Thomas rad was extravagantly generous with its resources the church purchased a large Farmhouse to rehabilitate alcoholics ran camps for underprivileged kids sponsored adoption and Foster parenting programs ministered to lynchburg's homeless population and raised money for missionaries who served in impoverished Nations abroad the students saw in their school president and for most of them their Pastor a man whose sole Focus was living out his faith at 18 olssen lacked the guile to discern falwell's endgame for Liberty the Patriotic relabeling had been perfectly timed and expertly executed Carter's victory in 1976 Uncorked a pent up sense of panic on the American right and fwell knew that his school more than any church or Tent Revival or television show stood to benefit with enrollment pushing 1500 that fall at 10-fold increase from a few years earlier Liberty was starting to imitate the explosive growth of Thomas Road but fwell didn't need another church he needed an institution parallel to the church a cultural stronghold that could train conservative Warriors to wage a frontal strike on the forces of secularism the Catholics of the University of Notre Dame were too dignified to battle the left the Mormons of Brigham Young University were too genial to rescue the nation from Sodom and Gomorrah style destruction fwell decided Protestant Christians would need to lead the charge on January 21st 1977 yellow school buses transported several thousand people to the top of Liberty Mountain Friday morning Chapel was typically held inside the Thomas Road Sanctuary but this was a momentous occasion the students and faculty of Liberty University had come to hear from their founder about a vision I want us here today to ask the Lord to do something special for us on what we believe to be a sacred spot of ground fwell told the crowd we are asking God to build us a college sweeping his finger across the Frozen landscape pawell asked everyone to imagine these hundreds of barren Acres being transformed into buildings Laboratories dorms lecture Halls God had placed it on his heart fwell explained to turn this small school into a worldclass university he was not shy about his ultimate aims the school would promote Christian values certainly but even more so it would grow big enough and strong enough to reverse the leftward currents in Academia that were running Downstream into the rest of American Life standing in 6 in of snow with icy winds lashing through the open pasture all around them the students and professors joined hands in prayer they sang a song I want that mountain written by one of Jerry Jr's friends they climbed onto the buses and continued singing on their ride down stirred by falwell's fantasy and deeply skeptical that it would ever become reality I'll never forget the day doc claimed that Mountain for God Olsson told me recalling his delight at hearing fwell articulate this grand plan I'll also never forget thinking never going to happen the supernatural Against All Odds framing of the Liberty Mountain Conquest David slaying Goliath Jesus feeding the 5000 pick your biblical Wonder would soon become Central to the school's self- mythologizing narrative yet in many ways the episode was straightforward Liberty had owned the property for years now thanks to increasing enrollment and an infusion of donations both of which owed directly to falwell's I love America Tour the university had dug out of its Financial hole if fwell was waiting for a sign from above it came quickly construction on the new campus began less than two months after the January prayer Summit the uing years were an exhilarating time at Liberty new structures sprang up everywhere persp effective students and their parents swarmed the embryonic campus journalists descended on Lynchberg to Marvel at the spectacle millions of viewers watched a television special the miracle of Liberty Mountain sparking yet another surge in enrollment and long-distance donations fwell kept cultivating his celebrity in the political world joining fights against gambling and gay rights among other issues while chastising Carter with language increasingly strident for ushering in America's decline fwell had spent decades building his brand as a downhome preacher from Virginia now he was recognized as a political player and he was just getting started in June 1979 fwell took a brief leave from his revamped I love America Tour it was now playing at state capital buildings from coast to coast earning huge crowds and enormous revenues to meet with a group of prominent conservative activists among them were Howard Phillips a free market advocacy wonk and Jewish convert to evangelicalism and Richard Viger a campaign strategist who had perfected direct male technology as a means of mobilizing Christian voters the organizer was Paul wrick a Catholic journalist turned political Insider who in 1973 had co-founded the Heritage Foundation which would become Washington's leading conservative think tank each of these men had effectively abandoned the Republican Party in the aftermath of Watergate hoping that a descendant of purer ideology would supplant the geop but that Romanticism now gave way to reality Carter's presidency was proving injurious to the right to the whole country they would argue and conservatives were desperate to defeat him in 1980 Republicans could not retake the presidency with their existing Coalition they needed to engage an untapped segment of Voters they needed to Galvanize fundamentalist Christians they needed fwell it was an easy sell fwell had long awaited the chance to to lead conservatives into combat and not just Christian conservatives Francis schaer a Bohemian Theologian Who Rose to prominence in the 1970s had revolutionized the ways in which people like fwell thought about cultural conflict even before they became personal friends Schaefer had sold fwell on the need to partner with co- belligerant people of different beliefs but shared objectives the implications political and spiritual were profound whereas fwell had once treated theology as the imperative prioritizing saving the individual soul believing that America's Redemption was Downstream from Mass conversion he was now operating in Reverse setting aside religious differences and working with non-christians toward a supposed National salvation in this sense fwell was a mere image of Billy Graham who in the early stages of his career had stressed patriotism and corded political power only to later back away from both falwell's loathing of President Carter was white hot in particular he claimed that the government's decision to deny tax exempt status to a Christian College Bob Jones University on the basis of its racially discriminatory practices set a precedent for secular politicians to shut down churches deploying ever more apocalyptic rhetoric fwell pleaded with Christians to resist he believed that America was as he would Proclaim in 1980 floundering to the brink of death he also believed himself uniquely situated to the challenge over the past few years fwell had watched Kindred Spirits such as James Dobson focus on the family Beverly Le concerned women for America and Donald Wiman American Family Association launched faith-based organizations that reached much of the Evangelical world but missed his fellow fundamentalist there was a certain asymmetry at work evangelicals could not see to engage their fundamentalist Brethren but fwell having invested considerable resources in expanding his school and telecast Empire was learning how to engage evangelicals wrick and his associates realized as much these men had come to Lynchburg wanting fwell to be more than just a missing Cog in their new political machine they wanted him to be its leader when the discussion turned to tactics they would Target Protestants Catholics Mormons Jews even conservative atheists an evolution of the co-belligerent construct wrick told fwell there was a moral majority of Americans on their side fwell glanced over at his staff that's the name of our organization he said fwell and his Newfound allies had a name what they didn't have was a rationale at least not a rationale for justifying this god-ordained incursion into the blood sport of presidential politics these men were Political Animals much of their disdain for Carter and his Democratic party owed to essential partisan disagreements taxation spending regulation foreign policy labor disputes and the like yet these matters were of no obvious moral urgency and falwell's crew couldn't build a viable public facing effort in the Twilight of the 1970s around some of their pet causes such as fighting the Equal Rights Amendment and supporting Rel religious schools that discriminated against blacks they needed an issue set that would satisfy the lowest common denominator of their socially conservative constituency and so fwell would launch the Moral Majority with a focus on pornography homosexuality drug use Rising divorce rates secularism in public schools and above all abortion that the pro-life cause has become synonymous with fwell his Moral Majority and its successor movements is evidence of careful storytelling and masterful salesmanship but it does not stand up to factual scrutiny in the decades preceding The Landmark r v way decision that legalized abortion in 1973 abortion was considered a Catholic issue in 1968 Christianity Today the flagship Evangelical publication founded by Graham convened a symposium of some two dozen theologians who ultimately could not agree whether abortion is sinful in 1971 1 the Southern Baptist convention passed a resolution affirming the procedure under a generous range of circumstances W chriswell the SBC ex-president and legendary pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas one of America's leading mega churches approved I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person in 1973 Barry Garrett the DC Bureau chief for Baptist Press reacted to the road decision by writing that the Supreme Court had Advanced the cause of religious liberty human equality and justice fwell was no stranger to aining on court rulings yet the first time he mentioned abortion from the pulpit was 1978 5 years after the row decision Ed Dobson no relation to James one of falwell's closest friends and an original Dean at Lynchberg Baptist College sat at his side during that fateful 1979 meeting with wrick years later commenting on the notion that roie Wade had ignited the religious right Dobson said I sat in the non-smoke filed back room with the Moral Majority and I frankly do not remember abortion being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something this is not to Discount genuine changes of heart and conscience in retrospect given the dramatic jump in abortion rates following row advances in medical techn ology that gave the public a window into the procedure and the attention lavished on the subject by influential Christians the overnight ground swell of opposition makes sense falwell's own Whirlwind fixation on abortion tracks with a 1979 film series whatever happened to the human race created by schaer and the Pediatric surgeon and future Surgeon General of the United States C Everett Coupe at screenings around the country schaer argued that the casual devalue of Life pretended catastrophic consequences for America a message that surely resonated with fwell and his like-minded religious Patriots even so the political context cannot be ignored in the 1978 midterm elections Republicans scored multiple major upsets over Carter's Democratic party three of those victories were heavily attributable to Grassroots pro-life activism this was astonishing to wrick Who as a staunch cathol and anti-abortion conservative had long lamented the gop's unwillingness to organize around the abortion issue Randall Balmer a Dartmouth Professor who is perhaps the preeminent historian of the Moral Majority has described the 1978 elections as a turning point he discovered one telling correspondence between wrick and Robert Billings who had become the moral majority's first executive director the Triumph of pro-lifers in 1978 Billings wrote to wrick would pull together many of our Fringe Christian friends indeed it did in 1980 fwell assembled a new Coalition of Voters fundamentalists evangelicals Southern Baptists Pentecostals and all manner of vagrant Christians plus thanks to the emphasis on abortion Catholics around the message that Traditional Values were being extinguished by Carter and his Godless government the Republican presidential primary was the first t for falwell's group to flex its muscle whereas The gop's Establishment preference George HW Bush kept a strategic distance from the religious right Ronald Reagan made his courtship of these newly mobilized Christian voters a tactical lynchpin of his campaign specifically engaging on the abortion issue in ways Bush would not dare after a photo finish in Iowa Bush carried the state by some 2,000 votes Reagan went to South Carolina his biggest rally came at Bob Jones University the school that had been punished by the Internal Revenue Service for refusing to admit blacks it had recently changed policies though the school still banned interracial dating and marriage Reagan trounced bush in South Carolina emboldened fwell redeployed Resources and Personnel to upcoming primary States and even hit the ground to stump for Reagan himself it was all too much for Bush to overcome when Reagan clinched the nomination he rewarded fwell by naming Robert Billings as his faith-based liaison for the general election a new standard had been set in Republican politics that which had animated the party for much of its modern history an educated moneyed socially moderate culturally Coastal sensibility was suddenly and unceremoniously out of style moving forward passing muster in the GOP would require talking as much about abortion as economics it would mean campaigning more from the pulpits of Southern churches and less inside the parlors of Northeastern country clubs it would involve the concession That Base voters no longer took their orders from a party boss or Precinct Captain but rather from a Baptist preacher in Virginia the Moral Majority had taken over the Republican party but fwell wanted more he wanted America Carter was always going to struggle to win a second term his presidency had been defined by Dreadful inflation an energy crisis and an embarrassing hostage situation in Iran adding insult to ineptitude the president had survived a bruising primary Challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy who depicted him as aloof and overmatched all these obstacles might have been surmountable if not for the added problem posed by the religious right working closely with the Reagan campaign falwell's organization helped build out a sophisticated hyperlocal organizing system that targeted churchgoers and more specifically the millions of evangelicals who had backed Carter in 1976 converting any small number of those voters could make the math unworkable for the incumbent According to some estimates fwell and his allies converted one in four of them that September fwell graced the cover of Newsweek with a one-word headline vote the letter T fashioned into a crucifix framing a photo of him sermon by the time Reagan came to Lynchberg for a speech in October the election was a WP not that fwell was taking any chances having already spent millions of dollars pummeling the president on radio stations Nationwide he poured an additional 10 million that fall into ads portraying Carter as he himself would later recall as a traitor to the South and no longer a Christian Reagan crushed Carter in November winning 489 electoral votes to the incumbents 49 the morning after election day when fwell arrived on campus the Liberty band serenaded him with Hail to the Chief less than a decade removed from founding a small Christian College in Lynchberg Virginia this country preacher was one of the most powerful men in America the benefits were immeasurable membership at Thomas Road shot past 20,000 early in Reagan's first term fwell sold millions of dollars worth of books and tapes never mind the passive income collected from his endorsed roster of authors preachers radio hosts and evangelists he continually raked in contributions from oldtime Gospel Hour viewers via a cuttingedge mailing list which now exceeded 7 million names and addresses he bought a private plane and embarked on a circuit of revivals political rallies and church pulpits often the locations were one and the same while appearing on national news programs such as Nightline and Larry King live in 1985 almost 5 years to the day after the Newsweek Splash Time Magazine featured fwell on its cover with a headline thunder on the right amid this circus some of fwell students grew uneasy for most of its first decade in existence Liberty had adhered to those old school separationist instincts even as the school's president entertained bigger and more worldly Ambitions even as he began packaging the cross with the flag often quite literally there had been no apparent overhaul of the teaching or campus culture yet that was beginning to change the enrollment Spike following Reagan's election brought a wave of politically crazed young conservatives to campus this influx demanded a hiring spree and some of the folks fallwell brought in particularly for administrative positions were partisan cronies he' met through his burgeoning Republican network fwell was becoming borderline fanatical in his own right his Wednesday morning chapels students met for Chapel three times each week but he was now traveling almost every Monday and Friday became Republican pep rallies with fleeting references to God drowned out by legislative updates and news bulletins and tales from his Moral Majority travel log we were getting a lot of political commentary during falwell's weekly Chapel message and that started to feel uncomfortable he was wearing all these different hats Thomas Road Liberty Moral Majority and he really didn't compartmentalize recalled Mark deoss who enrolled in the fall of 1980 one year after his father falwell's friend Arthur deas a major donor to Liberty died of a heart attack I think the students liked it at first it was kind of exciting deos added our school's president was out there mixing it up with liberal politicians and telling us about it but I think after a while it became a bit much this problem to the point about compartmentalizing wasn't unique to Liberty falwell's political celebrity won him new Republican friends but it would soon cost him a chunk of his original TV viewership namely those older fundamentalists who still distrusted the mixing of religion and politics around that time he encountered similar troubles at Thomas Road congregants began leaving the Church in bunches over their concerns about a lack of spiritual feeding this didn't make much of a dent Lynchberg was a liberty fueled boom toown with fresh recruits walking into Thomas Road every week and yet for the broader Church the defections foretold of the divisions to come we just got tired of the god and Country stuff it started to feel like the heart of everything we were doing both at the school and at the church Olsson recalled on Sunday mornings we'd be looking at each other my wife my friends just rolling our eyes like oh boy docs add it again we had to find another church and listen I love doc but we needed something more than just America America America all the time the Moral Majority had seemed harmless enough at first Olson told me but then I watched it grow into this monster Olsen had come to call Lynchberg home he arrived at Liberty with plans to major in biblical studies perhaps with an eye toward preaching himself later he gravitated toward an interest in building management and proved so effective that as a student he worked his way up from custodian at Thomas Road to chief of operations for Liberty's maintenance plant during that time he met and married a liberty girl and not just any Liberty girl but a Lynchberg native a product of Thomas rh's private K12 Academy whose family had deep ties to falwell's Empire once a stranger to falwell's world olssen had reached the inner sanctum he did not always like what he saw he admired fwell personally especially his heart for the lowly and broken still olssen felt a nagging angst at his surroundings some of Liberty's higher-ups had earned reputations for being less than Christlike in their treatment of people his own brother-in-law who worked for the oldtime Gospel Hour had become deeply disillusioned with the ways in which fwell milked audiences for money indeed the prodigious amounts of cash being spent across those various Enterprises and the methods of replenishing those outgoing funds Disturbed many in falwell's orbit perhaps most upsetting for Olsen was the Revelation that his favorite Professor a man he loved a mentor who had guided his Christian walk was having an extramarital affair that really Shook Me Up spiritually Olson recalled and I remember my mother finally had to sit me down one day and she asked me are you serving God or are you following a man olssen realized that she wasn't talking about the professor when he landed a lucrative job offer that required moving to Florida olssen didn't hesitate eager to build a new life he and his wife packed up their newborn son Nick and said goodbye to her family in Lynchburg they had always expected to raise Nick there they dreamed of him attending Liberty starting his own family in Lynchburg serving the lord and carrying out that Vision fwell had shared on the Mountaintop Doug Olsen still carried that dream despite what he knew he still believed in Liberty he still believed in falwell's Vision at least the unspoiled version human legacies are inherently complex in the eyes of a Christian olssen knew that fwell loved God he also knew that fwell was a sinner who like all Sinners was prone to wander Olson had seen too much good in fwell and too much good in Liberty to let the bad color his remembrances he moved the family to Florida and then back to his home in central Pennsylvania evicting the bad from his mind he raised Nick to love Jesus to romanticize Lynchberg to know the amazing story of how God had blessed Liberty University maybe one day he would carry out that Vision after all in May 2007 30 years after he asked God to build a college on Liberty Mountain Jerry fwell Senor died of a heart attack inside his office on campus he was 73 the latter years of falwell's life had been forgettable he still preached to a large congregation and reached a sizable audience with his TV and radio programs yet his influence was dwindling ever since he disbanded the moral majority in 1989 sensing rightly that he'd lost sight of his responsibilities as a the pastor fwell had been eclipsed by a new generation of Christian culture Warriors he launched the godsave America campaign in 1996 and a new radio program listen america in 1998 but neither one did much to move the needle Republican leaders would still make the pilgrimage to Lynchberg but it was proving more an obligatory photo op than a kissing of the Ring fallwell didn't take well to the diminished role clinging to relevance in increasingly trans arent and pitiful fashion fwell had by the turn of the century reduced himself to a caricature more a punchline than a provocator he reacted to actress Ellen degenerous Coming Out by calling her Ellen degenerate he ranted about Tinky Winky an animated purple creature on the toddler AG TV show Teletubbies who was supposedly homosexual despite a lack of reproductive organs he predicted that the Antichrist would be arriving soon and added of course he'll be Jewish he said that the September 11th 2001 Terror attacks that killed 3,000 people were probably deserved because of how Americans had turned away from God and blamed the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians as well as the ACLU for inviting such Devastation on the country less visible but every bit as problematic was his mismanagement of Liberty University back in 1988 the school had nearly gone Belly Up enrollment and donations had plateaued since the Reagan Spike of the early 1980s but fwell had kept on building kept on spending pushing Liberty deeper into a hole without any apparent plan to climb out all told fwell had racked up more than $100 million in debt to keep the university afloat according to a 2020 Politico investigation and could not pay it back falwell's finances were hurting across the board revenues from The oldtime Gospel Hour had been falling for several years and the 1987 sex scandal involving televangelists Jim and Tammy Fay Baker prompted Untold millions of Christian viewers to close their checkbooks for Good Help arrived in the form of Jerry fwell Jr a recent graduate of the University of Virginia law school the younger fwell aspired to a career in commercial real estate he had never shown interest in the family business Jonathan his younger brother was the preacher and Jerry Jr had no great affection for Liberty his undergraduate years there had often been torturous smuggling beers onto the campus was hard enough for kids who didn't share a name with the founder and president Jerry Jr considered himself a Christian he studied some theology during his college Years and came away convinced of Jesus's deity but had no patience for the rules and rituals of fundamentalism first at the time Road Academy and then at Liberty the younger fwell chafed at these madade restrictions on the life he wanted to lead it was out of Duty and Devotion to his father that Jerry Jr stepped into the Quagmire at Liberty he had always been close to his dad as he later recalled to the journalist Gabriel Sherman both were pranksters troublemakers rule Breakers Jerry Jr always founded strange that his father chose the fundamentalist lifestyle especially given Jerry senior's concession to him on many an occasion that their Baptist rules had no bearing on anyone's salvation yet he loved him unconditionally now there was a condition on their relationship if Jerry senior wanted his son's help he would need to let go and that's what he did the medicine was bitter construction halted programs axed employees laid off property sold assets liquidated loans Rewritten the school that fwell had expanded was swiftly WR sized the television show that made him famous was abruptly cancelled these emergency measures worked after several years of fiscal fasting Liberty emerged lean and viable for the remainder of his life fwell would credit his son with rescuing the school he is more responsible humanly speaking for the miraculous Financial survival of this ministry than any other single person fwell wrote in his autobiography after his death in 20 07 falwell's domain was divided into two Jonathan took over a senior pastor of Thomas Road while Jerry Junior was named president of Liberty University their sister Jeanie a doctor would play no part in the family business but there was a fourth sibling to consider Mark deas after his own father's untimely death deas became like an adopted son to fwell he even lived with the family for a time and after graduating went to work for fwell as his chief of staff for the ensuing seven years Damas was at falwell's side during every meeting every trip every decision when deas left to start a public relations firm Liberty became his first client fwell had buried demas's father and his younger brother he was the first person at the hospital when demas's oldest two children were born shortly before he died fwell asked that deas who by then had built a powerful PR firm take over as chairman of the school's executive committee the second most important position at Liberty little did he know that he had placed his adopted son on a collision course with his firstborn Jerry Jr went to Great Lengths to let the world know he was not a preacher Pastor or spiritual leader but that he was a UVA trained lawyer and businessman deas said looking back on what transpired between them those comments were always a concern to me and should have been to the entire board it's true that the schools new president had never portrayed himself as a Pious man if anything he went out of his way to inform people perhaps even warn them that he was not a religious role model that nobody seemed to mind only reinforced his own view of what Liberty was meant to be Jerry Jr had studied his father's every move during the University's formative years he was convinced that aside from preaching and practicing those fundamentals of the faith the school should be organized and run like any other Enterprise the welcome he received felt like validation of this view to Jerry Jr it was his resume never mind the name that made him a celebrated selection everyone knew what he' done to resuscitate Liberty and in the coming years he would help usher in a new era of prosperity thanks to an early investment in online education and some aggressive bets on real estate development the school's finances took off Liberty had listed $259 million assets at the time of falwell's death by 2012 just 5 years later that number had quadrupled unlike his Larger than Life father Jerry Jr was awkward and introverted shy and always slow to speak he kept quiet about his faith and even quieter about his politics no matter enrollment was Rising new buildings were going up the endowment was bulging Liberty was back on the map and Jerry fwell Jr was in charge narratives surrounding the Shakespearean demise of fwell often hinge on his relationship with Donald J Trump the candidates speech to Liberty in early 2016 falwell's endorsement of his campaign and their intertwined arcs in the Years thereafter and yet to fully appreciate the correspondence between Trump's rise and falwell's fall is to remember the future president's first visit to Liberty in the fall of 2012 some 6 weeks before election day Trump arrived on the Liberty campus to surprising Fanfare he had come to address the Thrice weekly convocation Liberty was now too large for those quaint Old Chapel Services and although attendance was mandatory for students the campus Auditorium overflowed with other guests faculty staff family members citizens of Lynchberg and Beyond in a press release fwell called Trump the most popular convocation speaker in our history an exaggeration perhaps but not by much Trump had been in the public eye for decades the Brash New York billionaire who stamped his name on skyscrapers paraded Mistresses through the tabloids and ultimately scored a hit reality television show more recently he had become a mascot for right-wing republicanism having fronted the noxious crusade to expose then President Barack Obama as IL legitimate Trump bragged about bankrolling an investigation in Hawaii and speculated that Obama wasn't just foreign born but was a foreign born Muslim the future president enjoyed a cult following among a segment of the conservative base Trump had passed on a run for the White House in 2012 then shamed the eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney into appearing on stage with him to accept his endorsement now with Romney headed toward a defeat at the hands of Obama Trump had come to live Liberty to lay the groundwork for a future campaign I see the way Liberty University has been run I've seen where you came from and how it was a struggle and how it is right now our country has the same potential if we ever wanted to do something about it Trump said referencing Liberty's Financial turnaround but not its underlying spiritual Mission disparaging the weak leadership at the highest levels of American government and the soft turn the- other cheek mentality that this particular audience was W to Poss Trump offered two words of advice to the 10,000 students inside the Liberty Auditorium get even for his part fwell lauded Trump as one of the greatest Visionaries of our time and one of the most influential political leaders in the United States in front of his students the University president saluted Trump for having single-handedly forced President Obama to release his birth certificate and then awarded him an honorary doctorate politics at Liberty was nothing new but there was an edge to this event a raw antagonism that felt unique fwell had grown more comfortable in his skin as the school's leader that skin was combative conservative trumpian a few years into falwell's tenure and soon after Obama took office Liberty stripped its College Democrats Club of official recognition denying it the use of University funds not long after that ordeal Liberty blocked campus networks from accessing the website of lynchburg's newspaper the news and Advocate after it reported on the school's Reliance on federal financial aid eventually fwell seized editorial control of Liberty student run newspaper the champion regularly censoring criticisms of his own views and favored political figures in December 2015 the month before Trump made his triumphant return to convocation fwell shocked the student body with his remarks about a recent shooting carried out by a Muslim couple in California if more good people had Concealed Carry Permits then we could end those Muslims before they walked in said the University president long before then and long before Trump's second speech at Liberty during which he famously butchered a Biblical pronunciation fwell had made up his mind he would endorse Trump for president in 2016 fwell believed two men were born of shared DNA they were both businessmen they both liked to play hard ball they both had a distrust of authority and a proud disregard for etiquette to fwell the partnership made all the sense in the world not to Mark deoss when fwell announced his endorsement in January 2016 days before the Iowa caucuses the Liberty Community was stunned crushing on trumpet convocation was odd enough pitching the school's reputation and the fwell name to his presidential Ambitions was inexplicable Trump had campaigned in ways that would make barabus blush calling Mexican immigrants rapists insulting the looks of his opponents and spreading malicious lies about their family members encouraging violence at his campaign rallies openly flirting with white nationalists and proposing a ban on Muslims entering the country most foreign and gring to the ears of the faithful Trump had boasted that he' never needed to ask for God's for foress with a dozen other candidates in the race several of whom were decent Bible believing Christians deas could not fathom why fwell was using his influence to put Trump over the top deas kept silent at first but as the weeks went by with tensions on the campus mounting and Trump's victories piling up he felt obligated to say something in an interview with the Washington Post on super Tuesday as primary voters went to the polls in Virginia and numerous other states deas let it rip Donald Trump is the only candidate who has dealt almost exclusively in the politics of personal insult he said the bullying tactics of personal insult have no defense and certainly not for anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ that's what's disturbing to so many people it's not the Christlike behavior that Liberty has spent 40 years promoting with its students pointing to a particularly grotesque recent episode Trump's refusal to disavow the endorsement of former Kuku clan leader David Duke deas told the post I think a lot of what we've seen from Donald Trump will prove to be difficult to explain by evangelicals who have backed him deas knew what kind of enemy he was making catering to the Old Guard of trustees and administrators who shared his father's far-right politics fwell had in recent years Consolidated power at the school silencing denters and eliminating adversaries with a systematic menacing efficiency deas harbored no Illusions about winning a power struggle with his childhood friend but he did believe given his Decades of service to Liberty and his position as executive committee chairman that he had the stature to speak freely in ways others did not hours after the post published his comments Tomas received an email from fwell with no subject line the body was one sentence Mark I'm very disappointed in you deas dialed up fwell immediately the conversation was courteous enough deos said he hadn't meant to hurt fwell personally and fwell playing it cool expressed concern that deas may have jeopardized the school's tax exempt status with his political remarks years later deas still laughs when recounting this part of the call after they hung up deas emailed him offering to fly to Lynchberg to talk more in person fwell replied that it wasn't necessary a Board of Trustees meeting was already scheduled for the following month in April they could discuss everything then in the weeks that followed sympathetic trustees reached out to deas telling him that fwell was lobbying behind the scenes for his ouster then deas received an email from Jerry privo a strident fundamentalist preacher who built Alaska's largest Baptist mega church privo was a longtime Republican operator and one of fwell senior's key allies at the Moral Majority he now chaired the Liberty Board of Trustees privo got straight to the point deas may have violated the board's confidentiality policy he wrote and some of his colleagues might ask him to resign this was nonsense the board had never discussed an endorsement there was nothing for deas to violate still he had been around Liberty long enough to see this for what it was typing up his resignation letter deas flew to Lynchburg for the April meeting when he arrived at the boardroom the night before the full meeting executive committee members always meet separately in advance something was comically a Miss typically the school's president sits at the head of the table with the executive committee chairman seated to his right and the board chairman seated to his left surveying the 30 some placards arranged around the sprawling magnificent wooden table deas saw that he was no longer situated to falwell's right instead his placard was 10 chairs away he walked over and sat down there and Jerry kind of awkwardly he says Mark I'm I don't know who put your name card over there come on and sit up here deos recalled and I said no no that's fine I'll sit here deas grimaced they had already decided he told me recusing himself from the executive committee meeting as soon as he called it to order deos returned to his hotel room 2 hours later his phone rang it was Liberty's general counsel David Corey and he says Mr deas the committee has deliberated and they've asked me to tell you they'd like for you to resign from the executive committee deas recalled and then he said and they would like for you to tell the board tomorrow that the reason you're resigning from the executive committee is because you wanted a change of committee assignments deas told me I said David I may resign tomorrow but if I do I won't give the reason that you just asked me to give because it's not the truth and you know it within a few days days deas had resigned from both the executive committee and the Board of Trustees the news jolted the extended Liberty family and particularly chilled those on campus students faculty and administrators alike who found themselves in disagreement with falwell's vision for the school if he could do this to Mark deas he could do it to anyone there was no such thing as checks and balances it was less a presidency than it was an autocracy fwell was untouchable even before he became ens snared in a love triangle with his wife and a Miami pool boy fwell seemed intent on testing the limits of his invincibility in June after Trump had clinched the Republican nomination for president fwell traveled to New York City to introduce him to a meeting of some 500 Evangelical influencers no longer a mere supporter fwell embraced the role of pitchman he joined the likes of Franklin Graham in vouching for Trump's car and integrity helping the man who' once joked on Howard Stern's radio show about sleeping with his own daughter to forge an alliance with America's leading Christian conservatives later that day at the top of Trump Tower fwell was euphoric recalling his father's unlikely alliance with Reagan and how it reshaped American politics fwell exchanged hugs and high fives and toasts celebrating the ways in which history was repeating itself indeed some of the parallels were struck striking but certain things had changed when they took a photograph to document the occasion Trump stood in the middle flanked by fwell and his wife Becky thumbs went up the camera flashed fwell tweeted the photo to his 60,000 followers there was just one hiccup lurking over Becky falwell's left shoulder framed in gold was a cover of Playboy graced by a bow tied Trump and a smiling brunette covered only by his tuxedo jacket 40 years after his father had singled out the magazine as a symbol of civilizational Decay fwell posed in front of it beaming shoulder Tosh shoulder with a man who had appeared in a softcore porno flick and who one-upping the adultery Jimmy Carter confessed to committing in his heart engaged in the real thing including with a Playboy model and an adult film actress for fwell to be embarrassed by the photo would have required a capacity for embarrassment the ensuing years would suggest that no such capacity exists with Trump performing the part of strong man in the White House fwell doubled down on his own tyrannical instincts he continued to crack down on the student newspaper to the point where its former editor felt compelled to publish an expose in the post he enraged the student body by defending Trump's abhorent response to the white nationalist March in nearby Charlottesville Virginia saying he was proud of the the president for being bold and truthful he turned the school into a satellite location for the conservative political action conference disseminating ad hominum insults and deranged conspiracy theories throughout campus he accelerated a pattern of overt self-dealing as documented by journalist and Liberty alumnist Brandon ambrosino channeling tuition funds into projects that benefited friends and family he eliminated programs in the case of philosophy in entire department with a supposedly liberal bent and funneled more money into Political projects He launched a campus think tank in partnership with Charlie Kirk the Firebrand activist and president of Turning Point USA calling it the ferk center for Faith and Liberty he denied tenure to faculty forcing professors to work on one-year contracts the shest way to keep people in line and required anyone affiliated with the school to get his personal approval before speaking with the media he ordered campus police to remove an Evangelical Pastor who' visited Liberty to meet with students organizing a protest of trump and threaten the pastor with arrest if he returned the school was no stranger to totalitarian rule administrators had long used its Ultra strict and preposterously detailed Honor Code the Liberty way to control the student body dancing among other activities remains banned on campus to this day what felt different about this Crackdown was that it coincided with flagrant Miss conduct by the University president himself falwell's personal Behavior had become a constant source of Campus gossip he was frequently witnessed slurring his words and smelling like alcohol word got around that he was fond of making jokes about his genitals at one point his weight ballooned noticeably then with the apparent help of hormone supplements he cut up his figure and began acting with an even more Reckless aggression in one incident captured on video that fwell himself inexplicably posted to Instagram he hit a campus gym and asked two attractive female students to climb onto a bench press bar that rested on his lap before proceeding to perform a series of pelvic thrusts the intended sexual nature of the ACT registering on the girl's faces how did fwell get away with this Behavior the question seemed answered easily enough Liberty was thriving by every outward metric with assets listed at $2.6 billion dollar in 2017 an increase of 900% from when he had taken over a decade earlier that number would soon surpass $3 billion tangible evidence in the interpretation of so many people affiliated with the school of God's favor being shown fwell was rightly seen as a developer extraordinaire the Donald Trump of Lynchberg if you will having poured billions of dollars into constructing a modern state-ofthe-art campus that now stretched across 7,000 Acres enrollment continued to shatter year-over-year year records well over 100,000 students now matriculated through Liberty every four years more than half of whom participated via the exceedingly profitable online learning program perhaps most impressive for the school's visibility Liberty was competing in more NCAA division 1 athletic programs than ever before in 2018 It joined the FBS the premier Echelon of college football and began playing nationally televised games against top programs such as Auburn Virginia Tech and Old Miss in 2020 Liberty enjoyed a fairy tale 10- win season finishing as the number 17 ranked team in the Associated Press poll yet there existed another explanation for fwell survival something just as obvious if perhaps less observable the reason nobody confronted him some combination of donors administrators trustees executive committee members is that many of them were just as complicit in the school's broken culture in my conversations with fwell this was the one thing that rang true his father short on money and desperate to turn his faltering school around had cut Corners by hiring people who got stuff done but weren't necessarily good managers or good Christians the older fwell never bothered to upgrade the University's Personnel even as Liberty grew into a juggernaut it was still run by the same cast of third string operators who couldn't get hired at most community colleges I should have fired everybody in the top leadership the day I walked in from vice presidents on down and hired everyone new fwell told me you see my dad didn't have the money back then to hire people who were honest and competent so he typically had to choose one of the other and those are the people who were still around when the school became prosperous fwell seemed to get along just fine with these folks while he was still president everyone at Liberty was flying high especially in the Trump years the success breath in a sense of indomitability yet all the while fwell was self-destructing in the spring of 2020 with the co9 pandemic raging the school's president tweeted an image of a face mask Illustrated with the purported image of Virginia's Democratic governor Ralph Northam wearing blackace fwell apologized in response to an outcry from students but the social media mishaps continued a few months later in the summer of 2020 while touring Key West on a donor's yacht fwell published a photo of himself dark drink in hand pants unzipped with his hand around the bare midriff of a young pregnant woman on Instagram given the intensifying scrutiny of the school the board had no choice but to place him on leave fwell wasn't meant to be sidelined for long but then a few weeks into the leave he and his wife Becky issued a bizarre statement to a blogger at the Washington examiner explaining that Becky had carried on on an affair with a family friend this was an obvious attempt at preemptive damage control and a bad one at that the next day Reuters published a stunning report detailing the account of John Carlo Grand a young man whom the FW Wells befriended while patronizing the Miami hotel where he worked the upshot as Becky became romantically involved with grand Jerry he claimed approved of this Arrangement and occasionally supervised the FW Wells made him a part of their entor taking him on trips bringing him to their son's wedding and inviting him to meet Trump during his visit to Liberty to this day fwell insists that the details of granda's story are wrong and says that his wife carried on the affair without his knowledge or consent but the evidence strongly suggests otherwise when Grand went public Liberty officials were gift wrapped a scapegoat they painted fallwell as a rogue and pushed him out it was Crisis management 101 make the embattled leader into a Fall Guy get rid of him and hope the scrutiny goes away too the scrutiny didn't go away when fwell resigned in the summer of 2020 and Jerry privo took his place as interim president the Liberty Community exhaled as one students and professors prayed for an overhaul of the institution the things fwell had gotten right the physical buildings the balance sheets the bells and whistles that Drew tens of thousands of young people to campus could be United finally with the Christian ethos that had once animated Liberty in this period of transformation optimism overflowed reform seemed to be within reach but it wasn't the new Liberty was in some ways more broken than the old Liberty early in his presidency privo told Scott lamb Liberty's then Chief Communications officer in a recorded phone call that electing Republicans to office was one of the University's main goals this fit a pattern under privo of Liberty boosting Republican causes lamb would later publicly accuse the school of violating its 501c3 status around that time the new president began a mini Purge he acts to the campus Pastor David Nasser who was known to be a fwell Jor loyalist privo also ousted the man who succeeded him as Board of Trustees chairman Alan McFarland a well-liked pastor and one of the few black leaders in Liberty's history McFarland had been enemies he told the journalist Julie Roy by saying things like we are raising champions for Christ not champions for the Republican Party we're raising champions for Christ not champions for Donald Trump privo replaced McFarland with Tim Lee a double ampute Vietnam veteran and outspoken Maga Enthusiast efforts at Rehabilitation were mostly symbolic after students took the extraordinary step of rebelling against the ferk center drafting a petition that read associating any politician or political movement with Christianity bastardized the Gospel of Jesus Christ Liberty changed the name but the relabeled think tank the standing for Freedom Center would prove every bit as pugnacious and extra biblical as its predecessor the post fallwell low Point came in July 2021 when 12 women came forward to sue the university alleging that it had violated Federal Title 9 law by discouraging the reporting of rape and sexual violence on campus more plaintiffs soon came forward everyone associated with Liberty could tell right away that it was trouble the schools ban on certain behaviors drinking partying premarital sexual contact made reporting abuse all but impossible given the associated violations of the honor code Liberty settled with some of the accusers in 2022 but multiple plaintiffs refused casting a new sort of pul over the school the clear Act requires universities to assist students in contacting law enforcement about alleged sexual assaults it also requires universities to report certain crime statistics if Liberty was in violation the consequences could be ruinous by the fall of 2022 the feds were circling Lynchberg on a sunny morning in the spring of 2023 the Liberty campus had a utopian feel students laughed and shouted while scurrying between buildings the baseball team ran drills on its flawlessly manicured Diamond bulldozers hummed and construction workers heaved one new facility going up quicker than the last it was in so many ways a manifestation of the vision Jerry fwell Senor had shared at top Liberty Mountain inside a nearby coffee shop however not far from that place where doc fwell had stood One Liberty Professor sat in anguish all was not well he told me burying his head in his hands what I saw outside was a parody of that Vision a cheap fact simile that brought glory to men instead of to Christ and he would know the Liberty story was his story The school was in his blood his parents met there his father helped claim that mountain for God back in 1976 all he ever wanted the professor told me was to serve God at Liberty University his name was Nick Olen he had moved back to Lynchberg at 18 years old and never really left after earning his bachelor's degree and then a master's degree Olsen accepted a teaching job in the English Department in 2013 he started a family and bought a home he served his church and loved his students and tried to tune out the rest Olson wasn't naive his dad had sheltered him downplaying the Dark Side of Liberty but he'd seen it as a student he'd seen it as a professor there was an ugliness that lurked in the subconscious of the school a spiteful Alter Ego to the Christlike character that was meant to permeate the institution olssen tried to ignore it negotiate with it make peace with it but he couldn't like his own father some three decades earlier Olson could not unsee the corruption of that Vision when we first met I wondered aloud had the vision of Jerry fwell Senor been corrupted or was Liberty today reaping precisely what the school's founder had sown a half century earlier Olsson seemed thrown even a bit offended by the question I couldn't blame him here was an outsider someone he barely knew chipping away at the assumptions that had formed the foundation of his life the longer we spoke however the more introspective he became I think I'm probably doing the thing we've always done here telling myself a story Olson said the story's Liberty tells itself about the founding are only half true those stories omit some uncomfortable truths I don't think that's uncommon but for the biggest Christian School in the world it's unacceptable it's hypocritical he shook his head it cannot go on like this sitting in the corner of the coffee shop speaking at a cautious pitch olssen agonized over whether he should go on the record with these assessments there was no obvious upside he would would lose his job his trajectory toward a choice faculty position and potentially all future opportunities in Academia he would probably have to move uprooting his wife and two young Sons perhaps most painful he would upset some friends and family members people who love Liberty unconditionally and don't want to confront its sins Olsen worried about all of this still he told me he worried even more about something else I have to wonder if my unwillingness to challenge the family business of Liberty is because of my own family I want to protect my wife and kids provide for them keep them comfortable Olsson said but in prioritizing those things in keeping quiet to protect the family so to speak am I doing the very thing Liberty has done all along this comparison Liberty as a mafia the FW Wells as ruthless Dawns was so provocative that Olen looked surprised with himself for having invited it still there was no questioning the earnestness of his analysis the young Professor in this most determinative moment was more interested in removing planks than in finding specks when Jesus said that a man should leave his father and mother it wasn't just about getting married and starting a new family Olsson told me it was an instruction I think to challenge the things you're taught in your upbringing with the things you're taught in your upbringing he ran both hands through his curly black hair that's the hardest part of this Olson said these things we inherit when it comes to Faith and family we don't want to question them I could relate and so too I told Olsen could many of the Christians I'd met in my Journeys despite our different labels and traditions we were crumbling under the weight of a shared spiritual Legacy we were saddled with a Heritage that felt unsustainable we were handed down an identity that no longer fit what past generations of the American church had given us these things we inherit were hard to stomach and yet somehow even harder to shed chapter 4 Atlanta Georgia but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well Matthew 6: 33 a pastor asked me the other day what percentage of churches would you say are grappling with these issues Russell Moore told me and I said 100% all of them I don't know of a single church that's not affected by this more would know a preacher's grandson raised in baluy Mississippi he spent his life steeped in ecclesiastical subculture for as long as he can remember more identified primarily not as an American or as a southerner or even as a Christian but as a member of America's largest Protestant denomination the Southern Baptist convention he learned and lived by the rules written and Unwritten he never missed Sunday morning service or Wednesday night Fellowship he worked as a youth pastor at an SBC Church earned his Masters and doctoral degrees at SBC seminaries taught theology to the next generation of SBC clergy edited a journal of SBC news and opinion he became a denominational Prodigy ascending to one of evangelicalism's highest peaks president of sbc's ethics and religious liberty commission at just 41 years old more ranked among the world's best known and best connected Southern Baptists as we talked in The Upstairs Lounge of a downtown Atlanta hotel one fall evening in 2021 Moore remarked on how strange it felt to say this aloud he was a former Southern Baptist Moore had quit the denomination a few months earlier the only surprise was that he lasted as long as he did years of low intensity conflict within the SBC had given way to vicious essene fighting and Moore was at the center of it because of his push for an open-aired Reckoning on racial tensions in the denomination and for probes into the church sanctioned concealment of sexual abuse never mind his vocal denunciations of Donald Trump more had gone from vunderkind to Whipping Boy since Trump's election farri forces inside the Southern Baptist convention had monitored him closely believing that he was on a mission to overthrow the conservative order that had governed the denomination for decades it made no real difference that Moore was himself by any measure a conservative pro-life anti-gay marriage a champion for religious Freedom an undeviating voice for Traditional Values nor did it matter that Moore was a model witness for Christ Someone who lived his faith and practiced every bit of what he preached he was on the wrong side of the culture wars that were consuming the church and for that Moore said he was subjected to psychological warfare that became so paralyzing he ultimately had no choice but to raise a white flag when I'd spoken with Moore back in May on his final day as a member of the Southern Baptist convention he sounded like a man whose cell door had just swung open free at last he said laughing for the first time in decades Moore said he wouldn't need to attend the summer annual SBC conference which was expected to devolve into a bare knuckle brawl over proposals to investigate and Report instances of sexual assault Moore didn't want any part of it he had a pile of speaking invitations on his desk Pastors in every corner of the country wanted him to come visit their churches Moore was looking forward to a reprieve from the SBC spectacle he was excited to move past the madness and put the gospel first again so much for that as we talked in Atlanta he couldn't help but chuckle most of those invitations he'd received turned out to be from Pastors in crisis they were hoping that Moore the punching bag of the Southern Baptist could teach them how to duck a haym maker Moore knew that the clashes within American evangelicalism weren't unique to the SBC still he was startled by the scale of the devastation no matter the type of church he would visit Affiliated or independent rural or Suburban Auditorium or roadside Chapel it was coming apart I can't even count how many conversations I've had with pastors who've said I'm crushed I'm broken I don't know what to do Moore said and they've all lived through the exact same story it's co it's CRT it's Trump these pastors are a shell of their former selves the stress has made the job impossible they're either watching people leave worrying about the next person who's going to leave or wondering who's going to come after them for something they said last Sunday and threaten to leave when it comes to political extremism infiltrating churches more acknowledge that sometimes the pastor is responsible crazy as a church growth strategy he mused but he insists this isn't typical in most cases more said the tension is coming from the bottom up members complain about a sermon or a social media post from the church account angry emails to the leadership prompt an emergency meeting among elders and the pastor the complaint goes ignored which enrages the grieved members or it earns an apology emboldening those members while irritating a different click a church can only endure one or two such Cycles before the scent of Insurgency becomes overpowering at that point the pastor is in trouble because a lot of them most of them are afraid of their own congregants Moore said it's not because they're cowards it's just the way the system is set up this exists regardless of the specific type of church polity wherever people can vote with their feet you're going to have pastors feeling paralyzed unsure of whether they'll lose more people by keeping quiet or by taking their own people on and the problem is most of these pastors don't feel like they've built up the capital with their congregation to take them on so they shy away from the fight which tends to perpetuate the problems Moore felt a responsibility and an urgency to help fortify these Pastors in crisis he'd spent the last several years building out an informal network of fellow Travelers clergymen and church leaders who had come under attack and were desperate for support now he was traveling to different churches every week sometimes three or four of them a one-man fire engine racing between blazes he had come to Atlanta in fact to check in on a former Seminary Protege who was leading a popup Church in the city all that Moore was doing the four-leg flight itineraries and run-on Zoom meetings and late nights typing prayerful emails to people he didn't know was aimed at solving a problem he was so consumed with that problem I realized that there was little time left to consider its cause for most of his life Mo had belonged to a tribe that considered itself special Superior singularly blessed Moore wasn't just any old Christian he was a southern baptist not anymore he had ditched that identity an identity that once meant everything to him an identity that was Central to his worldview and sense of self because it had become a barrier to his true identity I had to ask what took so long when Moore was 12 years old he prayed to accept Jesus and promised himself there would be no half measures he could not understand how some people people like his father called themselves Christians but did not radiate their religious convictions in public Gary Moore was a southern baptist a member of their congregation at wool market Baptist Church but he scarcely attended Sunday services the younger Mo silently judged his father doubting the deepness of his faith vowing he would never be that sort of listless follower of Christ committing himself to intense theological study day after day of his adolescence was spent in the classrooms at wol Market Baptist memorizing entire books from his King James Bible Moore began to sense a call to the ministry preaching was in Moore's blood his grandfather was the pastor of their southern baptist congregation in buuy but there was one obstacle more couldn't get beyond the church itself as a teenager in the 1980s he watched as the fervor of the religious right spread through his church Community like a cancer exposing moral opportunism and political hypocrisy and racial animus some of the people he'd once revered as mature Believers were revealed to be spiritually empty their gods were not his God suddenly Moore began to understand the quiet faith of his father having grown up as the pastor's son in Jim Crow era Mississippi Gary Moore had seen things inside the church that haunted him the story of the Southern Baptist convention after all was Inseparable from America's original sin formed in 1845 by slave owning whites who were alarmed at abolitionist efforts within the National Baptist Church the SBC became an avatar of religious justification for the trafficking and ownership of human beings losing the Civil War did little to reform the southern baptist worldview for most of the century that followed Robert E Le's surrender to ulyses srant at the aomax courthouse SBC churches were intentionally and proudly segregated Gary Moore did not make a show of rebelling against his father or the Southern Baptist convention he simply kept a distance now his oldest son once on fire for the Lord newly agonizing over the authenticity of the Christian witness wanted some dist too Russell enrolled at the University of Southern Mississippi in the late 1980s and studied history and political science developing a fascination with government he eventually got hired by his hometown Congressman Jean Taylor a pro-life Democrat Moore found the work fascinating but decidedly unfulfilling the more he thought the more he prayed the more certain he felt that his teenage Instinct had been correct Moore resigned from Taylor's office and moved to New Orleans for Seminary it was the hardest conversation he ever had with his father I'm only going to say this once from this minute out I'll support you no matter what Gary Moore told his son but I wish you wouldn't do this I think you're going to get hurt Moore halted at this point in the story collecting himself he noted that we were approaching the one-year anniversary of his father's death he was right Moore whispered the hurt wouldn't arrive for some time in fact Moore's early foray into institutional Christianity was Charmed racing through degree programs blowing away peers and professors alike he distinguished himself as a sort of spiritual Phenom he was viewed as the future of the Southern Baptist convention a generational Talent who could speak with both biblical Authority and cultural relatability when Moore was just 30 years old rumor rippled through the denomination that Richard land then the president of the ethics and religious liberty commission the sbc's public facing policy Institute was leaving for a post in Academia Moore was informed that he would be tapped as land's replacement it didn't come to pass land remained erlc president for another 11 years up until that point Moore had been riding a hot hand inside the SBC never bothering to stop and question much of what he saw he was brilliant and precocious and more than a bit naive the disappointment of not replacing land soon gave way to relief as he studied the history of the job the man he would be replacing and the internal politics that shaped Lan's own career Moore reached some uncomfortable conclusions about the Deep Waters in which he was now swimming all those questions that my 15-year-old self had they came rushing back and I still wasn't mature enough to answer them Moore recalled I am so thankful to God that I did not get that job at that time because I was not ready for the things I would have been exposed to the decisions I would have had to make I'm fearful that I would have ended up an atheist I think it might have destroyed me the ethics and religious liberty commission was at that point on its third historical act it had begun as the committee on Temperance the Seal Team Six of the Southern Baptist war against alcohol and was later rebranded as the Christian Life Commission in 1960 a Texas Theologian named Foy Valentine was elected to lead the organization Valentine had written a doctoral dissertation on the sbc's racist practices of the early 20th century his mandate was to help usher in a new integrated era of Southern Baptist life Valentine succeeded not only in engineering a reversal of the sbc's mistreatment of black people but also in liberalizing the denomination more broadly the pendulum swung with sudden speed whereas the SBC had since its founding been regarded as deeply conservative by the early 1970s it had earned a reputation for being socially Progressive leading SBC seminaries took heterodox and to some heretical positions on issues such as abortion homosexuality and women serving in leadership the sbc's elected polity from Valentine on down pushed an apolitical vision and a liberal theology that aligned with Mainline protestantism Southern Baptists are not evangelicals Valentine told Newsweek in 1976 not long before Carter was elected president that's a Yankee word it wasn't long however until the pendulum swung back this time even faster than before the cultural fault lines exploited by the Moral Majority during Carter's presidency suggested that Valentine was out of step with his denomination while he loathed the upstart Evangelical movement what with it Shameless incursion into politics it became apparent that his Southern Baptist Brethren did not in 1979 a group of arch conservatives inside the SBC including land Paige Patterson and Adrien Rogers staged a coup that disposed of much of the denominational leadership supporters called it the conservative Resurgence while critics dubed it the fundamentalist takeover whatever the label it was a watershed in American Christianity Southern Baptists were rebranding themselves as theologically pure embracing the concept of biblical inherency and taking Hardline literalist positions on anything pertaining to the intersection of scripture and culture Rogers became the denomination's president and together with his allies set about purging the Southern Baptist convention of liberal voices from seminaries to churches to its National leadership Valentine refused to seat his perch toop the ER RLC by the time he was pushed out in 1986 the trajectory of the denomination was inexorable most southern Baptists now identified as evangelicals and most evangelicals had voted for Ronald Reagan twice they were Republicans and there was no looking back land who formerly took over the erlc in 1988 might have done more than anyone to marry conservative theology with conservative political ideology he made partisan affiliation a spiritual metric for millions of Southern Baptists unapologetically allying himself with Jerry fwell Senor in his Moral Majority under land's leadership the erlc and the SBC as a whole became an overpowering electoral Force he led a chorus of evangelicals calling for Bill Clinton's resignation and lent religious legitimacy to George W Bush's invasion of Iraq all well helping to mobilize an unpr ented mass of conservative Christians to vote for the Republican Party one of L's truly good nonpartisan Deeds was to continue Valentine's efforts to eradicate racism within the SBC it was ironic then that his professional demise was due to racial controversy in 2012 after a white neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida named George Zimmerman killed an unarmed black teenager named Trayvon Martin Lance set on his rad radio show that Democrats would use the tragedy to Jin up the black vote for an African-American president facing an outcry land dug in arguing that Zimmerman had been justified in shooting Martin who was statistically more likely to do you harm than a white man a subsequent apology could not save him land was forced out of the post and replaced by Russell Moore Moore entered the office a man conflicted on almost every issue he was a traditionalist he had long believed that on balance the conservative Resurgence was a positive development for the Southern Baptist convention yet Moore had grown deeply uncomfortable with the intrusion of electoral politics into the eschatological mission of the church he remembered some years earlier how after he'd finished preaching in Evansville Indiana a married couple had approached him they asked more if he had ever considered preaching on judges he told them that Yes actually he had preached from the Book of Judges on many occasions no we mean judges the man said he explained that George W Bush's judicial nominees were under attack from the left and needed support from the church before the 1980s Moore said there were two ways of evangelizing you could focus on end times prophecy which a lot of people did or you could talk about marriage and parenting using practical advice talking about how the church could help your family Moore said but by the 9s being a real Christian meant voting Republican and suddenly the easiest way to reach people by far was through political identification studying land's partisan maneuverings as his young Heir Apparent Moore was struck by how self-defeating it all was Clinton emerged from his scandals more popular than ever thanks to the Public's disdain for his holier than thou tormentors many of whom were revealed to have their own inconveniently similar flaws Bush's presidency imploded thanks to failing Wars and a neglected economy Barack Obama won in a landslide despite being the most liberal Presidential nominee in a generation evangelicals had mortgaged the future of the church on extra biblical causes Moore thought to himself and all they had to show for it was smaller numbers and a diminished witness in 1991 according to the Pew Research Center 90% % of Americans identified as Christians while just 5% called themselves religiously unaffiliated 30 years later as Mo and I spoke in Atlanta the collapse was staggering 63% of Americans identified as Christians and 29% called themselves unaffiliated people saw that Christianity was a means to an end and they realized they could get to that end without Christianity Moore said we were no longer distinctive the focus was on on values and worldview and identity in ways that obscured the distinctiveness of the message itself Moore thought he could do things differently he would not hesitate to promote that which was ethically non-negotiable or biblically obvious sometimes politics could not be avoided but he made it known upon assuming the presidency of the ethics and religious liberty commission that he would not risk the reputation of the gospel for passing partisan gain there was no ambiguity in his message Moore told everyone from the entry-level staffers at the erlc to the executive committee members of the Southern Baptist convention that he did not care about winning and losing elections he cared about advancing the kingdom of Christ it was sort of funny Moore confessed that he the political science major the recovering Congressional hack was the one warning about the idolatry of politics in country in reality more loved the game of politics more than most and he considered himself quite patriotic but Jesus looks at those valid natural affections and warns us that they cannot be the most important thing he told me what the New Testament emphasizes is that once those affections are secondary then you're able to better love them because they don't come first Moore wasn't phased by The Recoil from SBC lifers who' fought on the front lines of the culture wars he figured that time was on his side while partisan cheerleading was catnip to the over 50 crowd in SBC churches the young seminarians he'd been teaching wanted nothing to do with it they were as conservative as he was in some cases downright fundamentalist in their worldviews but they felt politics had no place in the church this generational turnover was his great source of optimism for all the trials more faced in his new role confronting the corruption of Christianity and the delution of the Gospel he knew that better days were ahead in the fall of 2015 Moore met with the outliers a group of friends and fellow high-profile Believers Tim Keller the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City Pete wer the former head of strategic initiatives in the George W bush White House Francis Collins the director of the National Institutes of Health and David Brooks The New York Times columnist when their conversation turned to the mud wrestling match that was the GOP Presidential primary and the Evangelical voters who were flocking toward the most spiritually unserious candidates Moore offered his optimistic take yes he said there were Christians who seemed intent on undermining their witness but they were dying off their kids and their grandkids the future of the electorate the future of evangelicalism were about to take over there was a pause yeah Brooks said but you'd better watch out for the death spasms Moore was puzzled Brooks who was raised Jewish but harbored a nagging interest in Jesus was typically the one asking him for insights into Christianity anytime you have a group that feels as though it's headed towards generational demise it lashes out Brooks told more it puts up a fight it refuses to give up what's theirs Moore thought about that remark every single day over the coming year he had been worried about Trump's candidacy from the jump believing that his hateful rhetoric was Unbecoming of anyone who called themselves a Christian which Trump did though he declined to cite a favorite passage from scripture saying he found the entire Bible very special where some Evangelical leaders saw an elaborate publicity Ploy more saw Trump's campaign as a broken man's ultimate quest for significance such a narcissistic Pursuit could not be Shrugged off the higher his poll numbers climbed the larger his circle of Evangelical allies grew the more concerned more became by January 18th 2016 it was apparent that Trump could win the Republican nomination Iowa voters would soon kick off the nominating process and Trump trying to close the deal with Evangelical voters came to Liberty University taking the stage to address 10,000 students at convocation the candidate was welcomed by Liberty's president by their fruits ye shall know them Jerry fwell Jr declared Donald Trump's life has borne fruit Moore couldn't hold back absolutely unbelievable he tweeted in response to fwell Jr Moore knew there was no climbing down from that comment and so having spent the past 6 months holding back he let it rip winning at politics while losing the gospel is not a win he added sending Evangelical Twitter into a frenzy trading in the Gospel of Jesus Christ for political power is not Liberty but slavery the event had been an indignity for Trump quoting a Bible verse that Tony Perkins president of the family research Council had suggested to him in an exchange prior to the event the candidate pronounced Paul's epistle as two Corinthians instead of 2 Corinthians a linguistic distinction understood by anyone approximating a churchgoer the laughter and ridicule were embarrassing enough for Trump the news of Perkins endorsing Ted Cruz just a few days later sent him into a spiral he began to speculate that there was a conspiracy among powerful evangelicals to deny him the GOP nomination when Cruz's allies began using the two Corinthians line to attack him in the final days before the Iowa caucuses Trump told one Iowa Republican official you know these so-called Christians hanging around with Ted are some real pieces of in private over the coming years he would use even more colorful language to describe the Evangelical Community more was on Trump's radar but there was no immediate threat unlike Perkins and others the erlc president was not supporting a rival candidate Trump waited until after the nomination was clinched in early May to strike back tweeting that Moore was truly a terrible representative of evangelicals and calling him a nasty guy with no heart Moore's phone lit up with texts and emails Pastor friends warned him to be careful SBC officials suggested it was time for him to stand down but Moore was just getting started he couldn't fathom how evangelicals especially Southern Baptists were making peace with Trump's candidacy it was the SBC that in 1998 responded to Bill Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky by passing a resolution that famously stated tolerance of serious Wrong by leaders Sears the conscience of the culture spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society and surely results in God's judgment Moore believed those words when they were first written and he believed them still all throughout the summer of 2016 he prosecuted the case against not just Trump but those Evangelical supporters who were willing to redefine the gospel to rationalize the candidate's behavior in June he told CBS that Trump represented the very kind of moral and cultural decadence that conservatives have been saying for a long time is the problem that same week when hundreds of evangelicals came to New York for the Trump Summit MO joked that the attendees were drinking Kool-Aid Southern Baptist worshippers could at that time live with criticisms of trump himself but the notion that they were in the wrong by promoting his candidacy according to a denominational leader whose salary was paid by their collection plates was unforgivable Moore had become a Marked Man inside the SBC if he noticed he didn't seem to care in October when the Washington Post published an old audio recording of trump boasting that he had pressured a married woman to sleep with him and that he could get away with sexual assault because of his Celebrity Status Moore waited to see if any of Trump's Evangelical backers would jump ship none of them did in fact they all circled the wagons what a disgrace what a scandal to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to the Integrity of our witness Moore tweeted a day later he added the political religious right establishment wonders why the Evangelical Next Generation rejects their way today illustrates why when Trump won the election a month later it was open season on more he went underground in the weeks after the election believing that a cooling off period would be heal for all parties but some Southern Baptists weren't interested in cooling off in December while watching a Star Wars film at the theater with his kids Moore received word that one of the denomination's largest churches was threatening to cut off funds to the SBC in the months that followed more than 100 other churches followed suit pastors called for more to apologize when he offered only a tepid modulation of his past remarks and a plea for Unity moving forward they called for his head Moore had powerful enemies some of them resided on the sbc's executive committee but he also had job security it was the erc's Board of Trustees who chose the presidency they were allies of Moore he wasn't going anywhere yet at the sbc's annual meeting in 2017 all eyes were on Moore the most polarizing figure in a denomination of some 14 million members he was relieved if a bit surprised to encounter so many sympathetic people they encouraged him prayed with him passed him notes of support but not everyone was on Moore's side A large group of pastors members of a far-right faction called the conservative Baptist Network spent the meeting spreading word that Moore was on his way out they knew it wasn't true but the gamesmanship had begun in between sessions one of the antagonistic pastors grabbed more we can't get rid of you the man warned him but we can make you think twice before you say something for the next four years the SBC executive committee stalked more with Sham investigations that aimed to destabilize his reputation and make Southern Baptists hesitant to Ally with him these probes focus on Moore's censuring of trump increasingly the shiniest of objects in SBC circles and concluded that the erlc president had caused a significant distraction that cost the denomination seven figures worth of giving but Moore knew what the real distraction was he had scarcely uttered a word about Trump positive or negative after the presidential election of 2016 there was bigger game to hunt a Renaissance of Nationalist and neoc Confederate sentiment was discernible inside the SBC meanwhile the me to movement which had emboldened women to come forth with allegations of sexual abuse was pounding on the denomination's door Moore knew that to shine a light on either of these epidemics much less to challenge his SBC Brethren over them both was to invite even fiercer scrutiny than what he'd endured in 2016 but he didn't believe there was a choice God had called him to this position to pursue truth to hold the church accountable to defend the honor of the witness Moore gave everything he had to these twin causes he traveled far and wide pleading with Southern Baptist to confront the original sin of their country and their denomination he met with sexual abuse survivors investigated coverups and warned churches of the dangers many of them did not want to see every step of the way Moore was shadowed by investigations aimed at undermining his credibility the campaign of innuendo in intimidation was unrelenting one afternoon in February 2021 Samuel Moore Russell's 15-year-old son confronted his mother demanding to know if his father was having an affair why else the son asked would there be such intense scrutiny of him when his wife shared the conversation Moore didn't know whether to laugh or cry he decided to ask his son to accompany him to the upcoming SBC executive committee meeting where the charges against him would be laid out Samuel agreed together they sat in a room for hours listening to the committee members list their allegations against the president of the ethics and religious liberty commission they described him as divisive spiteful un Christlike even conspiratorial seizing upon issues that were tangential to the life of the Southern Baptist convention and weaponizing them for purposes of personal gain at the expense of denominational Unity as they walked out of the meeting Moore asked his son what he was thinking there's something I still don't understand Samuel replied why do we want to to be a part of this Moore had grappled with this question for years he would fantasize about walking away from the whole awful mess how liberating it would be he thought to shed the baggage of Southern Baptist and simply be a Christian but it never felt plausible like it or not he was a southern baptist it was more than a denomination it was a lifestyle all that more knew his jargon and inside jokes his tea totaling and love of sweet tea was shaped by the SBC even as denominational leaders made his life miserable so many SBC members had loved on him they were like his family he couldn't abandon them God gave me the opportunity to lead people to Christ and to baptize them in southern baptist churches to help people through their marriage crisis in southern baptist churches to help welcome orphan children into families and southern baptist churches to do evangelism and B teaching in prisons and homeless shelters through southern baptist churches Moore wrote in a letter to erlc trustees in early 20120 as the SBC executive committee ramped up its latest investigation into his alleged wrongdoing I love the Southern Baptist convention and I'm a faithful son of the Southern Baptist convention at a certain point however Moore had to think of his actual family they had been bullied right alongside him facing constant threats from white nationalists and white supremacists including within our convention Moore wrote in his letter as he agonized over what to do his wife Maria began to lose patience this is getting absurd Maria told him in early 2021 do whatever you want but just know if you're still a southern baptist a month from now you're going to be in an Interfaith marriage this was no empty threat Maria left the SBC and began searching for a new church near their home in Nashville Tennessee Moore felt convicted of a certain cowardice many Christians he respected longtime friends had already left the SBC another prominent Evangelical Beth Moore no relation had recently shocked the denomination by announcing her own departure every single day he had been taking calls from pastors most of them young or black or both who were thinking of deserting the SBC Moore had urged them to stay he had promised that if they stuck around and secured a seat at the table they could affect change from the inside after a while Moore told me I stopped believing my own rhetoric there was but one reason for Moore to stick around the Southern Baptist convention was all he'd ever known it was his identity and that he began to realize was the entire problem you know I think about Walker Percy when he was asked to explain why he was a Roman Catholic Moore said of the noted American writer he said the reason I am a Catholic is that I believe what the Catholic Church proposes is true and I just got to the point where Moore stopped himself struggling to find the right words I believed and still believe what the Southern Baptist convention claims about Jesus is true Moore said but what the Southern Baptist convention claims about itself I couldn't believe that anymore I asked more which claim he struggled with the most a long pause Adrien Rogers would always say the hope of the world is America the hope of America is the church the hope of the church is evangelical Revival and the hope of Evangelical Revival is the Southern Baptist convention so pretty quickly you've gotten to a place where you believe the SBC is the hope of the world Mo said I just don't think that's true anymore and as I look back I'm realizing that maybe I never did Moore couldn't help but wonder if his loyalty to the Southern Baptist convention had eclipsed an even higher loyalty he had spent so much time warning about idolizing country but never appreciated how the exaltation of another Earthly institution was doing similar harm Richard land my predecessor at the erlc used to say we want the 1950s without the racism and the sexism his point was there was a time when things were mostly the way they ought to be and there's a path back to that time Moore told me in that sense Christians could point to these single events Supreme Court rulings or the sexual Revolution or whatever as the moment America fell which assumes we were blessed until something went wrong but that ignores that America has always been Fallen because Humanity has always been Fallen he thought a moment there's a tendency in Fallen human beings to take secondary identities that are important and make them ultimate in Galatians 3 Paul warns explicitly against doing that Mo said for my earliest memories my identity was as a southern baptist but that could never fulfill me like the identity of the Gospel the next morning we worshiped the lord inside a local Distillery Jason De had been one of More's brightest Seminary students in December 2016 he organized a startup Christ Covenant Church in his living room by the following summer he had formally launched the church for the next several years he and his fast growing congregation rented spaces around Atlanta to host their weekly Services despite being itinerant the church attracted more and more people and by the summer of 2021 they had secured a plot of land to build the Christ Covenant campus with construction underway the church was meeting on Sundays in the Event Hall of American Spirit works the day Moore quit the Southern Baptist convention his brother had joked that now he could finally enjoy a glass of whiskey little did more know that a few months later he'd be preaching in front of barrels of the stuff every chair was occupied every person was singing not just mouthing the words but belting out the lyrics the congregation was as eclectic as any I'd seen College age guys with unkempt beards and flannel shirts sat next to older gentlemen in jackets and ties the hipster Vibe band on stage complete with a Rastafarian looking guitarist played traditional hymns Come Thou F of Every Blessing tune my heart to sing thy Grace streams of Mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise I was struck by the self-evident health of this fledgling church and then I found out why it was so healthy several of de's Staff members had come from toxic environments prominent churches that had been ripped apart over the past few years so too had many of the folks seated in the stackable chairs around me there was an unspoken understanding at Christ Covenant nobody was here for a cable news panel they were coming to church to be discipled not demagogued scripture was going to dictate their interpretation of the world not the other way around and so on this Sunday morning Christ Covenant dedicated its service to adoption testimonials were given promotional videos were played special funds were raised speakers stressed that not everyone had the capacity to adopt but everyone had the capacity to do something they could babysit for adoptive families they could support pregnant women in need they could do something as simple as teach single moms how to maintain the tire pressure in their vehicles Moore's sermon was titled the orphan in the city and he read from the 8th chapter of Romans for those who are led by the spirit of God are the children of God the spirit you received does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again rather the spirit you received brought about your adoption to sunship and by him we cry ABA father the spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children now if we are children then we are heirs Heirs of God and coair with Christ if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his Glory Moore explained that the semantics of this biblical cry ABA father are evidence of our intimate relationship to God it is used to capture the most joyous of circumstances such as rebirth in his eternal family it can also convey anguish such as when Jesus sweated Blood In The Garden of Gethsemane praying to his father that the cup might pass to another then more told a story I had never heard when he and his wife first met their youngest son inside an orphanage in Russia the child would not speak it wasn't until they took him outside the building to bring him to his new home in America that the child turned and started shouting he was terrified to leave the orphanage being all he had ever known Christians are not born into God's family Moore explained they are adopted into his family God calls the spiritually stray to come to him as a son or daughter this is a gift of immeasurable generosity the orphan who had nothing receives an inheritance of eternal life and yet the orphan reaches back and cries out terrified of leaving behind the life they knew what you can do for the orphan Moore said is realize that you were once an orphan yourself chapter 5 Dallas Texas if the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first John 15 ver8 Robert jeffris was backpedaling it was the spring of 20121 a few months had passed since the storming of the Capitol building a Despicable and deadly event inspired by the president whom jeffris had supported unfailingly for the previous 5 Years From his perch as senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas an influential mega church that ranked among the largest Affiliates of the Southern Baptist convention jeffris had distinguished himself as evangelicalism's most prominent and Unapologetic defender of Donald Trump he preached the service for the incoming president and vice president at historic St John's Church across the street from the White House on Inauguration Day 2017 he said it was immoral for Democrats to oppose Trump's construction of a wall on the southern border citing Old Testament precedent he warned of a civil warlike fracture if Trump was removed from office following his first impeachment he even commissioned the First Baptist Dallas music director to write a hymn make America great again which the church choir performed for the president in Washington jeffris was not one to back down from controversy whether in accusing Barack Obama of Paving the way for the Antichrist or ripping Mitt Romney and his Mormon cult or calling anti-trump evangelicals spineless cowards jeffris showed no appetite for uncertainty but now his tone was different he sounded pensive reflective maybe even contrite unsolicited he retraced his own Journey wondering aloud what had caused him to become so pre occupied with politics in the first place questioning whether it had gotten the better of him I had always believed as far as the relationship between evangelicals and social change that our main job was to witness and share the gospel this idea of trying to stop the current of evil that's flooding into our culture there's just not much we can do about that jeffris told me but over the last 20 years or so I began rethinking that yes our primary job is to witness but as part of Jesus's mandate to be salt in this world we also need to push back against evil to restrain evil so that this world might last a little longer so that we might have more opportunities to share the gospel this Epiphany was provoked by a scale of evil that churches had not dealt with before jeffris explained we were not merely discussing a cooning of the culture we were confronting a secular Onslaught that would bring a Christian Society to its knees it was something he could not in good conscience ignore I think that's what changed I came to the conclusion that it was a unique point in time Jeffers said I wanted to be actively involved not only in getting people into the next world but in pushing back against evil in this world ironically pushing back required allying himself with secular forces that meant becoming a regular onair contributor to Fox News the right-wing Panic Factory it meant trading his church Pulpit for a campaign Podium sharing ing the stage with Crooks and grifters who were selling lies for political profit most conspicuously it meant endorsing promoting and protecting Trump the first lesson jeffris learned about Trump is that he prefers people to be either hot or cold loyal backers and loyal haters alike have utility to the man the people he cannot stand are lukewarm with him one day and against him the next their assessments subject to some pesky moral standard if Jeffers was going to stick close to Trump influence Trump earn the respect and Trust of trump he had to stay hot so that's what he did whether it was laughing off the hush money Trump paid a pornstar to keep quiet during the 2016 campaign or excusing the administrative policy of separating babies from their mothers at the Mexican border or overlooking the lethal stolen election rhetoric in the aftermath of Trump's defeat in 2020 jeffris never allowed one beam of daylight between himself and the 45th president it paid off at least in the short term attendance at First Baptist Dallas boomed during Trump's four years money poured into the church Jeff's salary jumped Fox News gave him more and more airtime his phone book bulged with A-list Republicans he became a regular at the White House yet all the while jeffris was laying his Spiritual Authority on the line his service to Jesus Christ largely indistinguishable from his Serv servitude to Donald Trump now as he reflected on this in the wake of January 6th the pastor allowed that some damage may have been done I've wrestled with it I mean I've wrestled with it personally because I realized there were people who were turned off by my association with President Trump Jeffers told me I had that internal conversation with myself and I guess with God too about you know when do you cross the line when does the mission get comp rised and so it was a real struggle I asked jeffris if looking back that line was crossed I think it can be he said the Pastor thought a moment then he added I think perhaps it even was these last few years this was an astonishing confession in the brief time since Trump had Departed the White House I'd encountered small pockets of compunction in the Evangelical world the people I spoke to were like hung over frat brothers the morning after aeger not necessarily apologizing for their behavior the night before but acknowledging somewhat sheepishly that things had gotten out of hand but none of these people had been close to Trump like jeffris was if he was regretful if he was reconsidering his political priorities maybe there was a broader phenomenon of repentance at hand inside American evangelicalism or maybe not I thought about the current of evil he declared war on all those years earlier jeffris believed the threat to American Christianity at the turn of the century was too menacing to ignore how could he possibly Retreat from the battlefield now he was 19 years old a freshman at Baylor University when God spoke to him you may ask was it audible it was louder than that Jeffers recalled in August 2007 according to local newspaper accounts during his debut in the Pulpit at First Baptist Dallas God told me one day you will be pastor at First Baptist Church of Dallas jeffris had never shared that story before not with his college roommates not with his wife not even with the search committee that had spent a year sorting through a 100 candidates to lead the Dallas Mega Church nor had jeffris ever doubted even for a moment that it would come to pass on that Sunday morning standing there before thousands of his congregants the new pastor of First Baptist Dallas saw that the Lord's plan for his life had been realized the church had always been his home when jeffris was 5 years old he made a confession of faith and promptly met with the Reverend wa chriswell the famed Pastor to formalize his commitment chriswell took the child seriously so seriously in fact that he began suggesting to jeffris at a young age that someday he would lead the church this was heady stuff even for someone with the outside self assurance of jeffris First Baptist Dallas was established in 1868 chriswell had succeeded a legend George Truitt who had pastored the church from 1897 until his death in 1944 Truitt was the Prototype celebrity preacher of the early 20th century he spoke in stored venues Nationwide served as president of the Southern Baptist convention and built First Baptist Dallas into a behemoth overseeing a 10-fold increase in membership chrisell kept that momentum going he was a mega church Visionary the rare clergyman who thought church should be more than sermons and songs he built a recreational Commons designed a tiered Bible education program and launched numerous initiatives aimed at integrating the church into the surrounding Community making it a home for Seekers and seasoned Believers alike he was also a celebrated Theologian at one point Billy Graham counted chrisell as his own personal Pastor Chris Well's reputation was stained however by his retrograde views on race in February 1956 a few months after jeffris was born chriswell delivered a speech to the South Carolina baptist evangelism conference that invaded against this thing of integration he called forced desegregation idiocy and foolishness and a denial of all that we believe in contrasting the pious traditional Baptists of the South against those self-righteous evangelicals up north chriswell said let them integrate let them sit up there in their dirty shirts and make all their fine speeches but they are all a bunch of infidels dying from the neck up this was no slip of the tongue chrisell accepted an invitation from the South Carolina legislature to give the exact speech one day later he was promoted by dixy crats like STM Thurman and quoted approvingly by racist groups such as the White Citizens Council known for his frequent appeals to a Genesis passage that purportedly cursed Noah's son Ham and doomed all African descendants to a life of subservience chrisell openly preached the politics of white supremacy like any effective leader chrisell had the Savvy to adapt to Changing Times in 19 68 with progressives pushing for reform in the Southern Baptist convention a stunning three qus of Messengers or church delegates at the annual meeting adopted a denominational statement condemning racism it happened to be the year chriswell who led the largest Southern Baptist Church in America was seeking the presidency of the SBC chrisell endorsed that statement won the election and explained to reporters that his heart had changed the following week he preached a sermon to First Baptist Dallas titled the Church of the open door it was a call to his congregation to welcome black Believers to move beyond the conflation of politics and theology to embrace a common citizenship in the body of Christ this was the church the cultural and Theological biome in which Robert jeffris was raised he was baptized there studied there got married there worked there as a youth Pastor everything he witnessed the programmatic planning and capital raising campaigns the Hardline stances And Timely backpedaling informed his view of mega church ministry chriswell was more than a mentor to jeffris he was an icon of the Evangelical movement still Jeffers must have struggled with the pastor's inconsistencies chriswell supervised the denominational shift pertaining to race which became the Catalyst for a broader leftward drift in the SBC which then a decade later invited the fundamentalist backlash that chrisell helped to spearhead it all made for a dizzying Epitaph chriswell was closely associated with both the progressive takeover of the late 1960s and the conservative Resurgence of the late 1970s a legacy so convoluted it couldn't help but overshadow his preaching evangelizing and church building jeffris wanted to avoid such comp applications he started small pastoring a rural Church in East Texas for 7 years before jumping to a larger congregation in nearby witcha falls for the first 15 years of his ministry jeffris preached the Bible and nothing but the Bible there was no mention of any newspaper headlines no discussion of legislation or elections jeffris was content and then one day in the spring of 1998 a church member asked to meet with him she showed the pastor two books she' just discovered at the local public library Daddy's roommate and Heather has two mommies Jeffers promptly called the library himself asking that the books be removed from circulation the head librarian refused that Sunday morning jeffris stood in front of his congregation and held the books up high declaring that they would never ever be returned the pastor still has both of them he wrote a check to cover the requisite Library fees all in an instant witcha Falls was transformed into a war zone media Outlets from across the state and eventually from Across the Nation flooded into the town as secular groups and gay rights activists squared off against jeffris and his Evangelical allies when the city council pursued a compromise that would relocate the books to an adultsonly section of the library the ACLU sued the city in federal court and won the city council declined to appeal feeling betrayed jeffris turned his congregation loose on the local elected officials who had backed down from a fight for the moral fiber of their community in one sermon the local newspaper reported Jeffers urged his members to vote out the infidels who would deny God and His word the wording could not have been coincidental chrisell his teacher had called the northern Christians who fought segregation infidels four decades later jeffris was affixing that label to the politicians in his town many of whom surely identified as Christians who refused to join his Crusade against a pair of library books there was no turning back for jeffris he had tried formerly to insulate his preaching from the chaos outside the church walls he had wanted to avoid the distraction and division that came with commenting on extra biblical issues but now he felt the decision had been made for him Christian values were under attack in America there was no choice but to fight back by the time jeffris took over First Baptist Dallas he'd gone from fighting back to picking fights Christians had been playing defense in the culture wars for a half century and were continually losing ground it was time to go on offense this was how the new pastor at one of America's most illustrious churches be began to make a name for himself not for his fluency in the Pulpit or his Outreach initiatives or his social welfare programs but for his strike first mentality he attacked the Catholic church he attacked the gay community he attacked opra Winfrey most Americans still didn't know the name Robert jeffris and then he started attacking Mitt Romney the year jeffris took over First Baptist Dallas 2007 is the same year he began publicly decrying Mormonism as a cult there was no real mystery to the timing the Republican Presidential contest was heating up and Romney a Mormon was one of the betting favorites everyone from rush limau to Laura Ingram to sha Hannity was gushing over the former Massachusetts governor pushing him as a conservative alternative to the churlish Orthodox defying Arizona Senator John McCain alarmed at their lack of discernment jeffris felt the need to push back on his fellow right-wingers who were throwing their support behind someone who wasn't really a Christian surely Jeffers thought if everyday Evangelical voters were educated about the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of latterday saints they would rise up in opposition to Romney's candidacy and so from the pulpit and any other public stage he could find jeffris repeatedly belittled Mormon ISM and bludgeoned Romney insinuating that there was something dangerous about his beliefs he could gain only so much traction YouTube was in its infancy Fox News had yet to discover him Romney did eventually lose the nomination to McCain though it was unclear what role of any Mormonism played in that defeat on the right there was such loathing of Mccain not to mention of the emerging Democratic nominee that darkskinned senator with the Exotic name that the attacks on Romney's religion were soon forgotten but not by Romney himself the candidate could not get over what jeffris had said and done he was baffled at how a mega church Minister not some soapbox cleric but the pastor of First Baptist Dallas could spew such Venom without consequence Romney's team was equally alarmed building off a strong showing in 2008 they began laying the groundwork for another campaign in 2012 Romney would be the favorite to win the GOP nomination his allies realized but only if they neutralize these attacks on his faith the decision was made to engage with jeffris directly one of Romney's Evangelical backers attorney J seculo agreed to debate jeffris at a forum in Washington DC the topic how Christian does a presidential candidate need to be jeffris used the occasion to do more than simp simply bash Mormonism he issued a broader challenge to the consistency of his fellow evangelicals he blasted the hypocrisy of church leaders who for the last eight years of the Bush Administration have been telling us how important it is to have an Evangelical Christian in office who reads his Bible every day and now suddenly these same leaders are telling us that a candidate's faith really isn't that important jeffris added my fear is such a sudden U-turn is going to give people a case a vter whiplash I think people have to decide and Christian leaders have to decide once and for all whether a candidate's faith is really important the Dallas pastor had walked into the event a relative unknown he walked out one of the most prominent evangelicals in the country political reporters in Washington put him on speed dial Romney's Rivals for the 2012 nomination began reaching out wooing him urging him to turn up the attacks on the GOP front runner jeffris savored every moment of this star turn in the fall of 2011 at the values voters Summit in Washington I watched the pastor hold court with a mob of reporters for nearly an hour in a crowded hotel hallway jeffris had just endorsed Texas Governor Rick Perry for the Republican nomination and he wanted every journalist present to quote his conclusions about why evangelicals could not trust Romney I just do not believe that we as conservative Christians can expect him to stand strong for the issues that are important to us Jeffers told reporters I really am not nearly as concerned about a candidate's fiscal policy or immigration policy as I am about where they stand on biblical issues 5 years later almost to the day jeffris taped an interview with national public radio the Access Hollywood tape had just dropped Trump's character was under assault and his campaign was on life support prominent evangelicals such as Russell Moore were openly questioning how anyone who had demanded a values-based Biblical litness test for political leaders could now be advocating for Trump the NPR host asked jeffris for his response I don't want some Meek and Mild leader or somebody who's going to turn the other cheek jeffris told the host I want the meanest toughest so I can find to protect this nation for a man who'd once complained about giving voters Whiplash this was a U-turn taken at Formula 1 speed how could jeffris possibly reconcile these statements one answer is Starstruck opportunism their relationship began when Trump spotted Jeffers on Fox News and impressed by his skill on television summoned the pastor to New York City for a meeting they hit it off a couple of born Charmers two guys who can disarm just about anybody behind closed doors and that was that jeffris soon joined Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board and started stumping with him vouching for the candidate in front of Christian audiences he told Texas voters in the thick of a hot primary I can tell you from personal experience if Donald Trump is elected president of the United States we who are Evangelical Christians are going to have a true friend in the White House Jeff's political clout had been rising for years but no politician had ever lavished attention on him brought him into the Inner Circle had him speak to rallies of tens of thousands of people the way Trump had whatever the offenses of the candidate and there were too many to count jeffris wasn't about to give that up not when Trump still had a fighting chance to be president not when he Robert jeffris who confessed his faith at age five still had a fighting chance to be the spiritual conary to the leader of the Free World there was another explanation for Jeff's inconsistency something less satisfying than political opportunism but far more powerful jeffris had spoken of his pastoral career as two distinct eras there was the period before he got involved with politics and there was the period after he got involved with politics the more we talked however I began to sense that there was a third period he had been able to Define almost down to the date the point at which he recognized that our culture was being inundated with evil and his concomitant conviction to fight that evil with good but there was another inflection point a fuzzier inflection point that seemed even Starker even more relevant to jeffris and his decision-making it had happened only recently it had come about subconsciously at first in response to the culture Ward defeats and then more and more consciously in response to the feeble state of conservatism and the feckless state of the Republican party it had happened so organically that he could not precisely account for it jeffris no longer cared about fighting evil with good he just wanted to fight evil period he wasn't the only one back in 2011 around the time jeffris was insisting that a candidate must share the values of a Christian voter the public religion Research Institute commissioned a fascinating survey it asked Americans of all Faith backgrounds to answer the question could a politician who behaved immorally in their personal life still perform their public duties with Integrity only 30% of white evangelicals said yes the lowest of any group surveyed this trend line was steady since the days of Bill Clinton's impeachment conservative Christians still believed character was a prerequisite for public office in October 2016 the very week in fact that jeffris sneered at the notion of turning the other cheek the public religion Research Institute released a a new survey that asked the exact same question this time incredibly 72% of white evangelicals responded that yes a politician who behaved immorally in their personal life could still perform their public duties with Integrity 5 years earlier white evangelicals had registered the lowest rate of support for that idea now they were registering the highest something had changed and it wasn't just the part affiliation of the scoundrel in question to be sure plenty of those evangelicals had always cared more about power than principle and were predisposed to ignoring the sins of their own tribe but there was something deeper at work what I'd personally encountered during those 5 years wasn't just an increased appetite for power it was a sudden onset of dread they had spent Obama's presidency marinating in a message of end times agitation something they loved was soon to be lost time was running out to reclaim it the old rules no longer applied desperate times called for desperate even disgraceful measures inside Jeff's office at First Baptist Dallas I pressed him on whether he had seen this same phenomenon he acknowledged that he had when I asked him to explain it to make sense of how millions of evangelicals himself included had so casually discarded the code that guided their political engagement for a generation jeffris offered two words they were the same words I'd heard Trump speak to Evangelical audiences during his presidency words that jeffris no doubt had whispered into the president's ear Under Siege the campus of First Baptist Dallas feels more like a Convention Center than a church there are parking garages and escalators a coffee shop and bookstore an ATM machine floor to ceiling windows and floodlit fountains that spray 100 feet high after checking in at the security desk the friendly guards don't allow backpacks but do validate parking I caught a glimpse of the control room it would be the Envy of CNN through the dark tinted windows I could see dozens of highdef monitors being operated by a team of tech professionals this struck me as an unnecessary investment then I stepped into the Worship Center a concave screen rivaling the tract of the Jumbotron at nearby Cowboy stadium wrapped around the sprawling main Stage IT displayed lyrics so that we might keep up with the 11 singers with coordinated outfits men in blue suits alternating with women in teal blouses and the choir arrayed on the five rows of risers to the rear I counted 119 of them in total clad in Black robes accented in purple and gold overlooking an orchestra pit that housed three dozen musicians as they played trumpets violins tuba saxophone guitars drums a realtime highlight Montage of the singers and musicians rolled above us the cameras circled jeffris as he stroe onto the stage no introduction necessary his name was shown on the screen's lower third along with his Twitter handle the pastor skillfully located his mark on the stage smiled and announced that he was beginning a 10-part series what every Christian should know his not was Immaculate his Cadence was impeccable jeffris struck every syllable with Precision made every aside with purpose the sermon was tightly packaged and expertly delivered I could see why 3,000 people had packed into the Hall around me why many thousands more were watching via live stream around the world why this was arguably America's most successful mega church it didn't used to be despite the church's fabled history jeffris said it was dying deteriorating when he arrived in 2007 attendance had been falling for years the physical structures were unsalvageable a dramatic renovation was required jeffris decided to embark on what he describes as the largest church building program in history he announced a $135 million Capital campaign that would blow up literally six blocks of downtown Dallas and he didn't stop there all told jeffris said the church had spent $250 million on Renovations since he arrived the makeover helped to reestablish First Baptist Dallas as a Titan in the Evangelical World attendance membership and giving all spiked there was more to this Resurgence however than the dazzling new campus it was jeffris himself who made the church irresistibly relevant when he took the big job the pastor had pitched himself as a Visionary in the mold of his hero and predecessor chrisell his industry rattling ambition forced leaders from every denomination to study him and demanded coverage from Christian and secular journalists alike the success became self-perpetuating with all eyes on jeffris he negotiated a lucrative multimedia cont cont that made him one of America's most broadcast ad ministers the man knew how to draw a crowd and how to keep it whether from the pulpit or the television set or the radio Booth jeffris was a continuous manufacturer of controversy it could be political one day and Theological the next the substance wasn't necessarily the point that long ago Library fight in witch Falls had taught him the awesome power of publicity despite losing the actual dispute and coming under widespread criticism in the process jeffris had grown his church and burnished his celebrity he built on that model at first Dallas Baptist every bit of opposition he generated was an opportunity every rebuke he elicited had its own reward this was great for First Baptist Dallas but was it good for the witness of Jesus Christ it seemed fair to wonder whether the qualities that attracted certain people to jeffris the pugilism and unceasing provocation were repelling many others from Christianity at large after all Americans were shedding the label of Christian at a record clip and they were doing so just as public perception of the church was plummeting to alltime lows in 1975 more than two-thirds of Americans expressed a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church according to Gallup and as of 1985 it was the most revered institution in American Life toward the end of Trump's presidency just 36% of Americans had confidence in the church pollsters made no distinction between Catholics and Protestants no doubt the epidemic of priests trading white collars for orange jumpsuits contributed to the plunge in public confidence in organized Christianity still evangelicals had done more than their share of damage given Jeff's long-running Feud with with the LDS church I couldn't help but think of the perception Gap illustrated by a Babylon B headline EV angelical mistaken for Mormon after treating everyone with kindness respect as we settled into his office a spectacular sixth floor Suite with panoramic views of downtown Dallas I asked jeffris why so many Americans had turned against evangelicals like him I don't think it's Donald Trump or the Republican party or Christian nationalism that's keeping people from accepting the gospel they just provide a convenient excuse Jeffers told me I think at the end of the day it's all about a person's personal relationship with God he can come up with all kinds of intellectual reasons for not accepting the gospel look at this hypocrite over here and so forth but I think deep down there's a personal reason he doesn't come to faith in Christ the reason a lot of seekers never find God is the same reason that a thief never seems to find a policeman they're not looking the pastor chuckled I'm not going to take responsibility for somebody going to hell if they go to hell it's because they've rejected God's invitation of forgiveness might jeffris at least entertain other explanations was there no truth to the idea that evangelicals had taken their eye off the ball could he not see how the fixation on this world had created a barrier to entry for those seeking knowledge about the next Jeffers shook his head most of the work he does does he insisted has nothing to do with societal skirmishes or upcoming elections or anything else found outside the Bible he said the caricature of him doesn't align with reality glancing to my right his left I took note of the irony the corner of Jeff's office was a shrine his secretary used that specific word to describe it to president Donald J Trump there was an 8ft tall poster commemorating the Celebrate Freedom Concert in D C the one where the choir sang make America great again there were boxes of trump cuff links and a golden Trump commemorative coin there were dozens dozens of framed photos of jeffris and Trump praying over him talking with him shaking hands with him giving thumbs up with him walking alongside him speaking in front of him standing dutifully behind him there were also a few photos of jeffris with Mike Pence and one seemingly misplaced of him with right-wing pundit and Coulter in the sweep of my reporting on the former president and his many Copans I had never seen such a temple to trumpism anything that carried the man's distinctive Sharpie signature was framed news articles White House proclamations email correspondences even printed out tweets a year earlier when we spoke following Trump's departure from Office jeffr had hinted at feeling some remorse for the depth of his PO itical involvement it didn't last by the end of 2021 not long after the former president boasted that nobody has done more for Christianity or for evangelicals or for religion itself than I have jeffris was hosting Trump in his Pulpit at the First Baptist Dallas celebration of Christmas service the program covered that Day suggested a certain competition half the page depicted a twinkling nativity scene while the other half proclaimed the star angled arrival of trump there's a lot of clouds hanging over our country right now very dark clouds the former president had somberly announced at the service instead of pivoting to declare the good news of great joy you know about the baby in the manger Trump concluded but we will come back bigger and better and stronger than ever before the Worship Center filled with cheers when I asked about the concern heed once the voice to me that some Christians had crossed the line in conflating politics and Faith Jeff said he agreed some of Trump's Evangelical followers he said were acting like nutcases when they stormed the capital and spread conspiracy theories about vaccines he called it a case of misplaced priorities they think they're following in his footsteps they don't mean Jesus they mean Donald Trump jeffris clarified chuckling but Trump I could tell you for sure he took the vaccine I hear these people who think it's the mark of the Antichrist and I say well Trump's the one who developed it so what does that make him jeffris insisted however that this represented a fringe of Trump's Evangelical base most conservative Christians were like him supportive of Republican policies opposed to democratic policies eager for a restoration of Traditional Values as defined by the right they sense an overlap between constitutional freedoms and biblical responsib abilities and vote accordingly being alarmed about the state of the country feeling under siege by a secular government and a hostile culture as jeffris repeatedly phrased it does not make someone an extremist broadly speaking of course this is true but a few zealots can define an entire movement and given the sudden scale of this persecution sentiment inside the Evangelical Church it was only a matter of time in early 2017 a month into Trump's presidency the public religion Research Institute asked a sample of Americans which religious group they thought faced more discrimination in the United States Muslims or Christians the general public was twice as likely to pick Muslims in response non-religious respondents were three times as likely both white Catholics and white Mainline Protestants agreed in overwhelming fashion that Muslims face more discrimination in the United States than Christians only one group group of respondents dissented from this view white evangelicals jeffris was inviting an obvious question once a person becomes convinced that they are under siege that enemies are coming for them and want to destroy their way of life what is the stop that person from becoming radicalized I wondered if jeffris felt any responsibility to dial back the rhetoric instead he doubled down when I addressed the National Religious broadcasters a few month ago the title of my message was when persecution comes I talked about how the same persecution that our Brothers and Sisters in Christ are experiencing around the world is coming to the shores of America Jeffers said I talked about the first instance of persecution in the book of Acts and how persecution was always incremental it started with verbal admonishments then light scouring then imprisonment and then beheading Jeffers continued it happened in Nazi Germany they did put 6 million Jews in the crematorium immediately the Germans would have never put up with that initially it was a slow process of marginalization isolation and then the final solution and I think you're seeing that happen in America I believe there's evidence that the Biden Administration has weaponized the Internal Revenue Service to come after churches the evidence jeffris cited in making this leap bureaucratic regulations clearing the way for concentration camps was non-existent when pushed he mentioned a single court case that was ultimately decided in favor of religious liberty you sound like a hysterical Maniac if you say the government's coming after us Jeff said with a shrug but I believe they are there were reasonable concerns following the 2015 oberfell vj's ruling that legalized same-sex marriage that churches and religious nonprofits might be punished for acting in accordance with their traditional beliefs but no such punishment ever materialized in fact according to David French a Conservative Christian attorney who spent decades arguing religious liberty cases in front of federal courts the record for Religious Freedom since oberfell is extraordinary the judicial branch French wrote in the dispatch had expanded the autonomy of religious organizations to hire and fire employees protected churches time and again from discriminatory regulations and expanded the ability of relig institutions to receive state funds this hasn't stopped evangelicals from subscribing to A Narrative of mass marginalization in 2022 an essay published in first things magazine lamented that American society has gradually turned against Christianity over the past 50 years the author Aaron Ren described three distinct eras the positive World predating 1994 in which Christianity was embraced the neutral World from 1994 to 2014 in which Christianity was tolerated and the negative World from 2014 to present in which Christianity is rejected the essay a viral sensation among evangelicals made some compelling arguments yet its thesis betrayed three essential blind spots first only those American Christians who are white and Protestant can recall such a Housey an age neither the Catholic Student whose School was targeted by the government nor the black worshipper whose church was firebombed by clansmen saw positive treatment because of their religion second Jesus says that Christians should have no reasonable expectation of being treated well by the world around them in this sense anything less than brutal unceasing oppression should be considered downright utopian third given that context describing the modern era as negative shows a certain blinkered privilege on the part of American Christians even if Society is more antagonistic toward the church today than at any time in US history our status Remains the Envy of Christians the world over Believers aren't getting rounded up and imprisoned here churches aren't being monitored or censored pastors aren't being coerced to do the bidding of the state this is why Russell Moore while leading the ethics and religious liberty commission was so vexed by Trump's scaremongering around the Johnson Amendment there were genuine threats to Rel religious expression in America Moore said but a government Crackdown on churches wasn't among them assuming pastors played by the rules that govern all nonprofits namely no endorsing political candidates from the pulpit there would be no trouble as it happens some pastors have openly flouted this regulation for years all but begging the IRS to come after them the government has done exactly nothing in response jeffris knows this better than most numerous high-profile churches in Texas including several in the Dallas area are notorious for their Brazen Defiance of the Johnson Amendment the Texas Tribune has reported on this extensively Not only was the Biden Administration not coming after churches the Biden Administration was actively looking the other way as churches broke the law in the end it was revealing that jeffris felt the need to fabricate these threats to the church far more revealing however was that he saw the persecution of Christians as sufficient to justify behavior that is antithetical to what Christ taught there are two promises that attend faith in Jesus the first is of eternal life in heaven the second is of discrimination cruelty abuse and possible martyrdom on Earth if the world hates you keep in mind that it hated me first Jesus told his disciples according to the Book of John if you belonged to the world it would love you as its own as it is you do not belong to the world but I have chosen you out of the world that is why the world hates you remember what I told you a servant is not greater than his master if they persecuted me they will persecute you also in his Sermon on the Mount Jesus went out of his way to explain that Believers should welcome this maltreatment blessed are those who are persecuted because of right he said for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Christians volunteered to live in a negative World Christians signed up to be under siege the notion that some conjectural bullying of the American church is a defense for the indefensible while Christians worldwide are being harassed and hunted and even killed for their faith would be comical if it weren't so calamitous Jeffers did concede one point I've said before you'd better be sure that if you're suffering you're suffering for righteousness and not for your own stupidity the pastor told me citing examples of congregants who've claim to be oppressed by vaccine policies or mask mandates or proposed gun laws I do think some of what we've categorized as Christian suffering is not suffering for righteousness we're supposed to be suffering for doing God's Will and what his word prescribes to do not because government goes against my preferences this is the Paradox of Robert Bert jeffris one moment he was grumbling that some of his church members had gotten the wrong idea about this synthesizing of the constitution in the Bible in the next he was recommending that I return to First Baptist Dallas a couple of Sundays later it would be a special occasion the church's annual celebration of Freedom Sunday featuring country musician Lee Greenwood singing his sppy ballad God Bless the USA jeffris handed me a promotional FL fire there was a photo of the keynote speaker Kelvin Cochran and the caption former Atlanta fire chief fired for Christian beliefs jeffris smirked as I studied the handout the people who talk about how wonderful persecution is he said are those who've never experienced it chapter 6 weaton Illinois you have heard that it was said love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you Matthew 5: 43 and 44 something happened 15 years ago professor John Dixon explained to a packed Auditorium on the campus of Wheaten college that in his words changed the way I view Christianity he was back home home in his native Australia participating in a nationally televised program that aimed to settle a debate are we better off without religion each side of the conversation featured a small team of Scholars making their case Dixon a celebrated Theologian author and expert on the apostolic age of the early church argued that Society benefits from Christian influence before the debate began an entrance poll was taken to ify the sentiments of a sample group a majority of respondents came in rejecting the idea that any religion especially Christianity somehow made for a better society that same group was then surveyed in an exit poll after the arguments concluded the numbers did not budge Dixon wasn't necessarily surprised by the results what did surprise him was the rationale being presented by his opponents for opposing Christianity and how thoroughly it resonated with the broader public whereas it used to be quite popular for people to say the problem with Christianity is that it's too self-righteous Dixon concluded it was now far more common for people to say actually the problem with Christianity is that it's wicked having spent decades scrutinizing the shifting impressions of religion worldwide Dixon said here was a crystallized thought to explain the rising hostility toward his own faith the more he he studied the social science the more obvious it became it required no leap of logic to connect the Public's deteriorating opinion of the church in Australia in America and elsewhere to other corresponding metrics such as falling Sunday attendance declining denominational membership and fewer people identifying as Christians just recently Dixon informed the crowd at weaton College Australia had officially become a postchristian nation to Great media Fanfare the Australian Bureau of Statistics released figures in June 2022 showing for the first time that fewer than 50% of Aussies identified as followers of Jesus this was the culmination of a decades long trajectory that had bowed severely downward in recent years from 61% in 2011 to 52% in 2016 to 44% in 2022 and then Dixon dropped the bomb within 10 years Christians will be a minority in America the professor announced the numbers were straightforward America's share of self-identified Christians was shrinking at roughly the same rate as Australia's in 2007 78% of Americans identified with Christianity by 2021 it was down to 63% we are 10 years ahead of you the professor said extending his arms with a good-natured grin greetings from the future my friends weaton college is a keystone of the American Evangelical movement widely recognized as one of the world's most important Christian institutions founded in 1860 by an abolitionist named Jonathan Blanchard the school was pioneering in its education of both women and black students even serving as a stop on the Underground Railroad over the next century and a half weaton grew to become a doctrinal and academic giant producing influential figures such as John Piper Michael Gerson and Billy Graham like some of its counterparts Liberty University Bob Jones University Oral Roberts University and a whole host of Southern Baptist schools weaton is conservative in its values and teachings the school prohibits the use of alcohol and tobacco as well as homosexual behavior and Embraces a strict reformed protestantism what sets weaton apart is its distinctive approach to the culture unlike so many other right-wing Christian colleges Wheaten has long been known for its relatively Placid disposition when it comes to politics and current events the school isn't exactly a pushover it successfully sued the Obama Administration in federal court over a mandate to provide contraceptive coverage to employees claiming a major victory for the religious liberty cause but this sort of activism isn't where weaton makes its Mark the schools charge etched into gray slate at the entrance to its campus is for Christ and his kingdom all this helps to explain why the college has in recent years become a click without a tribe too theologically conservative for many liberal Christians too attitudinally passive for many conservative Christians these days to the extent Wheaten belonged to anyone it was to the quiet committed politically homeless church leaders who had traveled to Illinois this October afternoon they were black and white man and woman from congregations big and small packed into this cramped Dusky Auditorium all on a common mission to save American evangelicalism from itself convening the school's annual amplify conference Wheaten president Philip reiken did not delay in acknowledging the Peril of the moment the American church he said was fracturing in real time right in front of us and for one reason fear some of us are afraid of suffering harm from a white majority culture or for some of us becoming a racial minority in a non-white culture or for some of us becoming a religious minority in a post-christian culture reiken said we all have our fears there are things happening in the culture and also happening in the church that only exacerbate them and yet reiken declared the people in this Auditorium should be unified by a message mage of hope he read from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians for what I received I passed on to you as a first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures and that he appeared to Peter and then to the 12 Paul's words are a reminder riken said that Christians have a great love that will cast out our fear that great love should embolden us to share the gospel especially when met with bitterness it should embolden us to realize that Jesus's sacrifice is so much more important than all the other worldly things it should embolden us to recall how Fearless the apostles were and to emulate them not just their courage but their kindness and gentleness and humility all of the things tearing us apart are rectified when we understand this message reiken said not just as is something that defines who people are when they receive it but also defines who we are when we give it I could see why Dixon the Aussie Theologian was being featured so prominently at the amplify program with Christians soon to be a minority in the United States the question shouldn't be how best to fight back and reclaim their lost status rather Dixon said the question should be how Christians might lose well carrying themselves in ways that reflect The Hope and confidence and great love found in the gospel at present Dixon said the American church is suffering from a bully syndrome too many Christians are swaggering around and picking on marginalized people and generally acting like jerks because they're angry and apprehensive every teacher will tell you the bully on the playground is usually the most insecure boy it's a compensation mechanism if the boy were truly confident he wouldn't need to throw his weighed around Dixon said it's the same with the church the bully church is the insecure church he asked the crowd to remember how Paul was unjustly jailed in the ancient Macedonian city of Philippi what was his response to sing hymns Dixon shouted eliciting Hoots from the audience of course he would we're in prison let's sing some years later Paul was jailed again this time in Rome Paul's follower were worried for his life Dixon said and the Apostle responded most curiously in his letter to the people in that city of Philippi now I want you to know brothers and sisters that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel as a result it has become clear throughout the whole Palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ Paul wrote and because of my chains most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear Dixon stopped to underscore the point what must have felt like a loss at many levels social status Freedom was actually a win for Paul the professor said he was the master of being a cheerful loser probably because he knew that it's a win for the gospel Dixon shared his own stories of losing he'd been taunted and scorned in the elite Circles of Australian cultural life he had a book banned by the public school system and of course he'd been defeated in that nationally televised debate all those years ago but something happened after that debate Dixon told us one of his opponents an observant Jewish Professor was so intrigued by Dixon's arguments that she asked him to come speak to her class and then she asked him back again and again finally after a number of speeches she asked Dixon to come teach a full four credit course on the life of Jesus and the gospels he wound up teaching for 10 years at Sydney University one of the country's leading secular institutions and reached countless young people with the message of Christ sometimes friends losses turn out to be winds in Disguise Dixon said in a soft voice he paused after all we are the death and Resurrection people The Unofficial themes of Wheaton's event were martyrdom and persecution and the ju depositions felt downright jarring there was the authentic martyrdom that established the early church and the artificial martyrdom of the church today there was the actual persecution of Christ's followers in Rome and the embellished persecution of his followers in America like almost every other speaker at the conference Charlie dates a dynamic black preacher from the south side of Chicago invoked the example of the Apostle Paul but dates took a unique Tac he built his sermon around the glory of Rome the city of Paul's citizenship when one thinks of Rome one thinks of the Undisputed power of Claudius and Nero the Twin Towers of opposition to any idea promoting any Authority other than Rome one thinks of the Foothills and the giant Legions that imperial capital waiting to seize lesser military Powers around the world it was a powerful prideful City dates bellowed in his striking baritone the intelligencia of the day lived and breathed in Rome Rome was the world's Capital so much to be proud about in Rome as the economic and political and influential super center of the then Known World Paul born as Saul was a product of this glorious Empire an intellectual Powerhouse Saul attended the universities in Tarsus sat at the feet of one of the most prolific rabbis of the then Known World dates said the young man observed the religious customs of his Jewish people but he was nationally Roman Saul earned respect in both worlds so much so that the Pharisees the Jewish religious Elite authorized him to oversee the persecution of Christians but then something happened after supervising the murder of an outspoken Christian named Steven and setting off to Damascus to round up more Heretics like him Saul was suddenly blinded Saul Saul why do you persecute me came a voice from Heaven who are you Lord Saul asked I am Jesus whom you are persecuting the New Testament records few moments more consequential than this one soon Saul's sight is restored his name is changed to Paul and he begins traveling throughout the Roman Empire visiting the same places according to the book of Acts where he had been breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples spreading the very message he'd formerly been oppressing sometime later in his letter to the early Church in Rome Paul wrote something that dates described as the most absurd sentence in the Bible for I am not ashamed of the gospel Paul wrote because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes it was absurd dates said because Paul had every reason to feel ashamed what kind kind of a man with this pedigree would claim saving power in a man called Jesus dates asked no self-respecting Pharisee would look at the man hanging on a tree and consider him to be the savior of the world no judge of popularity trying to win the masses would affiliate himself or herself with such an unpopular message history would agree the emperor Nero who infamously scapegoated Christians for the burning of Rome set the precedent for centuries of Imperial persec ution he murdered the followers of Jesus in Mass beheadings crucifixions death by lion and other public displays of savagery it was during Nero's Reign that Paul traversed the Empire preaching that a carpenter's son from rural Galilee had established a kingdom that surpassed anything Rome could ever hope to be Paul paid the price for announcing his allegiance to the rulers of this world after years of being beaten tortured imprisoned and placed under house arrest he was executed by the state of Rome and he wasn't the only one consider the case of Peter the right-hand disciple of Jesus in his first epistle Peter writes from Rome to the Christians in Asia Minor modern-day turkey who were suffering for their faith he beseeches them to rejoice in their torment Peter teaches them that suffering brings us closer to Jesus that to suffer is to be cleansed by a refining fire that rids Christians of the impulses attitudes and identities they once possessed Laurel bunker another pastor at the Wheaten conference pointed out the most crucial component of Peter's letter after comforting these early Christians Peter admonishes them not to allow this persecution to change the way they witness to the world specifically he tells them to show goodness to the very people who were persecuting them bunker read from first Peter 3 finally all of you be like-minded be sympathetic love one another be compassionate and humble do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult on the contrary repay evil with blessing because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing she noted how Peter in his letter stopped to recite a Psalm whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech they must turn from Evil and do good they must seek peace and pursue it for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil after speaking the word evil bunker looked up from her Bible then she gazed upward my God she said if the evil comes from us what shall we do Bunker's message dovetailed with Dixon's earlier theory about the world's Vanishing confidence in the church the public hasn't turned against Christians because they act better than the rest of the world she said the public has turned against Christians because they act worse than the rest of the world bunker argued that much of this bad behavior can be traced back to the Christian victimhood complex which causes some Believers to lash out against enemies real and imagined such Behavior defies the words of Peter and the Very instruction of Jesus who famously stated you have heard that it was said love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you bunker admitted to being the worst offender the reality is I have messed up I've taken the bait of social media with family my husband and I are surrounded by family members who are not saved bunker said we've been excluded we've been ostracized we've been talked about it hurts it's hard it's frustrating sometimes you want to lose your mind she recounted a particularly tense Facebook argument with her brother after she typed out a long spiteful message bunker said her husband stepped into the room he asked her to delete it and got off the computer as I sat there and cried God said to me through his holy spirit you're not angry because he rejected me you're Ang angry because he rejected you bunker recalled and I was embarrassed because it was true bunker noted that God doesn't simply treat Sinners with Grace He commands us to do the same showing Grace she said is easy when you're winning it's much harder when you're losing paraphrasing the Protestant reformer Martin Luther one plus God as a majority bunker argued that promoting unconditional Grace is the defining challenge of evangelicalism today we've got to remember there is nothing too hard for God she said if you're sitting here in your right mind you're a walking Miracle you weren't too hard for God with your messed up jacked up self so listen make a little room for a child of God make a little room for a misfit make a little room for that single mother make a little room for that kid who is mentally burdened with their sexuality because here's the reality we can be mad all we want at the quote unquote liberal agenda but unless the people of the Gospel have a better way we have nothing to talk about the next generation of wouldbe Believers bunker warned is watching us they want to know if we love Jesus first more than money more than social status more than a political party more than a country the work of the Kingdom can't be hit and run evangelism she said if Christians want to win souls for Jesus they can start by showing Grace to those who don't deserve it by showing kindness to the culture by seeing in everyone especially our enemies the image and likeness of God none of this can be accomplished with a mentality of fear bunker said she pleaded with her audience to overcome it Jesus knows something about being in an opposing place with opposing forces he used 12 weirdos to turn the world upside down I think he can certainly use a few of you weirdos here the Pastor said the room f filled with laughter but she was serious the black kids of the city of Chicago the gay kid who struggles with suicidal ideation the single mothers the prostitutes the broken of society the only way they will know is if we go bunker preached they are not going to come to us they don't care about our Steeples they want to know is my life redeemable does my life have purpose bunker finished where she started by reading from the book of First Peter it was the call to action from a future martyr Peter like his friend Paul would be executed in Rome during the reign of Nero who pleaded with Believers to keep their perspective but even if you should suffer for what is right you are blessed Peter wrote do not fear their threats do not be frightened bunker bowed her head to pray at certain points in history fractures in society have made the church stronger Ed ster the executive director of the Billy Graham Center at weaton asked us to think back to the 1960s and early 1970s there was division all around us the assassinations of President John F Kennedy and his brother Robert F Kennedy and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr the Kent State shooting and the deadly rioting in cities Nationwide the Watergate Breakin and the needless Bloodshed of Vietnam the drug culture explosion and the pornography epidemic and the row v Wade ruling and then 1976 was called the year of the Evangelical ster said shrugging as if to say go figure today is a different story The fractures in society ster told us are making the church weaker everyone around me nodded in agreement the Church of Jesus Christ has been distracted and divided in a way that I have never seen in my whole lifetime and for most of us it's been some of the hardest years we've LED ster said we've got to show again who we really are there are things that need to get discipled out of this movement that's called evangelicalism and new things that need to get discipled in STS are focused on what needed to be purged from evangelicalism starting with the nastiness the love of a merciful god is not what we're known for he said but it could be again if Christians would check themselves without naming names stetzer was speaking to an obvious truth this idea promoted by the likes of Robert jeffris that the church's unpopularity has nothing to do with its ugly Behavior simply does not pass the smell test here's the reality the last few years I and many others have expressed concern that people of God seem to be radiating something other than the gospel in too many places in too many ways steter said multiple people shouted Hallelujah in unison nodding steter continued I believe we've got to call God's people back to radiating the beauty of the Gospel the subtext of star's remarks was clear enough it was time for evangelicals to stop talking about Christianity and start practicing Christianity key to that practice is discipling in Christian vernacular discipling means more than the dictionary.com definition to convert into a disciple it is an aggressive active verb it refers to instruction specifically the teaching of challenging and problematic truths bunker wasn't wrong when she called Jesus's disciples 12 weirdos they were an Eclectic and unqualified Bunch there were fishermen and smalltime Merchants a tax collector and a political activist while following Jesus on his three-year journey of ministry the disciples were repeatedly and often comically oblivious to his teachings Jesus loved them but he did not in falize them time and again when his disciples got something wrong or even when they simply showed human weakness Jesus rebuked them he chided them for being faithless he censured them for their vanity and bigotry and Prejudice he criticized them for not grasping his instruction this is what discipling looks like and this Vincent bot told me is what's absent inside much of the American Evangelical Church if you ask me what's the big problem with evangelicalism I'd say it's a Kates problem it's a formation problem A discipleship problem these are people who are supposed to have a knowledge of the Bible but many of them don't said bot a renowned Theologian on the Wheaten faculty The Genius of evangelicalism is the breadth of it the hazard is the lack of depth a lot of these people are just not going deep enough by remaining shallow in the scriptures beot said too many American Christians have avoided a necessary showdown between their own base cultural proclivities and God's perfect standard when Christians are discipled primarily by Society inevitably they look to scripture for affirmation of their habits and behaviors and political views but if the Bible is the word of God then God ought to be interrogating those things that's why Jesus came to fix your vertical relationship with God bot said he wants your whole life he wants to transform Who You Are we were sitting in bot's fifth floor office the shelves appeared liable to collapse under the weight of his TOS bot an author himself and a longtime professor of theology is also the director of the Center for Applied Christian ethics this is Wheaton's def facto arm of Civic and cultural engagement fittingly the books surrounding us ranged from religion to Warfare elections to history music to sports reflecting on the sum total of his scholarship beo said he felt confident sharing two basic observations about evangelicalism in the United States the first is that too many American Christians are woefully under discipled the second a byproduct of the first is that too many American Christians think of themselves as American Christians who's preaching to them about idolatry I mean really in Evangelical churches how many sermons are people hearing about idolatry of any kind much less National idolatry bot asked turning his palms upward as if begging me to provide examples if people generally aren't preaching about idolatry in the first place it's no surprise that this particular species of idolatry just hides in plain sight the positive we can take from this bot noted is that some Christians are now showing us what they've always been thinking indeed the tumult of this era has brought forth from the Shadows some of the blood and soil compulsions of the American Evangelical what bot wants to do what he wants his students who are mostly current and prospective pastors to do is challenge these people the way that Jesus challenged his disciples they need help to understand that you can care for your country without worshiping your country bot said they also need help to understand that you can care for your country and seek good for your neighbors just because other people are getting something doesn't mean you're losing something these ansers aren't difficult to find bot told me Christians just need to start looking the ongoing opportunity for evangelicalism is to live up to the language that's right there in the Bible he said which is to love your neighbor as yourselves Jesus stressed two Commandments as more important than the rest bot had just named the second one the answer to our problem of national idolatry he told me comes from A discipleship that stresses the first and greatest commandment love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength strolling through campus a sharp wind scattering the leaves of scarlet and fiery orange professor John Dixon told me he'd arrived at weaton just 3 weeks earlier there had been many opportunities over the years to teach fulltime in the United States He said but he' never wanted to leave his native Australia his children were there his friends were there his church was there it would require something extraordinary nothing less than a provocation from the almighty to uproot him so I asked Dixon what finally brought him to America this he said gesturing around us as if to synopsize the themes of the Amplified conference the division the anxiety the fear about losing power and Status it's entirely why I'm here a questionable choice at best Dixon had a good thing going in Australia sure the trend lines of secularization might have been troubling but at least the remnant of the church itself was reasonably healthy there was no Civil War in Australian Christendom the fights that had so divided the American Evangelical movement over the past decade were largely non-existent in Dixon's country he didn't disagree Dixon cautioned however that American Christianity doesn't exist in a vacuum evangelicals in Britain and Europe and Australia are very different from evangelicals here and I've noticed in the last 10 years lots of Australians who used to be happy going by Evangelical because they meant British Evangelical that gentle anglicanism of William Wilbur Force socially engaged happy to be in public Keen to see people evangelized with the Bible they don't want to go by Evangelical anymore why not because there's not this politically zealous evangelicalism in Australia and Britain it's just never been that way Dixon said but we keep on hearing about American evangelicalism in our media reports and what happens in America Matters these days even in Australia if someone asks you if you're an Evangelical they don't mean are you mild-mannered intellectually incisive Bible expounding pastorally warm no they mean are you right-wing these were the intern National symptoms of America's illness over the last few years I had engaged in similar conversations with Christians around the United States there was one particular anecdote still stuck in my mind that I shared with Dixon during a visit to Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Greenville South Carolina I had convened an amateur focus group with the pastor and two dozen of his Elders their denomination was on the verge of a split over social issues namely the question of ordaining gay ministers and marrying gay couples and their individual church was also approaching a fracture the pastor had welcomed me to alers gate in hopes of bringing some long simmering tensions to the surface and seeing if the church might be salvaged early on as the folks assembled dug into styrofoam bowls of vanilla ice cream I asked how many people in the room identified as Evangelical half of them raised a hand for the next 2 hours every disagreement that surfaced about partisan affiliation media consumption current events was split between the half who identified as Evangelical and the half who didn't the term no longer conveyed much about biblical beliefs it was mostly a proxy for cultural belonging that really is not the case in England or Australia Dixon replied Australians inherited British evangelicalism so we've just stayed in that mold there have been individual Americans who influenced us Billy Graham had a massive effect in Sydney in 59 and in the 60s loads of people were converted but they were converted into Anglican churches so the original evangelicalism has remained in both Britain and Australia while America sort of went its own way as we sat down in the Campus Dining Hall surrounded by hundreds of flags representing the nations of the world I couldn't help but think of the role reversal at work American churches had centuries trained funded and dispatched missionaries across the globe to preach the good news of Jesus now here was Dixon picking at a plate of rice and chicken curry describing America as his mission field there was nothing costic or condescending in his tone yet he didn't shy away from the point the people of this country needed some help Dixon told me that his calling here wasn't simply to equip pastors as they prepared for combat it was to charge into to the fry himself since coming to the states he had already begun preaching Sunday services at a few different churches he was pleased if a bit surprised to report that he'd been well received thus far you know people hear it differently from a different accent Dixon said grinning actually it isn't just the accent the professor decided correcting himself and turning serious it's the fact that people don't Peg me as either Republican or Democrat because I can't fit into those categories they don't even know what our categories are I mean conservatives in Australia support Universal healthc care so do evangelicals I come from a country where a levy of 1.5% of my salary runs the whole medical system for everyone hospitals are free doctors are free but that makes you a socialist here now Dixon was laughing so when I've been here in the past I'll give talks on the history of medical welfare from Antiquity to today because you know it was the early Christians who started public hospitals in the 4th century and Americans hear me doing this without ever thinking I'm some sneaky Obamacare supporter they just think oh he's Australian I laughed too those were the good old days I told Dixon when American evangelicals squabbled over things like socialized medicine at present the church was imploding over the legitimacy of our election system the question of whether to confront racism in society the etiquette of wearing masks during a lethal pandemic the morality of vaccines and the existence of a satanic cult of Democrats who cannibalize kids the American church was no stranger to Discord but not since the Civil War had there been such intense polarization in the body of Believers one of the speakers at the conference had suggested that this period was even more precarious than the 1860s that we were living through a 500-year moment for Christianity I asked if he believed that he began to slowly nod his head yes yes I do Dixon replied but I dare to think it's more likely to be a positive moment than a negative moment because I think of American evangelicalism as a giant that's fallen asleep in a bit of a fog and if American evangelicals can pivot in this moment and work out the answers to those questions what does it mean to lose well what does it mean to be cheerfully confident without being Brash and arrogant and manipulative and controlling I think it will bless America and I think it will bless the world to awaken from its fog Dixon told me American evangelicalism must first rid itself of its persecution complex my academic specialty is the first century to 6th Century he explained you know n accused the Christians of having a slave mentality he thought that's what gave them their ethic of humility but the data is exactly the opposite the Christians of the first few centuries especially were so confident Jesus was Lord that they could be quite rude in mocking the gods and so on they were confident and cheerful even when they're locked up in prison they're singing hymns they're writing letters encouraging others this was not performative in nature members of the early church didn't behave this way to prove a point rather these people who lived in such close proximity to the time of the eyewitnesses and some were themselves eyewitnesses acted out of a euphoria rooted in absolute certainty they had zero doubts that Jesus the rabbi who'd been publicly executed was later seen alive and were so giddy about spreading the news that they couldn't be bothered to care about their circumstances otherwise Dixon continued I think we need to bring some of that wisdom of the evangelizing of the pre-christian world to bear on the re-evangelization world I must have gone cross-eyed at that last Point sensing my confusion Dixon leaned in I've spent time with underground Pastors in China and the amazing thing about them is how cheerful they are he said I've been with pastors who have all been to prison one of them three times but they're not afraid they're not paranoid they're genuinely cheerful because they think well if I go to prison there will be more people for me to preach the gospel to it makes for an unflattering comparison he told me with the attitude of the American Church much of of what drives evangelicals here is fear that we're losing our country fear that we're losing our power Dixon said and it's so unhealthy we should think of ourselves as eager dinner guests as someone else's banquet we are happy to be there happy to share our perspective but we are always respectful always humble because this isn't our home humility doesn't come easy to the American Evangelical the self-importance that accompanies citizenship in the world's Mightiest nation is trouble enough never mind when it's augmented by the certainty of exclusive membership in the afterlife we are an immodest and excessively indulged people we have grown so accustomed to our advantages to our prosperity and worldly position that we feel entitled to them the way to Vanquish that entitlement Dixon said is by doing the lowliest thing imaginable studying the scriptures with PhD type rigor and kindergarten level vulnerability there are Bible people and there are not Bible people I'm just not sure how many American churches are filled with Bible people Dixon said in America there is so much focus on the illustration on the modern application compared to that boring stiff British anglicanism with its constant emphasis on the scripture itself he tapped two fingers on his Bible maybe we could use something more boring chapter 7 right Brion Michigan when he lies he speaks his native language for he is a liar and the father of Lies John 8:44 before I turn to the word the preacher announced I'm going to do another diet tribe go on one man yelled amen shouted a woman several pews in front of me sandwiched between 40 minutes of Praise music and 40 minutes of preaching was the strangest ritual I had ever witnessed inside a house of worship Pastor Bill Bolan called it his di tribe the congregants at Floodgate church had taken to calling it something else headline news a gregarious man in his mid-60s with thick jows and a thinning wave of dyed hair Bolan looked the part of a hippie turned hipster his Floral Pattern shirt was untucked from dark blue jeans about the vaccines Bolan began the crowd hanging on his every syllable for the next 15 minutes Bolan did not mention the Forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body or the life Everlasting instead he spouted misinformation and conspiratorial nonsense much of it related to the radically dangerous covid-19 vaccines a local nurse who attends Floodgate who was Anonymous at this time she reported to my wife the other day at her hospital they had have two covid patients that are hospitalized two Bolan paused dramatically they have3 vaccine complication patients the people around me gasped how about this one Bolan said a few minutes later he told of a doctor who claims to know that between 1 and 200 United States Congress Members Plus many of their staffers and family members with Co were treated by a colleague of his over the past 15 months with Bolan stopped and put a hand to his ear A Chorus of people responded Ivor mechon Bolan pretended not to hear what was that he said leaning over the lecturn this time they shouted ior mekon Bolan nodded this wasn't my first time at Floodgate I wasn't too surprised by anything that Bolan was saying yet I was still struggling to make sense of this place having grown up just down the road the son of the senior pastor at the largest church in town I knew the local Evangelical scene like it was a second reporting beat I knew which pastors were beefing whose congregations were mired in Scandal which church softball teams had a de playing shortstop and which ones stacked their lineups with non- tithing ringers but I had never heard of Floodgate and neither had most of the people sitting around me until recently for years Bolan had preached to a crowd of of about 100 on a typical Sunday then came Easter of 2020 when Bolan announced that he would refuse to comply with Michigan's emergency covid-19 shutdown orders and hold indoor worship Services when word got around Brighton and around ultraconservative Livingston County that one area Pastor was defying the Democratic governor Floodgate morphed from a church into a cause Bolan became a small-time media celebrity local politicians and activists borrowed his Pulpit to promotee their causes and all the while Floodgate attendance soared longtime members from other area congregations defected in droves to the small Roadside Church by Easter of 2021 Floodgate was hosting 1500 attendees every Sunday this was how I came to know the name Bill Bolan having just recently moved back to Michigan it seemed like every time I ran into a family friends during the early days of the pandemic they wanted to know if I'd heard about this upstart church called Floodgate it was only a few miles away from Cornerstone the church that raised me and it was raiding members from there and every other local congregation at first I rolled my eyes at what seemed like trivial gossip churches don't like losing congregants to other local churches this tension has always existed with that I figured came hard feelings and anxious chatter it would pass but it didn't people could not not stop talking about Floodgate the church was a phenomenon in my hometown and when I finally attended Services there I could see why Bolan was less a pastor than he was a performer he had traded his Pulpit for a soap box riffing like it was open mic night at a campus coffee house he openly prayed on the political and cultural insecurities of his congregants and it worked the hardest part of witnessing all this was to see people I knew people I respected and cared about from around the community falling for this spiritual farce rather than being challenged and transformed by the gospel they were now coming to a church to have their worst impulses confirmed Bolan was offering a tody translation of the message of Jesus Christ and people adored him for it on this particular Sunday in October 2021 the pastor riffed on everything from California forcing vaccines on school children to the IRS proposing more oversight of personal banking accounts he promoted a new book that warned of a war on Christianity in America that will strip Believers of their right to worship God prompting the couple in front of me to make a one-click Amazon purchase he shared that after a recent conversation with a Fox news commentator he could no longer rule out a second Civil War he suggested that there was mounting evidence that the presidency was stolen from Donald Trump in 2020 concluding with the information that's coming out in Arizona and Georgia and other places I think it's time for there to be a full audit of all 50 states to find out the level of cheating and the level of manipulation that actually took place the churchgoers around me cheered at one point Bolan looked up from his notes we had a visitor this morning who said you know it's really refreshing to hear a pastor talk about issues like this Bolan said basking in the Ovation he' just invited the pastor added I'm okay with talking about these things Bolan asked if he could keep going the crowd answered with more Applause the first time I walked into the sanctuary at Floodgate I didn't see a cross but I did see American flags lots of them there were flags on the screens behind the stage flags on the literature being handed out there was even a flag on the face mask of the single person I spotted wearing one it was May 2021 and the church was hosting an event for standup Michigan a group that had formed to protest pandemic shutdowns masking and most recently vaccine mandates this was the launch of the group's Livingston County chapter while covering presidential campaigns I had attended political rallies at churches across Iowa South Carolina Texas and elsewhere but I'd never seen anything quite like this the parking lot swarmed with vehicles covered in partisan slogans the NX was jammed with people scribbling on clipboards I thought this this was preemptive covid contact tracing they were actually enlisting volunteers for all manner of right-wing causes inside the sanctuary attendees wore Maga caps and second amendment related shirts I didn't see a single person carrying a Bible for the next 3 hours the church became a Coliseum the executive director of standup Michigan decried the evil Democrats in charge of the state said there was probably some truth to kon's claims of ritualistic child sacrifice and warned that Christians are too nice imploring her audience to Fight Fire with Fire the chair of the County Board of Commissioners railed against critical race Theory and bragged about kneecapping a local official who voted to fund diversity training a state senator tried to play to the Bas joking that she'd asked God why he'd allowed Gretchen Whitmer to become governor but then cowed when the Bas turned on her with people standing and shouting to demand that she answer the question of whether Trump had won Michigan in 2020 visibly shaken she refused to answer I knew the senator her name was Lana Ty for many years she had attended Cornerstone she considered my dad a spiritual mentor and told me tearfully not long after his passing how much she missed him Ty had left the church a little while after he died and I wasn't exactly floored to see her pop up at Floodgate the senator was facing a farri primary Challenger and NE needed people like Bolan to vouch for her still watching her get heckled by Maga zealots watching her refuse to say that Biden had won Michigan fairly despite in fact knowing that he did as she was co-authoring a senate report stating as much I couldn't suppress a feeling of absolute disgust here she was in a place of worship refusing to speak perhaps the most basic truth that could be expected of a politician I was glad my dad wasn't there to see it maybe I was being too hard on Ty after all she was a mere elected official the real embarrassment was Bolan himself introduced at the beginning of the program as the rock star who disobeyed the government the pastor seemed intent on showing just how UNC one could be in the Pulpit Bolan began by suggesting that covid-19 was possibly being manipulated with the funding and blessing of Dr Anthony fouchy the man who put us in masks when he heard scattered booze Bolan egged on the crowd that's right go ahead the sanctuary filled with vicious jeers a minute later the pastor was boasting about how far he'd taken his insult of Governor Whitmer probably the most egregious thing I ever did Bolan said chuckling was I did do a Nazi salute and called her whitler I scanned the sanctuary not a single person seemed to register any objection or even surprise at this pastor boasting that he'd done a Nazi salute from the PO pulpit in my ensuing visits to Floodgate and in Long conversations with Bolan I never ceased to be a gas at what I heard it became clear that this type of extreme political expression was Central to his Church's identity and to his own raised in a broken home in Southern California Bolan told me he was a radical liberal before he came to Christ he began drinking and doing drugs when he was 9 years old at age 12 he met a church-going man who attempted to convert Bolan to Christianity the man subsequently tried to molest him Bolan said this incident accelerated his pursuit of self-destruction he dabbled in the occult ran with a violent gang and lived on the wrong side of the law he once got so high on LSD after sneaking into a Tom Petty concert that he jumped on stage and grabbed a guitar as he matured he discovered an interest in Progressive causes he became infatuated with Rober F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr committing himself to the art of protesting marches sit-ins hunger strikes no longer drawn to Witchcraft or gang activity Bolan became a proud hippie immersing himself in politics and counterculture activism then when he was 20 years old while packing for a cross-country hitchhiking trip he discovered an old Bible it was a long-forgotten gift from the man who tried to molest him I lifted it up and remember I'm a supernaturalist and felt like my arm was on fire Bolan told me and I Heard a Voice return to me or you will die Bolan got a ride to Reno Nevada where he had a Christian cousin he asked her if they could go to church together there was an altar call and I went down and got baptized that same afternoon Bolan said I've never been the same it changed who I am that change included his politics out on his Christian Journey working as a substance abuse counselor attending Bible College pastoring in churches from California to Pennsylvania Bolan found that many of his old stances were incompatible with his new faith in particular his views of abortion and religious freedom were turned upside down one thing didn't change I have always been prone to protesting Bolan told me then and now from there it was a familiar trajectory Bolan a Moral Majority era product of epistemologically homogeneous Evangelical institutions was quick to marry conservative theology to conservative ideology unlike many of the pastors his age I had met guys who eventually became disillusion by the religious rights hypocrisy and ruthless approach to the culture Bolan believed that evangelicals didn't go far enough Christians have languished with their participation in politics he told me which is one of the reasons we're in in this dire position as a nation as a young Christian Bolan says the more he studied history of the church and of America the more he came to appreciate how pastors used to be the primary influencers in their communities in determining who we elected he aimed to restore that tradition in his own Ministry when Bolan arrived at Floodgate in 2010 the church founded in 1972 and Once Upon a Time called The Father's house was mostly a political it was pro-life but the more aggressive stance on politics did not exist Bolan recalled when he said about changing that people either adapted to it or they left Bolan said his congregation always hovered around 100 during his first decade at the church he leaned into plenty of political controversies including Trump's candidacy but his membership stayed flat looking back it's fair to wonder whether that's because he was on the wrong side of that particular issue Donald Trump was the last person I wanted elected president Bolan told me releasing a belly laugh he thought Trump was a charlatan a lifelong Democrat who was defrauding conservative voters and all the attacks the crudeness of his speech I found it to be rather repulsive Bolan said what happened he proved me wrong Bolan replied he turned out to be the most pro-life president we've ever had his influence on the courts will change the country for the next 50 years years because of those two issues alone the life issue and the remaking of the Judiciary I admire the man I asked Bolan to help me unpack this emotional Arc from repulsion to admiration in the space of just a few years he answered by pivoting away from his own Ur while opposition to Trump talking as though anyone who held the position he once did could not possibly have come by it honestly a lot of people say Christian shouldn't have been involved with supporting Donald Trump because of his ethics or as multiple marriages blah blah blah he said my answer to that would be at what point have we ever excluded people from politics because of their personal ethics this is the juncture at which most evangelicals would pause reflecting on their Crusade against Bill Clinton in the 1990s Bolan was part of it but he rejects the comparison Clinton he argued Was a Serial liar with a long history of being accused of sexual misconduct before I could pick my jaw up off the floor and ask how that differentiates Clinton from Trump Bolan started rattling off Fantastical fever dream allegations against not just Clinton but against the current President Joe Biden too describing the whole of the democratic party as Sinister and predatory as the conversation wore on Bolan sounded ashamed of having ever doubted Trump he itemized all the former president's accomplishments and rolled his eyes at the condescending Christians who were still bothered by Trump's personal ethics he defended the January 6th Insurrection as not a big deal in fact Bolan himself nearly traveled to Washington that day because a lot of people from our church were going and because I love Donald Trump and then the Pastor said something that made it all click Bolan believes Trump was not a Christian when he ran for president but became Born Again during his presidency under the influence of Mike Pence and other Christians in his orbit if that was true I asked Bolan did it bother him that Trump did nothing to help the man who helped bring him to Christ when that man's life was endangered on January 6th yes he replied blushingly before adding maybe don't quote me on that the Trump conversion experience having once been certain of his Darkness suddenly Awakening to see his light is not to be underestimated especially when it touches people whose lives revolve around Notions of transformation and yet it reflects a phenomenon greater than Trump himself modern evangelicalism is defined by a certain fatalism about the nation's character the result is not merely a willingness to forgive what is wrong it can be a belief bordering on a certainty that what is wrong is actually right Vern Hoffner was one of my dad's Elders the vetting process at Cornerstone was serious and Vern was a serious guy he earned a doctorate in management science held top corporate positions at IBM and General Motors and served as an elder at another large Church before moving to Brighton and joining Cornerstone he and his wife Nancy always struck me as reasonable folks there was never any reason to scrutinize them until I saw Vern and Nancy one morning in the spring of 2021 at Floodgate it was hardly surprising at this point to see Cornerstone expats sitting in bolan's pews I knew that my home church was in the world of Pastor Chris weinan suffering an exodus of members most people leaving Cornerstone were doing so because of specific objections that were peripheral to the mission of the church Winan's cautious handling of covid-19 his unwillingness to endorse Trump his General aversion to nationalist ideals anyone listing these grievances found a natural home at Floodgate I had assumed that these refugees were newer Christians spiritually immature people who didn't have a history of being discipled some of them were but lots of them were seasoned believers they were leaders in their former churches they weren't leaving for a lack of discipling they were leaving because they didn't want to be discipled they were people like ver Hoffner when I sat down with Vern and Nancy over coffee they looked anxious they confessed feeling a bit uncomfortable detailing their departure from Cornerstone to the son of the pastor they'd been loyal to for so many years I asked them what my dad's successor winens had done to lose their loyalty they exchanged glances we don't follow people we follow God Nancy said but the more time you spend in a church the more you learn it's a fallible Place full of fallible people people who will fail you Vern nodded his head absolute power corrupts absolutely they were speaking in code I asked the hoffers to explain what exactly went wrong at the church they attended for 20 years Cornerstone shut down Nancy said I know Co was a crisis but when you have a crisis why would you shut down the very place that's supposed to help people get through it the pastor there made that decision it was the wrong decision and Bill Bolan chose the opposite Vern told me that Co and Winan's decision to shutter Cornerstone should not be considered in a vacuum Godless government bureaucrats have been scheming for years to silence conservative Bible preaching churches he explained the pandemic was just a dry run any Pastor who folded in the face of this pressure Fern said wouldn't be able to protect their congregation when the real test came the church needs to stand up for itself that's what Bill Bolan is doing Vern said if what's happening right now keeps going it could be like Nazi Germany you better tow the party line or else we could have the same thing here I asked asked Vern to spell that out well the cancel culture the kicking people off various platforms our first amendment rights our Second Amendment rights we are under attack right now Christians are under attack because we're different he replied maybe it's not clear and present right now but if this trend continues pastors who talk about certain topics from the pulpit are going to wind up in jail Nancy noted that Democrats had done more to restrict Christians from worshiping during covid-19 than they had done to prevent Al immigrants from crossing the southern border they're spreading all over the country and they're carrying all kinds of diseases and they're being moved under the cover of night she said and look who's doing it the Catholic Church she shook her head in disgust I was struck by her tone and by the fact that Nancy had been involved with supporting missionaries during her time at Cornerstone perhaps sensing how callus his wife sounded Vern jumped in we're compassionate we want to help the people already here we want to keep this country strong he said our compassion is focused on not taking us down a path to socialism the more we talked the clearer it seemed that the hoffner's problem with Cornerstone wasn't covid-19 protocols the language they used about immigrants about America about Trump and Biden and the duty Christians have to engage in political combat was precisely the sort of thinking that winens was trying to disciple out of his congregants I recalled something Bolan had told me almost all his new members came bearing grievances against their former pastors he said but most of them had never considered leaving it took a pandemic and the closing of their churches for them to sever ties as I got to know more of the new arrivals at Floodgate that story checked out Jeff and Dedra Meyer started attending Floodgate in the summer of 2020 for years they had belonged to Oak Point Milford another Suburban Detroit Church though they were frustrated that the preaching wasn't more overtly political they were highly engaged leading a marriage Ministry active with other homeschoolers they were friends with the Pastor Paul jenkinson and his wife then covid hit when the church closed rumors flew about the board of Elders holding contentious late night meetings to debate pandemic protocols the longer the church remained locked the more people speculated on who was casting the deciding votes around that time George Floyd was murdered oako Novi the parent Church introduced a video series called conversations which featured interviews with black pastors and social justice activists I thought I was going to vomit Dedra told me recalling her reaction to one episode Jeff added it was the pastor's son who he claimed was a member of antifa in Canada lecturing on White Privilege and critical race Theory I could could not confirm that the pastor's son was in fact affiliated with antifa several people who know the family laughed when I asked the question that said the episode in question was clearly over the top brazenly injecting left-wing politics into a church that had been wary appropriately so about the incursion of right-wing politics after an outcry the pastor apologized for the ruptures that have occurred while the elders issued a separate statement denouncing critical race Theory it wasn't enough according to Jeff and Dedra they were just two members in a stampede out of oako Dedra had seen friends from other congregations also displaced by shutdowns posting on social media about Floodgate the first service she attended in which Pastor Bolan unapologetically advocated for people like Jeff and Dedra who felt cheated by their old churches brought her to tears Jeff was equally moved they had found a new home when Jeff and Dedra met with jenkinson to inform him that they were leaving the Milford Church tensions ran high their worst fears had already been confirmed a friend on the Elder board had told them that jenkinson their Pastor their friend had argued to keep the church closed Jeff and dedri grilled jenkinson on the church's refusal to engage with politics when they asked the pastor why despite being personally pro-life he never preached on abortion they got the response they dreaded he said I'd lose half my congregation Jeff recalled when I spoke with jenkinson he remembered the conversation somewhat differently Jeff and Dedra he told me weren't just pushing him on abortion they were challenging the pastor's policy of political neutrality from the pulpit and accusing him of taking the easy way out of the debates fracturing the church and I remember telling them the harder thing to do is what I'm doing the Pastor said this is how you lose people how you gain people is you pick a tribe raise a flag and be really loud about it that's how you gain a bunch of numbers that is so easy to do and it cheapens the gospel whatever the specifics of their exchange to Jeff and Dedra Jenkinson's stance amounted to cowardice I realize these are hard conversations but the reason we left Milford is they were never willing to have the conversation Jeff said they were just trying to keep everybody happy Paul is a conservative but his conservatism has no teeth Tony D Feliz was another new arrival at Floodgate and another Christian who got tired of his Pastor lacking teeth at his previous Church in the Democratic leaning Detroit suburb of Plymouth they didn't speak a single word about politics not on a single issue he told me when we got to Floodgate it confirmed for us what we'd been missing D fiss a building inspector had been attending the Plymouth Church for 14 years when the pandemic began he and his wife Linda had friends and family there one of their daughters still works on the church staff Tony and Linda had their share of complaints the church was too moderate and too Seeker friendly catering more to newcomers than longtime Christians but they had no plans to leave and then in March 2020 everything fell apart we didn't leave the church the church left us Tony told me Co the whole thing is the biggest lie perpetrated on human it that we're ever going to see In Our Lifetime and they fell for it Tony and Linda told me that Floodgate style as well as bolan's fiery messages on topics like vaccines and voter fraud changed the way they view their responsibilities as Christians this is about good against evil that's the world we live in it's a spiritual battle and we are right at the precipice of it Tony said this was the Gospel According to Bill Bolan just down the road at Cornerstone Chris weens was preaching something very different the Bible definitely portrays a spiritual battle that's ongoing the problem is a lot of Christians believe they're engaging in that battle by promoting a political platform and they treat that political battle as if the kingdom of God is at stake winens told me but the kingdom of God isn't at stake the Bible clearly tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood what Christ accomplished on the cross is not threatened by Donald Trump losing an election I could see why Vern and Nancy chose to leave Cornerstone people like the hoffers and the Myers's and the defiles were no longer interested in distinguishing between the political and the spiritual with the country on the brink of defeat at the hands of secularists and liberals churches could not afford to stay neutral an attack on Trump Tony D fiz told me was indeed an attack on Christianity he believed the 2020 election was stolen as part of a demonic plot against Christian America and he was confident that righteousness would Prevail states were going to begin desertify the results of the last election he insisted and Trump would be returned to office before the conclusion of Biden's first term the truth is coming out Tony said when I pressed him on these beliefs offering evidence that Biden won legitimately and probing for the source of his conviction Tony did not budge he is as conv Ed that Trump won the 2020 election he told me as he is that Jesus rose from the dead 2,000 years ago sitting inside a cramped office at the back of Floodgate Bill Bolan was second guessing himself it was the spring of 2022 in several conversations over the past year we had talked at length about extremism in his church there were people who were certain that Trump was still running the government people convinced that Biden didn't actually live in the White House people who swore by kinon people like Tony D Feliz who were willfully conflating their identities as Christians and Americans Bolan seemed at some level to be Reckoning with his role in this he told me he was worried about Christians getting their priorities mixed up he said he never intended for his rants about Biden or the 2020 election which are non-essentials to be taken with the seriousness of his statements about Jesus which are the essentials people should be coming to church for I do make a separation between our religious perspective and our political perspective Bolan told me I don't view political statements as being infallible that was putting it generously in the time I spent listening to Bolan preach sitting with him for interviews and following his Facebook page I recorded dozens of political statements that were either recklessly misleading or flat out false whenever I would challenge him asking for a source Bolan would either cite multiple articles he had read or send me a link to a website like headline USA or conservative Fighters then he would concede that the claims were in dispute and indicate that he didn't necessarily believe everything he said or posted this was a dangerous practice for anyone let alone someone trusted as a teacher of Truth Jesus did not take lightly the question of veracity contrasting himself with Satan the father of Lies Jesus described himself as truth incarnate and told his disciples that the truth will set you free this should be a terrifying thought for any professing Christian spreading lies is not only antithetical to the example of Christ it is doing the devil's work Bolan didn't seem burdened knowing that so many people were relying upon him to do the heavy lifting of discernment on their behalf many of the Backwater websites and podcasts to which the pastor attributed his comment Aries were the same ones cited to me by people from his church Floodgate had become a circular food chain of misinformation in a sense Christians have always lived a different epistemological existence than non-believers but this was something new something decidedly non essential at one point I showed Bowl in a Facebook post he had written months earlier I'm still wondering how 154 million votes were counted in a country where there are only 130 3 million registered voters this was posted to his page I told him well after the US Census Bureau had published data showing that more than 168 million Americans were registered to vote in 2020 a quick Google search would have given Bolan the accurate numbers yeah that's one I regret he said explaining that he subsequently learned that the numbers he posted were incorrect the post was still active Bolan texted me the following day saying he deleted it didn't he worry that if people saw him getting the easy things wrong they might suspect he's also getting the hard things wrong things like salvation and sanctification I really don't no not too much I don't Bolan said shaking his head back and forth hurriedly Firebrand statements have been part of the pulpit and a part of politics for as long as we've been a nation and there is a long history of both sides exaggerating like in a post like that still Bolan seemed rattled he began telling me about a couple of Democrats who attend Floodgate and have rebuked him for his political rhetoric but who have reassured him Bolan says when it comes to the word you're Rock Solid then he told me something unexpected he was thinking of scaling back headline news on Sunday mornings maybe he would just read news Clips verbatim he suggested without adding commentary or maybe he would cut the political headlines in half adding some feel-good news to balance the mood the more he thought about it Bolan said he might just cut the segment all together posting those political musings on Facebook but keeping them out of worship we're now going from pandemic to endemic our culture will change there will no longer be this massive division over covid Bolan said the fervency is going to die down except there would always be something new literally moments before he talked about the fervency dying down Bolan previewed a shtick he was going to deliver on Sunday morning about Apple adding a pregnant man emoji to the iPhone there was no going back the dopamine Rush supplied by dropping rhetorical bombs on left-wing targets owning the libs as the young conservatives say had become addictive to Bolan yet this approach is irreconcilable with the words of Paul who told us if it is possible as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone later in that same letter to the Romans he reminds Christians of Solomon's proverb if your enemy is hungry give him food to eat if he is thirsty give him water to drink in doing this you will Heap burning coals on his head and the Lord will reward you these words written at the end of chapter 12 happen to preface Paul's instruction to submit to governing authorities in Chapter 13 the text cited by pastors who agreed to close their doors for a short time during Co Bolan had diagnosed in some detail the Sorting within evangelicalism the scramble of Christians switching congregations churches rising and falling pastors adapting or heading for the exits it occurred to me as he reflected on the meteoric growth of his ministry that Bolan had gotten himself into something from which there was no escape the moment he stopped lighting fires from the pulpit at Floodgate how many of its members who were now accustomed to that sort of Inferno who came to Floodgate precisely because they wanted the heat would go looking for it elsewhere Bolan wasn't going to take that risk just recently he said the church had sold the building we were sitting in where the congregation had met since the 1970s and purchased a sprawling complex down the road Bolan said that Floodgate Revenue had multiplied sixfold since 2020 it was now charging ahead into an era of expansion with ambitions of becoming Southeast michigans next mega church I had never seen a sanctuary so full on a Tuesday night the people packed into Floodgate weren't here for bowling no they had come out by the hundreds decked out in patriotic attire to hear from a man who was introduced to them as America's greatest living historian they had come for David Barton it would be of little use to tell the folks around me that Barton wasn't a real historian they wouldn't care that he had no formal training that his lone academic credential was a bachelor's degree in religious education from Oral Roberts University that he was a punchline in the community of letters it wouldn't matter that Barton's 2012 book on Thomas Jefferson was recalled by Thomas Nelson the world's largest Christian publisher for its countless inaccuracies or that a panel of 10 Conservative Christian academics who reviewed Barton's body of work in the aftermath of that Affair ripped the entirety of his scholarship to shreds it would not bother the congregants of Floodgate Church to learn that they were listening to a political Hustler masquerading as a scholar a man whose work was found by one of America's foremost conservative theologians to include embarrassing factual erors suspiciously selective quotes and highly misleading claims all this would be irrelevant to the people around me because David Barton was one of them he believed the separation of church and state was a myth he believed America should be declared a Christian Nation he believed the time had come for evangelicals to reclaim their rightful place at top the nation's core governmental and cultural institutions hence the hero's welcome Barton received when he rolled into Floodgate with his American Restoration tour throughout his Decades of public life working for the Republican Party forming alliances with powerful politicians becoming a darling of Fox News launching a small propaganda Empire preaching at churches like First Baptist Dallas carving out a niche as the American rights chosen pedaller of nostalgic alternative facts Barton had never been shy about his ultimate aims he is an avowed Christian nationalist who favors Theocratic rule moreover he is a so-called dominionist someone who believes Christians should control not only the government but also the media the education system and other cultural institutions this is what the American Restoration tour was all about restoring a version of America that never existed there was a time when Barton for all his trickery and misdirection was genuinely compelling but this performance had all the passion of a late night encyclopedia infomercial in a baggy dark suit and bright orange tie clicker in hand Barton droned through a slideshow that patched together quotes and dates and bygone events to make his case that America is a good Nation because it was founded as a Godly Nation inconvenient episodes such as slavery were relegated to a footnote Barton assured us that America's misdeeds were relatively minor all Races all people all nations have had slavery and been slaves at some point themselves he said nonchalantly and that secular progressives were deliberately amplifying them to diminish that goodness and godliness of America Barton was so loose with his facts so lazy with his analysis that he made Bolan look meticulous by comparison at one point Barton told the story of a black evangelist named Harry hoer who traveled the American frontier preaching to farmers in the early 1800s asserting that Indiana residents hooers had inherited their nickname from a black Christian a claim that is not factual Barton marveled at the people who somehow believe that America has a problem with racism inside this house of worship Barton spent an hour and 15 minutes exalting a curious version of the Christian ideal he slammed gun restrictions and progressive income taxes government healthc care and state-run education curriculum at one point while denouncing critical race theory he posted an ominous slide showing logos for the New York Times 1619 project and black lives matter framed around a Soviet hammer and sickle rounding out the collage were antifa and Anarchist symbols the left Barton said was encouraging rioting rebellion and radicalization that threatened our blessed Nation from within after citing that familiar verse from 2 Chronicles 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 Barton closed with a quote from Charles Finny the FED of evangelist Barton explained had led 100,000 people to Christ in one year during the early 19th century he was Central to the Second Great Awakening and preached that Revival would only come to people who were pursuing it part of that Pursuit Barton said quoting finny was to realize that politics are a part of religion in America and Christians must do their duty to their country is a part of their duty to God Barton's final slide at least before before he began Hawking his books which were available on his website and outside in the lobby area featured a fuzzy shot of finny against the black screen in Vivid White finny's words were proclaimed by Barton God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics this was in fact a paraphrasing of finny's words and not a direct quote the sort of small detail to which most historians pay close attention when Barton stepped down from the stage nodding to acknowledge the standing ovation Chad Connelly jogged up to take his place Connelly was Barton's partner the other half of the American Restoration tour he was also an old acquaintance from my time spent covering campaigns in South Carolina where he had shared the state Republican party he had jumped to the Republican National Committee in 2013 accepting an appointment as the national party's first ever director of Faith engagement after mobilizing evangelicals to vote for Trump in 2016 Connelly launched his own Venture a group called Faith wins which sought to replicate that model and turn out conservative Christians on behalf of GOP causes Nationwide Faith wins is a nonprofit like Barton's organization wall buers and thus cannot explicitly endorse candidates or parties but the American Restoration tour made no secret of its partisan affiliations Connelly a husky energetic Southerner had opened the event by declaring that people like like them needed to take this nation back for God by the end of Barton's presentation there wasn't much ambiguity about what the white conservative Christians in the audience needed to do to take America back or who they needed to take it back from as Conley launched into his own homy encouraging people to visit his website and join their movement it struck me that the American Restoration tour represented more than another grifting scheme though it certainly was there wall Builders raised $5.5 million in 2021 while Faith wins a much smaller organization collected an impressive $800,000 in 2022 this road show was a call and response for American evangelicals it was a lesson in being under siege and a tutorial in going on the attack Barton and Connelly had cooked up a slick codependent rendering of the crisis facing Christians in this country theirs was an all-inclusive offering that packaged the problem with the solution Barton had convinced the people at Floodgate church that their kingdom was being overrun now Connelly wanted to know what were they going to do about it part two the power chapter 8 Columbus Ohio you are the salt of the earth but if the salt loses its saltiness how can it be made salty again it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot Matthew 5: 13 Gary click the state representative from Ohio's 88th house district explained how his recent Sunday sermon had emphasized the Buckeye State's biblical ethos Ohio was the only state in the Union with a motto With God all things are possible lifted directly from the scriptures then click the senior pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple reminded us that November 8th 2016 was the day Christians changed America by electing Donald Trump and restoring hope to a nation in Decline finally click the candidate standing for reelection in the fall of 2022 6 months away said that despite being pitted against Wicked progressives who want to groom our kids into sadistic sexual rights evangelicals must remember they have a secret weapon on their side I assumed he was referring to Jesus Donald Trump appointed three very constitutional judges to the US Supreme Court click said who were helping Christians to retake control of America at that point he clarified this is not a campaign event you wouldn't know it we were after all inside the atrium of the Ohio state capital building and click had just run through a list of Republican dignitaries who were on hand numerous lawmakers school board members the state auditor and two Ohio Supreme Court Justices click highlighted some of the work he and like-minded Christian conservatives were doing to defeat the left the people around me a couple hundred of them clapped and cheered then detailing the tight margins of that 2016 election it was the Christian vote that made the difference click introduced the Republican operative who had mobilized the masses of evangelicals to vote all across the country tipping the election to Trump Chad Connelly theatrical music filled the atrium two massive screens flanking the stage showed Connelly striking a Patriots pose in front of Old Glory Faith wins when people of Faith vote their values he announced in his boisterous Southern twang eyes boring straight into the camera the promotional video told of connell's exploits over the past few years his organization had partnered with 50,000 church leaders and registered more than 1 million Christians to vote these reinforcements were desperately needed because according to the Montage of clergymen who vouched for connell's organization America was flirting with Annihilation the battle for the soul of our nation has never been greater than it is today said pastor Josiah Kagan from karing Ohio America's founding principles that were built on biblical values are under attack said Pastor Jake samples from DeBry Florida this said Byron Fox a televangelist from Virginia is our 1776 moment when Connelly stepped to the microphone he laid the urgency on thick this was the 16 State visited by the American Restoration tour over the past 3 months he and David Barton had spoken to hundreds of churches in that time and engaged with tens of thousands of Christian voters their goal for the election year 2022 Connelly said was to double the 1 million voters they had registered over the previous few years we're losing the country we're losing the country he told the audience if Christians who outnumber all the whiners and complainers and God haters and America if Christians would just be the salt and light that Jesus asked us to be we wouldn't have this mess connell's called to action was straightforward we need to make sure everybody in our churches is registered to vote and all of them are voting biblical values he said hesitating just as click had done a little while earlier Connelly added we don't tell him who to vote for this isn't about party or politicians it's about policies and principles that most closely align with our Biblical IC world viw this whole Road show was expressly designed to turn out voters to help the GOP win elections and yet Connelly swore to us this was not about partisanship he was not fighting to promote Republican values he was fighting to promote American values and that meant he was fighting to promote Christian values when it was Barton's turn he built on this theme America is special because of our ideas he said but those ideas hadn't come from men they had come from God through the mouths of revolutionary era preachers who laid the groundwork for the Rebellion against Great Britain with their sermons and appeals to Heaven citing The Works of several long since forgotten clergymen Barton made the case that every issue Americans face today from war to welfare to health care to taxation was preached about in sermons in early America his point was that the Bible is not just a spiritual text but a governing manual one that explicitly informed our system of self-rule from the very beginning this was conventional wisdom in America for almost the first two centuries of its existence Barton argued then came the 1960s prayer was banned from public schools social policies were designed to undermine the family unit patriotism became a dirty word Christians responded to this cultural upheaval by compartmentalizing our faith he said drawing lines between private religious conviction and public facing Civic engagement to the extent Christians got involved Barton claimed it was in the big picture voting in presidential elections and rallying around issues of national relevance as a result Democrats were left alone to radicalize communities with under the radar policymaking through libraries School boards City councils and other hyper local entities Barton unpacked a scary and based on the available public polling mostly inaccurate collection of Statistics three in 10 Millennials identify as lgbtq he said whereas less than 2% of their parents did half of Millennials prefer socialism over capitalism whereas 14% of their parents did only a third of Millennials believe in God whereas 89% of their parents did what's going on Barton asked he answered his question by quoting Jesus in Luke 6 every student when fully trained will be like his teacher Barton shook his head in disgust schools have become the enemy of the country he said there was hope however Barton cited Republican Glenn yin's surprising victory in the Virginia Governor's race a year earlier it was proof he said that evangelicals had finally gotten off the sidelines with some help of course from his partner organization Faith wins Barton claimed that Connelly's group worked with 312 churches in Virginia to identify 77,000 congregants who had never voted before Barton built up to a dramatic reveal youngin won by 66,000 votes the crowd buzzed with delight it was the same story Barton said in heavily Progressive places around the country St Paul Denver Boise and elsewhere flashing news headlines onto the screens touting Republican victories in local races typically the candidates had run on a platform of opposing critical race Theory or covid-19 restrictions Barton concluded that a pattern was emerging wherever churches got involved Republican candidates were winning key elections at the local level unlike click and Connelly who had played dumb about the nakedly partisan aims of this event Barton didn't bother speaking in code it was a refreshing bit of honesty from the most dishonest man in the room Barton who once served as Vice chairman of the Texas GOP and who had quietly built a super pack to Aid Ted Cruz's presidential run in 2016 had long been known for hiding his political agenda behind a scholarly veneer not anymore time was running out the fate of America was hanging in the balance and now he was spoiling for a fight right on Q Barton returned to the theme of the American Revolution despite being massively outnumbered by the Red Coats the colonial forces under George Washington were successful because they focused on winning small battles it was local churches sometimes led into combat by their pastors that were instrumental in defeating the superior British forces this was the model it was time Barton said for Christians to Leverage The organizational muscle of their congregations to defeat Progressive causes in their neighborhoods and towns win enough of these individual battles and the war for America's Soul could yet be won the event wound down in predictable fashion there was Charles finny's contorted quote God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians Tak in politics connell's plea to scan the QR code and visit the faith winds website and a slide promoting Barton's various books that were available at wallbuilders.com click pulled out a signed copy of the founders Bible by Barton and recommended everyone buy it as you do your devotions in the morning you get a little bit of history with the attendees making a beine toward Barton in search of selfies and autographs I pulled conally aside we had spoken a handful of times over the years always in the context of South Carolina politics and I wanted to reintroduce myself he remembered me right away and seemed nervous about why I was there I told him him about the reporting I'd done at churches and the concerns I had about how political extremism was infiltrating American evangelicalism Connelly frowned Christians have a responsibility before God to get involved he said how can you be Salt and Light if you're not engaged with politics churches have failed us pastors have failed us before I could respond click rushed over he looked frazzled why aren there any books to sell he asked Connelly all these people want to buy David's books Connelly winced I wasn't sure of the rules I thought it might be inappropriate he replied motioning toward our stately surroundings then Connelly perked upk wek be selling them at the church later today he told click tell him to follow us there the American Restoration tour had one more stop to make before leaving Ohio I asked conell if I could follow them too I wanted to know more about these pastors who were failing us conell agreed and I aimed my minivan West leaving the capital of Columbus for a little place called vandelia Pat Murray the leader of Living Word Church was connell's kind of Pastor standing before many hundreds of his members inside a cavernous beijan white colored Sanctuary Murray asked that everyone stand to your feet and grab the hand of another American so that he might pray over the proceedings beseeching God to save the nation Murray spelled out the path to Salvation for those who aren't registered to vote God I pray in Jesus's name you would touch them right now the Americans inside the church were treated to something extra on this Monday night Connelly decided that after showing the faith wins promotional video and before introducing Barton he would share his own testimony hailing from small town Prosperity South Carol Ina Connelly had been raised to know the Lord had tried to walk Faithfully in his ways but found himself at a Crossroads upon finding his wife in a pool of blood after she'd committed suicide Connelly said he heard a voice from the devil you failed he was inclined to agree but the people of his church wouldn't let him they wrapped Connelly in his two young sons in the love of Christ they protected them nurtured their faith eventually a wise older friend from the church a Democrat Believe It or Not introduced Connelly to a young Widow with two children of her own I got to watch Faith work he explained I got to watch God Work transitioning from his own story to the ongoing struggle for America Connelly said that God's work is never finished the nation could still be spared but he emphasized the Lord needs our cooperation we're losing the country y'all we losing the country to people who don't even understand what made it special Connelly said Christians need to stand up and to do that they need the truth Connelly pointed to Barton this guy has got the truth as the two men switched places and Barton launched into his slideshow homy I wrestled with competing impressions of Connelly he was hard not to like he was warm and self-deprecating someone who quoted scripture as naturally as he quipped redneck on liners it seemed plausible that he wasn't just running a gospel-based grift that unlike Barton he was a man of integrity and real conviction but then why would anyone of integrity and real conviction tore the country with a known Huer like Barton Connelly had to know how silly this operation looked from the outside how did he justify the damage being done not to his own reputation necessarily but to the witness of the Gospel the American Restoration tour was turning pastors into pundits and church sanctuaries into Fox News sets to what end as we sat down in the Sleek designer coffee shop situated just outside the Worship Center Living Word was the finest Building Development I saw in all of velia Connelly could sense my skepticism let's go we'll do the King James version I've got it marked he told me pulling out his leather Bible and turning to Matthew 5 ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt have lost his Savor wherewith shall it be salted it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trotten under foot of men Connelly read ye are the light of the world a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel but on a Candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven put down the Bible and threw up his hands how do I be salt and lighten the culture except that I engage the culture Connelly asked this sounded familiar over the past few years almost every Evangelical ey questioned about the co-mingling of politics and religion responded with some variation of Salt and Light the difficulty is biblical Scholars have never agreed on what exactly Jesus meant by this surely he was encouraging Christians to be distinct to flavor this world to shine in its Darkness but people like Connelly were taking it a step further they supposed and preached with absolute certainty that we should be distinct by fighting for Christian values inside America's secular political Arena yet plenty of other believers including Believers of a conservative disposition feel quite confident that we should be distinct by not prioritizing America's secular political Arena at all it's notable that Jesus references salt in three of the four gospels in each account Jesus warns about salt losing its saltiness its taste its character Jesus talks about salt not as an additive necessarily but as something unique that should be guarded against contamination in Matthew he says salt without flavor is good only to be trampled beneath our feet along with other ordinary rocks in Luke he says it has lost its purpose entirely and should be disposed of most Christians would agree that a healthy dose of civic participation including political engagement does not risk contaminating our distinct flavor but how quickly the unique can become ordinary some people hear we're losing the country and decide to run for Schoolboard others hear it and travel to Washington DC to disrupt the peaceful transition of power did Connelly worry in the context of campaigning inside houses of worship about a blurry line between engagement and idolatry he gave me a puzzled look America has been The Shining City on the hill for the rest of the world just look at the long line of people coming here Connelly said our 4% of the world's population gives like 80 cents of total missionary dollars worldwide so there's a reason the enemy would try to take us down and divide us it wasn't clear if the enemy referred to Satan or to the secular progressives he'd been bashing during his American Restoration tour the Russians currently making war in Ukraine or the low salt diet adherence here in America those who wouldn't buy the Barton books or those who thought it curious that it was just fine to sell them in a church but not in a governing edifice before I could ask a man interrupted us he was a pastor from a nearby Town Connelly had never met him but quickly vaulted from his seat shook the pastor's hand and complimented his Georgia Bulldog shirt the pastor seemed conflicted he was worried about the country he said but wasn't sure he felt comfortable handing over his church to political operators we do talk about some of the big issues the pastor told Connelly I just don't know do you do vote a registration Connelly cut him off the pastor shook his head we have not we could I suppose Chad was in sale closing mode listen hit that QR code he said pointing to a poster nearby here's my card email me I'll send you everything you need we'll get you set up right the man nodded still looking torn and thanked Connelly as he walked away Connelly turned to me I have a hundred of those conversations a week he said I don't think that Pastor's going to take things too far do you it was evident I replied that the pastor himself worried that he might not everyone thinks voter registration drives or any sort of electioneering activity are appropriate inside a temple of the Lord this returned us to the concept of a slippery slope the church that wads into politics with a voter registration Drive might one day find its Sunday morning worship interrupted with headline news like at Floodgate Church in Brighton Michigan I haven't been there Connelly Shrugged yes I replied he had been there it was at Floodgate the previous fall that I first encountered their American Restoration tour and it turned out Connelly and Barton had just been back to Floodgate for an encore presentation the week before this Ohio trip Connelly Shrugged again look I don't get to know all these pastors I can't remember them he said I can't remember the name of the church I was at this morning this wasn't a guilt by association exercise the point I suggested to Connelly is that he'd spent the last 40 minutes insisting that churches were not being radicalized by politics swearing that he'd never seen any examples of what I was warning about but it turned out he had twice recently visited a church that had plainly lost sight of its Mission and Connelly did not recognize it Connelly conceited that he's heard of Church's fracturing but that's nothing new I've had people leave our church over the color of the carpet there's always been fighting in churches he replied I'm genuinely struggling to think of some new issue that's dividing churches as we talked it became obvious that Connelly lived deep inside a bubble his home Church a southern baptist congregation in Prosperity South Carolina had only closed for 2 weeks during covid-19 the congregation was monolithic white Conservative Republican Trump supporting it would make sense that he hadn't experienced fault lines around elections or vaccines or racism Obama created the race problem in America he pronounced at one point all but confirming the absence of any black Christians in his Bible study I asked Connelly if he could try to understand how these divisions were surfacing in churches different from his own and if you keep your focus on Jesus Christ it washes a lot of those other things away because he keeps preeminence in the church he replied if you take the spotlight off Jesus and put it on anything else you're going to have division within moments of these words leaving connell's lips a man walked out of the sanctuary and approached the coffee area he was wearing a red make America great again baseball cap so I said to Connelly about taking the spotlight off Jesus he gave me a politician's grin I wouldn't wear any hat to church people hustled out of the Worship Center toward the popup Market where a team of older ladies awaited before them small towers of Barton's books had been erected within minutes of the event wrapping up a line stretched all the way back to the coffee shop I felt a certain queasiness at the scene Connelly and Barton weren't comfortable selling these products inside a state capital building but they had no qualms about setting up money tables inside a church the people in line were a colorful sort some dressed casually for the week night Gathering others mostly older folks wore formal Church attire what stood out was how many people were dressed for a political rally there were flag draped jackets artillery themed shirts shirts camouflage hats and naturally an assortment of magga gear bad news hollered one of the cashier ladies we've sold out of books groans came from the dozens of people still waiting in line here's the good news she continued if you sign up to become a wall Builder member and join our email list tonight we'll send you a link to get 30% off of any of David's books the people shouted their approval one of them was Jim Wright he wore a collared shirt that embossed the cursive script of the Declaration of Independence over a yellowed but resilient flag he had a thick white beard and twinkling eyes that would allow him to pass for a slender Santa Claus he toted a copy of the 1599 Geneva Bible Patriots Edition the cover of which showed Washington Crossing the Delaware Wright had hoped to purchase a complimenting product Barton's own the founders Bible which literally wraps the good book in Old Glory but they had just sold out the publication of patriotic themed Bibles has long been a cottage industry on the right Donald Trump Jr would later that year begin to Hawk copies of the We the People Bible which he promised would uphold our American judeo Christian values Wright didn't want the founders Bible merely because Barton was his favorite author and historian he wanted it rright explained because the book wouldn't be available for much longer the government was coming for books like this and it was coming for people like him under President Joe Biden Wright said bureaucrats would soon mobilize to curtail our rights and our free speech and freedom of religion I asked right where he'd gotten that impression one place was the internet he was an Avid Reader of websites like zeroedge Lou rockwell.com the new american.com humans bef free.com and the citizens Free Press he also subscribed to the David Night Show podcast a spin-off from Infowars that makes Alex Jones look decaffeinated by comparison the other place was church for many years wri and his wife were members of a nearby congregation Southbrook that was more liberal by this Wright told me he meant that the church did not engage in political campaigning his wife still attends Southbrook but Wright broke away a few years earlier upset that its Pastor was refusing to speak to the imminent threats facing Christianity in America when he walked into Living Word church and heard the calls to action from Pastor Pat Murray Wright knew that he'd found a home the Bible says we don't wrestle against flesh and blood but against the powers of the air but those powers of the air are becoming more physical more flesh and blood Wright told me we're seeing it every day asked for examples Wright assured me that the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump that a global cabal had seized control of both American political parties that the covid-19 virus had been manufactured to control the population that vaccines made from aborted babies had killed millions of people by Design and that Christian Elites were involved in all of it look at Francis Collins Wright said referring to the man who until recently had led the National Institutes of Health I replied that Collins was highly regarded in Evangelical circles that while his policies and decisions were certainly fair game to criticize he was known to be a faithful brother in Christ no no no Wright said shaking his head follow the baby Parts this was the type of anecdote that if relayed to Connelly would be met with eye rolling he would dismiss right as a crackpot who might be found on the periphery of any group there would be some truth trth to this people like Wright did not constitute a majority of American evangelicalism yet they were everywhere I went whether it was a big Urban church or a small rural Church a mainstream event with respected Headliners or a sideshow circus featuring professional grifters I kept running into people like Jim Wright at one point they had been typical Christians people who Shrugged off the noise of the world and focused on Jesus but the world had since gotten to them and when they came to Gatherings like these when they heard Barton and Connelly implore Christians to take their country back before it was too late there was no telling exactly how they might interpret that message I always thought we'd have a major event in my lifetime an uprising a revolution Wright told me some Christians say we should stay out of politics that we don't have to worry about any of this because this isn't our home but it is our home right now and the persecution that's all around the world is coming for us Wright said the present offensive against Christianity private citizens being coerced by the state traditional thinkers being marginalized in Academia and Corporate America is only the beginning things are going to get much worse Christians are right he said to pursue partisan victories to keep this persecution at Bay but it's only a temporary solution escalation he said is inevitable we're not looking for a fight but we have a sword of TR truth Wright told me nodding to his Bible we're fighting a spiritual battle and it could turn into a physical battle before long a few months later I rejoined the American Restoration tour back in Michigan determined this time to avoid Fringe characters Connelly thought I'd been going around cherry-picking crazy Christians and using them to paint his entire movement in an unsavory light in truth I was desperate to meet some normal ones at our next meeting Connelly promised to bring along some Pastor friends to add some balance to my reporting seated in the sanctuary of our savior Evangelical Lutheran Church I felt a tap on the shoulder The Man Behind Me looked familiar it was Matthew Shepard an activist I'd seen at right-wing political rallies around Michigan I had first met him at a tailgate outside a local Ford plant where then president Trump was speaking to automakers the scene was Unforgettable Shepherd stood in the bed of his orange paramilitary style truck adorned with American flags and tea party slogans chanting against the Democratic governor for her covid-19 policies 2 years later Shephard and I were making small talk in the sanctuary of our savior I asked him what brought him to the church I'm a chaplain he responded with the Great Commission before I could indulge him this was clearly not a real position with any actual organization the American Restoration tour was back underway the pastor of the host Church a young man named Chris Toma opened by noting the privilege of sharing the stage with Barton and Connelly it was Barton he said who had inspired him to enter the ministry and he had recently gotten to know Connelly at an event in San Diego I knew what tomo was referring to it was the first ever Pastor Summit put on by Charlie Kirk the activist who described Trump as the most moral president on record and his organization Turning Point USA Connelly had gone all in partnering with Barton was bad enough there was something especially foul about allying with Kirk a Serial liar and professional political arsonist in a campaign to advance Christian virtue Connelly announced to the crowd that the footprint of Faith wins was expanding every day he and Barton had taken their American Restoration t to 23 States during this election year and were closing in on their voter registration goals this was being accomplished he noted with the help of pastors like Chris Toma who weren't Squishy in their convictions sensing an opportunity Connelly decided to challenge everyone in the room are you going to be a squish or someone who stands for truth he said the sanctuary rumbled in response as Barton began his presentation I slipped away way to a Parlor Room at the back of the sanctuary Connelly wanted me to meet three local pastors who stood for truth seated around a large rectangular folding table were Connelly Donald een the pastor of Metro Church of Christ in Sterling Heights Jeffrey Hall the pastor of community Faith Church in Holt and Dominic burkhard who described himself as a full-time missionary to the legislature in Lancing Connelly opened by summarizing for his friend the conversations we'd been having about political activism tearing churches apart clearly expecting that they would back him up Connelly again announced that he'd seen no such thing in his tour of hundreds of churches around the country and asked the pastors to weigh in there's definitely some political divisions here in Michigan churches said Hall een nodded lots of political division Co definitely drew some lines Hall continued I had people calling and emailing our Church asking if we were open they had come from churches that closed and they wanted to know if we were taking a hard stance against the government I never wanted to make a war with the government we closed for about a month I just wanted to honor God but some people weren't looking for that I reminded Connelly of the story of Floodgate Church which had made war with the government and increased its membership tfold the church's expansive new campus was miles down the road from where we were sitting Connelly gave me that familiar far-off look he's talking about Bill Bolan een chimed in I asked een how he knew about Floodgate Pastor oh I know about Bolan een said with an uneasy smile we all know about Bolan Connelly still claimed to not know about Bolan so the others filled him in the refusal to comply during Co the cries of martyrdom the attacks on Whitmer the alliances with right-wing politicians and activists well he'd be a unicorn in our crowd Connelly said I don't know any other pastors like that but Connelly had just been in San Diego with Charlie Kirk and a small army of pastors exactly like that it was true that much of the turmoil in churches was coming from the bottom up with radicalized members rebelling against the insufficient political efforts of their pastors but it was also true that a growing number of conservative pastors were doing just what Bolan had done at Floodgate meanwhile it was the pastors who refused the pastors who didn't want to host the American Restoration tour in their sanctuaries whom Connelly had deemed squishes we had come full circle from our conversation at the Ohio Capital Connelly told me then that pastors failed Us by not getting their churches involved with politics now he was doubling down you know what the research tells us is the biggest reason people leave church they say it's not relevant why would they come when the pastor isn't teaching me how to Think Through the issues Connelly said Christian should permeate the culture not be separated from it the way for Christianity to permeate the culture he insisted was by tackling these great debates of our time abortion homosexuality transgenderism I didn't bother questioning why Connelly always listed the same narrow set of topics the answer was apparent talking about other clear-cut biblical issues such as caring for the poor and welcoming the refugee and refusing the temptation of wealth did not animate the conservative base ahead of an election or relatedly manifest as moral imperatives nearly as often on Fox News there were more pressing questions on my mind Connelly's organization was called Faith wins but what did that even mean could Faith really win or lose something it all just felt so trivial if we believe that Jesus has defeated death why are we consumed with winning a political campaign why should we care that we're losing power on this earth when has the power to forgive sins and save souls and why should we obsess over America when Jesus has gifted US citizenship in heaven burkhard the lobbyist missionary and Lancing jumped in people need to be saved and America needs to be saved it's perfectly good to want both he said there's nothing wrong with trying to save America somebody needs to try to do it somebody needs to try to save America een seated to burkhart's right shook his head in disagreement the more we'd been talking about this he confessed the more uneasy he felt he believed like Connelly did that Christianity was in the crosshairs of the American left but he had just preached a sermon that was weighing on him it was about the uniqueness of the early Christian Church he had described for his congregation how Christians had gained influence and won converts by being countercultural by rejecting the trends that preoccupied so much of the world around them American evangelicals een said would do well to study that tradition our goal should be to save Souls not to save America the reality is we can't save America anyway unless we're saving those Souls first he said to burkard we can fight for America all day long but if we don't save the people here it won't matter the great obstacle to saving Souls I suggested wasn't drag queen performances or critical race Theory it was the perception among the unbelieving masses the very people these evangelicals were called to evangelize that Christians care more about reclaiming lost Social Status than we do about loving our neighbors as ourselves I relayed what Chris winens the pastor of my hometown church had said about evangelicals too many of them worship America Connelly looked incredulous he turned to his Pastor friends I don't see that happening he told them you see any of that oh I see it Hall said I know of a pastor who just recently stood up in his pulpit and told people that they're insane if they vote Democrat this fall een had similar stories to tell I pointed out that Al Mohler the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary one of America's most prominent Christian conservatives had recently said something similar this was not an anomaly pastors and church officials and Evangelical leaders were feeling the pressure to classify Jesus as a registered Republican and they were feeling it from people like Chad Connelly thoroughly flustered now Connelly argued that if pastors didn't address current events head on the Christians in their care would resort to secular sources to form their political viewpoints the way to ensure that Christians vote biblical values he said was for pastors to preach politics this struck me as completely backward if pastors were doing their job going deep in the word discipling their flocks stressing scripture and prayer above social media and talk radio their people wouldn't need to be infantilized with explicit partisan endorsements those Christians would know how to vote biblically because they would know their Bible Connelly whipped his head back and forth I'd love to meet a pastor who thinks he's doing a good enough job discipling to where he doesn't need to engage with this stuff because that Pastor is deceived he's badly deceived he said I've told my Sunday school class don't tell anybody you're doing a good job telling people about Jesus because we're losing the culture if we were doing a good job telling people about Jesus we wouldn't be losing the culture this fixation on winning and losing was revealing in the sanctuary behind us a body of Christians had just sat through an hour-long lecture that was designed to make them smarter and more powerful citizens they were supposed to take the information Barton had given them conell instructed then charg into the trenches of America's political Battlefield and yet there was no instruction on how to fight there was no perspective on the appropriate way to win there was no lesson on what John Dixon described as losing well this was very much by Design because losing in the eyes of men like Connelly and Barton was no longer an option the stakes are too high Connelly told me at one point to seed any ground to the opposition unsavory alliances would need to be forged sorted tactics would need to be embraced the first step toward preserving Christian values it seemed was to do away with Christian values chapter 9 Nashville Tennessee you brood of vipers how can you who are evil say anything good for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of a good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him Matthew 12: 34 and 35 at 61 years old Ralph Reed's bronzed skin exposes Nara wrinkle his perfectly parted swoop of hair remains Brown and boyish he car himself with a lightness that is so inspiring as to be suspicious it was the third and final day of road to majority the annual Symposium organized by Reed's faith and freedom Coalition the last 48 hours had been a chorus of wailing and nashing of teeth dozens of politicians and Evangelical leaders had taken to Reed's Podium warning that it was open season on Christians in America urging attendees and anyone watching from home via Fox news's live streaming service to vote Republican in 2022 and end the secular occupation November was 5 months away they said and if Democrats were left in charge of the country we might never get it back yet here presiding over this funeral for Christian America was a man who wore a wedding photo smile to match the designer pinstriped suit purple tie and corresponding pocket square polished rings on both hands cuff links the size of half dollars stretching out his arms to remind everyone of the good news we know how the story ends Reed announced to the faithful on the first day of the conference his words were a reminder Reed told me later that Christians should never be discouraged that God is Sovereign over the universe no matter our woes in America I think he believed that but I knew it wasn't the reason he was smiling for the past 30 years no person has done more to organize mobilize and manipulate the political sensibilities of American Christians than Ralph Eugene Reed Jr the son of a Navy man he was born in Virginia raised in Florida and educated in Georgia but Reed came of age in Washington DC where early in Ronald Reagan's presidency he fell in with a company of influential young conservatives such as Grover norquist and Jack abramof Rising fast in the GOP ranks and by his own admission hesitating at no dirty deed Reed faced a decision after praying to accept Jesus in the mid 1980s he could carry on with the blood sport of partisan politics or he could devote himself to something Stabler and more civil like Academia for a while he split the difference working on behalf of Republican causes while also working toward his PhD in American history Reed was about to commit himself to scholarship for good until a chance encounter with Pat Robertson it was 1989 and Robertson the televangelist who had run unsuccessfully for president in 1988 cornered Reed at the inauguration of President George HW Bush Robertson confided to Reed that he worried about spiritual backsliding in the GOP he had never been a fan of Jerry fwell in fact they had been Rivals for decades but he respected the influence fwell had amassed with his Moral Majority now fwell was shuttering that organization Reagan's religious right allies were spinning off into other Pursuits and Bush seemed likely to leave evangelicals out in the cold Robertson sensed an opportunity to start a new Enterprise better funded and even more sophisticated than the Moral Majority to harness the Evangelical movement's momentum for a new decade of politics Reed went home and wrote a memo detailing his vision for such an organization just like that and with Reed not Robertson assuming command the Christian Coalition was born Reed wasted no time turning the Christian Coalition into a behemoth he tapped his DC Rolodex to forge strategic alliances on K Street and Capitol Hill raising the sort of money that made party officials do double takes he built voter contact databases befriended prominent ministers and set up state and local chapters all the while Reed crafted a story that proved irresistible to donors and journalists and politicos of all spiritual persuasion even more than his Moral Majority progenitors Reed understood the power of an underdog narrative he sold the Christian Coalition as a realtime Grassroots Uprising he wanted it known that evangelicals were no longer content playing the Clubby old game of politics they would create a new game altogether from electing Precinct captains to National Party delegates the Christian Coalition was going to take over the Republican party and then it was going to take over the American electoral process and Reed was the only person who knew how to achieve it I do Guerilla Warfare he told the Norfolk Virginia pilot in 1991 I paint my face and travel at night you don't know it's over until you're in a body bag the timing was just right even as even angelical collected policy wins in the 1980s there had been persistent grumbles of exploitation of opportunism of being used by a sneering party establishment that looked down on them they had been pawns on the GOP chess board not anymore the Christian Coalition helped evangelicals become coordinated empowered and embittered the Republican Party needed these voters Reed would say more than those voters needed the Republican Party using Bill Clinton's 1992 Victory to demonstrate how the GOP was aimless and spiritually Hollow Reed argued that a party that believed in nothing could be saved only by True Believers by 1994 when n Gingrich engineered a GOP occupation of the House of Representatives for the first time in four decades it was no longer moderate Republicans dictating terms to conservative evangelicals but the other way around dozens and dozens of right-wing evangelicals were elected to congress with a seeming mandate to restore limited government and judeo-christian values to America and not necessarily in that order the next year Time Magazine featured Reed on its cover with a headline the right hand of God he was 33 years old sitting with him nearly three decades later retracing the Arc of his career I could see why Reed was smiling he really did know in more ways than one how the story would end it looked something like this scene around us thousands of people singing hymns in between stump speeches roving spotlights and booming intro music packed ballrooms and standing ovations one president kissing his ring and a multitude of wouldbe presidents lining up for their turn regardless of which party won or lost a given election evangelicals were never returning to the periphery of American politics the campaign for a Christian America had become Central to their identity as Believers and the only thing more exhilarating than winning power Reed knew was the pursuit of reclaiming it you see so many people here walking around with smiles on their faces hugging and embracing there's such a spirit of Joy because everybody knows it's going to be all right Reed told me like I said we know how the story ends or maybe I suggested to Reed they were hugging and embracing because Republicans had the momentum in this election season and November was looking like a potential GOP Landslide he flashed that dazzling smile yeah Reed replied that could be this wasn't my first road to majority event unlike other right-wing political carnivals such as the conservative political action conference Reed's Gathering typically had a semblance of serious Faith came before freedom in his organization's title after all while Reed was always quick to point out that he was no preacher and that this was no church service the road to majority events were usually a few degrees removed from the raving truculent mess of your standard Republican cattle call not this year from the very first speech when an activist named Leo Terell warned that people on the left are trying to take our freedom and keep us from worshiping something was different there was an openly apocalyptic tone to the proceedings this wasn't about aing some policy differences or praying for a restoration of certain values the purpose of this conference it quickly became evident was to First establish as fact that forces of Darkness namely Democrats and deep State bureaucrats corporate Elites and Hollywood fiends were targeting Christianity in America and then once successful to incite God's people to strike back we are not going to let them take away our country declared R Romney McDaniel the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee we need to pray she said emphasizing each word before adding because we have got to win in November for 3 days I watched Christians pray not for God's will to be done or for the Forgiveness of their trespasses or to be led away from temptation but for a red wave in the upcoming election the only thing more disingenuous than the appeal was its connotations of Eternal significance we are soldiers in God's Army and together we are engaging in spiritual warfare for our country there are only two options we can fight or we can fail said Bo Hines a Congressional candidate from North Carolina Hines asked the crowd which option they would choose when the response reached his anticipated decibal level Hines cried out we're going to fight for our religious liberty so that we can worship the one true God Sam Brownback the former Kansas Governor who served as Trump's Ambassador for international religious freedom followed Hines onto the stage he told of a Finnish politician who had been prosecuted criminally for quoting scripture to explain her opposition to same-sex marriage the crowd murmured as he swore that this sort of persecution was coming to us in America Next not bothering to share additional context for instance that the prosecutors were seeking to fine not imprison the politician or that the Finnish Court unanimously dismissed all charges against her or that the case served to underscore the sturdiness of freedom of speech Provisions throughout the democratized world Brownback began pounding on the podium we've got to fight back he said as audience members leapt from their chairs these multitudes who'd come to Nashville claimed to worship a prince of peace yet they roared at every mention of conflict some went out of their way to sound reluctant like this call to rhetorical arms was a last resort because followers of Jesus no longer enjoy the Constitutional safeguards of afforded to other Americans the government is there to protect us or is it Janine Piro the Fox News host asked ominously from the stage some speakers suggested it was time Christians took matters into their own hands how many of you love America say Amen shouted Richard Lee an Atlanta pastor and longtime conservative activist the audience bellowed as one amen we've got a self-centered mentally deficient old man in the White House Lee continued some people say he doesn't know what he's doing yeah he does because he's wicked he's wicked he's not just following a different philosophy he's wicked and his whole staff are wicked they're all a bunch of weirdos themselves to booming Applause Lee argued that it was time for Christians to save the nation to overcome the plotting of the wicked weirdos to reestablish their rights and recapture control of their government thank God I think the old is going to go away in handcuffs about January of next year Lee concluded it wasn't clear whether Lee like so many others at the conference was predicting Trump's imminent return to the presidency one panel discussion featured Johnny Eno a qanon conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed Prophet who has declared that Trump not only won the 2020 election but is secretly still the acting president of the United States as well as God's president for Earth for a fleeting moment it was then Texas Congressman Louie goer never mistaken for a voice of reason who seem to be pushing back on expectations of Trump's Messianic reappearance in the Oval Office Our Hope will not come on Air Force One said goer but unless we get back to teaching morality And discussing God in schools we're on our way out the congressman then warned that our most precious freedoms such as religious assembly and expression were being shredded by dishonest people inside the government it was a remarkable statement from Goomer who just two weeks earlier had reacted to the indictment of a trump Administration official by complaining if you're a republican you can't even lie to Congress or lie to an FBI agent or they're coming after you goer closed this particular rant by thanking God for his many blessings including that merik Garland isn't on the Supreme Court surely the maker of heaven and Earth was similarly relieved that Senate Republicans had blocked one of Obama's judicial nominees things only got stranger as the event wore on one afternoon while waiting in line at a popup kiosk selling coffee and pastries I heard the woman behind me broadcasting her disgust at seeing Starbucks was being served they put baby Parts in their coffee she told her friends they stayed in line and got bottled waters during an evening time of communal Worship in the ballroom one of the singers on stage asserted that Jesus had been crucified because of fake news at the end of a panel on Hispanic political realignment the moderator one of Reed's staffers concluded God is moving in the Hispanic community and that's why they're going right because God is right and then there was Stella Emmanuel the Texas pediatrician who gained social media Fame during the pandemic because of her claim that hydroxy chloroquin could cure covid-19 on stage for a discussion about societal influence she launched into such an oddball monologue about vaccinations and the mark of the beast that even her fellow panelists started to squirm having earned a medical degree in Nigeria Emanuel operated a small strip mall Clinic outside of Houston next door to the church sheep pastors Firepower Ministries emanuel's influence on The Fringe right was already well documented as the journalist will summer reported Emanuel has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues among them gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches alien DNA is currently used in Medical Treatments the government is run in part not by humans but by reptilians and other aliens none of this disqualified her from addressing the road to majority conference her booth in the exhibit hall featured a pyramid of medicinal products pill bottles creams sprays that claimed to offer sleep aid and immune support and dietary Health they were visibly offbrand bearing only a small logo Dr Stella MD next to the makeshift Pharmacy stood towers of her book let America live circulated by the P costal publishing giant Charisma media draped over the front of the table was a white shirt depicting two battle axes intersecting over an American flag blood dripped from their sides in blue font were the words I am God's battle axe and weapon of War below was a Dr Stella MD logo and a citation from the Old Testament book of Jeremiah these themes of patriotism and divine Comm mission of nationalism and Savage Conquest were ubiquitous in the hall I saw one flag black adored with white revolvers that read God Guns and Trump they were sold next to decorative license plates that showed Soaring Eagles and cocked pistols God Guns and guts made America it read let's keep all three one table over from where copies of the first American Bible were being sold for a discounted price of $149.99 road to majority attendees crowded around a rack of t-shirts that carried slogans such as Faith over fear and This Means War the top seller offered in at least seven different colors was let's go Brandon a boulderz euphemism that conservatives chant as a substitute for Joe Biden the shirts even included a hashtag fjb that jettisoned any plausible deniability when I asked Dave cluckin the Booth's proprietor what brought him all the way from Loganville Georgia to Pedal these Goods he replied we've taken God out of America did he really think that # fjb was an appropriate way to bring God back cluckin Shrugged people keep on asking for it he told me you've got to give the people what they want as recently as 5 or 6 years earlier even as the Evangelical political brand was becoming more disputatious it would have been scandalous to see such vile and violent symbolism at an event associated with Christianity but Ralph Reed didn't really care he was giving the people what they wanted he was giving them Donald J Trump plenty of Pastor spoke at road to majority there was Robert jeffris my old sparring partner from first B Baptist Dallas who argued that because salt was used as an ancient preservative Jesus actually wants Christians to preserve America a little longer so that more souls might be saved there was Jensen Franklin the leader of Free Chapel Church in Gainesville Georgia who sounded a Rebel Yell against our enemies with a special emphasis on the drag queens allegedly invading children's locker rooms and implored the baby boomer audience to make sure the next generation of evangelicals continued fighting the culture War but the holy of holies at this event the only person treated with a trump-like reverence was the former president's spiritual adviser Paula White to understand White's Ascent to the Pinnacle of Evangelical influence is to study Trump's own takeover of the Republican Party neither had completed any formal education white in theology Trump in law or government to justify their positions of authority but both had several failed marriages behind them and were shadowed by Whispers of infidelity both nearly saw their reputations irreparably marred by legal ethical and financial improprieties only to somehow emerge more respected on the other side they were Outlaw survivors conscience free swindlers who possessed both the talent to detect what people wanted to hear and the shamelessness to say it to them Trump knew how to Market The Nostalgia of an idilic America but white had something even better to sell the Prosperity Gospel also known as the health and wealth gospel what white preaches is straightforward the more faith someone demonstrates the more material Comfort God provides them how is Faith most vividly demonstrated by giving money of course to the church to the televangelist to related Christian Ventures this is hardly a fringe view much of the charismatic Evangelical movement which includes but is not limited to the Pentecostal denomination subscribes to some variation of the Prosperity Gospel because God Saves us from Eternal damnation through faith the thinking goes that same Faith delivers us from poverty and sickness here on Earth the contradictions of scripture are blatant and innumerable was Jesus insufficiently faithful hence his penniless existence that culminated in being nailed to a Roman cross but the appeal is obvious enough for wealthy Americans the Prosperity Gospel can be conveniently reverse and engineered forget about the faith aspect if you have lots of money then clearly God has blessed you and if God has blessed you then clearly you are living a Godly life white has been riding this ruse since the early 1990s it made her a spiritual Guru to the Stars earned her endless millions and won her an audience long ago with one especially prosperous American white has repeatedly shot down the rumor that she converted Trump to Christianity she insists that he's been a Believer since childhood and yet she savored the role of being his religious Whisperer she chaired Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board delivered the invocation at his inauguration LED prayer circles inside the White House and enjoyed a direct line to the president of the United States it is no exaggeration to call White the most politically accomplished pastor of the 21st century as she waited her turn to address the faith and freedom conference Timothy the organization's executive director described white as a modern-day biblical hero she was if not a prophet at the very least on par with Old Testament giants like Esther Daniel and Mori people who amassed power behind the scenes shaping the destiny of Nations and doing God's will on earth when she emerged moments later white waved off the rapturous Applause she had come to Nashville to Herald the arrival of someone even greater I've never seen a family or a person go under such harsh criticism to stand for truth and do good in our land white told the audience juicing that reliable comparison to King David she credited Trump's spiritual fortitude for enduring the onslaught against him she cautioned his supporters that they would need similar courage in the days to come it's Crystal Clear that we live in a different America than we did under President Trump white declared things were growing darker by the day this Promised Land might soon be unsalvageable what were God-fearing people to do politics matter white continued we can't just sit back and let a group of people control the destiny of this nation I believe that we've been raised up and we are responsible and required by God to make sure that we bring forth the best America possible White made it known no wink or nod needed that one man in particular had been raised up he had been wrongly removed from power but the day of his return was drawing nearer when Trump stro onto the stage with Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA rattling the solar plexus of every red-blooded patriot who stood inside the presidential Ballroom of the Gaylord Opryland Resort the anticipation was palpable the former president had kept an unusually low profile since his disagreeable departure from Office 18 months earlier which was made more conspicuous by the torrid pace of trump related news road to majority occupied one side of a cable news split screen when Trump came to Nashville the other side showed a special Congressional inquiry into the January 6th attack on the capital before Trump spoke the American people heard damning testimony from an esteemed conservative judge J Michael ludig who called Trump and his allies a clear and present danger to American democracy the former president was also under investigation in numerous jurisdictions for all manner of misconduct and just recently Politico had published a leak Supreme Court decision that would overturn Ro v Wade which would be a landmark achievement for the pro-life movement 50 years after the decision that legalized abortion meanwhile Trump's Inner Circle kept teasing an announcement of his run for president in 2024 evangelicals remained the most loyal Cog in his political machine everyone in the ballroom was whispering would he launch his campaign here at Reed's event the speech proved anticlimactic there was no announcement of another presidential bid he mentioned the row leak only in passing so much for the most pro-life president of our lifetime he carped about January 6th being overblown and said the investigations were illegitimate and called the Republicans who opposed him vicious losers Trump seemed Restless even bored like a musician tired of playing his own greatest hits the crowd appeared fidgety as well then he mentioned his one-time vice president Mike Pence had a chance to be great he had a chance to be frankly historic Trump said grimacing I say it sadly because I like him but Mike did not have the courage to act the crowd booed The Mention Of Pence's name the former president kept on attacking and the crowd kept on booing for the next 5 minutes and for the first time publicly since their split on January 6th 2021 Trump tore into Pence for his role in formalizing Joe Biden's victory that day he mocked his former vice president as a robot who would not deviate from his constitutional duty of counting aloud the certified Electoral College votes that had been sent by the states Pence was too afraid Trump said to embrace the creative legal theories that might have allowed them both to remain in office he was too afraid to do what needed to be done it was an unforgettable scene for two decades Pence had been a darling of this community and admired carrier of the torch once lit by the Moral Majority a genuine Born Again Evangelical who introduced himself as a Christian a conservative and a republican in that order he had headlined this very event counting as personal friends many of the people in this room and now they had turned on him not for some biblical heresy or ideological apostasy but for following the rule of law they so acclaimed for obeying the Constitution they so adored what to make of this I thought back to the beginning of Trump's speech there was a rehearsed line that so neatly captured The Narrative of the conference that I immediately suspected it had been written with the assistance of read the greatest danger to America is not our enemies from the outside as powerful as they may be Trump had said the greatest danger to America is the destruction of our nation from the people within not long after he added this is not just a political problem but a spiritual problem that's when it became clear this speech like the entire road to majority event had been executed with a double meaning yes there was incessant talk about a radical woke agenda that was advancing critical race Theory and transgenderism and the like but for every warning of progressivism run ack there was a rebuke of conservatism gone soft pastors and politicians freely labeled as cowards anyone who shared their values but refused to go to war for them the enemy wasn't simply those Godless secularists on the left but those gutless Christians on the right the enemy was people who failed to appreciate iate how endangered their kingdom was people who would let principles and laws obstruct their quest for power the enemy was people like Mike Pence Reed sat at the head of the table but never touched his food a handful of other reporters from the Associated Press Fox News National Public Radio joined us for lunch in an upstairs boardroom Trump had just finished his 90minut stem Winder and and Reed wanted us to record his own Victory lap this was the seventh time Trump had spoken to the faith and freedom Coalition Reed Crow dating back to his days as a private citizen and the organization had grown in strength and influence right along with the Donald himself Reed began reciting the same statistics Trump had rattled off in his speech faith and freedom would be responsible in the coming months for knocking on more than 8 million doors making 10 million phone calls sending 20 5 million text messages and distributing voter guides to 100,000 churches these numbers were impossible to verify mind you but there was no doubting the general trajectory of Evangelical engagement Reed's organization today boasts more than 40 million people in its voter file compared to 8 million at the peak of the Christian Coalition in the mid 1990s confident these numbers would translate to a republican romp in November Reed predicted the biggest turnout of event angelical voters in midterm history we have a president who's imploding Reed told us he argued that Biden's approval ratings sagging under the weight of historic inflation had no hope of rebounding before November but if Reed was being honest and In This Moment he was the real cause for electoral optimism wasn't Biden's poll numbers they're scared they're genuinely scared about the future of the country Reed said pointing toward the people and in the ballroom I'm hearing things that I haven't heard since Jimmy Carter was President like I don't know if the country is going to survive if these policies continue Reed paused seemingly aware of how pitiful this sounded I'm not saying it's true or untrue he added I'm just saying these people are scared and that's a big big motivator when it comes to turnout he was right these people were scared they were scared in part because of economic and cultural instability but mostly they were scared because people like Reed were trying to scare them people like Reed needed to scare them sure the Bible's most frequently cited command is fear not but remember Reed is no preacher he's a political organizer the job of a political organizer is to win campaigns to win campaigns Reed realized long ago his most valuable tool was fear and so in Nashville Bill Reed Unleashed a pack of starved partisan animals to Feast on the Fright of Christians for 3 Days Reed looked on as thousands of Believers were told that their children were being groomed that their communities were under Invasion that their guns were going to be confiscated that their Medical Treatments were suspect that their newspapers were lying to them that their elected officials were diabolical that their government was coming after them that their faith was being banned from public life that their leader was being unjustly persecuted on their behalf that their nation was nearing its end there's a reason that scripture warns so often and so forcefully against fear it is just as powerful as Faith but whereas Faith keeps our eyes steadily fixed on the Eternal fear disrupts us disorients us drives us to prioritize the Here and Now faith is about preserving our place in the body of Christ fear is about protecting our own Flesh and Blood Peter was doing the impossible walking on the Sea of Galilee just like Jesus until the wind started whipping around him then he got scared and immediately began to sink you of little faith Jesus said in that moment grabbing Peter's hand and pulling him up why did you doubt no one should be surprised to see politicians and political hacks utilizing something so powerful in the name of winning an election but it was disheartening all the same Christians are called to transcend the patterns of this broken World they also are called to be more perceptive than the non-believing person if a jury full of atheists was brainwashed into believing that a criminal whose fingerprints were all over the scene was innocent well most Christians would shrug it requires the gift of discernment they would say the spiritual gift of discernment to see the truth and yet here we were a whole Ballroom full of Christians clad in our faith over fear shirts doing everything backward the farle takes their views and tries to shove them down people's throats like it's a religion I'm not a crusader but we have a real religion and it's about people's rights Randy pitcher a retired army medic from Kentucky told me in the lobby outside the event he motioned at the scene around us you hear this stuff and it makes you realize that we need more power there are enough of us to take it we're in trouble said Lydia Maldonado a pastor from South Florida God was kicked out of the white house as soon as Trump left office when Trump left the White House he took god with him Maldonado told me she'd run for state representative in 2020 but her election was stolen just like Trump's was perhaps sensing my skepticism moldonado said that Christians had a responsibility before God to expose voter fraud because Jesus himself was the first politician to walk the earth I replied by mentioning how Jesus told Pontius Pilate before his execution that his kingdom was not of this world no it is of this world Maldonado told me God gave us this country we are the keepers of this Kingdom and right now we are allowing the enemy to take it from us her husband Edward malano nodded along the despite spending his career working for the federal government doing exactly what he would not say Edward believed that Uncle Sam was hunting down Christians he agreed with his wife secular progressives had hijacked the country and turned the government against Believers he agreed with Trump that time was running out to save America he agreed with pretty much everything he'd heard at the conference there was just one thing that bothered him as Christians why are we booing Mike Pence I don't get it Edward told me HEK way more religious than he paused I don't want to say he's more religious than Trump but you know he smiled as his voice trailed off to be clear Pence had brought some of this madness on himself instead of using his credibility as a mature believer to steer his party away from the sac religious God and Country clap trap being pushed by Trump and his party throughout 2020 the vice president had joined in let's fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents Pence declared during a speech to the Republican National Convention let's fix our eyes on the author and perfector of our faith and freedom and never forget that where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and that means freedom always wins at once the ears of Christian viewers everywhere perked up Pence had knowingly bastardized a precious passage from the New Testament the epistle to the Hebrews States let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfector of our faith in addition to substituting Old Glory for Jesus a stunt that was nothing short of Blasphemous Pence deliberately conflated the freedom of being reborn in Christ with the supposedly all-conquering civil liberties enjoyed by Americans it was a rhetorical slight of hand aimed at rousing the very sorts of star Spen L Christians who would threaten his life on January 6th and who a year and a half later were booing him at Reed's conference upstairs in the boardroom over plates of glazed chicken and sweaty glasses of sweet tea several reporters quizzed Reed about Pen's Fall From Grace how had he a longtime friend of the former vice president felt listening to thousands of people booing him how had he felt listening to Trump disparaged someone who'd been nothing but loyal to him how had he felt knowing Pence wasn't here to defend himself he was invited Reed said holding out his hands as if wanting them to be washed he's been welcome here in the past he would be welcome here now some of us laughed knowing his bluff had been called Reed was putting on his best song and dance with a hand placed over his heart he called Pence a dear friend and said that he wished he had come to speak then he explained that Trump was also a dear friend and had the right to speak his mind about January 6th he continued to dodge and weave as the other reporters even the one from Fox News grew annoyed at his lack of cander does it bother you that one of your dear friends may have been trying to get your other dear friend killed I finally asked Reed he stiffened I'm not sure I would agree with that characterization Reed said despite mounting evidence that Trump had been so furious with Pence that he'd Shrugged at the prospect of him falling into the hands of the mob Reed claimed this was inaccurate he had talked to Trump personally about this he said and he had been assured that Trump wanted Pence kept safe that day there was eye rolling around the table he knew nobody was buying it let me say this Reed said I was in and around that white house as much as anyone who did not work there I saw them interact I know they prayed together I know they were dear friends and they genuinely cared about one another there was tremendous affection between the two of them and um after the election that was no longer the case Reed Shrugged but I've been doing this a long time he assured us you just have to face reality that in politics that happens in politics would a serious Christian see fit I wondered to condone this brutish behavior in any other area of life would they condone vicious ad hominum attacks if they were launched at the office would they condone the use of vulgarities and violent inuendo inside their home would they condone blatant abuses of power at their local school or nonprofit or church if the answer is no then why do they accept it in politics because politics is about the ends not the means since the ends are about power the power to legislate the power to investigate the power to accumulate more power the means are inherently defensible even if they are by any other measure utterly indefensible this compartmentalization of Standards is toxic to The credibility of the Christian witness many evangelicals have come to view Politics the way a Suburban husband views Las Vegas a self-contained Escape a place where the rules and expectations of his everyday life do not apply the problem is what happens in politics doesn't stay in politics everyone can see what these folks are doing just as you might stop taking marital advice from your neighbor if you saw cell phone footage of him paying for prostitutes and cocaine in Vegas you might stop taking spiritual guidance from your neighbor if you saw him chanting hang Mike Pence at the Capitol building an extreme example perhaps but bankruptcy spiritual and otherwise happens slowly and then all at once in 2016 Christians Condon their preferred candidate talking on the Access Hollywood tape about grabbing women by their vaginas because the election was a binary choice and the Supreme Court was at stake by 2022 Christians walked around wearing Joe Biden on their chests because in politics the rules of decency never mind the maxims of Christianity do not apply this was what bothered me most about the road to majority conference if Jesus warned us that what comes out of our mouths reveals what resides in our hearts how can we shrug off lies and hate speech as mere political rhetoric if Christians are called to reflect the awesome power of a God who renews minds and transforms Hearts who dwells within us seeking our complete Devotion to him commanding us to lead lives of Truth and Love that might shine his light in a darkened world How can there be a special exemption for politics I thought about this while chatting with Reed on the final day of the conference the headline of the event even outdoing Trump speech was an appearance by Hershel Walker the former college football star who was running for US Senate in Reed's home state of Georgia days earlier The Daily Beast had reported a bombshell Walker was an absentee father to three outof wedlock children whose existence he had never publicly acknowledged it was newsworthy not only because of Walker's Crusade against black dads who abandon their kids but also because it underscored questions about his character Walker had a documented history of lying about his academic achievements grossly exaggerating his business successes and allegedly threatening on multiple occasions to murder his ex-wife including an incident in which she claims he pointed a pistol at her head and threatened to blow her effing brains out when Walker took center stage at road to majority sitting across from Reed for a fireside chat there was reason to believe he might adopt a tone of humble Contrition Christians are a forgiving people after all and Walker had previously owned some of these personal failings citing a mental illness and claiming that faith in Jesus had changed his life but he and Reed had another strategy in mind assailing the biased liberal media the two men turned the candidate into a martyr a courageous follower of Christ who was being persecuted for his Godly worldview and patriotic Zeal they didn't exactly dispute the substance of the reporting but that was irrelevant by the end of the program it was Walker not his traumatized ex-wife not his fatherless children who was the victim no weapon formed against me should ever Prosper Walker told the crowd which stood and cheered at his reference to the Old Testament book of Isaiah this was a microcosm of reeds entire event character didn't matter truth didn't matter honor and integrity didn't matter those were means and all that mattered was the ends winning elections to achieve that end Reed and his disciples were willing to invoke the name of Jesus Christ the son of God and argue that he was on their side sitting backstage with Reed on a black leather couch as the hotel staff dressed the ballroom tables with elegant white linens for that evening's formal dinner I put the question to him as plainly as I could you've said that politics is ugly that this is just the way things go I said but here's what I want to know should Christians hold themselves to a higher standard well obviously sure Reed replied but then you have to Define your terms he argued that dishonorable conduct in the eyes of one partisan Christian such as Trump's strategy for litigating the election of 2020 was Honorable in the eyes of another partisan Christian this was a risky detour to take but I couldn't help myself I pressed read on that point what about Trump asking the Georgia Secretary of State to find him enough votes to win the state what about R Romney McDaniel teaming with self-confessed con artist to lead a coordinated campaign of deceiving the American people what about all the other people involved in perpetrating that same deception people he'd brought to this event people who appealed to the almighty while pedling more lies all in the name of winning some election was that not dishonorable did that not diminish the authenticity of the witness for Jesus Christ you know I Reed measured his words I think individual Christians have to make that decision about their own conduct and you know within the context of campaign I think it's fairly obvious that the partisans on both sides are likely to think that partisans on the other side are conducting themselves dishonorably and think they are conducting themselves honorably I think that's true whether you're a Christian or not perhaps but unlike non-believers Christians have a code of conduct that is specific and exacting and unambiguous Reed's assertion that individual Christians could interpret that code however they wished amounted to the kind of moral relativism that had inspired evangelicals to break away from mushy Mainline Christianity in the first place as I made this point to read he suddenly looked beyond me eyes lighting up winom approaching us was winom Sears the recently elected lieutenant governor of Virginia she was dressed casually her two staff members carried a garment bag and several large portfolios Reed sprang from the couch to greet them telling Sears how excited he was for her keynote speech that evening she seemed seemed a bit anxious so she asked Reed what do you think I should talk about Reed looked surprised uh didn't I get that to you guys he asked one of the staffers they said yes they received his talking points but wanted further Direction Reed rubbed his hands together he told Sears that she should tell of her upbringing as the daughter of an immigrant about the parental rights movement she had helped champion in Virginia about Biden cutting and running for from Afghanistan about the radical agenda that Democrats were forcing on Christians like them about how the Republican Triumph in Virginia the previous fall was the foreshadowing of what can happen in America in 143 days Sears was expressionless but whatever you say it's going to be great Reed concluded breaking into a grin whatever he gives me to say Sears replied looking upward right Amen to that that Reed said his face turning solemn because well what we've been praying all weekend is that the Holy Spirit would be in charge that Every Word uttered by every speaker would be what his will is he paused a moment and what they need to hear Sears nodded a call to action she asked the grin returned to Reed's face chapter 10 Washington D.C for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him John 3:1 17 I had begun to tune out the faith and freedom Speakers by the time Jim Jordan was introduced the Ohio congressman's set was indistinguishable from the dozens of others that preceded him he slammed the the lefties who don't like freedom and have disdain for the folks in flyover country he observed next to Jesus the best thing that ever happened to this world is the United States of America it felt like the teleprompter had been stuck on the same page for hours I stood up to leave the ballroom I love the comment that Cal Thomas made one time Jordan told the audience just like that I sat back down of all the names I expected to be invoked at Ralph Reed's shindig Thomas's would have been the very last Jordan continued Cal Thomas had a great line he said every morning I read the Bible and the New York Times so I can see what each side is up to this was close enough to the quote Thomas had famously given during a 1994 C-SPAN interview promoting his book the things that matter most a witty and wiy observer of American Life Thomas was at one time among the most read journalists in the country with a syndicated column that appeared in more than 500 newspapers Nationwide that particular quip about the Bible and the times delivered with a playful smirk was a nod to his past Thomas had spent 5 years working as Jerry fwell senior's spokesman at the Moral Majority he was an Evangelical Christian and a political conservative and once upon a time he had used those labels interchangeably what Jordan didn't mention is that 5 years after giving that cpan interview Thomas wrote another book it was a Contrition Laden confessional called Blinded By might co-authored by Pastor Ed Dobson the one-time Liberty University Dean and fwell Confidant who had been present at the founding of the Moral Majority the authors provided a damning window into the rise of the religious right given how the scope's trial had humiliated fundamentalists in the 1920s and how progressives had hijacked both church and culture in the 1960s S Thomas and Dobson recalled believing that Ronald Reagan's presidency represented the greatest moment of opportunity for conservative Christians since the dawn of the 20th century we were on our way to changing America the authors wrote we had the power to write every wrong and cure every ill but they didn't change America at least not in the manner they had hoped Thomas and Dobson acknowledged in the pages of their book that they had not ushered in in the sort of Kingdom on Earth spiritual Utopia about which they and so many American evangelicals fantasized in fact there was evidence to suggest that the country was angrier more antagonistic more fearful more divided less Christlike because of the Moral Majority if Jesus was known for hating sin and loving Sinners American evangelicals were known for hating both the movement's short-term electoral gains had come at a steep cost not only had the culture moved further away from them the church had sacrificed its distinctiveness in the process we think it's time to admit that because we are using the wrong weapons we are losing the battle Thomas and Dobson wrote what they called for was Radical unilateral disarmament by the religious right Christians need not be political quietists or Separatists they wrote but a wholesale reestablishing of boundaries and priorities was in order the moral majority's use of Shameless Scare Tactics had tempted the masses of American churchgoers to put their faith in princes and Mortal men this seduction by power the authors wrote was sabotaging the message of Christ winning campaigns had become more important than winning converts scolding the culture had become more important than sanctifying the church mustering some fire and brimstone of their own Thomas and dos warned their old boss fwell and his many descendants biological and otherwise to stop confusing Spiritual Authority for political Authority the book's publication in 1999 caused a furer inside American evangelicalism Christianity Today the venerated magazine founded by Billy Graham in 1956 devoted an entire issue to a debate of blinded by might the cover asked is the religious right finished defending its thesis were former Reagan Aid Don Eberly Paul wrick who had coined the term Moral Majority during that fateful meeting two decades earlier and Thomas himself Prosecuting the case against the book were fwell senior focus on the family Chieftain James Dobson and Ralph Reed whose Christian Coalition had grown to become the nation's largest wealthiest and most influential Evangelical political organization Reed's piece was especially telling its headline We Can't Stop Now listing their many victories in recent years Reed boasted of how he and his allies had defeated Pro gambling initiatives in numerous States it would be another 6 years before Reed was exposed for taking millions of dollars in laundered payments from Indian tribes who enlisted him to mobilize Christian voters against rival gambling initiatives in nearby States this was but one part of the sweeping Scandal that took down and imprisoned Reed's close friend lobbyist Jack abramof although Reed had technically broken no laws if duplicity were criminal he'd be serving a life sentence the revelations confirmed many a suspicion about the man and his movement hence my surprise to hear Cal Thomas's name mentioned at Ralph Reed's event I couldn't think of anyone who would be more repulsed by this right-wing Revival than Thomas a few months later I met him for breakfast in Washington the US capital building its Post January 6 protective fening having been removed was visible a couple of blocks away as we sipped coffee Thomas tall and slender and sharp as ever approaching his 80th birthday asked what I'd been up to I told him about attending Reed's event in Nashville he put his coffee down when Trump mentioned Pence and the Evangelical audience boo there brother in Christ I said to myself this is the final compromise Thomas told me here is your brother here is a man who worships the Lord you claim to worship here is a man who goes to church every Sunday here is a man who has had only one wife and never been accused of being unfaithful and you're booing him as opposed to a Serial adulterer a man who uses the worst language you can think of and does every other thing you oppose explain that to me from a Biblical perspective please Thomas was not a never Trumper in fact he admitted to me he'd actually voted for the Man twice despite his published takedown of the religious right Thomas still identified as both an Evangelical and as a Conservative Republican the difference between the old Thomas and the new Thomas he explained the whole point of blinded by might is that those identities were now rigidly and properly ordered this gave him an INT ual autonomy to which his Brethren could not relate Thomas had no issue Laing Trump one day and lashing him the next taking Republicans to task for falling short of certain moral standards and praising democrats for meeting others his organizing principle was not a party platform but The Sermon on the Mount instead of considering his faith in the context of his politics Thomas considered his politics in the context of his faith he was still widely read still publishing columns that examined social and economic and political questions through the prism of his belief in Christ but the world around him was unrecognizable I got a letter the other day when I wrote something critical of trump the guy accused me of not even being a Christian Thomas said you can't have a legitimate conversation with these people who were all in on Trump because if you find any flaw in him even flaws that are demonstrable they either excuse it or attack you you what's interesting Thomas added is that nobody went all in on Trump quite like Pence did once a respected Arbiter of ethical matters the former vice president forfeited his reputation not to mention some longtime friends and admirers by subjugating himself so thoroughly to his boss but even that wasn't enough to satisfy the Maga mob the moment Pence thought for himself choosing the rule of law over the ego of a president Trump's minions turned on him Thomas found himself pitying the former VP I offered a Counterpoint Pence I reminded Thomas always described himself as a Christian a conservative and a republican in that order to lead with that identifier to profess publicly time and again that you're a follower of Jesus before anything else is to invite and deserve Perpetual scrutiny unlike all the Craven self-indulgent schemers who had surrounded Trump the vice president knew the difference between right and wrong he deserved to be held to a higher standard Pence did the courageous and honorable thing on January 6th but he was the one who'd spent four years ignoring and excusing all the abuses of power and violent rhetoric and authoritarian impulses that set January 6th in motion Thomas wore a stoic expression then he began to nod I do Wonder if he should have resigned Thomas said he and I talked about this once I think his view was that he was being Salt and Light he was privately counseling the president I don't know about personal things but certainly about legislative things and he felt that he would at least have some effect by remaining on the inside Thomas cocked his head sideways as if struggling with that rationale for the president to keep saying the things he was saying especially asking him to do something un constitutional I can see the argument for resigning he said but I can also see the argument for staying there and fighting for what's right this had been a defining dilemma of the Trump era for many Republicans especially Christians who held high ranking offices should those who claim to follow Jesus stick around a situation that requires violations of their conscience sensing that they might in fact be mitigating an even worse outcome or should they flee the scene with their individual honor and tax despite knowing that things might get even worse for the collective in their absence during my previous visit to Washington I'd confronted this same question from a very different perspective in the fall of 2021 I sat down to dinner with two men who like Thomas knew something about relinquishing their tribal membership Russell Moore who'd recently quit the Southern Baptist convention and Adam kinzinger a republican congressman from Illinois who'd become Persona nrata to the GOP for serving on the Congressional committee that was investigating January 6th Moore wasn't just traversing the country offering councel and reassurance to religious leaders his post SBC Ministry was aimed at propping up any believer in a position of authority particularly those who found themselves in the crosshairs of the extremist right lots of politicians had sought out Moore's advice on navigating the Trump phenomenon though few were Keen given Moore's known rivalry with Trump himself to make that relationship public kinzinger didn't much care he was one a few living Souls who knew as well as more did what it was like to be assailed repeatedly by the president of the United States it bonded the two men made them members of an exotic club still they hadn't planned this dinner for the purpose of commiserating they were meeting because kinzinger had a fateful decision to make he first ran for congress in 2010 a year characterized by tea party fervor and antipathy toward the new president Barack Obama kininger was a blue chip recruit raised by a school teacher and a leader of faith-based organizations he had resigned local political office in 2003 to join the Air Force where he earned pilot Wings he went on to fly missions in Iraq and Afghanistan switching to reserve duty kininger came home to run in a crowded GOP Primary and clobbered the field with the help of an endorsement from Sarah Palin the former Alaska governor and Vice Presidential nominee who' become a conservative kingmaker he routed the Democratic incumbent in November and was on his way to Washington over the ensuing decade kininger proved to be one of the smarter more level-headed members of an otherwise boisterous and self-sabotaging house Republican conference he helped to negotiate deals and break through Congressional gridlock earning him the moderate tag even as he consistently opposed abortion rights Obamacare and tax hikes kinzinger was better understood as a pragmatist someone who valued incremental gains over interminable grandstanding he did draw lines in the sand when it came to certain things National Security and political ethics Above All Else kinzinger considered himself an absolutist it was not terribly surprising then when in 2016 he became one of the first republicans in Congress to announce he would not vote for Trump in the general election I'm an American before I'm a republican he told CNN noting that he wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton either from that moment on kinzinger was a pariah inside the party it didn't matter that he'd done good work in Washington or that his constituents loved him or that he wound up voting with Trump's policies 90% of the time kininger even voted against Trump's first impeachment in 2019 and for Trump's re-election in 2020 none of that changed the reality that he was on the wrong side of a binary equation you were either faithful to Trump or you were his Nemesis kinzinger didn't mind being in the barrel in fact he found it liberating to be one of a handful of Republicans who could speak candidly about the president without fear of losing their next election he had dominant showings in both 2018 and 2020 the last remaining Republican to represent the Chicago land area in Congress having survived the worst the Trump presidency he was eager to help lead the Republican Party into a post-trump era and then came January 6th kininger knew there would be trouble according to an interview with journalist Jeremy W Peters the congressman told his wife and his office staff to stay away from the capital that day he brought his 380 caliber Ruger LC to work with him and when the capitol police locked down the building kininger holed up in his office with the pistol in hand later that night after the complex had been cleared and multiple Americans had died kinzinger was sickened to see 147 of his Republican colleagues vote against certifying the results of the election essentially bowing to the demands of the terrorists who'd stormed the Cathedral of American democracy hours earlier a week later kininger was one of just 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the violence and obstructing the transition of power the rest of his party had shed any pretense of Integrity or accountability his colleagues had made their choice now kininger made his along with Liz Cheney the dynastic republican from Wyoming he agreed to join the committee investigating January 6th everybody has a responsibility to do what they think is right he told me at the time this is what I think is right if kinzinger previous criticisms of trump made him an apostate to the magat True Believers investigating January 6th made him downright satanic this is not figuratively speaking kinzinger told the New York Times he received a handwritten letter from his cousin and signed by another 11 family members accusing him of fighting for the devil's Army and betraying his fellow Christians oh my what a disappointment you are to us and to God the letter read you have embarrassed the kinsinger family name the congressman said they'd been brainwashed by their right-wing churches and they weren't alone as the investigation got underway and kinar got louder about Trump's alleged crimes the holy war against him intensified people in the district confronted him with apocalyptic bombast people from across the country wrote to inform him that he was going to hell with all his Democrat friends the death threats became Relentless his wife was petrified by the time we sat down with Moore for dinner 4 months into the Congressional inquiry the combat veteran lawmaker looked like a man who'd hobbled out of a field Clinic it just feels like enough is enough kininger told more some days I think about retiring and never running again some days I think about quitting the Republican party and running again but the one thing I'm not going to do is run as a republican again I just I can't do it Moore understood why the congressman no longer wanted to identify with the GOP he also understood why abandoning the party was harder than anyone on the outside might realize when you leave the tribe you're going to keep looking back wondering if you should have stayed wondering if you could have made a difference Moore said I felt that way when I left the SBC watching them struggle I kept thinking maybe I could have helped them through this maybe it's my fault for walking away kinzinger nodded that's what I want to know can I call it quits even knowing things will get worse without me here he asked Moore how do you know when it's time to go Moore told the story about his son suspecting that his father had committed some great moral failure because of all the scrutiny on him and his wife telling him to prepare for Interfaith marriage if he remained a southern baptist Moore said he'd spent years justifying his continued role at the SBC because of the illusion that if I lose my seat at the table it will be taken by somebody worse and therefore it will be my fault that the institution suffers but his very Presence at the table more finally realized was doing a different kind of damage kinzinger confessed that this was his greatest fear he shared with us the news that his wife was pregnant with their firstborn it was a boy kinzinger was already preoccupied with making sure that his son one day understood that his father had been on the right side of History he sat in silence for a little while then as the check arrived the congressman told us that he'd been reading that day from the Apostle Paul's final letter to his pupil Timothy I fought the good fight I finished the race I've kept the faith he quoted kinzinger announced his retirement a few weeks later Cal Thomas was born in the capitol city cradled in the Cradle of power he went to college there and got his first job there working as a copy boy for NBC News his goal was to become rich and famous by the time I was 30 and he was well on his way reporting for NBC's radio and television mediums by his mid 20s and and gaining a claim as a budding star in the industry but he was unhappy deeply strangely unfulfilled then at 30 he self-destructed the details are unimportant he says and was fired by NBC Thomas began to spiral his wife a serious Christian who did volunteer work for the National Prayer Breakfast asked her husband to meet some of the men she knew through the organization Thomas was not a serious Christian he believed abstractly in God and sometimes attended church out of social habit but was unschooled biblically he resisted his wife's appeal she said you won't be successful until you thank God for losing your job Thomas recalled and she was right my job was my God it was the center of my life around which everything else including my wife and kids were to circulate he gave in one day at an intimate gathering in Washington Thomas listened to a federal judge speak of his personal relationship with Jesus Christ the language so alien to Thomas utterly captivated him before long Thomas Was Born Again assuming a new persona in Christ and vowing to submit himself to God's will it would prove a halting journey like so many DC contemporaries secular and Christian alike Thomas was a political addict he saw no issue with fusing the Zeal of his his Christianity with the convictions of his conservatism this was how he came to fall in with the Moral Majority fwell senior needed an ambassador to the Washington press Corps someone reporters knew and liked and trusted Thomas with his deep connections to the city's social and political scenes fit the bill he was that rare Firebrand who regularly dined with his ideological counterparts and considered them close friends Thomas a drift since getting act by NBC joined the moral majority in 1980 and Rose to become the organization's vice president at long last he felt fulfilled until he didn't there was no road to Damascus moment Thomas says that made him question his work with fwell senior rather it was a steady accumulation of Doubt a growing sense of guilt about how the furiousness of their messaging on any given subject did not reflect the realities of the matter at hand never mind the example of Christ himself Thomas was all four trying to win elections but invoking the wrath of God to collect $20 from a retiree in Tulsa started to feel less like a strategy and more like a scam I would go to these fundraising meetings they would start in prayer and end in manipulation Thomas recalled we had this one fundraiser who was working both sides of the street like a cheap hooker his wife was a member of now the National Organization for Women a feminist pro-choice group and he was raising money for her while also raising money for fwell he'd hit his goals we'd go off to the bar and have a drink and he would celebrate the stupidity of these people giving to him almost 40 years later Thomas still felt ashamed this practice of praying on unwitting Believers was Central to the business model of the Moral Majority and its successor groups you get these letters dear Patriot we're near collapse were about to be taken over by the secular humanists the evil pro-abortionists the transgender Advocates the blah blah blah blah Thomas said and they're always the same if you donate we'll do a double matched gift little has changed there were emails in my inbox at that very moment from Reed's faith and freedom Coalition from Chad Connelly's Faith wins that deployed similar language there's always a threat look at Tucker Carlson every single night they're out to get you and it works Thomas said one time I actually asked one of our fundraisers why don't you ever send out a positive letter about what you're doing with people's donations and he looked at me with this cynical look he said you can't raise money on a positive if the goal is bringing in money you have to scare them little by little Thomas told me the limits were pushed the successes of the Moral Majority became self-justifying the money raised by dubious methods was evidence of of God's blessing on the project thereby sanctioning ever more dubious methods to raise ever more money the worst one I ever saw was where Jerry compared himself to Jesus it actually said now I know what it was like for Jesus in The Garden of Gethsemane Thomas said and I told him Jerry you can't say that and he said huh it must have gone out without my approval but nothing ever went out without his approval that's just how radical we had become we had no problem saying that Jesus would have been a republican even though his Kingdom's not of this world how do you get around that actually getting around it was simple enough American evangelicals have a talent for what some theologians call baptizing the past that means propagating the tale of George Washington asking a chaplain to dunk him in the icy waters at Valley Forge when no supporting historical record exists insisting that Thomas Jefferson was a God-fearing humanitarian when he was in fact a slaveholding epicurian deist seizing upon Lincoln's appropriation of scripture to paint him as an Evangelical when he was known to Mock revivalists and rarely attend church and one day no doubt citing photos of trump in an oval office prayer circle to argue that the 45th president was himself an Earnest follower of Christ this is the scaffolding upon which the Moral Majority constructed its edifice of Christian America it took Thomas a long time to see it once he did he couldn't look away he was maturing in his faith and part of that maturation meant questioning his own Dogma challenging his own lifestyle choices Thomas searched the scriptures to find validation for what he and his friends were doing what he found instead was a rebuke and a call to repent praying ahead of a meeting with newspaper Syndicate Executives for a columnist position that would find him published in of outlets Nationwide he promised the Lord that if he was given this opportunity he would use it to honor God and not America Thomas got the gig quit the moral majority in 1985 and has spent the decade since trying however imperfectly to keep that promise the book of Isaiah says that God views all the nations of the world as nothing but a drop in the bucket all means all Thomas told me now has a America been uniquely blessed sure but it could also be uniquely cursed you better be careful because patriotism quickly turns into idolatry there's more than one way to be an idol worshipper in the Old Testament you had molok and child sacrifices and all this stuff but Satan is subtle we don't have statues now we have political parties and presidential candidates Thomas thought he'd done his Penance by writing blinded by might in 1999 as we refilled our coffee mugs a quarter Century later he wondered out loud whether something more needed to be done when your Idols begin to disappoint you Russell Moore said it can lead you back to God he was speaking to a conspicuously youthful audience at the American Enterprise Institute the renowned Washington Think Tank here at a place the rights preeminent Scholars have called home since before World War II Moore was addressing a room full of grad students Hill interns and entry-level political staffers along with a quorum of Tweed jacketed academic types who were just getting their start in Washington most of them had never been to AEI before most of them had never heard of AEI before Moore was there to speak about the challenge of decoupling Faith from politics which explains why the room skewed babyfaced years of social science had demonstrated the degree to which young people even and especially young believers were alienated from organized religion by the perception of its ulterior motives their parents desensitized by Decades of incremental boundary Crossing inside the church didn't think anything was wrong but these kids sure did this was the generation that would make or break American evangelicalism these were the children of the Moral Majority there was no tiptoeing around the illusionment in the room Moore opened his speech by suggesting that the popular image of evangelicalism was Mr Rogers with a blowtorch Gentile in theory militant in practice heads bobbed up and down he wanted these young people to know there was potential even a certain promise in their disillusionment this tracked with what I'd heard more preach to people of all ages and statuses and locations but here addressing the potential future power Brokers of Washington he was even more explicit all the weaknesses of our Earthly affiliations to family to political parties and cultural tribes even to churches highlights the strength of our Eternal identities remember only those with no home are desperate to find one Moore said the normal state of the Christian Life is In some sense to live in a state of homelessness if we see that as our normal situation then we can actually engage with the outside world and not be terrified when we're out of step we can be free Moore did not present this reality as optional to the Christians in attendance in his Southern soft yet direct manner he argued that there was no room for interpretation when it comes to the spiritual sequencing of one's life if the gospel is true that means the gospel is not means to an end it's not a tool to excite nationalistic passions or to form social bonds or to teach Civics the gospel is the announcement that God has raised the crucified Jesus from the dead and seated him in the Heavenly places at the right hand of God as the Heavenly ruler of the cosmos and if that is true then every other Allegiance is subordinate Moore said his voice now Rising Jesus teaches us to Pray by asking first of our father holy set apart for the coming of the Kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven and only then does he turn to the question of Our Daily Bread our transposal of these priorities seeking first all these things that Jesus Promised would be given to us after we'd sought his kingdom has drained the Christian message of its Grandeur too many Believers have rationalized this Moore said by avowing that God is most glorified when Christians hold the commanding Heights of society but this is exactly backward a Christian witness is always best when not from a position of power as defined by the outside world Moore said he quoted the essayist Wendel Barry if change is to come it will have to come from the margins as Moore transitioned into a time of Q&A after the speech nobody seemed interested in litigating the tactics of the left or in rationalizing the actions of the right question after question was searching and introspective everyone seemed to agree with Moore's assertion that the outside world is repulsed by us but nobody seemed interested in talking about the outside world the young Christians here wanted to discuss why things had gone wrong in the church and what might be done to fix it a good place to start more suggested is for Christians to worry less about perceived enemies and more about supposed allies I knew just what he meant today's evangelicalism preaches bitterness toward unbelievers and bottomless Grace for church-going Christians yet the New Testament model is exactly the opposite stressing strict accountability for those inside the church and abounding charity to those outside it throughout the gospels there are people panicking Around Jesus when he's calm Moore said offering several examples but then there are moments where he shows a flash of anger and it's not when anyone else is angry you have the temple courts the pushing back of marginalized people the Turning of the Holiness of God into a commodity Jesus is incensed why the answer Moore said is that Jesus has higher expectations for people who profess to know God Christians are instructed to operate in this same way when Moore was asked how this could be accomplished practically how to balance Grace and accountability for their brothers and sisters in Christ when one student asked he went straight to the writings of the Apostle Paul starting with his first letter to the dysfunctional early church in Corinth Greece when he told them not to associate with someone who is immoral he wasn't saying that with the implications of the world but of someone who Bears the label as a Christian Moore explained in the words of Paul what business is it of mine to judge those outside the church are you not to judge those inside God will judge those outside Moore closed by sharing the story of a former Mentor who' reminded him that Christianity is not genetic the point was that some of the most powerful advocates for Christ from St Paul to St Augustine from CS Lewis to Charles Coulson once lived far outside of God's family when I talk to atheist and agnostics most of them are genuinely curious some of them are really really angry but I know that 99.9% of the time they're not angry about theism they're angry at some parent who used religion in a destructive way or a pastor who hurt them this is a person Jesus loved a person for whom Jesus died a person who is hurting Moore said my responsibility is not to try to win the argument my responsibility is to stand in God's place and say Come All You who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest he concluded there is no one no matter how upset we are with their opinions and their actions who was impossible to reach with the grace of God Thomas agreed that American evangelicalism was long overdue for a reckoning blinded by might hadn't done the trick though he and Dobson his co-author were successful in at least forcing a conversation Dobson died of ALS in 2015 he caused a firestorm in Evangelical circles in 2008 by sharing that despite still being staunchly anti-abortion he voted for Obama because the Democratic nominee better represented the teachings of Christ Thomas doesn't know what more he could do to take that conversation to another level he does know that the problem is worse than it was in 1999 we wrote the book to warn the future about the past Thomas said conceding that perhaps their warnings weren't Stark enough look at this new generation over 20% of young people have no faith at all I think part of that is our responsibility our being evangelicals because of what we've modeled these kids don't want to be caught up in the US versus them thing they have friends who have different points of view and they think they have to hate them to go to church he continued the great fault in the Evangelical movement today is that that were disobedient to the commands of the one we claim to follow what were those commands love your enemies pray for those who persecute you feed the hungry clothe the naked care for widows and orphans visit those in prison seek first the kingdom of God there are millions of Christians in America who follow these Commandments with rigor but there are millions more who do not or who at best follow them selectively and inconsistently I recalled what Pastor John Torres told me about his congregation at Goodwill Church in the Hudson Valley some of his most politically feverish people were also his most generous it's certainly possible for believers to have warm hearts and misplaced priorities the problem is the first two commands Thomas cited love your enemies pray for those who persecute you are simply incompatible with the culture Warrior mentality so many otherwise kind and benevolent evangelicals have adopted the public doesn't see their support of single moms or their donations to African clean water initiatives what they do see is a belligerence that overshadows those good deeds and in fact makes the possibility of them seem remote when you ask the average person what do you think it means to be a Christian they'll say prot Trump Republican right-wing antiabortion don't like gays they'll go down the list Thomas told me well why would they say that at because that's what we're modeling before the world those are our public priorities not these other things which get so little attention from man but all the attention from God that sounded harsh and perhaps Thomas was utilizing some hyperbole to make his point but he wasn't wrong unlike the Catholic Church which at least offsets its scandals with Bountiful centralized highly visible social programs for the hungry the disabled the drug addicted the abused the sick and anyone else who needs help the Evangelical Church is not exactly synonymous with Charity this isn't because evangelicals are not themselves charitable to the contrary research has shown time and again that Christians both Protestant and Catholic are more generous with donations than their non-religious peers it's really a matter of emphasis as influenced by theology whereas Catholics stress the works that must accompany Faith Protestants adhere to the doctrine of salvation by grace alone intrinsically then the public priorities of many evangelicals skew away from the social good even as their churches make profound contributions to it I was reminded of a conversation with Robert jeffris at First Baptist Dallas after touring his quar billion dollar facility complete with the designer coffee shop and 100 foot tall fountains I asked jeffris what his church was doing to serve the community in Dallas it seemed a fair question extravagant wealth aside he and his church were constantly in the news for their political activities surely he would also want to be known for helping his fellow man jeffris mentioned a homeless shelter and A Woman's Health Center commendable projects both but then hurriedly pivoted away from the subject not wanting to elaborate on these or any of the other community welfare projects sponsored by First Baptist Dallas wek not a Sanctified social agency he said that's not what I believe the church is about the remark had echoed through my brain for months I relayed it to Thomas who frowned does Jeffers regret going all in for Trump feels like we haven't heard from him in a while he said I told Thomas about the Arc of my conversations with jeffris and reported that no the pastor did not have any regrets Thomas rolled his eyes he recalled how this was the same Robert jeffris who'd lectured him at other leading evangelicals as a means of defeating Mitt Romney not to settle for anything less in an American president than a Bible believing born-again Christian it's like being for civil rights and a member of the clan he chuckled the irony was that Thomas himself was no stranger to the culture wars even after blinded by might he continued publishing a column that regularly took polarizing positions on already divisive subjects yet he wasn't a villain to to the left this was a man who called Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi friends a man who wrote conservative op EDS by day and dined with the country's most prominent progressives By Night what was his secret I want to be like Jesus he ate with publicans and sinners or as I like to say Republicans and Democrats Thomas said beaming mischievously he hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes that's what I want to be known for I want them to see him in me so that they will be attracted to him that is the purpose of my life the words Jesus spoke to his disciples at the Last Supper greater love has no one than this to lay down one's life for one's friends are phenomenal and inspiring yet read in a vacuum they can create a misconception about God's truly charitable nature Jesus didn't take on flesh to play favorites with a Chosen Few according to Paul God's love is revealed in the fact that his son died for us while we were still his enemies this is the gospel we are to Proclaim both in word and in deed to be a Christian is to sacrifice not for the benefit of those we already have around our table but for the betterment of those we have never considered to invite it's a funny thing about loving your enemies once you love them they cease to be your enemies that's right when you you love somebody regardless of their politics it's very difficult for them to hate you and then you can have a real conversation Thomas said do you want to convert them or do you want to condemn them the Bible's best known verse is John 3:16 in which Jesus reveals God's plan to sacrifice his only son in order that Sinners might believe in him and have life Everlasting but as Thomas pointed out the verse that follows quoted far less frequently is every bit as momentous for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him he and Russell Moore were making the same point in different ways evangelicals have successfully accumulated a type of power that would condemn their enemies and protect their kingdom here yet they have squandered the real power that God offers us chapter 11 Mount Juliet Tennessee am I leading a rebellion that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me Matthew 26: 55 nestled in a wooded stretch of exurban Wilson County Tennessee the campus of Greg Lock's global vision Bible Church felt more like a compound heaps of felled oak trees bordered the property evidence of hurried expansion a rutted gravel parking lot climbed High away from the main road at the summit was an enormous white tent out front a sign read this is a mask Free Church campus inside men wearing earpieces and camouflage pants guarded the entrance behind them many hundreds of people jumped up and down on a floor of cedar chips Pastor lock saluted them as soldiers rising up in God's Army some heard this more literally than others a significant number were carrying guns most evangelicals don't think of themselves as Lock's Target demographic he has suggested that autistic children are subjugated by demons he organized a book burning event to destroy a cult promoting Harry Potter novels and other books and games he called President Biden a sex TR trafficking demon-possessed Mongrel if this all sounds a bit strange ominous or even dangerous as one local Pastor warned me the night before I visited well sure but strange compared to what by this point I'd been desensitized to all the rhetoric of militarism and imminent Armageddon the churches that hosted election fraud profiteers and week night speakers denouncing the pseudo satanic agenda of black lives matter churches that that consider themselves mainstream were starting to feel like old hat spectacles that would have appalled and shocked generations of American churchgoers had become commonplace garish manifestations of a spiritual ecosystem spun so far off its axis that the Falcon could not hear the falconer even with all the yelling battle axes and Pen steering it was time I decided to visit the furthest fringes it was time to go see Greg lck not long ago lock was a smalltime Tennessee preacher then in 2016 he went viral with a selfie video shot outside his local Target skewering the company's policies on bathrooms and gender identity the video collected more than 18 million views and launched lock as a distinct Evangelical brand casting himself on social media as a lone voice of Courage within Christendom he soon aligned himself with figures like Trump henchman Roger Stone propaganda filmmaker denesh duza and right-wing rabble Rouser Charlie Kirk to gain clout as one of the Evangelical world's staunchest Trump supporters all the while his congregation swelled moving from their old church building which seated 250 into a large outdoor tent then into an even bigger tent and eventually into the current Colossus the tent holds 3,000 people and would be the Envy of both Barnum and Bailey which is fitting because global vision is less a Revival than it is a circus on the Sunday morning of my visit Lo pacing the stage in a bright orange tie asked how many people had traveled to his tent from outside Tennessee scores of people raised their hands and this is every weekend lock cried in his Hickory draw eager to put on a show for the visitors lock announced that his special guest he tries to book one every Sunday was the actor John Schneider who played Bo Duke on the Dukes of Hazard the crowd errupted everyone hoisted their phones in the air heralding Schneider's arrival like Catholics awaiting the pope Schneider had come to speak and sing there was such energy inside the tent that even some very serious looking men dressed in paramilitary gear Firearms strapped to their sides bounced on their toes and clapped along between songs Schneider offered a different catalog of greatest hits he talked about the flu shot making people sick he decried the Christian Elites who look down on Believers like him he referred to Biden as Brandon and suggested that Christians should prepare to join a violent Uprising we are born for such a time as this God is calling you to do something Schneider said we have a country to get back and if that fails we have a country yes I'll say it to take back not that one might expect theology from a guy whose claim to fame was portraying a bootlegger who named his Confederate themed card General Lee but this was a curious take on scripture the notion that God was calling on Christians to take back their country especially by force is laughably incompatible with the teachings of Christ it was Jesus who subverted the authorities with teachings of obedience and edict of nonviolence it was Jesus who mocked his captors for brandishing weapons as they arrested him am I leading a rebellion that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me he asked after a series of Meandering anecdotes that lacked any coherent theme Schneider finally made clear why he'd come to Global Vision asking people to go to John schneider.com and support him before playing their final song Schneider's musical partner a man named Cody plugged his own album for sale then after an awkward segue into describing the campaign against Jesus in America he announced they would be closing with a patriotic song it's title rise up Lock's sermon that day was about the Philistines of the Old Testament stealing the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites because they sensed that the only way to defeat God's chosen people was to separate them from God the same thing was happening in America today lock warned the enemy liberals had devised the plot to separate Christians from God by weaponizing a fake planemic to close down the church and all too many Christians were content to let it happen let me tell you something lock said his voice snarling I never had a prostitute mad at me for keeping this church open I Never Had A wno or a drunker come in here and say I can't believe you I never had a crackhead mad at me for keeping this church open but I get letters from preachers all the time oh brother lo you just need to take a chill pill we feel like you've shamed us Lo started nodding I have every last one of them cowards I've shamed all of them the audience went berserk Shame Shame Shame the pastor shouted wagging a finger at the beginning of the service lock had marveled at the turnout likening this to a Billy Graham Revival it raised an interesting question how would Graham feel about all this the most celebrated evangelist of the 20th century Graham took his Crusades to hundreds of Nations and preached to millions of people whatever his initial political inclinations warning against the evils of Communism in the 1950s allying himself with Richard Nixon in the 1960s Graham grew openly suspicious of partisanship as his career wore on he distanced himself from the religious right issued the Moral Majority and became known as America's Pastor the man who met with and prayed over every US president spanning nearly 70 years before his death Graham repented for his early political activism saying he'd crossed the line in ways that harmed his witness for Christ still even in his most unscrupulous moments Graham was a paragon compared to the self-seeker who would follow him from the televangelists of the 1970s and 80s all the way to the Ralph Reeds and Greg locks of today there was no foaming mad asell partisanship to be found at a Graham rally there certainly were no guns no calls for violence no swarms of people dressed and visibly ready for combat lock was on a very different Crusade one that more closely aligned with the vanquishing mentality of the Middle Ages than the Evangelistic efforts of modern Christian history reving in the sudden rise of global vision on that Sunday morning the Pastor said that Christians were done being pushed around if secularists wanted war with the church lock said then a war is what they would get it's time to stand up it's time to push back it's time to fight the pastor thundered I've read the back of the book and we're on The Winning Side the left don't win the Socialists don't win Nancy Pelosi don't win the devil don't win lock was 16 years old a ward of the state at good sheeper children's home in Murphy's buror Tennessee when he professed faith in Jesus Christ this conversion May well have changed the trajectory of his life but it didn't correct certain behaviors that led to his teenage detention in the first place a self-described Helen lock was arrested five times before going into the state's custody this had long seemed his Destiny lock was a toddler when his father went away to a Maximum Security Prison on charges of drug dealing and armed robbery according to a profile in The Nashville Tennessean he hated his stepfather and escaped into a rebel existence of violent music Perpetual fist fights and eventually crime his time at Good Shepard might have been a minor league stopover prep pring him for a life of professional incarceration had he not attended a Revival one night the minister denounced the very activities lock had been involved with and at first the youngster didn't take it well tracking down the pastor and screaming at him afterward but then lock decided to go back the next night this time he listened carefully and at the end of the program responded to the altar call and prayed to be saved soon after lock felt called to preach he began practicing at the boy's home then worked odd jobs so he could pay for airtime at a local radio station at age 19 lock married an older woman she had worked on staff at Good Shepard and began attending Bible college for parts of the next 10 years he worked as a traveling evangelist with the Independent Baptist movement visiting 46 States and 15 countries by the time he was 30 Lo had gotten tired of life on the Road he came home and planted global vision not far from his childhood home it would be some time before lock started making headlines in fact for a decade after returning to Tennessee his only controversy was splitting from the small fundamentalist Baptist denomination to which he' belonged and declaring global vision an independent church to the extent lock was known in wider Nashville an area home to many hundreds of Evangelical churches it was for global vision dramatic acts of generosity and community outreach he staged public events around the area raising money for the homeless and drug addicted and donating it directly to those in need the church continues that practice today Lock's behavior and his reputation began changing around 2015 just before The Supreme Court ruled in oera fell vodes to legalize same-sex marriage Lo shot a selfie video titled I'm coming out of the closet declaring Christianity to be under attack and encouraging Believers to launch a counter offensive lock said that local churches should be the governing Authority on Earth and suggested that the American political system had become illegitimate for followers of Christ the video was viewed more than 6 million times not bad for a self-described hillbilly preacher and grew Lock's Facebook following tenfold in this face of just a few weeks before long lock once a reluctant user of social media was living online on one occasion he videotaped himself outside a local school accusing teachers of indoctrinating kids with lessons about Islam Educators in deep red Wilson County most of them Christians explained that the curriculum was standard and had been taught for years another time lock ranted on camera against the state's Republic Governor Bill Haslam for vetoing a bill that would have established the Bible as Tennessee's official state book that men that laid the framework for this nation lock taunted Haslam didn't use the Quran to do it the formula was simple enough just as Donald Trump was weaponizing Twitter bullying his opponents and building a small army of Maga enthusiasts in route to the presidency lock was using Facebook as a recruiting tool for his campaign against the enemies of Christianity in the broader culture it was an unqualified success by the time he shot the video skewering Target's bathroom policies lock was gaining hundreds of new online followers every day and scores of new attendees at global vision every week the target video elevated him from Guerilla Scrapper to General in God's American Army not everyone was comfortable with Lock's tactics some of his original C defected from global vision concerned that their missional Outreach would suffer from the church's changing reputation lock worried about this himself the church had been established on the concept of radical compassion but now it was just plain radical whatever money global vision raised for the hering was being dwarfed by the proceeds lock generated by inflicting pain onto others suddenly the reward found in loving one's enemies seemed trivial relative to the reward found in hating them if the Trump presidency was a gold rush for right-wing grifters lock Struck it positively Rich growing Global Vision in proportion to his own bulging celebrity in Evangelical circles he became difficult to ignore the churn of controversy was incessant sometimes about his TI raides against transgenderism sometimes about his alliances with Maga figures sometimes about his personal life following an ugly divorce locks scandalized some in the church by marrying his ex-wife's closest friend where others might have pulled back Lo always charged ahead picking any and every fight he could the payoff came with covid-19 refusing to close global vision and publicly degrading any Pastor who decided differently lock portrayed himself as an Avenger fueled by religious Vindication the lonely voice of boldness inside a retreating American Christendom his following kept increasing and he kept pushing the limits his viral videos became ever less about Jesus Christ and ever more about Greg lock railing against medical authorities jering Biden discrediting vaccines protesting in DC on January 6th in one of his most viewed videos of 2020 the pastor accosted a Dunkin Donuts employee who asked him to wear a mask inside the store lock hadn't responded to my requests for an interview when I visited global vision but several months later he called me on the phone I expected hubris and hostility what I got was something else skittishness and self-doubt do I believe America's in Decline absolutely do I believe we've come a long way from our original values yeah do I believe the Constitution and the Bible are under attack 1,000% that doesn't mean I'm going to to take up arms against the government lock assured me then he added I certainly believe in gun ownership and I've told people look we still believe in our First Amendment right if they show up at our tent to stop us then we'll meet them at the door with our Second Amendment right this rhetorical turnabout making clear in one gulp of error that he draws the line at violence then suggesting in the next that his congregants would shoot anyone who tried to prevent the church from convening was representative of our longer conversation the pastor was surprisingly pensive and receptive to tough questioning he would regularly admit to having taken something too far and lament how a stray sound bite that went viral had distracted from the substance of his sermon then he would double down on that sound bite as if fearful that I took his Contrition for cowardice early in the interview lock shared a concern although he was thrilled with the booming numbers at global vision they were were averaging well over 2,000 attendees each week and hundreds of those were first time out of town visitors lock feared that certain people were coming for the wrong reasons some expected an America First Festival some hoped the church was plotting a sedici Uprising some believed that lock would prophesize the arrival of Q the fabled Forerunner of the kinon movement and tell them when to expect military tribunals and public executions of America's leading leftists everybody thinks I'm automatically Q because I believe that child sex trafficking is real and because I believe the election was stolen and things like that so these people came over and they couldn't switch it off lock said it's almost like a lot of the church took on the Q movement when the Q movement and the church are really two diametrically opposed organizations I told lock that it sounded like the Q people worshiped a different God entirely he agreed I don't want to be put that mix and Amalgamated into the whole qinon movement or any other conspiracy theory movement lock said I think that can be detrimental to the gospel because what I'm preaching about Jesus is not a conspiracy theory but as Lo had just told me he did think Trump's reelection was stolen he did subscribe to certain beliefs about vaccines and globalist schemes and a deep State regime that are commonly described as conspiracy theories might he grasp why some people who heard him preach with such Authority and conviction about the central truth of Jesus and about the peripheral truth of these other matters were merging the two belief systems into one you know I think that's a fair argument no doubt the pastor replied his counterargument most Sunday mornings his sermons are 90% biblical verse by verse line by line word by word and 10% political but the popular perception of him is in inverted people who know him only from a viral video Lo complained think that his material is 90% political and 10% biblical I am flamboyant and animated and demonstrative when I believe something I really believe it so yeah I get where somebody would think this is crazy this guy's dangerous lock told me but if they talk to me or sit down with me over a cup of coffee or ra should come to a service they'd be like oh wow that wasn't nearly as abrasive as I thought it would be he laughed I think people have a certain perception of me in our church it's Jim Jones and Kool-Aid and all this kind of stuff when really we're just a bunch of people that preach verse by verse and line by line lock said I just get carried away sometimes in his epistle James Likens the human tongue to a small Rudder that directs a massive ship Lo didn't seem to grasp this concept shrugging off concerns about his deranged commentary while simultaneously complaining that he was misunderstood there was I suggested one Surefire way to prove his detractor wrong if lock stopped mixing priorities wouldn't people stop thinking he had his priorities mixed up I think there could be some validity to that he acknowledged we can operate sometimes in a spirit of fear because we see our rights being stripped from us and what our kids are being taught and things that are glaringly and polar opposite from what we would have grown up with but I mean even from my standpoint I've grown I'm almost 46 years old now are there times that it's been perceived that I cared more about the kingdom of Earth than the Kingdom of Heaven probably and that was probably my fault I probably shot myself in the foot and got a little too animated about things one of those times lock said was the Duncan Donuts confrontation when he learned that the employee in his video had been flooded with threats and Hate mail from Lock's followers the pastor issued a tearful apology to his congregation admitting he'd been a jerk for Jesus lock told me more bluntly that he'd acted like a colossal prick the pastor asked global vision to take up a special offering for the man then delivered him a check for $3,000 along with a personal apology what I've learned about the size of our platform is it does a lot of good but if I'm not careful to harness its power it could hurt a lot of people he said Lo proceeded to explain how things were now very different at global vision even in the short time since I'd visited the Pastor said his approach to Leading the church had changed God had given him a platform over the past decade that he used to draw thousands of people to that Hillside tent in Middle Tennessee he now had a flock to Shepherd lock told me and didn't have time for any more distractions I'm really focusing on pastoring our people we have tens of thousands of people all over the world that consider me their pastor and I've never even met them he said I've been canceling a lot of meetings I've not been going to these rallies I mean I got people who want me to go down to maral Lago and it's like I've outgrown it you know I'm bored with it to be honest with you I just want to Pastor our people lock didn't stay bored for long in the month following our conversation he returned to those rallies and resumed his old routine from the pulpit he accused Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey of being pedophiles he suggested that the president's son Hunter Biden should be executed by a firing squad he called Democrats God denying demons and said you cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation he boasted about his collection of assault rifles making noises to mimic the cocking of a firearm and claimed that Christians had biblical authority to take America by force he warned pointing a finger directly into the camera you ain't seen an Insurrection yet no doubt Lo was a talented showman either he was putting on an act for these people or he had played a part for me which was it LO obviously did believe some of what he said from those stages but it was equally obvious that much of his bellicose cruelty was performative this was man who assured me I'm not against people you and I there's no doubt if we sat down you and I would disagree on a lot of things but that doesn't make us enemies it makes us human Lo had all but winked and nodded at me over the phone explaining that there was a strategy behind his firestorms that by kicking up so much fuss he was attracting masses of Outsiders to Global Vision then stealthily converting them to Christ but those masses weren't necessarily wise to the lock is playing the thousands of people making the pilgrimage to Mount Juliet every week aren't aware that lock actually thinks qanon is a joke or that he actually wishes people didn't bring guns to his church or that he actually believes Christian nationalism is a contradiction in terms they aren't aware of any of that because lock doesn't tell them like so many celebrity shot callers on the Christian right lock sees this charade for what it really is but does everything possible to make sure that his followers don't coming to the realization that Greg lock is somewhat rational a guy who's perceptive and self-aware contrary to the Persona who prows the stage at global vision might make one feel better about the prospect of restoring some sanity to the American Evangelical movement but I didn't feel any better after that conversation with Lo in fact I felt a whole lot worse Lo is a genuinely gifted preacher while he definitely spends more than 10% of his Pulpit time on political rants his presentation of the other material can be quite compelling he has an ability to snap off entire chapters of scripture no notes required effortlessly lacing Old Testament law and New Testament application with sharp self-deprecating quips when he stays disciplined on the substance Lock's style can be startlingly effective there is every reason to believe that had he tapped into that rational side pursuing a career of preaching the gospel and nothing else Lo might have become every bit as influential as he is today instead lock took a shortcut he discovered that there was a market for being irrational he came to appreciate that wrath is a business model that crazy is a church growth strategy that hating enemies is far more powerful at least in the immediate sense than loving them the results are hard to dis some of the most prominent conservatives in America have lined up to speak at global vision the president of the United States invited him to Washington for the 2020 Republican convention Franklin Graham even posed with him for photos at the White House for that long ago troubled kid who dreamed of becoming Billy Graham and who' since been shunned by many of the most respected voices in evangelicalism this must have felt like Divine validation Lo achieved this legitimacy without surrendering to the Evangelical establishment in fact lock made the Evangelical establishment surrender to him prior to covid-19 his delusional anti-leftist stick made him an outcast in the Evangelical world but when the virus arrived and the question of shutting down became a defining litmus test for churches Nationwide Lo went from Pariah to profit as the country emerged from the fog of 2020 pastors who had defied the government especially those pastors who made a show of it then watched attendance double and donations triple as a result learned what lock already knew this was The New Normal they had chosen a permanent side they had committed themselves to something bigger than an individual Public Health policy no longer could the culture wars be selected alak cart talking politics was now as much a part of church life as taking communion I don't think there's any going back lock told me that trains left the station extremism in American churches is nothing new recall Westboro Baptist Church the Kansas congregation that achieved notoriety at the turn of the century by hoisting signs claiming that God hates Jews gays and dead soldiers but lock embodies a distinct Trump era phenomenon the most revealing part of my trip to Global Vision was the peculiar sort of indifference I felt at the end of the service there was nothing Suey generous about lock he said the same things I'd heard from other pastors on my trips around America atmospherics aside it's not every day you worship inside a tent next to a pistol toing man wearing an Alex Jones shirt the substance was familiar and predictable to the point of tedium of course this would come as a shock to many self-respecting Christians who still want to believe that their pastors are nothing like lock that their churches are nothing like global vision that they themselves are nothing like the people in that tent these self-respecting Christians are in denial it's easy for evangelicals to dismiss global vision as an outlier the same way they did westbo Baptist it's much harder to scrutinize the extremism that has infiltrated their own churches and Ponder its logical Endo in this environment if a pastor begins to dabble in conspiracies and political deception what guardrails exist to keep him from going off the grid altogether and what if he does go off the grid does it even register just as with our politics there is no longer a clear line of demarcation between The Fringe and the mainstream 10 years ago global vision would have been considered a cult today lock preaches to 2.2 million Facebook followers and poses alongside Franklin Graham at the White House walking out of global vision I wondered how many pastors at smaller conservative churches pastors like Bill Bolan at Floodgate in my hometown of Brighton Michigan would have felt uncomfortable sitting inside this tent listening to lock the answer I suspected was very few global vision and Floodgate may be different in degree but they are not different in kind what binds them together lock and Bolan and the scores of other right-wing pastors I'd encountered over the past few years is that they are now expected to be something more than mere church leaders they are political handicappers social commentators media critics information Gatekeepers and they have only themselves to blame it turns out when a pastor decides that churches should do more than just worship God congregants decide that their Pastor should do more than just preach this might be precisely what some pastors had always hoped for the opportunity to guide and shape every aspect of their congregants lives but spiritually speaking this is a doomed proposition pastors already struggle to provide all the answers written down inside their book in a modern Evangelical culture that punishes uncertainty where weakness is wokeness where indecision is the wrong decision asking pastors to provide all the other answers is a recipe for institutional ruin because what their congregations crave more and more is not so much objective religious instruction but subjective religious justification a clergy endorsed rationale for living their lives in a manner that might otherwise feel Unbecoming for a Christian down this path disaster Waits the pastor who finds himself offering religious justification today might find himself inventing it tomorrow in the darkest chapters of church history the Crusades and the Inquisition the slave trade and sexual abuse scandals the common denominator has been a willing on the part of Christian authority figures to distort scripture for what they perceive to be some greater good this explains why long after leaving global vision I could not rid myself of its violent imagery all the guns and paramilitary gear and the swaggering Talk of the Second Amendment lock swore this rhetoric was Defensive in nature that's always the case until it isn't chapter 12 San K Farah France in this world you will have trouble but take heart I have overcome the world John chapter 16: 33 the short man in the black turtleneck the one with the glasses and the salt and pepper beard was no ordinary wartime dissident his name was cirel hun an orthodox monk hun spent a decade in Moscow as the theological Aid to Camp to patriarch Kil head of the Russian Orthodox church and the second most powerful man in Russia HOV run was born in Ukraine and taught around the world but felt Duty bound to lend his intellectual talents to the Soviet Mothership the Ukrainian Orthodox church had existed for centuries under the umbrella of the Russian Orthodox Church a special opportunity awaited the young monk in Moscow unlike in his native Ukraine hun explained only a fraction of the Russian people are practicing Christians for the vast majority 80% of the country's citizens he estimated Christianity is an identity thing a cultural thing fortunately for the Kremlin doctrinal conviction is not a precondition for religious tribalism as the historian Mara Keli observed Orthodox Christian nationalism has been on the rise in Russia from the collapse of the Soviet Union the byproduct of a state desperate to ReDiscover legitimacy in the eyes of a chastened and aimless populace hun remembers being alarmed in 2007 When Vladimir Putin announced at a Global Security Forum his desire to recreate the old Soviet Empire what concerned him even more was how around that same time the Kremlin began deploying obtrusive language around the restoration of Traditional Values it seemed clear that the strategy of Russia's government in Partnership hun began to Suspect with patriarch Kel and the Orthodox Church was to create a spiritual rationale for policies that might otherwise prove unpopular this church state Alliance seemed mostly ceremonial at first projecting A Renewed Orthodox piety that invited the nation's downtrodden masses to feel distinctive once more Russia refused entrance to the pope targeted evangelicals with a law criminalizing missionary work and in a symbolic Flex of state power arrested three female rock stars who protested Putin on stage at a Moscow Cathedral when Russia passed a 2013 law Banning propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships it was evident that Putin in contrast to leaders of the liberalizing and secularizing West was successfully depicting himself as a global champion of religious and cultural fundamentalism but the Kremlin scheme soon took a more Sinister turn in 2014 Russia invaded and annexed Crimea a Ukrainian territory of historical import to the Russian people this blatant violation of intern national law as well as the bloody campaign that ensued in the dbas a disputed region of eastern Ukraine was made palatable to the Russian people thanks to moscow's rhetoric of divine Destiny gone was any pretense of institutional Independence for the Orthodox Church Vladimir Putin and patriarch Kel were now operating in tandem a host of kremlin-backed separatists fought to topple Ukrainian sovereignty in the donbas but one special Italian stood out an on the ground report from NBC News called them shock troops they called themselves the Russian Orthodox Army by the time Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 the Kremlin had perfected a propaganda that casts nationalist aggression in terms of cultural defense geopolitical Conquest in terms of religious obligation this was a throwback to pre-enlightenment casus B Russia had entered both World Wars on protective grounds now Putin was hearkening back to a time before the last Zar and nobody could stop him the Russian people were convinced hovan said that they were fighting a sacred War to liberate Ukraine from secularists apostates even Nazis and though much of the heavy lifting was done by patriarch Kel who told Russian troops mobilizing toward Ukraine to remember that if you lay down your life for your country you will be with God history would record a new Canon being authored by Russia's president this phenomenon said hun who went into self-imposed Exile prior to the Crimean conflict I would describe as the political Theology of putinism in the fall of 2022 as the Russian invasion of Ukraine was limping toward an glorious stalemate hon spoke to a small gathering of journalists and academics in the south of France the setting was in congruous with the subject matter perch to top a luxury resort overlooking the French Riviera the softspoken monk analyzed the ongoing atrocities in his native Ukraine this ju Theos was not by Design the event hosted by the nonprofit Faith angle Forum also featured panels on China and Democratic breakdowns in Europe though it did serve as a useful device for framing the conversation so many of the westerners gathered Americans and Europeans alike were going about our daily lives Faith angle moderator Josh Goods said largely ignorant to the strange reality that a ferocious land war was raging 1,000 mil away the war wasn't going well for Putin that much was known the ukrainians were staging an inspired defense of their Homeland and Russian morale was crumbling one reason for that hovan told us was that the kremlin's religious rhetoric had worn thin on the Russian troops whereas Notions of an ordained offensive had worked in Crimea as well as at the outset of the Ukraine Invasion there was now substantial evidence of Russian soldiers discovering that they'd been duped by Moscow there was no Legion of Nazis awaiting them in Kiev they weren't being greeted as holy liberators there was nothing about shelling this friendly neighboring Nation this sounded to us Americans like excellent news but overrun did not seem particularly hopeful the propaganda campaign was still highly effective back at home with the aid of state-run media and a blockade against Western information the Kremlin had convinced much of the Russian public that their sons were engaged in a Sanctified struggle it wasn't just the Russian people being brainwashed Tucker Carlson at the time still the top rated Fox News personality spent the first year of the war defending Putin's honor downplaying his savagery and describing America's Aid to Ukraine as a secular Jihad aimed at toppling an Orthodox Christian country with Traditional Values he was joined in this effort by far-right American lawmakers such as Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor green who ranted on Carlson's show about this war war against Russia in Ukraine Carlson's programming was played in a loop on Russian State television to reinforce the kremlin's talking points that Putin was losing this holy war death tolls can be manipulated but not concealed entirely only gave him cause to escalate the intensity of the theological language has really increased from Putin hover run warned us his rhetoric has made a long journey from nazification to Des satanized anymore The Stir of national humiliation on top of persuasive economic incentives Warriors are paid three times the median wage in Russia according to news reports had guaranteed a longer and uglier War than anyone had imagined as we gathered in France the list of documented War crimes committed by Putin and his troops was impossible to ignore Mass grave sites with civilian bodies strikes against hospitals and children's Refuge homes evidence of torture and potential genocide when you have a special Mission from God then you are not bound by moral Norms hun said you are free to do whatever your mission requires you to do hon was quick to clarify something Putin is not really really a religious man the Russian leader practices in Eclectic theology he said that cherry picks whatever spiritual Concepts support his ideological agenda the one constant the one thing Putin believes in is Power by weaponizing religion HOV run said Putin had accumulated more of it than ever before Russia wasn't merely using Christianity to endorse its Ambitions Russia was using Christianity to Define its enemies it was the kind of identitarian programming that pre-aged some of History's Greatest crimes and in the case of Russia's Butchery in Ukraine it would not have been possible without the blessing of the church identity is not barbarity Miroslav fulf told us but it can lead to it vul would certainly know a renc Theologian who heads Yale University's Center for Faith and culture vul had traveled to France to share the dis with his fellow scholar hun raised in the former nation of Yugoslavia vul was the only Protestant in his high school he was the son of a Pentecostal Minister who like most Protestants was monitored closely by the governing authorities vul grew up buffered by ethn religious boundaries the Republic of Croatia was predominantly Catholic the Republic of Serbia was predominantly Orthodox the Republic of Bosnia and heroina was predominantly Muslim and the churches in these and other states preached a dogmatic nationalism as Yugoslavia kened toward Civil War in the late 1980s the world was uniting but Yugoslavia was falling apart recalled vul a lanky bald pated Professor his accent still distinctly Eastern European what we experienced was a religiously motivated reassertion of ethnic identities the result was a decade of genocide and ethnic cleansing the Carnage is difficult to quantify but Scholars generally believe that some 15,000 people were killed and as many as 4 million others were displaced by the violence in the Balkans the chief instigator was Serbian president Slobodan mosovich Who Rose to Power by vilifying the Muslim kosovans within his State historians point out that mosovich in delivering a national address that sparked the Civil War cited the recorded persecution of his people by rival religious factions he delivered the message flanked by Orthodox priests this is the world from which vul emerged having returned to his native Croatia to teach after completing his theological studies in the west vul left in 19 1991 the year Croatia declared independence and watched from the United States as his homeland was ravaged by interessing violence the professor has since dedicated much of his career to preventing a historical Encore his advocacy of nonviolence I take seriously the Commandment of Jesus that one should love one's enemy vul said citing it as a Cornerstone of the Christian faith can only accomplish so much to head off what he fears is a Resurgence of religious totalitarianism vul was attempting to reclaim his own faith tradition from the extremist Fringe The Narrative Arc of the Bible tells of an aspirational evolution in Mankind's thinking vul said what began in Exodus the story of God's chosen people escaping bondage and eventually coming into the Covenant state of Israel was finished by the arrival of Jesus who taught his disciples to take his message to all the Nations the transformational effect of this cannot be overstated immediately all but overnight a people who had refused to associate with anyone outside their ethnic tribe began calling them brothers and sisters there is neither Jew nor Gentile neither slave nor free nor is there male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians the Bible's final book Revelation paints a utopic vision of Christ living among his followers in a New Jerusalem this is the believer's pluralistic Destiny a Heavenly Melting Pot where descendants of every nation ethnicity and race are unified forever more in the body of Christ that Vision can be difficult to see vul said when professing Christians are engaged in a twisting of the religious landscape that rationalizes social antagonism clannish nihilism and even physical violence none of this is unprecedented religion and politics are natural enemies both provide a sense of belonging and self-actualization to the masses tension between the two is healthy and necessary when one appropriates the other history shows that oppression leading to death and human suffering at a woeful scale is the inevitable result what vul watched take root in Yugoslavia has been seen throughout the century and continues to repeat itself in his view there are three features of creeping totalitarianism in the name of religious conviction the first can be seen When leaders assert the Primacy of an ethnic or cultural identity over shared Humanity the second is when they stress the purification of those identities inevitably leading to forms of ethnic cleansing the third is when violence becomes legitimized for the protection of group identities people of the modern world are living in a gap vul said stuck between a pre- technology age that is fading away and a futuristic world that is yet to fully arrive the resulting anxiety around the crumbling of Institutions the instability of cultures the insufficiency of economies creates a crisis at the intersection of religion and politics vul fears that Christians are claiming to navigate this rupture via religious ident but are actually navigating it via political identity when Believers invoke Eternal symbols to advance an Earthly goal those symbols become cheapened to the point of ultimately meaning nothing this is what happened in the Yugoslavia of V youth this is what is happening in Ukraine today at the hands of Vladimir Putin and patriarch Kel and this he warned us is what could happen elsewhere if current trends go unchecked vulf threw up a hand symbol like a peace sign but with the thumb jutting out that was commonplace among Christian soldiers in Eastern Europe its aim was religious instead of two fingers calling for peace on Earth three fingers representing the Trinity meant to summon God's blessing but if you see a fighter riding on a tank flashing this sign none of that theological content is on their minds ful said that is a religion that that has been completely hollowed out of its internal content it is functioning simply as a marker of identity I could think of a few markers like that although this was a conversation between two Eastern European scholars taking place in France about a war between Russia and Ukraine the subtext very much centered on the American Evangelical Church hun fought a smirk while describing how Putin manipulated his countrymen into buying a revisionist founding myth of their Nation his ultimate goal being to make Russia Great again vul noting the hard conversations he's having with his American students detailed the ways in which religion and nationalism were motivating today's totalitarian movements the plural was not lost on anyone in the room neither one of these aidite dignified gentlemen seemed eager to discuss the sorted details of what was transpiring across the pond but the rest of us were America was not engulfed in a land War it was not waging holy war against The Sovereign Nation there was however a war for the essence and the character of American Christianity and it was reverberating the world over in recent years I had spoken with missionaries and evangelists spanning multiple continents and they all shared the same fundamental concern was all this nationalistic talk from the American Evangelical Church just that talk or was it indicative of a serious effort to restructure the relationship between the state and the country's dominant religion and if it was the latter why weren't sane Christians doing more to stop it this last question haunted me most in the Years following September 11th 2001 as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and Isis slaughtered Innocents in the name of vaa Western intellectuals fixated on the idea of finding and elevating moderate Muslims who could help reclaim the religion from its violent extremist Fringe the wisdom and efficacy of this strategy was dubious yet it struck me that Christianity was probably overdue for a similar conversation globally in Russia and in the United States this was not to equate suicide bombers with January 6th riers or to compare body counts between and Osama Bin Laden but rather to observe that there are consequences when religious Doctrine becomes infected with political ideology while the scope of the American crisis at present seemed trivial relative to say the Crusades things had gotten very bad very quickly and would only get worse unless something was done about it but what having spent a lifetime immersed inside this world it was unclear to me what or more realistically who might help to bring American evangelicalism back from the brink there was no longer reason to believe that some calamitous intervening event could unify the church we had just endured a once in a century pandemic and it made existing divides that much deeper the situation seemed almost hopeless it was an unfair fight for the soul of American Christianity on one side were decorated Veterans of the culture wars Arch conservatives who live for conflict meanwhile their more moderate counterparts in temperament not theology are inherently reluctant to enter the fry those who believe that their struggle is not against flesh and blood I had learned were the least likely to struggle against flesh and blood unpacking all this for vul and HOV run with an apology for viewing their Universal discussion through a narrower prism I asked what hope they had for the American Evangelical Church I'm wondering how many American Christians even conservative evangelicals think in those purely spiritual terms vul replied he didn't think it was a fair fight either though for somewhat different reasons whereas I was suggesting that the silent majority needed to speak up vul wasn't sure they were a majority anymore at all he told us that something had changed during his decades spent teaching and engaging with Christians in America a generation earlier this militant approach to theology was discernible only below the surface but the church had since been captured by nationalist ideals that saturated the Evangelical ecosystem Vol said he believed that Christian nationalism was now the predominant form of Evangelical Christianity in the United States and he frankly had no idea what to do about it there's something really powerfully insular about this Vision that it's almost like I have experienced it as impenetrable he told us just as it's very difficult to talk to your neighbors who disagree on political grounds so also it's difficult to have theological discussions at all I asked wul whom he held responsible for this tapering of our theology in the American Church there is a loss of educated thoughtful leadership he said leaders of evangelicals have become media personalities Paula White is a very good example of somebody who is highly highly influential but has the thinnest of all possible understandings of the complexities of Faith the gates to moral Lago were flung open Now emboldened by The Mention Of Trump's Pastor the British journalist Emma Tucker who soon after this convening was named editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal followed my question with an even better one she asked hun whether given the nature of putinism as a secular religion in Russia he saw the same forces at play with trumpism in the United States certainly we are dealing with a similar sort of secular religion hun replied under this canopy of secular religion however he stressed a key distinction political religion versus civil religion the former is imposed by the state while the latter is practiced voluntarily as hon explained the history behind these definitions it became obvious why he was so invested in our understanding of them political religion is not optional he said that was exactly hitlerism Nazism communism they were political religions they were much more violent and that is exactly the transformation that happened to putinism it started as a civil religion with a set of rituals quasi religious rituals ideas that were optional for the Russian people now it's not optional anymore it's a political religion with the power of imposition upon the Russians he added in trumpism we are still dealing with civil religion a form of civil religion it's not yet political religion hun stabbed a finger into the air as if to suspend his thoughts after Trump won the presidency in 2016 he told us he submitted an article to the conservative economic IAL Magazine first things arguing that trumpism could become America's first political religion the article was rejected surely the editors found his premise a bit exotic the Brilliance of our kingdom is in its curbs on autocracy term limits checks and balances a peaceful transition of power and yet long before the Mayhem of January 6th hun argued that all of this was beside the point just as the political the ology of putinism was now bigger than Putin himself trumpism as a religious ideology was taking root in ways that would endure after Trump left office the magazine editors spoke for most American Christians in refusing to entertain the notion that what had transpired in Russia an Abrupt ins sanguin transition from civil religion to political religion could happen here I still believe it is possible unfortunately poon said to the extent hun remained optimistic it was because of a basic difference between American evangelicalism and Russian Orthodoxy political evangelicalism at least rhetorically is Christ Centric he said political Orthodoxy is not it avoids speaking about Christ if you take Putin or others they don't speak about Christ they speak about other things in the faith but vul wasn't sure that the rhetoric mattered anymore I have come to believe that the Christ of the Gospel has become a moral stranger to us he said if you read the gospels the things that profoundly mattered to Christ they marginally matter to most Evangelical Christians and the things that really profoundly matter to them marginally mattered to Christ he added in the sense in which Christ is the key to Christianity you cannot have Christianity without Christ we are in a certain sense in this crisis of Christianity precisely because of a certain alienation from Christ one of the journalists asked vul to be more specific could he offer some examples of the things that mattered profoundly to Christ the professor's eyes danced at this open-ended invitation to prooze Christ concerned himself greatly with the poor vul said but the poor are hardly mentioned in today's Evangelical discourse Christ actively avoided Fame vul said asking the people on whom he performed Miracles not to tell anyone but today's Evangelical leaders are drunk on Fame Christ demanded that we love our enemies vul said but not even lip service is being paid to this in today's Evangelical churches I can go down the line of the fundamental values of modernity the fundamental values of most of us and contrast them to what one finds in the gospel you find incredible discrepancy the professor concluded I find it deeply deeply disturbing Thomas Chatterton Williams a paris-based journalist who was born in the United States offered a final thought on the American situation vul was describing my maternal family are Evangelical Christians and my aunt is someone that I think of as keeping Christ very personally in her life Chatterton Williams said she voted for Trump twice and said that he's a very flawed human being but the only way she could get herself motivated to block a truly Evil Woman I.E Hillary Clinton was to think that God works with flawed human beings all the time to do a greater good that same Aunt he said had just moved from California to Georgia during a recent phone conversation she told him that she was planning to vote for Hershel Walker the Republican candidate for US Senate it didn't matter that a proliferating number of news reports beginning with a blockbuster story in The Daily Beast offered credible and compelling evidence that Walker had paid for at least one abortion it didn't matter that Walker's son the one child he had publicly acknowledged not the three others had responded to the news by tweeting that his father a self-professed moral Christian upright man had in fact abandoned him and his mother to bang a bunch of women and then threatened to to kill us none of these flagrant character flaws were relevant to his aunt William said because Walker like Trump was playing for the right team I'm trying to square this he said to vul how can Christianity accommodate itself to such appalling anti-christian conduct and once you get to a point where you can say anybody's conduct can be excused because God has a larger plan and uses flawed vessels then what is is left of an actual Christianity at that point vul could only shake his head searching for the words I think you've identified the problem really well the professor said that hersel Walker would close that US Senate campaign by likening his Democratic rival to Satan incarnate was not surprising after all the success of putinism and trumpism owes to a literal demonizing of the other casting adversaries as not just wrong or obnoxious but as wicked and diabolical because these political religious movements depict opponents as evildoers it is intrinsically difficult to defeat them on theological grounds and yet both vul and hovon argued this is the only way of defeating them denouncing cruelty and Malice and violence in a political context only achieves so much because politics ICS are naturally cruel and malicious and violent to expose the shallowness of these secular religions hun told us they need to be deconstructed theologically that term deconstruct had come to represent a great rift within American evangelicalism the concept was hardly new yet it took on heightened significance during the Trump era Christians who'd been raised in the Evangelical tradition reared in churches that effortlessly synthesized conservative theology with the zero some tribal politics that led to Trump began to question their beliefs if their parents and pastors had been so mistaken about the politics the thinking went what had they gotten wrong about the theology I never considered myself a deconstructionist though I empathized with the underlying sensibility in my view biblical Christianity requires a constant reassessing of one's beliefs and biases deconstruction is something that should be done every single day not in response to some Black Swan event tellingly much of the modern Evangelical Lobby had condemned deconstructionism RIT large claiming wrongly that it was some Progressive political device and fearing rightly that it would stir uneasiness in their churches hun and vul were prescribing deconstruction on an industrial scale this went far beyond challenging individual interpretations of scripture what they envisioned was a collective and decentralized effort on the part of serious Kingdom First Christians of all partisan Persuasions to strip these secular religions of any theological legitimacy the best antidote to Bad Religion as vul noted is good religion hovon pointed to a hopeful precedent it was vul's Mentor the German theologian jorgan molan who helped to lead an inter-confessional effort that rectified so many deadly distortions of Christianity in post World War II Europe This was no easy feat for decades hun said totalitarian theology had seized much of Europe Christof fascists had a foothold inside the Roman Catholic Church the Deutsche Christian faction in Germany was rapidly anti-semitic Orthodox leaders in Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe spewed anti-democratic propaganda it took the extermination of 6 million Jews at the hands of soldiers wearing a twisted cross for Christians to deconstruct this fascism anti-Semitism and authoritarianism putinism is a mosaic consisting of all those pieces HOV run said we need to come together and figure out how to deal with this new monster which is so similar to the totalitarian theologies of the 30s what made the old monster so difficult to slay vul told me over lunch afterward was that it feasted on the trembling heart of man Jesus instructed his followers to take heart because he had overcome the Troubles of the world but most of us don't listen Christians remain just as susceptible to panicky group think and identity-based paranoia as anyone else despite Jesus promising his followers that they would suffer or perhaps because of this promise Christians since the age of Constantine have run anxiously into the arms of the state desperate to be protected by the rulers of their time and place the irony vul said is that Jesus himself was killed by the state because he was daring enough to offer an alternative to the powers that reigned in the domain where he was a willful blurring of lines between those powers and the alternative led to Calamity in the last century history might repeat itself vul warned if we don't heed the words of Carl bar the legendary Swiss Theologian who prosecuted the theological case against Hitler and Nazism if the church is to practice the teachings of Christ bar wrote it must be an unreliable Ally to every social political and government government order of this world this is not always an easy message to preach vul's Mentor mman possessed a singular credibility because of his proximity to the Nazi cause drafted into the German Army at age 16 he surrendered to the first British soldier he encountered and spent three years as a prisoner of war an American chaplain supplied the Bible that would alter the course of his life maltman's Reflections on the atrocities of a and his teachings on the benevolence of a sovereign God one who took the form of man in order to bleed and grieve alongside us did as much to shatter the spell of Nazism as any B17 bomber listening to hun during our time in France I could tell he was following a similar blueprint the onetime Russian Orthodox Insider turned dissident in Exile was traveling the world at considerable personal risk to warn of the dangers of putinism he was proving highly effective it made me wonder about trumpism and the American Evangelical movement was deconstruction even possible without atonement from the people who'd been part of the problem we probably shouldn't expect any sweeping transformational Contrition from the likes of Robert jeffris or Greg lock maybe the best we could hope for was a course correction at the Grassroots level a model of reconciliation in miniature some wrongs made right by the rank and file pastors who'd LED their churches into crisis the problem with this hope most of these pastors couldn't see the crisis at all chapter 13 eie Pennsylvania you would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above John 19: 11 inside the Bayfront Convention Center an architectural Peninsula bounded by the shimmering Indigo Waters of Lake Erie men with artificially enhanced muscles strutted around the lobby grunting and jogging in place and bending in ways that tried the elasticity of their spandex suits They Carried powders that assured them of samsonian size vitamins vowing vascularity pills promising paradisical pectorals all manner of almost Supernatural betterment just down the corridor security officials manned giant magnetometers it was a jarring site there was no president or head of state here only a Longshot candidate for governor but Doug mastriano the Republican running to lead the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania wasn't taking any chances since announcing his candidacy in January 2022 mastriano a military veteran and would be theocrat with extensive ties to far-right Christian nationalist groups had portrayed himself as a commander in our great religious conflict forces of evil were laying Siege to the country mastriano had warned and Christians needed to expel them as his campaign progressed this doomsday talk escalated the metal detectors in the hallway only reinforced themes of conflict and potential martyrdom the enemy was out to get Doug mastriano as it turned out the checkpoint was surprisingly useful despite posted signs at the entrance no guns no knives several people had walked up to the event with weapons on their person only to be turned back the ones I saw retreated to their vehicles stashed the items then returned to the rally violence was an undercurrent of the event just past the magnetometers dozens of people clustered around folding tables in the foyer outside a large Ballroom some were clad in camouflage and paramilitary gear I recognized them as members of mastriano's personal security detail guys from his church who escorted him around the state arms at the ready willing to lay down their lives for the Republican candidate others in the crowd were more casual they wore shirts with Bull's eyes and second amendment Expressions even the little old ladies volunteering behind the tables selling buttons and bumper stickers and yard signs wore olive green shirts with military style campaign font one of them greeted me warmly as I hovered over a pile of campaign literature denouncing critical race Theory I'm so excited she told me can you believe Jack PC is here I could actually a conspiracist luminary PC Rose to fame on the far right in 2016 by championing pizzagate the internet rumor that alleged Hillary Clinton and the cabal of top ranking Democrats were running a child sex trafficking ring from the basement of comet pingpong a trendy pizza joint in Washington D.C PC was no casual participant in pizzagate he personally visited the restaurant to investigate surreptitiously live streaming footage of what he later described on Alex Jones's Infowars Channel as demonic artwork and a secret door that seems suspicious given the presence of so many little kids the video exploded on social media after being uploaded to YouTube 2 weeks later a man drove to DC from North Carolina walked into Comet pingpong and opened fire with his AR-15 rifle the man told police that he'd come to save the children only to realize the restaurant had no basement thankfully nobody was hurt Pak never apologized for his starring role in fermenting what law enforcement agencies declared to be a brazen dangerous falsehood indeed he was just getting started over the next four years POC a protege of trump henchman Roger Stone distinguished himself even inside the crowded Maga ecosystem of professional radicals and for-profit reprobates as especially prolific he spread the Despicable lie that Seth Rich a young Democratic staffer who'd been murdered One Night in Washington in 2016 was killed as a part of a coverup after he'd leaked sensitive party documents he speculated about us immigration policies being part of a planned white genocide he cultivated ties with a sprawling network of anti-government extremists anti-semites and white nationalists in 2020 months before the presidential election POC helped to popularize the phrase stop the steal which Trump and his allies would use to Rally millions of Americans against the peaceful transition of power in this effort POC found an ally in mastriano a state senator from Southern Pennsylvania mastriano had claimed that Biden's victory in the Commonwealth was compromised proposing that he and his fellow legislators could unilaterally switch the state's electoral votes to Trump this cannot be viewed in a narrowly political context mastriano who described himself as an instrument of God's will felt un bound from the pesky laws and procedures that govern American elections sure enough when his legislative subterfuge failed mastano joined a zoom call organized by prominent Christian nationalists in December 2020 well after the Electoral College had voted to install Biden as the next president and according to video Unearthed by Rolling Stone prayed that God would Empower Republicans to rise up with boldness and seize the power before Joe Biden's inauguration a week later mastero not only joined the January 6th protests in Washington but used campaign funds to charter buses to Washington so that his constituents could attend when he launched his campaign for governor a year later in Gettysburg Pennsylvania an elaborately robed Minister blew a chofar to Signal mastriano's entry into the race the message was unmistakable Americans were approaching a second Civil War a spiritual Civil War the people of Pennsylvania seemed less than enthused about this nor did they seem receptive to his plan which he'd casually spoken out loud to use his executive power to withhold Pennsylvania's electoral votes from the Democratic candidate in the next presidential election by the time mastriano and PC came to erri in October 2022 the Republican nominee trailed his Democratic opponent Josh Shapiro by double digits in an electoral environment highly favorable to the go Biden's popularity had cratered earlier that summer due to Historic inflation it was curious to see a republican getting thumped in one of America's most competitive Battleground States but mastriano wasn't concerned the stage was being set he told supporters in eie for a miracle of bibl IC proportion we're going to take our state back by storm mastriano declared predicting that he would shock the prognosticators on Election Day the audience roared something is happening something really incredible he said and I think our founder William Penn would be proud switching into Professor mode mastriano told of how Penn founded our state to be the seat of the nation it was part of a holy experiment to establish a God-fearing government of men America owes everything to Pensylvania he argued and in turn America owes everything to William Penn a man whose contemporaries said belonged to the wrong religion and talked about Jesus too much and had the wrong political beliefs mastriano pitched himself as a 21st century iteration of the Quaker Legend but whereas Penn had overcome the persecution of his times mastriano worried openly about falling to his enemies it would represent more than a political loss it would be a defeat of the idealized nation that Christians had fought and bled for since coming to this land it's an incredible dream and we've come close to achieving it mastriano said but the light is flickering it's about to be snuffed out mastriano repeated what other speakers had said this was the most important election of our lifetimes if that wasn't dramatic enough Jack PC in a stem Winder that outlasted the candidate's own remarks identified eight strategies Democrats used to destroy Pennsylvania and dismantle America it wasn't terribly well organized bobc kept veering Off Script making fun of Mitt Romney telling a laughably fabricated tale about Mother Teresa and Hillary Clinton and at one point challenging Shapiro the Democratic nominee to a fist fight still the Thematic chord was consistent the nation's eyes were on this race poak declared if Master Rano could save Pennsylvania then America too might be delivered from Annihilation God has raised him up for this purpose he has raised all of you up that's why we're all here PC cried he appeared tempted to elaborate on God's plan for mastriano and the United States but after some unintelligible comments about the Virgin Mary Jesus's birthday and his own trip to the Holy Land PC nodded toward the front row and concluded I'll leave the theology to the Pastor Jonathan Wagner a minister from nearby Garden Heights Baptist Church offered remarks that were notable both for their brevity and Sanity thrust into a lineup of frenzied fear-mongering speakers Wagner clad in a black mastriano for governor shirt looked like he belonged but sounded as if he'd arrived from another planet encourage our hearts Wagner prayed from the stage help us to understand that while we enjoy freedoms in this country and we don't want to see those diminish Lord the only true freedom is what's offered through Jesus Christ and that's freedom from our sins Wagner exhaled Lord may we understand that it was the quietest Ovation awarded to any of the speakers in Erie when the event wrapped Wagner dashed toward a side exit from the ballroom I stopped him introduced myself and asked if we could talk about what we just witnessed the pastor looked dazed I don't really understand politics he said to understand politics or at least to understand why why Fringe figures like mastriano had achieved such prominence within the Republican party was to accept that extremists were now the establishment those fabled Gatekeepers who once kept crackpots away from positions of authority no longer existed those fanciful Unwritten rules that dictated who did and didn't deserve our attention no longer applied this was true for American politics and it was true for American Christianity the same asymmetrical forces that lifted Donald Trump to the presidency made pastors like Greg lock overnight Evangelical celebrities consider the case of Lance wnow once an obscure Texas businessman Who moonlighted as a wannabe media personality and Christian futurist WN now gained Fame in 2015 after prophesying that Trump was anointed to become president he parlayed this newfound relevance into an allpurpose Enterprise podcasts motivational videos online training seminars all of it powered by insights gleaned from the almighty that gained him millions of new followers it wasn't long before the Republican politicians Came Calling in hindsight this was inevitable elected officials have a nose for money and by teaming with wnow they were betting that the same Fanatics who forked over $87 for his supernal living bundle a combination of DVDs and CDs and online courses marked down from the the original price of $397 would ship in to help them defeat their evil Democratic opponents it was inevitable for another reason the Republican ranks had since Trump's victory in 2016 swelled with the sort of cartoonish Misfits who found significance in spreading metaphysical divinations about the church the country the president and the future of mankind some of these were Shameless opportunists to be sure not everyone who preached the politics of Armageddon was a True Believer but plenty of them were and it became clear soon after the Democratic president took office in 2021 that they would treat the 2022 midterm campaign like a modern Crusade it wouldn't just be a struggle between Republicans and Democrats it would be a showdown between Heaven and Hell Lord strengthen them in the name and the blood of Jesus Pastor Steve prayed at a Colorado Revival in the spring of 2022 as he stood beside two Republican members of Congress may this state be turned red with the blood of Jesus and politically one of the lawmakers Doug Lamborn appeared mildly uncomfortable during the prayer which was captured on video and circulated widely online but Lauren bber looked right at home she closed her eyes and mouthed silent words of Supplication raising her left palm Skyward in a gesture of worship bobert wasn't bothered by this pastor praying for Jesus's blood his precious sacrificial blood shed for the Salvation of Sinners to win an election because well she wasn't bothered by much at all a small town restaurant owner who'd been arrested four times in the decade before seeking political office bobert was fond of boasting that God told her to run for Congress because her unlikely Victory would be a sign and a Wonder to the unbeliever if the unbeliever paid attention to bobert the only signs they saw were of psychosis as a candidate in 2020 she was the Republican party's most outspoken Ally of the kinon deception after getting elected she joked about a Muslim colleague being a suicide bomber calling her the Jihad Squad forging close ties with Trump bobert played a leading role in spreading disinformation about the election results in 2020 and declared on the morning of January 6th that it was a 1776 moment it was after Biden's swearing in however that bobbert became fully unhinged at various forums some political some religious most of them barely distinguishing between the two bber made remarks that in my experience had no precedent when it comes to members of the United States Congress she said that we are in the last of the last days she prayed out loud for Biden's death she said Jesus didn't have enough AR-15 assault rifles to stop the Roman government from killing him bobert's most striking comment came while addressing a church congregation in the summer of 2022 I'm tired of this separation of church in state junk the congresswoman huffed according to the Denver Post the church is supposed to direct the government the government is not supposed to direct the church here was the explicit endorsement of theocracy that generations of Christian conservatives had studiously avoided but bobbert was sick of dancing around the debate she was done rejecting the accusation of being a Christian Nationalist and she wasn't alone as the midterm elections Drew closer in 2022 a number of prominent evangelicals inside and outside of government government started coming around to the label I'm a proud Christian nationalist these evil people are even calling me a Nazi because I proudly love my country and my God Marjorie Taylor green the Georgia congresswoman tweeted in the summer of 2022 less than a year before the Daily Beast reported that she called bobbert a little while the two argued over whose impeachment resolution of President Biden should take precedence green followed up with an Instagram post it showed her in a fighting position fists cocked with a shirt for sale proud Christian nationalist nobody embodied this Evolution quite like Al Mohler once named the reigning intellectual of the Evangelical Movement by Time Magazine Mohler the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary had long been known for his consistent scripture first position on matters of politics and culture he objected to Trump's candidacy in 2016 writing honest evangelicals would not want him as a nextdoor neighbor much less their president and slammed the idolatrous Christians who stormed the capital on January 6th nationalism is always a clear and present danger Mohler wrote in the aftermath of the Insurrection but suddenly in the summer of 2022 Mohler seemed to be rethinking his position we have the left routinely speaking of me and others as Christian nationalists as if we're supposed to be running from that Mohler said on a podcast I'm not about to run from that mohler's friends and admirers in the Evangelical world were distraught they prayed that he really didn't mean what these comments implied that he'd spoken in eloquently hurriedly without considering the ramifications of his words their prayers went unanswered not long after the podcast controver y Mohler told a gathering of evangelicals that if they vote wrongly in 2022 which he made clear meant voting for Democrats they were being unfaithful to God the vote is a powerful stewardship and we need to remind Christians of that Mohler said we need to remind Christians of what's at stake scripture has a funny way of cutting political leaders down to size Pharaoh the most powerful man on the planet is utterly impotent in the face of God's plagues the Gospel of Luke cataloges all the kings and rulers of the era then tells of how the authority they believed was theirs was given instead to A Primitive living Prophet named John and a carpenter son named Jesus the Messiah himself who physically runs and hides from the people who desire to make him King dismisses the Pharisees by telling telling them give back to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods the implication being that only one deserves from us that which truly matters the word power can be found hundreds of times in English versions of the Bible it is translated from several Greek words exosa which refers to Authority iscus which refers to Natural strength katos which refers to Supremacy and Dominion by far the most common root word is dunamis which refers to explosive force explosive potential explosive might dunamis is the origin of our Dynamite the New Testament recounts in detail the reign of many Earthly rulers yet those Greek words for power are almost never attributed to any of them instead the words are reserved for God who rules the universe for Jesus who gives his life to save Humanity from its sins and tellingly for his followers who are divinely equipped to take this message of Hope to all the nations there is at least one notable exception in the Book of John after Jesus is arrested and handed over to the Roman authorities pontious pilot attempts to interrogate the defendant to discern whether he deserves punishment but Jesus refuses to answer pilate's questions indignant the Roman Governor says to Jesus don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you you would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above Jesus replies this English phrase from above is translated from the Greek Anan a word used throughout the New Testament in reference to that which is established by God and comes from Heaven this makes for an astonishing rebuke to pilate even though the Roman Governor will decide whether he lives or dies Jesus is telling him that God set these events into motion from the beginning of time that he cast pilate in these proceedings as an actor who would read lines from a Divine script that neither Rome nor its rulers have inherent power of their own Jesus's words to pilate Echo throughout all of scripture true power is not reflected in kingdoms administrations or campaigns because these things are counterfeits of God's original supreme authority the power to raise taxes is not the power to raise Jesus from the dead the power to seat Senators is not the power to seat Jesus at the right hand of the father every Biblical reference to power every prayer every reflection every instruction affirms that God is all powerful and that to the extent he vests that power in man it is to Proclaim God's kingdom God's power and God's glory why then does Doug mastriano pray for Republicans to seize the power ahead of January 6th why does Al Mohler emphasize that the vote is a powerful stewardship why did the speakers at Ralph Reed's conference politicians and pastors alike talk fearfully about the Democratic party remaining in power for another 2 years the simplest explanation at the risk of hermeneutical overload takes us back to Greek Linguistics among the weightiest biblical Concepts is a which means to detach to abandon to leave alone to let go simply put many American evangelicals cannot let go they cannot detach them eles from national identity or abandon the notion that fighting for America is fighting for God hence the creeping Allure of Christian nationalism William wolf an ex-trump Administration official who has embraced the term and regularly traffics in ad hominum attacks against fellow Believers on social media distilled the animating principle for my Christian political engagement in one succinct tweet if it was good right and Noble to fight against Communists when they're in power wolf wrote It's good right and Noble even better to fight to ensure they never get power people like wolf do not hide from an essential truth theirs is an offensive fight no longer can Christians engage with politics as though they are preserving something the thinking goes because there is nothing left to preserve the aim is to take something back religious revanchism however Noble the intent the result is a blurring of the line between a love of country and a Lust For hegemony in the name of objectivity it's worth recalling what a known atheist George Orwell the author of Animal Farm in 1984 said differentiated patriotism from nationalism patriotism is of its nature defensive both militarily and culturally Orwell wrote nationalism on the other hand is inseparable from the desire for power when the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus Greece he offered this instruction finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes notably most of what Paul describes the weapons of Christian Warfare is defensive the belt of Truth the breastplate of righteousness The Shield of Faith the helmet of salvation the only offense of weapon Paul names is the sword of the spirit which is the word of God evangelicals my age probably remember sword drills from Sunday School in which we race to locate a particular Bible verse cited by the teacher but politicians have purposely misappropriated this language Ronda santis the Florida governor who harbored design on winning the White House frequently invoked the book of Ephesians while traveling the country in 2022 to raise money and rally the conservative base put on the full armor of God DeSantis would say and take a stand against the left's schemes in substituting the left for the devil DeSantis wasn't just counting on the biblical illiteracy of his listeners he was banking on a nationalist fervor that rendered scriptural restraint irrelevant he was confident that evangelicals in the audience would agree that he knew better than Paul that the real enemy is the left that the real struggle is against flesh and blood that the real power belongs to a politician who can ignore Anthony Fouch Corona virus protocols and eliminate Disney World's tax exemptions eventually DeSantis did away with any subtlety steamrolling toward reelection in the fall of 2022 the Florida governor was aiming to put the nation and Trump his looming rival for the Republican nomination come 2024 on notice DeSantis decided to release a campaign advertisement cinematic frames shot in black and white that borrowed from radio host Paul Harvey's famous speech so God made a farmer but one important change was made on the Eighth Day rumbled a deep voice with to santis pictured Standing Tall before an American flag God looked down on his planned paradise and said I need a protector so God made a fighter the two-minute video was so comically overdone and so thoroughly panned for its rampant self- glorification that its appeal went unappreciated tempting as it was to believe that DeSantis had overplayed his hand in depicting himself as an anointed guardian of God's Promised Land There was ample evidence to suggest that this message was exactly what the Evangelical base of the Republican Party wanted to hear not long before DeSantis released his ad the University of Maryland published a survey of more than 2,000 Americans who were asked about the separation of church and state the results were astounding 61% of Republicans said they would support a formal declaration by the United States government that America is a Christian Nation among the evangelicals who were pulled 78% supported making such a declaration in this context it was becoming easier to make sense of the Absurd why was Jim cisel the actor who portrayed Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ talking about the blood harvesting of children at a conference alongside a roster of trump confidants why would the lieutenant governor of Idaho hold a gun in one one hand and a Bible in the other during a staged protest of covid-19 policies why were high-profile evangelicals like Al Mohler lining up to speak at the national conservatism conference whose organizers signed a statement of principles that explicitly endorses Theocratic rule adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes the statement read why was Carrie Lake the Republican running for governor of Arizona who friends say identified as a Buddhist before declaring herself as a born again instrument of God's Vengeance ping around with Mark Driscoll the disgraced Pastor whose mors Hill mega church collapsed under the weight of Scandal why would pastors invite Dwayne Chapman AKA Dog the Bounty Hunter to their evangelism Summit and moreover why did they sit by while he speculated that Biden would soon commit suicide like Adolf Hitler did something was happening on the religious right something more menacing and extreme than anything that preceded it this was no longer about winning elections and preserving the culture this was about destroying enemies and dominating the country by any means necessary there was no rhetoric too appalling no Alliance too shady no biblical application to sacriligious Letting Go a me was not an option the scariest part I thought to myself while talking to Pastor Wagner in Erie Pennsylvania was that not everyone could see it the first political event Wagner ever attended was in the spring of 2022 a mastriano for governor rally it was an otherworldly experience the pastor who avoided politics and rarely voted in local or national elections was taken aback by the tone of the environment people seemed restive dismayed fearful when he went to leave one of the campaign workers asked if he would walk the blocks vouching for mastriano and I was like no but I'll go around and talk to him about Jesus Christ Wagner recalled with a broad smile I'm not talking to people about politics it's just not that important to me Wagner a man in his mid-40s with a thin goatee and a gentle demeanor described himself as blissfully ill informed of current events he doesn't waste time with the news no TV no talk radio no newspapers Wagner's only window into the world of politics is his Facebook feed back in 2020 when he saw Christian friends recommending mastriano's Fireside Chats daily direct to camera videos in which the senator talked about his faith and his views on covid-19 among other issues Wagner tuned in the pastor wasn't sold on everything mastriano said but he appreciated how the man was Unapologetic about his Christian beliefs when mastano announced his campaign for governor and swung through eie Wagner decided to check it out he was encouraged by some of what he heard to the extent Wagner had political priorities the big one was abortion and mastriano had staked out a Hardline position his number one priority as governor the Republican candidate had said would be outlawing abortion without any exceptions the pastor approved but some of the candidates other obsessions such as whipping up outrage over the stolen election of 2020 were lost on Wagner he planned to vote for mastriano in the fall election but decided that one political rally was enough and then 6 months later a local Republican called Wagner and asked him to deliver the invocation for mastriana return event in Erie the pastor felt conflicted he hadn't given Master Rano much thought since that rally and wasn't Keen to relive the adventure praying over the proceedings wouldn't be a problem with his congregation Wagner said his church is overwhelmingly conservative but he did worry about sending mixed signals to his flock the pastor had a long-standing policy the only time politics were mentioned in the church was when they prayed for their leaders on Sunday mornings accepting mastriano's invitation he Fred might give Outsiders a false impression about the real purpose of our church ultimately Wagner felt compelled to say yes the rally would be held just a few miles from garden Heights Baptist a quaint brick-and tan building in a residential neighborhood and lots of local non-churchgoers would be in attendance he viewed it as an opening to evangelize the community as we spoke afterward it was clear that Wagner was processing the event he seemed a genuine political greenhorn some of my small talk about the national electoral climate and even some recent happenings in Pennsylvania were met with a blank stare at one point I mentioned the protesters outside the event some of whom held signs accusing mastriano of being a Christian nationalist the pastor told me he was unfamiliar with that phrase I think he just loves his country and he's a Christian so people attack him Wagner told me I think some people just don't like Christians I asked him why that might be we're not living in a Christian country we haven't lived in a Christian country for a long time he Shrugged when I was young it was a common thing to go to weekly Revival meetings my parents talk about Crusades that would last for weeks on end nothing happens like that anymore you can't even get somebody to come to a free event at the church it's just not something people want to be a part of I asked him again why that might be I wish I knew I really don't the pastor replied one theory was that children have been indoctrinated for decades by the public schools and universities to think a certain way about God and American life this was a popular complaint Wagner told me that he heard from Christian friends many of them were upset that schools weren't teaching about the biblical found of America then he surprised me I don't really get that Wagner said many of the founding fathers weren't Christian and I'm sorry but I don't think we should aspire to be a Christian country anyway I don't see America in the Bible you know he sighed look God's going to do what God's going to do I'm not too concerned about America Wagner said I'm just supposed to read my Bible and preach the word and be faithful w was in a l- lose situation if he declined the invitation and kept his distance from the event he would be called weak and spineless and cowardly by accepting the invitation and allying himself with mastano he would be called a Christian nationalist he was clearly neither but instead a decent guy who had unwittingly signed up for something he didn't understand he had cast his lot with people who supposedly shared his priorities only to begin questioning once he got up close what those priorities were Joe Biden is the president I didn't vote for him but he was sworn in and I'm praying for him and these Republicans need to move on Wagner told me I started to interrupt him but Wagner wasn't done honestly I voted for Trump but I'm not a fan of his the Pastor said the language he uses and these moral issues he's just not an upstanding person I'm tired of him too Wagner glanced around the empty ball room if I said that up there he grinned motioning toward the stage I would have gotten kicked out I asked him if his opening prayer a warning against fear and idolatry was his coded way of getting the message across Wagner nodded let me put it this way we've had a lot of people wanting to put an American flag up on the platform at our church especially around the 4th of July and times like that but every time I've said no we're there to worship God not America he said we love America but that's a separate thing what about the light of our nation flickering what about this being the most important election of our lifetimes the pastor rolled his eyes they've said that during every election for the last 200 years chapter 14 Branson Missouri let your light shine before us brothers that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in Heaven Matthew 5 verse 16 it was several hours into the program just before the attractive blonde with an explicit only fans page warned of the nation's Decline and right after the Mystic with a Brooklyn accent said that the coming blood moon on Election Day pretended victory for the Republican party when Brian Gibson a pastor from Kentucky got to the point is anybody ready for a red wave Gibson shouted anybody want to see us take this nation back anybody want to see DC turned upside down and right side up for the glory of God the concert hall shook with Applause Gibson a stocky man with a graying beard you might recognize him from photos he shared posing alongside the qanon shaman of January 6th infamy warned that depraved leftists were undermining America in order to defeat its spread of Christianity but there was reason to take heart because Democrats in the state of New York had approved pro-abortion laws laws that would kill unborn babies the apple of God's eye Gibson said God had spoken to Gibson revealing to him that Republicans were going to take back the Big Apple on Election Day routing the Democrats on their home turf as punishment M it was November 4th 2022 just a few days before the midterm election and I found myself in the middle of a most unusual political pep rally organized by a retired three-star General and a marketing Guru who'd recently been baptized literally and figuratively into the church of Christian nationalism the event brought together an assortment of conservative clerics Trump inspired politicos Patriot Crusaders culture War capitalists and a few thousand people who were willing to pay $250 each or $500 for VIP seating to hear the gospel of an imminent Republican Triumph at the polls the reawaken America Tour was the hottest ticket in the Underworld of right-wing evangelicalism sitting in the second floor gallery of the Mansion theater looking out across a standing room only crowd of people clad in garish cross necklaces and qinon sweatshirts and red Maga hats I could practically hear the voice of the Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah who declared sometime around 600 BC that the people of Israel possessed no shame at all they had Jeremiah said in one translation forgotten how to blush in 15 years of political journalism I had witnessed chicanery and subterfuge of every sort nothing could surprise me anymore more I was immune to outrage bereft of the ability to recoil from iniquity and then I discovered the reawaken America Tour over the course of two days huers and Spin Doctors and straightup sociopaths took turns praying on the anxious masses of Missouri these people had traveled to Branson just north of the Arkansas border in search of Hope their nation was nearly expired their politicians appeared powerless and their God seemed indifferent they were desperate to believe that America might yet be saved that Revival was Within Reach Marty Grisham purveyor of a web-based business loudmouth prayer told them that it was he had just received a vision from Heaven that depicted an army of red this was no reference to the Chinese military Grisham assured us but rather to the people of God the People In This Very Room Christians and conservatives who were fighting for the future of the nation the red didn't merely signify a republican Victory on Tuesday it also meant that they were covered with the blood of Christ and therefore could not lose going over his allotted time Grisham shouted repeatedly as the music played him off stage loudmouth prayer.org not all swindles were spiritual in nature one person was screening trailers for his forthcoming documentary about education another was raising money for his fight against election fraud yet another was pushing his specialty diet and warning about the dangers of big agriculture my personal favorite was the guy pedaling Kingdom fuel a powdered shake mix which he pitched as a means of staying healthy living longer and defying the malevolent medical regime it comes in two flavors vanilla and chocolate if there was any organizing theme to the proceedings it was presented by the brains behind the reawaken America Tour Michael Flynn and Clay Clark taking the stage together at one point the two men explained that globalists had weaponized the covid-19 pandemic to push lockdowns that would give them control of the world population the supposed Mastermind was klous Schwab who they said was using his position at top the world economic Forum to pursue a great reset that would result in a secular tyrannical One World Government hence the need for a great Reawakening Flynn and Clark declared that theirs was a mission to defend not just American sovereignty but Christian Supremacy once a respected military mind who'd overseen counterterrorism strategy in the Middle East Flynn's descent into conspiracy fueled Madness had rendered him a punchline the former Army Lieutenant General was spiraling long before he resigned under duress as Trump's National Security adviser capping three turbulent weeks on the job but that episode seemed to Mark a point of no return he eventually pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was pardoned by Trump after the 2020 election Flynn spoke incessantly of a new world order he accused Bill Gates of planting tracking devices under the skin of unsuspecting vaccine recipients on July 4th 2020 Flynn shared a video showing him taking an oath associated with kinon and soon after he began organizing what would become the reawaken America Tour Clark made for the ideal partner slick witty and almost comically impervious to humiliation the Oklahoma based businessman saw in Flynn the market for martyrdom and brought it up to scale recruiting an All-Star cast of the country's most shun Christian and conservative influencers to band together in the name of airing Grievances and saving the country and making lots of money not necessarily in that order Clark was perfectly Preposterous as Flynn's sidekick paring all the same Sinister views but with a mirthful disposition giggling and wise cracking and radiating such sprightliness that one could forget the apocalypse was nigh tailing Flynn outside after their great reset routine I ran headlong into a security detail that was escorting him to a designated Zone outside the large white tent erected in the theater's parking lot looking to my right I noticed a line several hundred people long snaking all the way back to the building's entrance these were Flynn's super fans bearing photos and posters and products from his signature clothing line branded with the hashtag fight like a Flynn soon another guest of honor joined Flynn Mike Lindell the my pillow inventor who'd become the most vocal and most frequently debunked advocate of nonsensical stolen election theories together the two men worked the receiving line for nearly an hour signing autographs taking selfies giving hugs promising their disciples that America wasn't finished just yet flying behind them was an American flag emblazoned with that familiar Old Testament passage If my people who are called by my name standing just 10t away leaning against the corner of the tent I marveled at the scene here people panicked about big Pharma trickery were toing around boxes of unregulated vitamins people upset by the brainwashing of America's youth were buying paintings that depicted Trump inside a lion's den people fearful of God's judgment were sporting t-shirts that read Jesus is a badass surely I thought some of these folks were in on the joke one table pedal children's books authored by former Trump Aid cash Patel the plot against the King which depicted a deep State coup against a Fearless Monarch sold for $20 for sale nearby were filtering Contraptions marketed as living water at a neighboring Booth one young woman handed out pamphlets for Rema Bible training College in Oklahoma you don't get a degree she noted sunnily but you do get to learn about the Bible it was a scam artist Super Bowl traveling from Station to Station gamely chatting up the Proprietors can this book really cure my son's autism can this presentation really decode prophecy to predict war with China can this Supply kit really help me survive nuclear winter I went from amused to annoyed every every question I posed about the sincerity of these schemes was met with a far-off gaze I suddenly felt parched stranded in the desert thirsting for an oasis of Sanity what I found instead was a mirage his name was Steven E Strang maybe it was the expertly tailored suit the bright red tie and the careful combover maybe it was the Heap of books that bore his name there was something about Strang that stood out inside that circus tent he was quiet studied visibly mortified by his surroundings like a librarian who'd been shoved inside a locker room a prolific Christian Author and publisher Strang was selling and signing copies of his books for $5 a piece when I asked if he'd like to take a break and chat with me he was being upstaged by the miracle pills a few booths over Strang did not hesitate to agree there has to be a standard for these things he grumbled shaking his head we went inside and grabbed two seats on a tan couch just outside the second floor Gallery overlooking the swarm of humanity moving between the tent and the theater Strang sat upright looking self-consciously proper the only man in Branson wearing wing tips pretending not to notice the guy in the qinon Hat sitting across from us munching on a hot dog I asked Strang what he made of his surroundings every group has its weirdos he replied but there's something about the enemy of my enemy is my friend and a lot of these people feel like America is going in the wrong direction I don't agree with a lot of the stuff here but I am concerned about the direction of the country Strang a man in his early 70s had been concerned for quite some time he was born not far from here in Springfield both his father and grandfather were preaching and his parents kept active within the charismatic Ultra conservative Assemblies of God denomination it was a rigid upbringing Strang was taught that most activities in which a young man might indulge smoking drinking dancing watching television going to the movies were wrong and sinful at least he wasn't a woman they were additionally forbidden from wearing makeup I assumed Strang was telling me all this to illustrate approvingly how the church had adapted to modernity it almost seems laughable now with how things have changed he said the longer we talked however the more I sensed his Nostalgia for this bygone age Strang spoke repeatedly of backsliding reflecting on how the average Christian's Scruples had relaxed in proportion to their diminished Zeal for Christ Strang said he was on fire for God as a young man but he wasn't cut out for the clergy looking for a novel way to influence Society for Christ Strang turned to journalism after a stint in the secular press he caught the entrepreneurial bug and decided to marry his journalism skills to his church background I started a little magazine Strang said and by God's grace it's grown into a media company that company is better described as an Empire Charisma media it is the deao publishing arm of the Pentecostal movement in North America Strang once led a staff of 200 that worked out of a 67,000 ft headquarters near Orlando Florida the operation has slimmed down but Strang still employs a large Workforce that prints a bimonthly magazine produces an expansive Suite of podcasts and publishes dozens of books each year back in 2005 Strang earned a spot on Time magazine's list of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America America at that time he was mostly a behindthescenes player that changed in 2017 when Strang wrote a book that rocked the charismatic World God and Donald Trump the book portrayed Trump not as the odious spiteful Creon his opponents made him out to be but rather as a big-hearted and to borrow some hagiographic rhetoric from Mike Pence broad shouldered family man who was fundamentally misunderstood as for Trump's moral shortcomings the book leaned into them contending that they made him uniquely capable of restoring the nation's Christian character it required a man from the secular world to defeat the forces of secularism this Strang wrote is why God raised up Trump ordained him as America's leader and delivered him the presidency in such seemingly transcendental fashion the book sold like crazy and backed Strang into a corner he had not always admired Trump but now having found Commercial Success arguing that the man was an imperfect instrument of God's will Strang had every incentive to nurture The Narrative the president's Myriad and manifest deficiencies would only underscore the original premise no matter how bad things would get for Trump in the years to come The Savvy move for Strang was to double down so that's what he did like Homer revisiting the consequences of the Trojan War he had chronicled Strang went on to churn out a series of books that played off the original theme Trump Aftershock forward by Jerry fwell Jr God Trump in the 2020 election forwarded by Eric Maxis who would endorse martyrdom in response to Trump's defeat God Trump and covid-19 forward by Lori Baker who co-hosts a show with her husband disgraced televangelist Jim Baker that hawked a miracle cure for the virus and God and cancel culture forwarded by Lindell who was finding it harder to sell pillows amid his crusade to prove Mass voter fraud at one point saying he had enough evidence to put 300 and some million people in prison for life there was a curious unintended consequence of his parasitic attachment to Trump Strang had spent so much time defending the 45th president explaining the ways in which he was actually virtuous and actually an ally of American Christianity that he'd overlooked the larger questions about American Christianity itself this became more and more apparent as our own conversation progressed Strang would repeatedly bring up Trump then say he didn't want to talk about Trump only to later steer the conversation back to Trump we had begun by discussing the deterioration of American values he said right and wrong were once clearly to find it was right to get married it was right to raise your kids it was right to be honest Strang believed it was a Relentless secular Onslaught against these values these Christian values that invited and ultimately Justified the slash andb burn tactics of the religious right I struggled with this logic why should Christians allow the coring of the world to justify the cooning of Christianity itself Strang wore a blank expression I'm not understanding the point you're trying to make I tried to clarify he was citing concerns about the decaying standards of American Life sexualized curricula drag shows transgender bathrooms The Works to explain why the future of American Christendom depended on cartoonish Heretics like Lindell and Flynn and Trump forget about what the world is getting wrong aren't Christians called to a higher standard listen I believe that Donald Trump changed Strang stopped himself he began explaining that during the stormy Daniel's mess code for the episode in which a porn star was paid by Trump's lawyer to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter when Trump's thirdd wife was home with their newborn son CNN had brought him on air to offer commentary the network was hoping for an Evangelical to denounce such activity Strang said but they picked the wrong one he was not about to abandon Trump in that moment why not for one thing Strang said Trump had told him in a private conversation that the Daniel's Affair never happened and even if it had I think he's changed Strang assured me recalling how people he knew had prayed with Trump in the White House Strang believed the man had become a born again Christian during his presidency how else to explain his bold stand on behalf of the Evangelical movement in America HEK our hero Strang said he stands up for the values that we have that's why we support him I arched an eyebrow our hero Strang just Shrugged no politician is perfect he said but interestingly they hold him to a much higher standard by they Strang was referring to those condescending Christian Elites those never Trump conservatives who held high-profile postings in Academia and media he was especially fed up with evangelicals like the ones at Christianity Today which has been my chief competitor Strang couldn't understand me and I couldn't understand him the man who had started our conversation by saying there has to be a standard now seemed to be arguing that there should be a standard for everyone except Donald Trump and the Christians who supported him he wasn't totally lacking in self-awareness hoping to win back some credibility Strang explained that he would remain objective when it came to Trump and the rest of the 2024 Republican Presidential field I have a friend that's bugging me to get on the Trump bandwagon there are people trying to encourage him to run and I'm staying totally neutral Strang said then a moment later if he runs of course I'll support him finally Strang said and he meant it this time that he didn't want to discuss Trump anymore neither did I there were more important questions to be asked Strang had tried to persuade me and perhaps himself that this particular event was not organized around religious beliefs rather he said it was a political and cultural jeree with some spiritual undertones it would not be fair to judge Christianity RIT large based on the happenings in Branson he was wise to distance his faith from his AFF affiliation with the reawaken America Tour Strang one of the featured speakers had shared the stage with people who had told absurd and verifiable lies openly advocated violence and trafficked in all forms of unh wholesome talk not long before Strang and I sat down together Patrick burn the former CEO of overstock.com delivered a breathless rant that lasted nearly an hour in it burn boasted about lobbying Trump to seize voting machines and declare martial law after the 2020 election called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos a and Secretary of Defense Lloyd tin a fat suggested that some combination of the Russian KGB and American deep state was trying to neutralize him and claimed that he'd uncovered a secret government plot to install Michelle Obama as the future president you mean Michael Obama a man shouted from the audience referencing the popular far-right belief that the former first lady is in fact a man the people around him went wild soon people were chanting Mel Michel Michel the obvious flaw with strang's argument that all this should be considered outside the context of Christianity was that praise hymns had been sung from that same stage inside that same theater by those same people before and after burn dropped his countless F bombs and there was something else to consider despite strang's eagerness to dismiss some of these speakers as Sideshow freaks who were no way representative of Christianity many of the foulest Acts were put on by preachers Brian Gibson the Kentucky Pastor who shared God's plan for taking back the Big Apple for the Republican Party warned that Believers needed to prepare for a cosmic Showdown with the Marxist manipulators inside the church and the Demonic Dem Democrats in government who were colluding to destroy American Christianity Greg lock the Tennessee tent revivalist roused the crowd with call and response shouts of Jesus and America he then declared himself a Christian nationalist said it was time to start fighting and stop talking about it and boasted that he was the most dangerous Pastor in America Kevin Garner a minister from Illinois was the most colorful clergyman in Branson perhaps feeling pressure to outdo his fellow pastors not to mention clay Clark who during his introduction mocked the Democratic governor of Illinois as Garner wo an elaborate tale connecting the sons of Noah yes he of the Ark to the present crisis in America for it was Noah's oldest son J fth Who supposedly fathered the European peoples that came to America and birthed the Christian Nation it was no coincidence Garner went on that Philadelphia our first capital was named in the Book of Revelation this was proof of God's divine plan for America but then everything went arai in 2020 Noah's middle son Shem supposed father of the Asiatic Nations brought the Asian virus to America Shores while ham the youngest son and supposed father of the African nations brought the black lives matter protests lest anyone lose the plot of Garner's tail and glancing around it seemed more than a few people had the pastor brought it home with a flourish Philadelphia was all of a miracle with the calling and the power and the freedom to spread the gospel all over the world he said but in 2020 where did the worst election fraud happen Philadelphia where did Joe Biden go last September to slam all magga followers and half the voters in this country Philadelphia Garner began pounding his fist against an invisible Pulpit gee he cried do you think maybe God is trying to tell us something in that moment the only thing God was telling me was to get out of that theater closing my notebook collecting my belongings and shuffling through the throngs of people I could hear Garner's closing prayer God we cry out now even though we do do not deserve it by your mercy which is renewed every day we just cry out and pray Lord that it would fall to this nation especially next Tuesday that all the cheating in the world would not stop a red wave talking with Strang a little while later I would concede one important point to him most of the people here hadn't come for the preaching sure they shouted Hallelujah in response to Bible verses that were cited to dehumanize Democrats or to ridicule gay teenage as gender queer unicorns but this spiritual feeding wasn't going to satiate their ultimate hunger they needed something more they needed something nakedly political they needed something trumpy but even the former president wasn't about to stoop to hanging around this crowd as Strang said there has to be a standard so Clark recruited Eric Trump not the most articulate or entertaining of Trump's progeny but a trump progy nonetheless to speak in Branson he stro onto the stage like he' just knocked down the walls of Jericho himself tears cascaded down from the rafters no man had ever been celebrated so much for accomplishing so little this is real America this is what we fight for this is what we love Trump declared arms extended as if receiving some red State life force there was nothing novel in his winding homy he w Applause for identifying as a Floridian instead of a New Yorker boasted about his dad building a border wall stirred a low energy lock her up chant and decried the amorphous evils of the swamp in Washington it's Unthinkable what these people are doing to this nation the way they want to destroy Christianity the way they want to destroy our families the way they're destroying our children the way they're destroying our history the way they're rewriting our textbooks Trump said he called it a war for the country that war might already have been lost he noted if not for the 2016 election his father's victory was divine intervention that gave America a fighting chance to survive now he said observing the Damage Done by Biden's illegitimate presidency the Trump family possessed a sacred Duty we have to do it again Eric Trump announced the crowd shot to its feet delivering a prolonged standing ovation paired with chance of USA a little while later after Trump affirmed that Biden did not possess one redeeming quality as a human being then bragged that he Eric owned a ton of guns and ammunition the spectacle wound down with a surprise video montage Flynn joined Trump on the stage to present Clark with a highlight reel of the reawaken americ America Tour to date there was certainly lots of material to choose from at one event during the opening prayer a pastor asked God to remove the Rhino trash from Trump's Inner Circle at the most recent stop just weeks earlier a self-proclaimed Prophet named Bo py had displayed a collage of prominent political figures Biden kamla Harris and Hillary Clinton among others and said the angel of death was coming for them by Year's End as it turned out the director's cut was a sanitized synopsis of the tour it did include cameos from the likes of Alex Jones and Roger Stone it even showed Clark getting baptized after the screen went black and the Applause died down a local Pastor grabbed the microphone to adjourn the afternoon session but not before making a final announcement if anyone wanted to follow Clark's example a group of clergymen would be hosting a baptism event later that evening at the Windham Hotel down the street remember the Pastor said this is all for the glory of God maybe it was the sight of people wearing Jesus is a badass shirts cheering exploitive Laden calls for violence against political opponents but something told me that Devotion to the Reformation era Creed of so Dale Gloria to God Alone be glor was not what brought these folks to Branson no amount of singing or praying or Bible quoting from the religious leaders on stage could conceal the true aims of this event they may have honored the almighty with their lips but their hearts were far from him indeed I asked Strang whether this worried him if Christians were so perceptibly failing to seek first the kingdom of God instead prioritizing National identities cultural squabbles political agendas who could blame unbelievers for concluding that the kingdom of God wasn't worth seeking at all Strang shook his head you could get this nice little perfect thing by which he meant a healthier more credible Christian Movement in America and you would feel better about it but it's not going to move the needle he said how could he be sure Jesus called on his followers to let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in Heaven Paul instructed us to let your conversation be always full of grace seasoned with salt so that we can draw Outsiders to him was it so far-fetched to believe that those Outsiders might be more attracted to Christ if Christians ceased to associate with the ugliness we witnessed in Branson a lot of the people that gripe about that if we correct it they'll gripe about something else Strang said they're not interested in being saved they're not interested in living for the lord they're just not back at First Baptist Dallas Robert jeffris had argued this same point the collective Integrity of the Christian witness had no bearing on the individual's desire for a relationship with Jesus this struck me as a pivotal battle within the war for American evangelicalism whereas some leaders such as Russell Moore stressed the diminished reliability of the church as directly proportional to the declining numbers of church attendees and professing Believers others such as jeffris and Strang dismissed such theorizing as the lazy finger pointing of Christians who didn't have the stomach for preaching the hard truths of Eternal condemnation this Schism carried major implications for the future of the church but Strang believed the debate was already settled to hear him tell it I was giving voice to a Viewpoint that was marginal within American Christendom the people who held to it those do gooder Evangelical Elites who subscribed to Mo's magazine Christianity Today were flirting with theological and statistical irrelevance in my world nobody takes CT seriously Strang said I asked him why not they think they're woke what does woke mean Strang frowned at me well we didn't develop the term he said it's pretty far far left you think Russell Moore is pretty far left yes he nodded my job wasn't to defend Moore's honor but I was genuinely curious in terms of substance how Strang could describe the man a conservative by most traditional measures theologically and politically and otherwise as pretty far left he wouldn't answer instead Strang started venting about his long-running Feud with Christianity Today how the New York Times had once taken him out of context and why he doesn't normally give interviews like this one really the best way to find out what I believe is to read either God and cancel culture which is the newest one or God and Donald Trump the first one he told me 45 minutes into our conversation I probed a bit more but Strang was shutting down he was done indulging these questions about the health of the church his congregation was doing just fine thank you very much and if people like me and more wanted to critique evangelicalism well that was our problem Strang told me it was time to wrap up the interview last question I said what's your greatest concern for the American Church Strang scratched his head then he launched into a detailed description of how several major Christian denominations had over the course of generations been liberalized pacified sapped of their spiritual intensity recalling a passage from Revelation that Jesus preferred people to be either hot or cold when it came to following him Strang said he worried that instead of being on fire for God that we become lukewarm and meaningless and incorporate the values of the world and try to christianize them now nearly an hour into our Meandering discussion we were getting somewhere I had been taught that being on fire for God meant deliberately cultivating a relationship with him through prayer and meditation on the word that would equip a Christian to spread the message of his love but it was becoming clear that it meant something quite different to some of the people I'd been spending time with to people like Strang and people like Chad Connelly who went around the country portraying any politically passive churchgoer as fraudulent in their faith the Christian devoutness was measured not by their striving and self- perfecting on the inside but by their scrapping and self-ag iing on the outside in this context all the Shady alliances and moral compromises made sense the Quest for political clout was not a deviation from their faith in Jesus it was a demonstration of it for someone who worried about Christians conforming to the patterns of the world Strang had certainly proven its viability as a business model praising Trump for advancing sound policies was one thing even the man's fiercest attractors had lauded specific decisions he made as president but Strang had chosen to take it further connecting those policy decisions to something Supernatural he had used specific ends to rationalize all means he had christianized literally christianized a man and his political movement despite knowing that many of that man's values were antithetical to the example of Christ the most disturbing part Strang wasn't limiting this practice to Trump the forward to his newest book was written by Mike Lindell who had spent the last two years spewing such laughably demonstrable lies that even many of his Ur while Maga allies had cut him off when I raised once more the question of credibility was it helpful to the witness of Christ to align with Mike Lindell Strang shot me a dirty look personally vouched for lindell's sincerity as a Christian and ended the interview shutting off my recorder I grabbed my $5 copy of God in cancel culture and walked outside the sun was diving below the rock quaries that formed a jagged border around Branson I had made plans to attend Sunday morning worship on the opposite side of the state for the next 4 hours I thought about Steven Strang I thought about the decisions he' made I thought about the questions I still wanted to ask little did I know driving Northbound through the cool Missouri night that some answers awaited me in the city of St Joseph part three the glory chapter 15 St Joseph Missouri what good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul Mark 8:36 the first thing I noticed was the parking lot how gigantic it looked and how desolate it was there must have been spaces for 800 Vehicles outside Word of Life Church but on this chilly Sunday morning maybe one in 10 of those was occupied it was an unfamiliar site parking at most mega churches I'd visited required prayer and careful strategic planning men in Orange vests directed drivers to overflow Lots so far from the church building that the steeple faded from View that was not the case at Word of Life then again this was not a mega church not anymore Pastor Brian Zan had told me prior to my visit that his congregation was a fraction of its former size but that notice did little to brace me once inside the sanctuary I was a gape all over again the imposing space with its tears of elongated wooden pews spilling backward from a darkened stage bathed in blue overhead lights looked capable of seating close to a thousand people but there couldn't have been more than 150 in attendance pulling out my phone I double checked the Church website thinking perhaps I'd arrived for the lighter of their worship services but there was no other service Word of Life met once on Sunday mornings this was everybody for his part Pastor zand didn't seem phased at 63 zand looked and act Ed like a younger man he wore an outfit of all black jeans t-shirt leather jacket thick rimmed glasses that was offset by a graying beard and bushy dark hair this morning he announced practically skipping across the stage was the 41st anniversary of Word of Life Church I feel good today he said paying brief homage to James Brown his energy was infectious for a while already the people around me had stood arms outstretched singing about God and his mercies as Zan thank the Lord for blessing this church its people bowed their heads and lifted their palms then jumped up from the pews and began hugging and laughing with one another Zan had instructed us to greet at least seven people that quota was surpassed and then some after the singing and praying and hugging zand launched into a sermon centered on the story of of Hagi a Jewish prophet in 520 BC Zan provided the historical backdrop it had been 67 years since Jerusalem all of it including Solomon's Temple was destroyed and the Jews were taken as Exiles to Babylon eventually Babylon was overthrown by the Persians and the Jews had come under the rule of the Persian king Cyrus the Great it was Cyrus Zan explained who allowed the Jewish exile to return to Jerusalem and build a second temple they got started on construction but the work slowed and eventually stopped for 15 years the second temple sat unfinished enter Hagi the prophet blasted the priorities of God's people in fact he told them that their suffering from drought and other afflictions was punishment for becoming consumed with their own narrow needs and neglecting the work of God reminding the older generation of Jews of the Splendor of Solomon's Temple Hagi shocked them by prophesying that the sequel would be even greater he said God planned to establish his ultimate Kingdom in a New Jerusalem with a new Temple that would redeem mankind this motivational tactic worked the Jews completed the temple but hagi's words at least as the people understood them didn't come true this rebuilt Temple was a far cross from Solomon's magnificent structure even when King Herod kicked off a building Drive centuries later and made spectacular renovations to the temple it still didn't compare to the original what the Jews couldn't comprehend Zan said is that haggi was prophesying a different kind of Kingdom a different kind of Temple he was telling of Jesus and his eternal sovereignty the people were so attached to their identity to the tangible glor of Earthly power that they missed the greater thing promised them the more glorious latter Temple that the prophet haggi foretold has nothing to do with impressive buildings or national interests or imperial aspirations these things are the petty Ambitions of Pharaoh's Caesars and other wannabes it's the false glory of the kingdoms of this world that the devil offered to Jesus in the wilderness Temptation and Jesus rejected Zan said The more glorious Temple of which the prophet spoke is nothing more than the new Temple that is the body of Christ the pastor added we've been given a new temple one that can never be destroyed and we're often too busy looking back at the old Temple something beautiful but ultimately fleeting to appreciate the new Temple in front of us nothing of man lasts Jesus promised to raise up the temple 3 days after it was destroyed a foretelling of his death and Resurrection Direction but also prophesied that the second temple the one built at the beest of Hagi would be demolished the Romans took care of that in ad70 by that time there was no need to build another a growing number of Jews who believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah calling themselves Christians preached that a new indestructible Eternal order had been established this changed everything after centuries of worshiping on Saturdays these Jews declared Sundays to be holy they began eating pork and consorting with Gentiles and ignoring the Jewish priests behavior that would have been Unthinkable throughout their history suddenly these early Christians no longer cared about the strictures and power struggles that had consumed them their validation came not from a physical stronghold but from a spiritual Fortress zand pointed out how in the New Testament Epistle of Hebrews the writer harked back to the words of Hagi rejoicing that while God would continue to subject the world to disruption and uncertainty we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken the pastor's implication was hard to miss if only American Christians two Millennia later could exude such confidence not that we're alone in getting mixed up ever since the baptism of emperor Constantine in the middle middle of the 4th Century the development toward an imperial church and finally toward a state religion was almost a matter of necessity Zan said quoting the German Theologian Gerhard link Zan continued with link verbatim it was a grandiose attempt to create a Christian Empire and thus to unite Faith Life and culture only a careful look at the people of God in the Old Testament their EXP expent with the state and the collapse of the experiment could have preserved the church from repeating the old mistake but it was not possible in late Antiquity or in the Middle Ages for people to read the Old Testament so analytically only the history of the modern era shattered the dream today the experiment is truly at an end and can never be resumed Zan's tone became more direct the writer of Hebrews understands that the glory of the latter Temple is not a nation of this world but