Stop Christian Nationalism

Half of The Ten Commandments amount to commands that people worship the Jewish tribal god Jehovah, and no other gods. That’s ironic, because Christians worship Jesus, who is not Jehovah. Christianity itself violates the Ten Commandments.Governor Landry claimed that it’s necessary to post the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom because the Ten Commandments are the foundation of American law. “If you want to respect the rule of law,” he said, “you’ve got to start from the original law giver, which was Moses.”That’s a ridiculous claim, because the Constitution of the United States of America explicitly forbids any legislative act that establishes any religion in the law. That’s the opposite of the intention of the Ten Commandments, which aims to force people into religious worship.The Ten Commandments contains a prohibition of “graven images”, artwork that represents real things in the world. Here in the USA, the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. Louisiana is going to be posting an anti-art message from the 10 Commandments in every public school art classroom in the state. Did Louisiana legislators even think about that?Furthermore, Moses was clearly not the original law giver. It’s ludicrous to suppose that before Moses came along, there were no laws anywhere in the world. Human societies had existed for at least 197,000 years before the fictional/legendary timeline attributed to Moses. People love rules. This episode of Stop Christian Nationalism contains an original song in the series Country Music Against Christian Nationalism. It's called Keep Your Commandments To Yourself, with the following lyrics:The Ten Commandments are not American. Keep your Commandments to yourself. The Ten Commandments are thousands of years old. Keep your Commandments to yourself. I don't want your creepy Christian preachers bothering my children. I don't want your pushy Christian preachers running through our schools. Keep your Commandments in your pants, Reverend. A school is not a church. Keep your Commandments to yourself. The Ten Commandments have nothing to do with our laws. Keep your Commandments to yourself. The Ten Commandments are ancient and irrelevant. Keep your Commandments to yourself. I don't want your creepy Christian preachers bothering my children. I don't want your pushy Christian preachers running through our schools. Keep your Commandments in your pants, Reverend. I do not send my kids to school to learn some superstitious imaginary history about spirits from the skies and laws against artistic freedom. What the heck, Louisiana? The more you push your old religion at us the more we walk away. The more you push Christian nonsense at us the more we walk away. Don't you get it? A school is not a church. I don't want your creepy Christian preachers bothering my children. What the heck is wrong with Louisiana? Keep your Commandments in your pants, Reverend.

We are now in the second week of the war that the United States launched against Iran, unprovoked.Every morning, we get a new press conference from Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.At every one of these press conferences, Pete Hegseth makes sure to engage in an act of Christian religious ritual of prayer. Hegseth is using this war to promote his religion through the U.S. Federal government. That’s pretty tacky, but it's also pretty ineffective.Listen to what Pete Hegseth had to say 3 days ago during one of these press conferences:I’ll close with scripture, drawing strength from Psalm 144.Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge.May the Lord grant unyielding strength and refuge to our warriors, unbreakable protection to them in our homeland, and total victory over those who seek to harm them.Amen. God bless our troops and this mission.The first thing we hear from Pete Hegseth is that the God of Christianity loves war, loves violence, so much that this God is apparently training people to go to war, training people to engage in acts of violence, training, fingers for battle, hands for war.This is an all powerful, all knowing God. Why would any God with unlimited power encourage people to engage in acts of violence? This is not a loving God. This is not a peaceful God. This is a God who loves to kill and wants to have people go and kill each other on his behalf.Beyond that terrible violent attitude from this Christian God, we see that there is actual impotence behind all of the bluster. We see that the Christian God has no power to actually control people.How do we see that?Pete Hegseth just engaged in a little magical ritual of protection for American soldiers, didn't he? He prayed to the Christian God that there would be unbreakable protection to American soldiers, from God, unbreakable protection.We know, as of last night, that 4 more soldiers from the United States military were killed as a part of this war when their plane crashed, going from a refueling mission in Iran over to Iraq. So, this god of war, this Christian god of violence that Pete Hagseth worships, is totally unable to provide the kind of protection that Pete Hagseth asks for.Why is Pete Hegseth up there, making these prayers, if these prayers don't work, if they don't actually protect soldiers?You know why he's doing it. Pete Hagseth is using this war in Iran, and the attention that it brings, as an opportunity to spread his own religion, his religion of violence and war. Our country is not only losing soldiers, we are losing a billion dollars per day with this war, and we're losing our international credibility.This war, and its incompetence, its lack of planning, its careless bloodshed, show just a hint of the kind of disaster we can expect when we mix religion and government. 

Some people say government leaders should follow the teachings of Jesus.Have they actually read all the teachings of Jesus? Do they know that Jesus taught his followers to hate their own children?Transcript:Welcome to Stop Christian Nationalism.I want to address something that was said by a member of Congress just yesterday, representative Andy Ogles, who comes from Tennessee, a Republican, said, “Muslims don't belong in America. Pluralism. Is a lie”Pluralism is a lie.The idea that we can have different kind of people.The idea that we can have people who actually choose to have a religion that they want to have or choose not to have any religion at all because they don't like religion.A member of Congress says that that is a lie that we cannot have that in America, and therefore, Muslims don't belong because America, he says, is only for Christians.He's saying this as a member of the U.S. Federal government. He's saying this 2 months before Donald Trump is scheduling a national Christian prayer rally, no other members of any other religion other than Christians are invited to organize or participate in this.At this prayer rally, Donald Trump is going to declare that the United States is under God, not the Constitution, not the law, but that we are under Christianity now, that America is a theocracy.This is blatant Christian Nationalism.Christian nationalism is the idea that the United States is an inherently Christian nation, and any other principles that do not fit with that idea have to be thrown out, things like the Constitution, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.Christian nationalists will tell you that we should be a Christian nation because Christianity is a moral religion.I want to remind you of this, because you're going to hear a lot of people say, on the left, progressives, they'll say, well, you know, those Christian nationalists, they just don't follow the teachings of Jesus.And if they followed the teachings of Jesus, there wouldn't be a problem in having Christianity, inform our government and all of that because Christianity is just swell.I wonder if those people have actually read the Bible, not just their favorite parts, not just the sermon on the Mount.I wonder if they have read the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14, verse 26.I'm going to do that for you right now. Here it is. This is Jesus talking here, okay?“If any man comes to me and does not hate his father and hate his mother and hate his wife and hate his children and hate his brothers and sisters and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple.”You know, Christians claim to be all about family values, I cannot for the life of me figure out how that is family values.It's Jesus saying that you have to hate your own children.Okay, sometimes people hate family members, but I don't know anybody who thinks that that's a good thing, that that makes people better.Why would Jesus want people to hate their own children, to hate their wives, to hate their parents, their brothers and sisters?Why would Jesus want people to hate so much, so many people?In the context of the gospel of Luke chapter 14, it's pretty clear.Jesus wants all the love to go to him. This is the position of a narcissist and a cult leader who wants to have total control. Cult leaders do this all the time. They separate people from their family members, because family members, that love, that's competition.You know where they learned that practice from, they learned it from Jesus.So when I see a Republican member of Congress, saying that we can't have pluralism, we can't have any competition, we can't have any difference, we all have to be Christians, and therefore Muslims don't belong here - nobody but Christians - when I see that, I don't see somebody who doesn't know the teachings of Jesus, I see somebody who knows the ugly, abusive, vile teachings of Jesus, because, you know, a lot of the time, that's what Jesus did.He shouted at people. He insulted them. He went into the temple and beat people simply because they didn't practice religion in the way that he thought they should.And in the book of Revelation, which the Bible says is, “the testimony of Jesus” (It doesn't get more Jesus than that) Jesus describes his plans in detail for mass, murder, genocide, and torture where people are tortured at length for months on end, and they are not allowed to die because Jesus wants them to suffer.What we have happening in the United States right now with people implementing cruel policies in our federal government in the name of Christianity.I'm sorry, because I know that this is not what a lot of people want to hear, but boy, it matches a lot of the teachings of Jesus, and we need to come to grips with that.The best way to come to grips with that is to have separation of church and state.If somebody wants to have a religion where they believe that they should hate their own children, well, you know, that's their business, and they should be free to do so.I think it's not wise, but by no means should we have the U.S. Federal government forcing everybody to follow a religion that tells us that we need to hate our children in the name of Jesus. Some people say government leaders should follow the teachings of Jesus.Have they actually read all the teachings of Jesus? Do they know that Jesus taught his followers to hate their own children?Transcript:Welcome to Stop Christian Nationalism.I want to address something that was said by a member of Congress just yesterday, representative Andy Ogles, who comes from Tennessee, a Republican, said, “Muslims don't belong in America. Pluralism. Is a lie”Pluralism is a lie.The idea that we can have different kind of people.The idea that we can have people who actually choose to have a religion that they want to have or choose not to have any religion at all because they don't like religion.A member of Congress says that that is a lie that we cannot have that in America, and therefore, Muslims don't belong because America, he says, is only for Christians.He's saying this as a member of the U.S. Federal government. He's saying this 2 months before Donald Trump is scheduling a national Christian prayer rally, no other members of any other religion other than Christians are invited to organize or participate in this.At this prayer rally, Donald Trump is going to declare that the United States is under God, not the Constitution, not the law, but that we are under Christianity now, that America is a theocracy.This is blatant Christian Nationalism.Christian nationalism is the idea that the United States is an inherently Christian nation, and any other principles that do not fit with that idea have to be thrown out, things like the Constitution, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press.Christian nationalists will tell you that we should be a Christian nation because Christianity is a moral religion.I want to remind you of this, because you're going to hear a lot of people say, on the left, progressives, they'll say, well, you know, those Christian nationalists, they just don't follow the teachings of Jesus.And if they followed the teachings of Jesus, there wouldn't be a problem in having Christianity, inform our government and all of that because Christianity is just swell.I wonder if those people have actually read the Bible, not just their favorite parts, not just the sermon on the Mount.I wonder if they have read the Gospel of Luke, chapter 14, verse 26.I'm going to do that for you right now. Here it is. This is Jesus talking here, okay?“If any man comes to me and does not hate his father and hate his mother and hate his wife and hate his children and hate his brothers and sisters and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple.”You know, Christians claim to be all about family values, I cannot for the life of me figure out how that is family values.It's Jesus saying that you have to hate your own children.Okay, sometimes people hate family members, but I don't know anybody who thinks that that's a good thing, that that makes people better.Why would Jesus want people to hate their own children, to hate their wives, to hate their parents, their brothers and sisters?Why would Jesus want people to hate so much, so many people?In the context of the gospel of Luke chapter 14, it's pretty clear.Jesus wants all the love to go to him. This is the position of a narcissist and a cult leader who wants to have total control. Cult leaders do this all the time. They separate people from their family members, because family members, that love, that's competition.You know where they learned that practice from, they learned it from Jesus.So when I see a Republican member of Congress, saying that we can't have pluralism, we can't have any competition, we can't have any difference, we all have to be Christians, and therefore Muslims don't belong here - nobody but Christians - when I see that, I don't see somebody who doesn't know the teachings of Jesus, I see somebody who knows the ugly, abusive, vile teachings of Jesus, because, you know, a lot of the time, that's what Jesus did.He shouted at people. He insulted them. He went into the temple and beat people simply because they didn't practice religion in the way that he thought they should.And in the book of Revelation, which the Bible says is, “the testimony of Jesus” (It doesn't get more Jesus than that) Jesus describes his plans in detail for mass, murder, genocide, and torture where people are tortured at length for months on end, and they are not allowed to die because Jesus wants them to suffer.What we have happening in the United States right now with people implementing cruel policies in our federal government in the name of Christianity.I'm sorry, because I know that this is not what a lot of people want to hear, but boy, it matches a lot of the teachings of Jesus, and we need to come to grips with that.The best way to come to grips with that is to have se

At a conference of military officials from countries throughout the Americas today, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a new foreign policy in which the United States will seek to establish an international alliance of Christian Nationalist governments, using military force if necessary to create it. Hegseth said:“President Trump has shown what is possible when you reject the status quo delusion that threats to our Homeland and our hemisphere are somehow secondary. America is prepared to take on these threats and go on the offense alone if necessary. However, it is our preference and it is the goal of this conference that in the interest of this neighborhood we all do it together with you, with our neighbors and with our allies who are eager and willing and capable. To do this, to work together, we must first acknowledge what was lost and then understand what needs to be restored. All the nations represented in this room are offsprings of Western civilization. Our nations are and always will be united by our heritage, our history and geography in this new world. We share the same interests, and because of this we face an essential test whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics: Christian nations under God, proud of our shared heritage.”Pete Hegseth describes Christianity as if it is under siege by foreign enemies. In reality, there is no military threat to Christianity in the Americas.Christianity is declining in the United States and elsewhere. That decline is taking place because of longstanding patterns of abuse by Christian preachers and the embrace of fascism by many Christian organizations.There is no legitimate role for any military organization in efforts to place Christianity back in the socially central position it enjoyed during the Roman Empire and the subsequent centuries of Christian kings. Christian Nationalism in despotic monarchies resulted in atrocities around the globe, including the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, and colonial programs of genocide against non-Christian populations. The authors of the Constitution of the United States created separation of church and state because they knew the history of suffering caused by Christian-controlled governments.What Pete Hegseth is talking about is using military force to impose Christianity on an entire half of the planet. Hegseth is planning to use the US military to go on the offense against non-Christians, not just in the United States, but everywhere between the southern tip of Argentina and the northernmost end of Greenland.What “needs to be restored” in this area, Pete Hegseth says, are “Christian nations under God”. This is the same vision of international Christian Nationalism that Marco Rubio articulated last month in Europe, when he told representatives of European governments that they should follow the fascist example of Donald Trump because the United States and the nations of Europe have the same racial identity and are all Christian nations.Under this international Christian Nationalism, people are presumed guilty, and executed without being given any chance for a fair trial. Stephen Miller shared the stage with Pete Hegseth at the conference today, and said that governments must no longer recognize the human rights of people accused of crimes. Under Christian Nationalism, the only right to survive is the right to strict social order. Miller told the gathering of military officials:“The human rights that we protect are not of the savages that torture and rape and murder. The human rights that we protect are of the peaceable citizens who have an absolute human right to live in physical safety and security every day of their lives.”In Christian Nationalist America, every abuse is justified by the name of Jesus. Today, as the death toll of civilians killed by America’s war against Iran rose above 1,000, a group of 20 Christian preachers praised Donald Trump and crowded around him to hold an official government prayer for him in the name of Jesus.Pew Research released the results of a survey today, showing that 68 percent of Americans understand that it isn’t necessary to believe in any god for a person to be moral. 20 years ago, the majority Americans - 57 percent - believed that belief in God is necessary for morality. Today, only 31 percent do.The conspicuous arrogance, cruelty, and violence of the Christian Nationalist fascists who currently control all three branches of the US federal government is helping Americans to understand that Christianity may not be an effective method of teaching decent moral values.

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

A report from journalist Jonathan Larsen reveals that there have been over 100 complaints from within the US military, from 40 different military units at 30 different locations, about extremist violent Christian Nationalist commands coming from top military officers. These complaints detail orders to instruct soldiers, sailors, and pilots in the US military that the war against Iran is being fought in order to provoke the battle of Armageddon in order to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus, who will then destroy the world.One of these complaints reports:“This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be ‘afraid’ as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that ‘President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth’.”These complaints are being received by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that facilitates whistleblowers who have experienced Christian Nationalist indoctrination and discrimination from military officers and institutions. The Foundation says of Christian End Times propaganda currently being spread throughout the military:“Our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times" as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation. Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.”

Today is the third day in the war by the United States against the country of Iran.This is a war that was started by the United States with absolutely no provocation by Iran.This podcast is offered from an American perspective. So, some people may say, Well, what about Iran? Has Iran done a lot of bad things? The government of Iran has. That is absolutely true.The government of Iran is a theocracy. It's an Islamic republic, and a theocracy is inherently oppressive. It is a religious government without mercy.I'm giving this podcast from an American perspective, and what we have to consider is what our choices are.How do we deal with that terrible government, that oppressive government in Iran?The answer of Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth in the Christian Nationalist government of the United States of America, has been to kill, to kill a bunch of Iranians, to wage war against them, rather than to try to support democracy there through other means, rather than to negotiate rather than to talk.Violence has been the choice of this Christian nationalist government, and that tells us something very important about what Christian nationalism is, and what really American Christianity isLet's remember as we always have to, when we talk about our government at this point, that it represents 60% of American Christians. 60% of American Christians voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and then again in 2020, and then again in 2024.They did so with an explicit promise that Donald Trump was going to impose Christianity, to elevate it above all other religions, and certainly above non-religion, in the United States of America. This government, and this war, is representative of that vision.It is a Christian war.It's not just me saying that it's Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, as he likes to call himself, because as he says, he is not the Secretary of Defense. The military is no longer about defending America. It's about killing people.That's what's happening in Iran.Here's what Pete Hegseth had to say about that this morning.“We are not defenders anymore. We are warriors trained to kill the enemy and break their will. Know this, above all, President Trump and I have your back, always. Through fire, through criticism, through everything. May Almighty God watch over you, and his providential arms of protection extend over you. God’s speed warriors!”The Christian Nationalist Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, seems to think that what's happening with Iran right now is something like an argument in a chat room, with fake news.Of course, it's much more than that for the actual soldiers out there, not somebody who's just standing in front of a camera like Pete Hegseth does as a former TV weekend newshost.No, for actual soldiers out there, they're putting their lives on the line, and several have died already. Three jet planes were shot down over Kuwait as they were headed toward Iran to go bomb people in Iran. And of course, lots of Iranians are dying as well, including what may be about 150 little children in that elementary school in Tehran, that was bombed by the United States military.There's a phrase that Pete Hagseth uses to talk about all this, God's providence. God’s providence simply means whatever God provides. Hegseth just hopes that God is going to provide for American soldiers, that it'll all work out.It doesn't seem like much of a safety plan to send soldiers out into war, and then just hope that there is some kind of spirit being somewhere that's going to decide, hey, they'll be all right, and everything will be okay.Sure, why not? Just go for it.But it also has to make you think: What kind of religious vision is this that thinks that the providence of God provides for a bomb to fall on an elementary school full of 100s of little kids?That is the providence of God?Under the Christian government that we have in the United States of America, the theocracy that we have over here, we deplore the Islamic theocracy of Iran, and we should, because they've been ruthless, they've been bloody, they've been violent, they're terrible. But, you know, that’s exactly the kind of thing have the US military has done, sending bombers out to go kill families, to go kill civilians, to go kill little kids.What would we say? What would we say about Iran? If they launched an attack over here, and one of their bombs blew up an elementary school in the United States of America? That is exactly the kind of behavior that is being used to justify this war. Now the Christian government of the United States of America is doing that to another country, and that, Pete Hegseth says, is God's providence, which doesn't seem like he's got much of an actual plan.If you have to rely upon the providence of God for everything to turn out in your war, that says that you really don't have any of the other details worked out.And that perspective of the influence of religion on the sloppy planning by the United States military from the top and its Christian leadership is reflected by this further comment that Pete Hegseth made at the end of this morning's press conference. Hegseth was asked what he’s doing for the soldiers he is sending into harm’s way. He responded:“First of all, my prayer for them is that I do pray for them. Um, my wife prays for them. Our family prays for them, our cabinet prays for them. None of this is done, um, on a whim. Um, I think we, I mean, I know we think about them with every decision that we make, and every recommendation that we make to the President of the United States. Those recommendations are made preferably, uh, and when I pray every day, for them and for this mission, I pray simply for the biblical wisdom to see what is right and the courage to do it.”Biblical wisdom.Pete Hegseth is running this war on the basis of biblical wisdom, which is to say that you've got intelligence that is 2,000 years old at best, and the integrity of the data behind that intelligence is not quite trustworthy, because it involves belief in magical spirits and demons going around, influencing people, and angels with wings, prophecies, and other magical mythical thingamabobs.I mean, you want a war based on prophecies?This is what the cabinet is doing? They’re praying?This is what Pete Hegseth, as Secretary of War, is doing for the soldiers that he's sending to go kill people, and to put themselves in the line of fire, is he's praying, and hoping he, some kind of idea pops into his head that he thinks comes from a god. A spirit is talking to him and telling him how to run this war, and where to send his soldiers, and who to bomb, and what it's all for.He's praying on it.How much good do those prayers do for the dead soldiers? How much good do those prayers do for the dead people on the ground in Iran, and in the other countries that are now being attacked, thanks to the United States starting this war as a war of choice that did not have to happen? Negotiations were underway. People were at the negotiating table.Maybe it was a prayer that inspired this war. We may never know.What we do know, thanks to this morning's press conference, is that the planning for this war is just on a wing and a prayer, and not much of anything else.It’s kind of Christian improv form of warfare, just praying and seeing what happens and trusting that spirits are going to make all the bloodshed work out in the end.How well do you think that's going to go? ‍ ‍

The American military just started an unprovoked war with Iran and bombed an elementary school there killing between 50 and 100 little girls.The day before, Pete Hegseth, the civilian commander of the American military, announced that trans kids are being kicked out of the Boy Scouts, and girls will soon be kicked out too, all in the name of the Christian God.Hegseth said this fascism in the Boy Scouts is necessary to teach children values.The man who just bombed an elementary school full of little girls has the audacity to lecture the Boy Scouts to not be nice to trans kids, because of VALUES.That’s Christian Nationalism.That’s fascism.Pete Hegseth is making the Boy Scouts of America into the American version of the Hitler Youth, where they teach children to hate and to kill.

Jesus stormed the Temple in Jerusalem and violently beat people with a whip for practicing religion in a way he didn’t like.The violence of Jesus inspired Adolf Hitler to slaughter Jews in the Nazi Holocaust. The violence of Jesus also inspired Donald Trump to encourage his followers to storm the US Capitol in the January 6 insurrection.Adolf Hitler in Munich on April 12, 1922“My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian, I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter.”Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, in 1925“The Founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of His estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests.”

Donald Trump has announced that the United States will cease to be a constitutional nation on May 17, 2026. On that day, the US federal government will hold an enormous prayer rally during which the USA will be declared One Nation Under God.You might wonder if that’s really a Christian Nationalist thing to do. After all, it isn’t just Christians who believe in God. Jews and Muslims do too. It isn’t just Christians who pray. Hindus and Buddhists do that, too.So, could Donald Trump’s federal government prayer rally actually be a recognition of religious diversity?No.One way to tell what this government prayer rally is all about is to look at the organizations and individuals that the federal government has named as participants and organizers of the May 17 event. See if you can guess what they have in common.Salem Media Group refers to itself as a “Christian and Conservative Media Leader”Samaritan’s Purse is a Christian missionary organization with the statement of faith that “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.”National Religious Broadcasters is a Christian organization. It doesn’t allow any non-Christian religious broadcasters in its membership.The Southern Baptist Convention is a Christian organization that originally formed in order to preserve slavery. The Southern Baptist Convention is listed twice as a member of the Trump White House’s planning committee for the May 17 federal government prayer rally.Pray.com is a Christian organization. It doesn’t do Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist prayers, or prayers from any other religion but Christianity.Hallow calls itself the “#1 App for Christian and Catholic Prayer”. The people at Hallow think that they’re honoring diversity by representing both Christians and Catholics. Of course, Catholics are Christians, but many Protestants like to think that Catholics aren’t “real Christians”.The Free Chapel Church of Gainesville, Georgia is a Christian Church.Intercessors for America is a Christian Nationalist organization dedicated to trying to influence members of government in the United States, to bring them under the power of Christianity.The 180 Church of Detroit, Michigan is a Christian Church.40 Days for Life is Christian anti-abortion organization.Alex Bruesewitz is a Christian political consultant.The American Association of Christian Counselors is Christian, obviously.The American Media Council is an association of Christian media organizations.Asian Action, that’s the unfortunate way that the Asian Action Network is referred to by the Trump White House, is the Asian Action Network, a Christian organization.Catholics for Catholics is a self-centered Christian organization.CatholicVote is a Christian Nationalist organization dedicated to a Christian theocratic takeover of the American government.Concerned Women for America is an evangelical Christian organizationCrossroads Church of Council Bluffs is a Christian church.The Christian Broadcasting Network is an extremist right wing Christian Nationalist media organization.Danny Gokey is a singer of Christian Music, with songs like “We All Need Jesus” and “Stand In Faith”.The Dream City Church of Scottsdale, Arizona is a Christian church.Eric Metaxas is a Christian Nationalist political activist.The Faith and Freedom Coalition is a Christian Nationalist political organization.The First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas is a Christian church.First Freedom Art is a Christian organization.The Flashpoint Army is a militant Christian Nationalist organization.Focus on the Family is a Christian Nationalist political network.Gideon 300 is a Christian organization.Harvest International Ministry is a Christian organization.Jack Posobiec is a Christian Nationalist political activist.King Jesus Ministries is, though you might not guess it at first, actually a Christian organization.K-LOVE / Air1 is a Christian radio network.Let Us Worship is a Christian Nationalist organization.The National Day of Prayer Task Force is a Christian organization that insists that all its members agree to a statement of faith declaring that Jesus Christ is a deity who led a sinless life and will return to earth in power over humanity.The National Faith Advisory Board is a Christian organization with exclusively Christian leaders promoting an “Association of Churches”.The Rhema Bible Church of Tulsa, Oklahoma is a Christian church.Rogan O’Handley is a right wing lawyer who likes to call himself DC Draino. O’Handley writes, “I am a proud Christian and love Jesus.”Saturate USA is a Christian organization with the mission of bringing Christianity “to every home in America”, whether people want it or not.The Sheridan Church of Tulsa, Oklahoma is a Christian church.Somebody Cares International is a Christian missionary organization.Students For Life is a Christian anti-abortion organization.United US is a Christian organization for Christians only.United In Purpose is a Christian organization.WallBuilders is a Christian Nationalist activist organization.Warrior Notes School of Ministry is a Christian organization. Yes, every single one of the organizations and individuals involved in the May 17 federal government prayer rally is Christian.There isn’t one follower of Islam or Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Wicca, or any other non-Christian religion. Not a single one.When Donald Trump says that the United States is One Nation Under God, what he means is that the USA is now one nation under the thumb of Christian Nationalism. 

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the leaders of European nations that they must enact Christian Nationalist fascist policies to exclude non-White people and non-Christians.Marco Rubio declared:“To appease a climate cult, we have imposed energy policies on ourselves that are impoverishing our people, even as our competitors exploit oil and coal and natural gas and anything else, not just to power their economies, but to use as leverage against our own. And in a pursuit of a world without borders, we opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people. We made these mistakes together, and now, together we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward, to rebuild. Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past. While we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe. For the United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The men who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new. We are part of one civilization, Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry.”

Some people like to call Donald Trump a fake Christian, but there is nothing fake about Trump’s Christianity. Donald Trump is a real Christian, a lifelong Christian, and a dedicated Christian Nationalist. Donald Trump is also a mean and nasty fascist. Donald Trump’s fascism comes in part from the hateful radicalization he experienced as a child at a church that banned African Americans from becoming members. There’s a photograph showing Donald Trump in his church confirmation class. Trump is not a new, baby Christian. Trump has been involved with Christianity for his whole life.Pretending that Donald Trump and his fascist supporters are somehow not real Christians doesn’t help us confront the toxic religious ideology that gave birth to their hatred. We need to get real about the number of churches that teach children fascist theology. We need to confront the truth about radicalization by Christian preachers, or we’ll never be able to overcome the fascist faith they spawn.

The fascist takeover of the United States of America will be made complete when the rule of law under the Constitution is replaced by Donald Trump’s religious dictatorship in the name of the Christian God, on May 17, 2026. Listen to Donald Trump’s declaration at the Christian Nationalist National Prayer Breakfast of 2026.

Christian nationalism is in vogue, at least for the people who are trying to hold on to power , the people who are trying to destroy American democracy.A case in point is Peter Thiel. He's the founder of Palantir.Palantir is a company that profits on systems that conduct widespread electronic surveillance of people, so that anybody who is not from here is being watched.The idea is that anybody who is not from here can be picked up by Palantir’s systems, identified, targeted for detention, for exile, being deported from the United States. In order to get that information, all of our information information needs to be searched through.That's an obvious violation of the Bill of Rights, which guarantees protection from unreasonable search and seizure of our persons and our papers, meaning our bodies and our records of our personal lives, of what we're doing.Peter Thiel seems to think that the Bill of Rights isn't really a valid form of law  so he's created Palantir to help the government to violate the Bill of Rights and our protection from unreasonable search and seizure.But Peter Theil also is a big believer in Christian power in the United States of America. Christian power, as he sees it, is the same thing as power for big tech executives like himself.So Peter Thiel is giving a four-part lecture series, which is supposed to be secret. They punish people who even share notes of these lectures, and yet some of the content has leaked out.In this four-part lecture series, Peter Thiel is describing how he believes the Antichrist is on the move in the United States of America. Guess what: for him, the Antichrist is anybody who is attempting to stop big tech firms from doing whatever they want.As he describes it, regulation of generative artificial intelligence and other high-powered digital tools for social control , regulation of those things by the government is an effort by the Antichrist. It's anti-Christian to regulate artificial intelligence, according to him. In Christian Nationalism, what counts as Christian is really kind of flexible. It happens to coincide with what the people in power want.So it is that the chairman of the House judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, got on CNN just a few days ago and declared that he believes that Christianity, part of the will of God, is to have ice agents, put on masks, go roaming through American neighborhoods and dragging people out of their homes, out of their cars, out of their schools, sending them to secret detention camps without due process of law and keeping them there under inhumane conditions or deporting them.Here's what Jim Jordan had to say about that: “I think the ice agents are doing the Lord's work.”How is it that a secret police set up by a fascist government dragging parents, children out of their homes and their cars, their schools, their places of work, and putting them into prisons without any due process of law is the Lord's work.Well, the Lord's work is it turns out, whatever people in power want it to mean.So that actually, if you take a look at what Christ nationalists are doing in this government , they are defining what the Lord wants and what the government is willing to accept, not just in terms of being punitive in general against outsiders, but deciding which kinds of religion, worshiping, which kind of gods, which kinds of Lord, in a sacred sense, are going to be admitted into the United States of America?So it is that in the U.S. House of Representatives, we now have a bill numbered HR 5722 , the purpose of which is to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit the entry of aliens who adhere to Sharia law. It doesn't stop there. This bill also legalizes the deportation and the imprisonment of anybody who adheres to Sharia law.This is the really important piece of language to pay attention to: “Any alien in the United States found to be an adherent of Sharia law shall have any immigration benefit, immigration relief, or visa revoked, be considered inadmissible or deportable and shall be removed from the United States.”Not that they can, but that anybody who is not a U.S. citizen, even if they came here legally, you know, through all the paperwork, all of the procedures that are required for that, say, a university professor, say somebody who's working for a tech firm in San Francisco, if they are found merely to, "adhere to Sharia law,", they shall be deported, they have to be deported under this new proposed law.Well, what is Sharia law?Sharia law is merely the law, under the religion of Islam, as it is understood in Muslim countries. That actually means a lot of different things in different Muslim countries, in different varieties of Islam, which there are varieties of Islam.There are fundamentalist Muslims, yes, but there are also modern liberal Muslims, and they have a very different sense of what Sharia means.Sharia can mean justice, it can mean the body of laws. So, Sharia law is not just one thing. How would the U.S government even determine what that means?It's pretty clear how that would actually work, given our current state of affairs, given the way that the fascist government of Donald Trump is applying the laws that it already has to persecute people who are from other countries and other cultures.To be an adherent of Sharia law is merely to be Muslim, to belong to to the religion of Islam.To be an adherent of Sharia law doesn't mean that you're imposing Sharia law on anyone else.It's just a series of codes of conduct that you think that you ought to comply with.So if this law passes, the U.S. Congress, it will become mandatory for all Muslims who are not U.S. Citizens to be deported or detained to be kicked out of the United States of America for no other reason than what their religion is.Those of you who have actually read the Constitution, who understand the Bill of Rights, know that this is specifically prohibited in the First Amendment to the Constitution.But then again, here in the United States of America, the law doesn't really seem to matter anymore.The members of the U.S. House of Representatives who support HR5722, which would, effectively prohibit the practice of Islam or even Islamic beliefs in the United States, Randy Fine of the 6th Congressional District of Florida, Tim Burchett of the second Congressional District of Tennessee, Keith Self of the third Congressional District in Texas, Barry Moore of the first Congressional District in Alabama , Mary Miller of the 15th Congressional District in Illinois, Scott Perry of the 10th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, Sherry Biggs of the third Congressional District of South Carolina , Lauren Boebert of the fourth Congressional District of Colorado, Josh Breechen of the Second Congressional District of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of the 9th Congressional District of Georgia, Russ Fulcher of the First Congressional District of Idaho, Andy Biggs of the fifth Congressional District of Arizona, and Byron Donalds of the 19th Congressional District of Florida.In case you are wondering, yes, all of these members of Congress are Republicans.Another group of people who were all Republicans were those who were gunning for positions of leadership within the national organization of the young Republicans. They were organizing in a chat group, and Politico obtained the text of what they had to say.Repeatedly, this group of young Republicans praised Adolf Hitler. They called African Americans monkeys who liked to eat watermelon. Then they said, not once, not even just twice, but three times that they want to put all of their political opponents into gas chambers, like the Nazis used in Germany and Poland.There are some people who like to quibble when we call the government and the Republican Party that runs it right now , fascists.They say, oh, that's too strong a term.When we see see Republicans in Congress and out of Congress coalescing around ideas, like making it illegal for anyone entering this country to be Muslim, ending freedom of religion in America , praising Adolf Hitler, and threatening to kill their opponents in Nazi gas chambers, I really do't see how we can quibble with calling these people fascists. 

Many Americans were alarmed that the President of the United States would release such a sinister video during a time of high political tensions. What has not been so widely acknowledged is the violent Christian threat embedded in the video’s ominous imagery.Part of the video’s message is not religious, to be sure. It comes in the context of the Republican Party’s decision to shut down the federal government of the USA. Donald Trump has threatened that he will give Russ Vought, his Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, free reign to destroy huge parts of the American government by withholding funds already allocated by Congress, and by firing massive numbers of government workers.That destruction itself is an outrageous assault against America’s constitutional democracy. The Constitution gives Congress, not the President’s Executive Branch, the power to decide which government programs will be funded and how they will be run. The President’s job is supposed to be merely to execute the direction set by Congress. Trump’s decision to set Russ Vought loose to destroy large parts of the American government violates the highest law of the nation.There’s more to this video than that, unfortunately. Donald Trump and Russ Vought share a lifelong hatred of the democracy embodied in the American government, but more than that, they share a Christian Nationalist determination to smash American democracy and replace it with a brutal Christian theocracy.The cruelty of this vision is clear in the visual tone of the video, but its Christian Nationalism and biblical foundations are spelled out in the words that celebrate Russ Vought as The Reaper.The Grim Reaper is a figure in Christian mythology that comes from the Bible’s violent final portion, the Book of Revelation. It’s this book, not the Gospels, that American Christian Nationalists worship as the central message of the Bible. It is a revenge fantasy, a culmination of the Christian Bible in which Jesus decides that peace and love are foolish, pursuing a campaign of planet-wrecking bloody revenge and heartless authoritarian rule, smashing his opponents with a rod of iron.The Grim Reaper is a harvester, not of grain, but of human beings, cutting them down as if they are bad fruit. The Book of Revelation chapter 14 depicts non-Christians metaphorically as bad fruit, over-ripe grapes that are good for nothing but being crushed and fermented into a bloody beverage drunk by a furious Jesus. This threat of violence at the end of the Bible starts with a description of Jesus as the Son of Man, and the Lamb of God, watching while the angels of God persecute non-Christians.I looked and there was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud one who looked like the Son of Man, with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the one sitting on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap the harvest, for the time to reap has come, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripe.” The one who was sitting on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven who also had a sharp sickle. Then another angel from the altar was in charge of the fire, and cried out in a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sharp sickle and cut the clusters from the earth’s vines, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle over the Earth and cut the Earth’s vintage. He threw it into the great wine press of God’s fury. The wine press was trodden outside the city and blood poured out of the wine press to the height of a horse’s bridle for two hundred miles.The Grim Reaper is not servant of Satan. The Grim Reaper is an angel of God working by the side of Jesus to torment and kill human beings, wielding a sickle to cut people down before they are smashed to bits.Donald Trump’s threatening video states explicitly that “Russ Vought is the reaper,” showing him as a wicked angel of God with a scythe, a kind of sickle, as described in the Christian Bible. The video then shows Russ Vought standing with the sickle in an office of terrified federal government workers, ready to cut them down under the orders of the Christian god.What will happen to these government workers before they are crushed in the wine press of the wrath of God? The Book of Revelation says that they will be tortured in front of Jesus, who will watch them burn and do nothing to stop their agony.“They shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out unmixed into the cup of His indignation and shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascends up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day or night.” Accordingly, Donald Trump’s video shows federal government workers after they have been tortured by Jesus, Russ Vought and his other angels, stumbling through the streets of Washington DC at night in agony. It’s insanely sadistic, but the President of the United States is making a show of the way that he intends to torture American workers, and do it in the name of Jesus.Russ Vought has already stated that this brutal vision of the apocalyptic, bloody destruction of American democracy is his goal. Last year, he declared that he wanted to use the power of the federal government to make the United States into an exclusively Christian nation. Vought said the following:“I want to make sure that we can say we are a Christian nation, and my viewpoint is mostly that I would be probably Christian Nationism. That’s pretty close to Christian Nationalism. Can we, if we’re going to have legal immigration, can we get actually get people who believe in Christianity? Is that something, or do we have to have, you know, are we not allowed to ask questions about sharia law?… In an ideal world, I think we could save the country in the sense of the largest deportation in history.”Here, in Russ Vought’s own voice, you hear how far Donald Trump’s fascist mass deportations are intended to go. According to Russ Vought, it won’t be just non-citizens or criminals who are rounded up and put into prison camps and shipped overseas. Anyone who isn’t a Christian will be targeted as well. Russ Vought plans to make Christianity a requirement for citizenship in the United States. Mass roundups of non-Christian Americans have not yet begun, but at the very same time that Trump and Vought have shut down the American federal government, Trump has sent the American military into many American cities, where they are helping masked ICE agents to break into people’s homes, grabbing large numbers of people, including American citizens. A couple days ago in Chicago, ICE agents even handcuffed large numbers of naked children and dragged them out into the street before sending them to prison. A totalitarian secret police that was once unthinkable in America is now roaming the streets, looking for people to victimize.Donald Trump’s National Security Policy Memo 7 (NSPM-7) specifically categorizes anyone who fails to conform with the beliefs of Christianity as a “terrorist” who can be imprisoned by the US federal government. It’s an obvious, flagrant violation of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, but then, Donald Trump, Russ Vought, and their ICE stormtroopers have made it plain that they don’t believe they need to follow the Constitution any longer.Under Donald Trump and Russ Vought, anything goes. So, when they release a video that depicts a Christian Nationalist fantasy of enacting the bloody religious persecution of the Bible’s Book of Revelation, it would be foolish to think that it’s all just a sick joke.

Shortly before the speeches at Quantico, Donald Trump issued an order categorizing hostility toward Christianity as a form of terrorism.

Your friends on social media may have reposted inspiring graphics in which Pope Leo XIV (AKA Robert Prevost) said, “To be called woke in a world that sleeps through suffering is no insult.”It’s bogus. Pope Leo XIV never said any such thing. An atheist made up the fake quote using an artificial intelligence chatbot in order to see how many people would fall for the hoax. “The fact that so many of you wanted this to be true shows how far Catholicism is from real progress,” he said, revealing the fake. Pope Leo XIV also never said that “To be woke is not a threat. It is a calling.” That’s another fake quote. Pope Leo XIV has never defended the woke perspective. In fact, he has criticized it.What about the following statement, though?"You cannot follow both Christ and the cruelty of kings. A leader who mocks the weak, exalts himself, and preys on the innocent is not sent by God. He is sent to test you. And many are failing."Nope. It’s another fake quote. Pope Leo XIV didn’t say it.There’s a longer quote claiming to be from Pope Leo XIV that people have been forwarding around in which the new Pope directly criticizes Donald Trump:“Trump, the immigration policies you've implemented are a blatant trampling on both the teachings of the church and the promises of the American dream. You've made a big show of declaring a state of emergency at the border, dispatched the military to enforce the law there, canceled birthright citizenship and even had law enforcement officers barge into places like churches and schools which are supposed to be inviolable to arrest illegal immigrants. You're turning the United States into a country that has no room for tolerance, going completely against the diversity that the U.S. has always advocated. In order to win those so-called votes and pander to some extreme voters, you've resorted to all means to create external enemies and have intensified social conflicts. All of your actions are a hideous manifestation of white supremacist ideology. What's more, the incident of you accepting an airplane from the cartel is truly despicable. Such behavior of yours has seriously damaged the image of public officials. You're simply using your power as a tool to seek personal gains. I, Robert Prevost, firmly oppose everything that you stand for. Every single thing you've done is dragging the United States into the abyss of darkness and undermining the very foundation of this country.”By this point, you know what I’m going to say. Yes, it’s a completely fake quote. This supposed statement by Pope Leo XIV was uploaded in a video that was explicitly labeled as generated by AI tools.When Pope Leo XIV did not speak up for liberal social values, liberal Christians seized upon fake quotes in order to avoid confronting the brutal reality that the Catholic Church is an anti-liberal organization.What Pope Leo XIV Actually Has SaidIn a previous episode of this podcast, I noted Pope Leo XIV’s verbal attack against atheists, accusing them of causing all of the problems that have in fact been caused by Christian Nationalists. Pope Leo XIV said:"A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society."Now, Pope Leo XIV has issued a new statement criticizing LGBTQ marriages, saying that governments around the world should only support families that are “founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman”. Pope Leo XIV has also criticized what he calls the “homosexual lifestyle”.Pope Leo XIV has not made a single statement or gesture that criticizes Donald Trump. At the same time, Pope Leo XIV is criticizing the acceptance of non-Christians and LGBTQ people.People are spreading false quotes from Pope Leo XIV because the real statements the new Pope is making are unpalatable. Pope Leo XIV is not a liberal. Like every other Pope before him, Pope Leo punches down.Pope Leo XIV is turning a blind eye to the abuses of Christian Nationalism. He won’t be coming to the rescue of an America that is falling into Christofascism.

The traditional American view of politics is that the population chooses leaders who represent their interests, and manage a government that meets their needs. The government is organized into different departments, which are staffed by people who have studied their areas of expertise, and deliver specialized services for the good of the country.The Christian Nationalist view of politics is quite different from that. Under Christian Nationalism, people hope that their needs will be met through the magical services of spirits whose powers can be summoned through ritual incantations.Consider the following prophecy made by Christian Nationalists in July, 2020. The prophecy said that Democrats seek to destroy the United States through spellcraft, political assassination, and allegiances with monsters.“The goal is to put an evil black Communist woman in the White House, who is dedicated to the tearing down of America and the shredding of the Constitution. If she is a real witch, so much the better, since the Democrats have been using witches and wizards against Trump since he became president. Satan wants to control the White House. She will be the Vice President for Biden, and immediately after he is inaugurated, there will be a fatal accident and Biden will become history. Biden has committed himself to the Marxist agenda of Communist Bernie Sanders, so that is already the goal of the Democrats. And once this poor, senile, incompetent is vanished, freedom in America will be banished.”In hindsight, we can see that this Christian Nationalist prophecy was not true. Joe Biden did not advance a Communist agenda while in the White House.Joe Biden was not assassinated by Kamala Harris.Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris destroyed the Constitution. Neither did they banish freedom. I shouldn’t have to say this, but wizards are not real. Witchcraft is not real. Demons are not real.That this prophecy is nonsense should be obvious. The tragically absurd reality is that it isn’t obvious to many Americans.When I was a kid, if you asked me about what life would be like for an American in the year 2025, I would have predicted that our world would be defined by astonishing technological advancements. I would not have predicted that the person who became President of the United States in 2025 would be elected by people who believe that secret societies of wizards and witches control use magic spells to control the American political system. I would not have predicted that fear of Satanic plots motivated Americans to elect a Christian Nationalist fascist with ambitions of becoming the first dictator of the United States of America.When I was a child, I believed that the political culture of the United States would continue to improve, that Americans would learn from the mistakes of the past and find new ways to live with each other in an enlightened peace with respect for differences. Instead, America has reverted to the superstitions of the medieval Puritans.In medieval times, people had some excuse for believing in magic, monsters, and evil spirits. Many people were not literate, and did not have access to formal education. Science was just beginning to emerge as a beacon of light in the darkness of religious conformity. There is no excuse for believing in wizards and witches and demons today. Americans have access to scientific knowledge. They have schools in which they have the luxury of learning how to think clearly over years free from the burden of childhood labor.32 percent of Americans have chosen to believe in absurd magical nonsense. They have thrown away the opportunities of democracy in favor of idiotic conspiracy theories that don’t even have any internal logic. 32 percent of Americans have voluntarily given their government into the hands of Christian Nationalists who believe that worshipping a prophet who has been dead for two thousand years is more important than feeding and educating children today.32 percent of adult Americans voted for Donald Trump.31 percent of adult Americans voted against Donald Trump.34.7 percent of adult Americans chose not to vote in the 2024 presidential election at all.34.7 percent of adult Americans could not bring themselves to oppose a campaign that was blatantly fascist and Christian Nationalist.Because of them, and because of the 32 percent of adult Americans who voted for Donald Trump, we now have a US federal government organized around the belief that an ancient magical incarnation of a vengeful cosmic spirit could return to the Earth at any moment. The USA is under control of people who believe that the return of this ancient cosmic spirit is the foundation of what America stands for.I shouldn’t have to explain why that’s an absurd basis for a national identity in the year 2025, but I do. In the year 2025, America is being run by people who are obsessed with a fear of dark wizards and demons.It is difficult to hold out any hope for a country this moronic.Christian Nationalism is the ideology of a new Dark Age.

There’s a new Catholic Pope this week. He named himself Pope Leo XIV, and he gave his first speech.The obvious question on everybody’s mind was how the new Pope would address the danger posed by Donald Trump, who is threatening war with Canada, ethnic cleansing in Gaza, and an end to democracy in the United States, with new concentration camps in Guantanamo, El Salvador, and Alcatraz.Pope Leo XIV chose to respond to this historical moment of growing fascism by blaming atheists for it all. He declared:"A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society."This statement is astonishingly out of touch with the reality of social struggle today, especially given that Robert Prevost, the man who now calls himself Pope Leo XIV, is from the United States. Let’s break down his statement, point by point.Is the loss of meaning in life caused by lack of faith?There certainly is a general feeling of a loss of meaning in society these days, but it doesn’t come from a lack of faith.Donald Trump’s rapid dismantling of American democracy is causing huge numbers of people to feel a loss of meaning, and not just in the United States. People around the world had come to regard the USA as unshakably democratic, with a strong system of constitutional law that established and protected liberty for generations. Now, Donald Trump is violating that system of civil liberties, transforming the United States into an authoritarian regime that upholds few principles other than that Donald Trump can do whatever he wants. Americans, and liberals around the world, are dumbfounded by this turn of events, and many are left feeling unmoored, struggling to find a sense of meaning now that the promises of liberal democracy have been abandoned.Donald Trump was elected with the support of the majority of American Catholic voters, and through the organized political influence of right wing Catholic organizations.Pope Leo XIV did not choose to talk about any of that in his homily, however. Instead, he warned against the danger of people entering “a state of practical atheism”.Is the neglect of mercy caused by lack of faith?In the world today, the most tragic examples of neglect of mercy come from Christian Nationalist governments, not atheists.The government of Russia, which aligns itself strongly with Christianity, is mercilessly attacking the nation of Ukraine. Israel is waging a campaign of explicit ethnic cleansing in Gaza, and is doing so with the strong encouragement of the Christian Nationalist government of the United States.The Christian Nationalists in charge of the US federal government have begun to defund medical research and disaster response, and have taken systematic action to eliminate programs that deliver food to the hungry and medicine to the sick. Millions of deaths are projected to take place by the end of this year because of this Christian Nationalist neglect of mercy.None of the perpetrators of these cruelties were atheists. To the contrary, the leaders responsible for this neglect of mercy are both personally religious and politically connected with religious political organizations. Lack of faith has nothing to do with their motivation. In fact, these leaders frequently cite religious faith as a motivation for what they do.Are appalling violations of human dignity caused by lack of faith?Donald Trump, the Christian Nationalist President of the United States, has begun systematic programs of the torture and humiliation of prisoners who have no record of criminal activity. He has described entire nations and ethnicities of human beings as “animals” who deserve to be hunted down like “vermin”.Trump does these things even as he declares that he is “bringing religion back” using the power of the US federal government.Trump is a lifelong Christian who frequently cites experiences going to church and talks about how his special relationship with the Christian god has brought him to power. Lack of faith has nothing to do with any of this.Is a crisis of the family caused by lack of faith?Donald Trump is ripping families apart, splitting up married couples during ICE raids, putting people into prisons from which they cannot contact their families, and even deporting young children who are citizens of the United States while denying them life-saving medical care. At the same time, Christian Nationalists are clamoring to declare same-sex marriages null and void. Catholic organizations funded by the US federal government are refusing to allow LGBTQ married couples to adopt children. Christian groups are banning books from public libraries for no other reason than that the books dare to mention that same-sex married couples exist.In the United States of America, Christians, not atheists, are causing a nationwide crisis of the family. The power of faith is proving corrosive to family life, as religious groups spread divisive conspiracy theories and encourage their adherents to shun family members who refuse to submit to the authority of faith leaders.Atheists just aren’t doing that.Lack of Faith Leads to Resistance to FascismThe Christian Nationalists who control the US federal government are destroying democracy and establishing fascism as an expression of their faith.Non-religious Americans are the strongest most reliable opponents of Donald Trump’s cruel Christian Nationalist fascism. Americans who live without faith voted against Donald Trump by the largest margins of any cultural group in the United States.The majority of Christian voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump, and months into Trump’s second presidency, the majority of American Christians strongly support Trump’s seizure of totalitarian power.Atheists and other non-Christian Americans are the ones most reliably holding the line against cruelty, corruption, and social chaos of fascism. Only 14 percent of American Christians are willing to identify themselves as liberals.Faith Organizations in America Are Using Fascism to Gain PowerLast week, Donald Trump announced the creation of a new governmental bureau, headquartered in the White House itself, that is dedicated to protecting Christian power in America. At a ceremony announcing the creating of the bureau, called the Religious Liberty Commission, Trump stated explicitly that the purpose of the government bureau is to blend the power of church and state, defying the First Amendment to the Constitution from the Bill of Rights. Trump gave a wandering speech, in which he acknowledged that this mixture of church and state defies all legal precedent in the United States. Trump said:“You know, they work right out of the White House. They’ve never done that. That’s never been done before. No other president allowed that. I think, you know, they say separation, they say separation between church and state, they told me. I said, all right, let’s forget about that for one time. We said, really? Separation? I don’t know. Is that a good thing or a bad thing. I’m not sure, but whether there is separation or not, you guys are in the White House, where you should be, and you’re representing our country, and we’re bringing religion back to our country, and it’s a big deal… Today, as the American people turn to God and prayer, we continue a tradition that is older than our independence itself… and interestingly, I had none of them, had I had a rigged election, had the election not been rigged, I would have been out of here. I would have been gone. The radical left would have said, we got rid of him, finally. But no, now they have me for another four years. We talk about that… and we’re going to always bring God with us. We’re going to bring God to those celebrations. We’re not going to forget about God… We rejoice that God answered those prayers, and I think God answered other prayers, because he has put in an Administration to run this country that is going to make you proud again. It’s going make you believe and believe more again. Just a hundred days, we are respected all over the world. Every leader is calling and wants to have a meeting, appointments.” “We’re not going to forget about God,” Donald Trump said. This is not the voice of a person who is suffering from what Pope Leo XIV called “a lack of faith”. Donald Trump is proposing the opposite of a lack of faith. Trump is proposing that the US federal government “make you believe”, that it force the faith of Christianity on the American people whether they like it or not. Donald Trump was talking to the members of the Religious Liberty Commission, who are: Dan Patrick, chair of the CommissionDan Patrick is Lieutenant Governor of Texas. As Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick has declared that members of the Democratic Party must be fought against because Democrats are either controlled by demons (“powers and principalities”) or are demons themselves. Patrick said:“Scripture says the horse is made ready for battle but the victory is the lord’s, but we have to be ready for battle. We have to be ready for the fight, because we are not in a fight any longer of Republicans and Democrats of the old days. We are in a fight of lightness and darkness. We are in a fight of powers and principalities.”Dan Patrick has stated that the United States was created by the Christian god, not by any human political leaders. Patrick declares that the Christian god wrote the Constitution.The Constitution itself contradicts that claim. It declares that it was written by the people of the United States, and that the Constitution was established by people. The first words of the Constitution are:“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do or

Secretary of State Marco Rubio uses Easter to promote the idea that Jesus is king over the entire world, as a matter of official US State Department policy.In Texas, teams of Christian Nationalists from a group called My God Votes have been laying hands on each other to magically protect the Texas state legislature building from attacks by demons and other spirits.The US Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case where the state government of Oklahoma is seeking to provide taxpayer funding for religious schools with the explicit mission of indoctrinating children in Catholic theology and rituals.Amidst all this rampant Christian Nationalism, a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute finds that non-Christian Americans provide the strongest opposition to Donald Trump’s dictatorship, while the majority of American Christians want to see Donald Trump seize even more power.