Iowa Faith Leader Coalition Threatens Fascist Theocracy

The following article is adapted from a transcript of a recent episode of the podcast Stop Christian Nationalism about the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.

In a December 13 speech in Coralville, Iowa, Donald Trump came to the defense of the Christian god. He said to the crowd before him,

“They are vicious, vicious people that I believe hate our country. You must never forget this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you. This is your home. This is your heritage and your American liberty is your god given right. You're not allowed to use the word ‘god’ anymore. Did you see that one? They don't want you to use the name. They don't want you to say god anymore.”

If no one is allowed to use the word ‘god’ anymore, how come Donald Trump said it in that speech 3 times in just about 30 seconds?

Of course Americans are allowed to use the word ‘god’. Those Americans who believe in gods talk about the gods that they believe in all the time.

What Donald Trump and his Christian Nationalist followers object to is that the Constitution of the United States forbids government establishment of religion. When the Constitution was being written, there were a few delegates to the Constitutional Congress who brought up the idea that the United States should be a Christian nation, but when that proposal was brought to a vote, it was soundly rejected.

The thing about American liberty is that it was not given by any god. It’s a historical fact that liberty in the United States was created and is maintained by people. That’s why the Constitution begins with the words “We the people,” not “He, the god”, or even “We the Christians”. The United States was founded as a secular nation that keeps government and religion separate, thereby ensuring freedom of religion for all Americans.

Donald Trump and his Christian Nationalist followers want to change that. They want to end freedom of religion in the United States. They want to end democracy, and replace it with an authoritarian Christian theocracy in which federal government priests are given the power to force children to learn Christianity in the schools, to force citizens to engage in Christian religious rituals in government meetings, and to force all Americans to obey ancient Christian religious laws.

The Christian theocracy planned by Christian Nationalists would not be a kind a loving place. It would be a nation in which everyone who isn’t a Christian, and that’s currently about 40 percent of the population, would be persecuted by the Christian majority. That’s why Donald Trump used fascist language when he began to talk about the Christian Nationalist god.

“They are vicious, vicious people that I believe hate our country,” Trump said. “You must never forget this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you.” For Donald Trump and his followers, Christianity and fascist nationalism go hand in hand. They believe that non-Christians don’t belong in America, that only Christianity can be allowed, and that America only belongs to Christians.

Where will the over 100 million non-Christian Americans go, if the Christian Nationalists take over? Remember, Donald Trump has promised to create massive prison camps for the people who refuse to follow his vision, the people he calls “vermin”. He promises to root us out.

In the ideology of Christian Nationalism, we don’t deserve to have a free country because we are vermin. To the god of the Christian bible, we are wretches who are born wicked. In this religious point of view, people aren’t capable of making good decisions for themselves. So, Christian Nationalists believe that they need to submit themselves to a strongman god, and to be led by a strongman political leader. They don’t believe that people should have the freedom to think things through for themselves. Their religious leaders teach them from the time they are children that they need to surrender authority to their god and to their political leaders, who will tell them what is right and what is wrong. The job of the Christian Nationalist is simply to obey what they are told to do.

This is why Christian Nationalism is a fascist movement. Its authoritarianism comes straight from Christian teachings that demand people follow their proper leader. The promised reward for obedience is power.

Donald Trump made exactly this promise in that speech in Coralville, Iowa.

“We are one movement, one people, one family, and one glorious nation under god, and together we will make America powerful again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. We will make America great again. We will love our country. We will take care of our country. We will pray to god for strength and for liberty. We will pray for god, and we will be with god.” 

One people, one nation, one god: This is an old fascist motto with a dark undercurrent.

The “one nation” is the United States of America. That sounds okay, but this USA is not the America that upholds freedom and celebrates the diversity of choices people are free to make. When Christian Nationalists say that America is one nation, they mean that there is only way to be part of the nation, only one way to be an American.

The “one god” is the Christian god.

Because there is only one god and only one American nation in this Christian Nationalist vision, if you don’t worship the Christian god, the Christian Nationalists believe that you are not an American.

The “one people” are the White Christian Nationalists. According to Christian Nationalists, if you’re not born in the United States, and if you’re not White, you’re not an American.

Donald Trump has said it. He’s going to root out the vermin, put them in concentration camps, and then impose the largest mass deportation in human history. Everyone but white Christians will go.

Does anyone really believe that prison camps and deportation are where this vision ends? We’ve seen this script get played out before. It ends in death.

One year ago, Donald Trump had Nick Fuentes as a dinner guest at his Florida mansion of Mar-a-Lago. After the meeting, Trump declared that Fuentes was a great guy, and had a lot of great ideas. This month, this is what Nick Fuentes had to say about where the Christian Nationalist movement is going.

“There is an occult element at the high levels of society and specifically among the Jews. So many of the people that are perpetrating the lies and the destruction on the country, they are evildoers. They are people that worship false gods. They are people that practice magic or rituals or whatever, and more than anything, those people need to be, when we take power, they need to be given the death penalty, straight up. I'm more concerned about that, I am about even non-White people or mass migration. These people that are communing with demons and engaging in this sort of witchcraft and stuff, and these people that are suppressing the name Christ and suppressing Christianity, they must be absolutely annihilated when we take power. This is God's country. This is Jesus's country. This is not the domain of atheists or devil worshipers or perfidious Jews. This is Christ country.” 

It’s easy to hear the news of Donald Trump making violent and cruel threats and think that he’s just making an offhand comment. The thing is, Donald Trump says these things over and over again. They aren’t random misstatements.

What’s more, it isn’t just Donald Trump making these remarks. Donald Trump isn’t just a lone crackpot threatening to end American democracy and impose an authoritarian dictatorship. Donald Trump is the leader of a massive movement of Christian Nationalists, consisting of people like Nick Fuentes. They are saying the same kind of things that Donald Trump is saying. They are threatening to kill Americans who are not Christians.

It's not just Donald Trump that we have to worry about. We also have to worry about the huge number of Americans who support Donald Trump, and support Donald Trump’s plan to end American democracy.

After Donald Trump promised to exterminate his political opponents like vermin, his support in the polls did not decrease. To the contrary, when Donald Trump pledged to engage in violence against his enemies, the number of Iowa Republicans who said they plan to vote for him increased.

Christian Nationalists are not holding their noses to vote for Donald Trump. Christian Nationalists are enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump. Christian Nationalists support Donald Trump not in spite of calls to end American democracy, but because Trump wants to end democracy. In Donald Trump, Christian Nationalists see someone who will finally give them power to impose their religion on everyone else.

These threats are not idle.

Sitting in the audience at the Trump rally in Coralville, Iowa was a man in a bright yellow sweatshirt with the Punisher logo, an elongated skull with the American flag superimposed on it. Around this logo were the words “Fuck Around And Find Out”. I don’t like to use language like that on this podcast, because I want the podcast to be available to people of all ages. People of all ages need to understand that people close to Donald Trump are using this logo, and embracing what it means.

The Punisher logo is originally from a series of comic books, featuring a violent vigilante called The Punisher. The creator of the Punisher comic books meant this character to be a warning against right wing violence and fascism, but right wing fascists in the United States didn’t understand it as a warning. They have adopted the Punisher logo as a symbol of violent right wing white supremacism. The Punisher logo has become a signal shared by people who have joined or who support Christian Nationalist paramilitary organizations.

Some of these organizations were present at the January 6 insurrection that attempted to kill the Vice President of the United States and take members of the US Congress hostage. They planned to end democracy in the United States and replace it with a Christian Nationalist theocratic dictatorship. When they reached the floor of Congress, they celebrated their violence with a prayer to the Christian god.

It's not just Donald Trump saying crazy things now and then. It’s not a joke. It’s an organized movement that aims to end freedom in America, and to do it in the name of Jesus. Trump is saying it. Nick Fuentes is saying it. People in the audience are cheering for it. They’re getting the message that a vote for a Republican is a vote for Christian power, and they love it.

Consider the enthusiasm of a woman who was in the audience to listen to Trump’s speech in Coralville, Iowa, and was interviewed by a correspondent from the Right Side Broadcasting Network.

Trump Fan: "The elites, they do not care about us little people, and President Trump really does. He really cares. He's working for God." 

Right Side Broadcasting Network correspondent: "And speaking of God, I like your shirt. It says, 'Normal is not coming back. Jesus is.' And you're absolutely right, with a cross around your neck. I love it." 

The t-shirt the correspondent describes had a Christian crucifix in an American flag where the stars are supposed to go. A crucifix in the place of the state governments across the USA – you couldn’t get a more potent symbol of Christian Nationalism than that. In case you didn’t get the message, this audience member wore a crucifix around her neck as well.

Jesus is coming back, the two of them agreed. What does that have to do with Donald Trump running for President of the United States?

In order to understand what the return of Jesus has in common with Donald Trump’s political campaign, consider the story that the Christian New Testament tells about what will happen once Jesus rises from the dead and comes back to Earth. This part of the Christian story may not come to you right away. It’s the end of the story of Christmas, the part that they usually don’t include in the Christmas specials. It’s the part that goes with the Christmas carol lyric, “Remember Christ our savior was born on Christmas day to save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray.”

Saving us all from Satan’s power means this: Christian Nationalists believe that the little boy who was born in a manger thousands of years ago is going to come back from the dead any time now to begin a religious war of Christians against everyone else, in which the followers of Jesus try to kill everyone who is not a Christian. Then, Jesus will engage in retribution against all non-Christians by stuffing them into a gigantic winepress and squeezing their bodies until they die and leak so much blood onto the landscape that the blood will be six feet deep for something like a hundred square kilometers.

This part of the Christmas story comes straight from the Christian bible, in the Book of Revelation, which talks about how much Jesus hates people who disagree with him, and promises violent divine retribution against non-Christians.

Christian Nationalists believe that this will be a good thing. When they wear t-shirts talking about the return of Jesus with an American flag to a Trump rally, promising that there will never be a return to normal, this bloody religious war is what they’re talking about. It’s what they are looking forward to. It’s why Donald Trump rises in the polls every time he talks about violence and revenge in the name of god.

To be fair, this quest for religious violence is not heresy. It’s not fake Christianity. It’s just a part of Christianity that some Christians, the kind who are not Christian Nationalists, don’t feel comfortable talking about. These fantasies of genocidal Christian violence have always been there, though, from the first days of Christianity. It was there when the Christians used the Roman Empire to spread their religion at the tip of a sword. It was there when European Christians massacred their way to Jerusalem in several Crusades. It was there when the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts killed their neighbors upon suspicion of witchcraft.

Donald Trump and his Christian Nationalist movement are just the latest iteration of this religious brutality.

Before Donald Trump got the chance to speak at that rally in Coralville, Iowa, he invited a Christian pastor to warm up the audience for him, with a speech full of Christian Nationalism. At present, it’s not certain who exactly this pro-Trump Iowa pastor was. His speech was captured and shared online by the Right Side Broadcasting Network, but the introduction of him by name took place during a commercial break. I’ll keep researching to track down this information. For now, we’ll just have to refer to him generically, as a young Christian pastor from somewhere in Iowa who was specifically invited to give a pro-Trump religious speech at the Coralville, Iowa rally this month.

The preacher began with a declaration that democracy has no power in America. In fact, the preacher declared that American democracy is inherently corrupt because it does not yield to Christian power.

“The corruption in Washington is a natural reflection of the spiritual state of our nation. In order to make America great again, I believe we must do two things. We must become godly again, submitting ourselves to the scepter of the most high king, the lord Jesus Christ, and we must reelect President Trump for the third time.” 

The scepter is the symbol of monarchy. So, when this preacher demands that America submit to the scepter of Jesus, he is demanding a rejection of the revolution of 1776, and a return to totalitarian rule, but this time under Donald Trump instead of under the monarchs of the British Empire.

The preacher then went on to say that demons and other evil supernatural creatures have possessed the bodies of Democrats and non-Christians.

“Ephesians chapter 6, verse 11 through 12 states: 'Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present age, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.' We must not lose sight that this election is part of a spiritual battle. There are demonic forces at play. But I want to remind those who have fallen prey to the leadership of such demons, have fallen prey to the diabolic forces and have become pawns to their schemes, Romans Chapter 13, verse 1 through 4, this is the warning: 'Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.' And judgment is coming. 'Even for the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants against the wrath, of wrath, to bring punishment on the wrongdoer,' and when Donald Trump becomes the 47th President of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country."

There’s a lot of old-fashioned bible talk in this speech, so let’s break that down to make it clear. The passage from Ephesians the pastor used is commonly employed by Christian Nationalists to argue that anyone who opposes Donald Trump has been possessed by a literal demon from Hell. They believe that we aren’t human any more, but have become servants of demons. The passage from Romans insists that human governments are not actually controlled by human beings, but are the puppets of supernatural spirit gods.

These are both New Testament passages, by the way, straight from purely Christian texts, advocating for brutal, violent suppression of dissent on the basis of the Christian belief that religious diversity and political disagreement are unacceptable because they are manifestation of the evil magical powers of demons. It’s understandable that someone in the latter days of the Roman Empire under Christian rule might actually believe in this kind of mythology of evil spirits, but the scientific research of recent centuries has taught us to think of politics in terms of human psychology, sociology, culture, and economy rather than the playing ground of magical creatures.  Christian Nationalism, however, seeks to throw away all the scientific and sociological advances of the last two hundred and fifty years, to return us to the superstitious and bloody way of life of the Christian Roman Empire.

The pro-Trump pastor at the Coralville rally was spelling out, in biblical language, what the consequences will be for non-Christians and political dissidents in America if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election. American democracy will be sacrificed for a Christian theocracy, and all those who refuse to convert to Christianity and obey Donald Trump will be put to the sword. No rebellion against the authority of Donald Trump will be allowed, and the will of Donald Trump will be viewed as equivalent to the will of the Christian god. Worship at the altar of Trump will be mandatory, with violent retribution as the punishment for those who refuse to go along with the Christian Nationalist agenda.

You might dismiss these statements as just the sort of outlandish things that Christian preachers are in the habit of saying. There is good reason, however, to believe that this message of violent, vengeful religious punishment by a Christian Nationalist government in the United States comes from the Trump campaign itself.

On December 13, the very same day that Trump and this pastor met together in Coralville, Iowa, the Trump for President campaign shared the following statement from another Christian preacher in Iowa:

“Pastor Eric Holdeman of Spirit Life Fellowship Church in Dickinson County, Iowa, stated, ‘After assessing the presidential candidates, it is clear that President Trump has consistently fulfilled his promises to the people of faith in America. He has a proven track record of defending family values, promoting religious freedom, and championing moral clarity and biblical authority. Now, more than ever, President Trump is the indispensable leader that Christians and all people of faith truly need.’”

Just one week later, on December 21, the Trump for President campaign shared an extremely similar statement, from another Christian preacher in Iowa:

“Pastor Jamison Plank from Henry County, Iowa, stated, ‘President Trump is the clear choice for people of faith in America. Unlike other politicians, when President Trump promises he will do something, he keeps his promises.  President Trump has an unmatched record of defending family values, promoting religious freedom, and championing moral clarity and biblical authority.’"

Compare the language in these two statements. Both have the identical phrase “record of defending family values, promoting religious freedom, and championing moral clarity and biblical authority.” Both place this phrase immediately after a sentence declaring that Donald Trump keeps his promises.

These similarities are too strong to be mere coincidence. It’s obvious that these statements were not written by these pastors. Someone told these preachers what to say, or more likely, someone working with the Trump for President campaign wrote a statement for these preachers, and then adjusted the statements afterwards, to try to make it appear as if the preachers had come up with the words themselves.

These two preachers are not just independently praising and supporting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. They have signed up as members of what the Donald Trump campaign is calling the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition. It’s a not a pre-existing group that existed before this year. The Iowa Faith Leader Coalition appears to be an organization that may have been created whole cloth by the Trump for President campaign.

What these statements have in common is a focus on biblical authority. What that means should chill your heart. Both these statements from Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition argue that Christian churches should have a power superior to American law. They aim to make American law subservient to the Christian bible, and to the demands of Christian preachers.

As of a few days ago, 302 Christian preachers from Iowa had joined this supposed coalition. This amount doubled within just a couple of weeks. By the time of the Iowa caucuses, it might double again.

It is against the law for preachers at Christian churches that have a tax exempt status to campaign in favor of any political candidate at any level. The reason for that is that these churches, and these preachers by extension, have tax-exempt status. They don’t pay taxes on their income like you do. They get the privilege of operating without paying taxes on the presumption that they are doing socially-positive work in their communities.

This is not a special restriction that applies only to churches, by the way. It applies to all non-profit organizations that claim tax-exempt status. So, there’s no discrimination against religious groups in this law. The law is very simple: Any organization that is non-profit can claim tax-exempt status, so long as it does not engage in political campaign activities for any candidate or political party.

This law exists to prevent politicians from evading campaign finance laws that are designed to prevent corruption. Think about it: If we had non-profit organizations that don’t report their financial transactions or pay taxes, they could become money laundering channels for bribery or other corrupt political influence schemes. Organized crime groups could use them to gain control of the government. Or, there could be efforts to make church networks into instruments of violence and terror, which is what Christian Nationalists in America are trying to do right now.

They’re telling us what they plan to do. They coming right out and saying that they want to rule through fear and retribution. They are telling us that if Donald Trump is elected, people who refuse to obey their churches will be punished.

Right now, there is a network of at least 300 churches in Iowa alone that is working to make this destruction of American democracy happen.

Imagine that network at a national scale. Iowa is a relatively small state. In larger states, like California or Texas, the equivalent would be thousands of churches in those states alone. So across the country, there might be 10,000 or 20,000 churches, organized under the Trump campaign and converted into tools of his political power.

Because churches operate outside of both campaign finance regulation and tax regulation, we have no way of knowing the extent to which this network of churches converted into branches of the Trump political machine has already been developed. What we do have is a list of church pastors in Iowa that’s been released by the Trump campaign itself.

This network calls for more investigation. So far, however, almost no journalistic investigations of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition have taken place. That’s happened because the spread of online platforms has decimated journalistic organizations around the country, leaving us dangerously uninformed just as our democracy comes under threat.

It’s up to us to do the work that professional journalists would have done in the past.

This is not a fire drill. Christian Nationalist fascists are organizing right now to take apart American democracy. They will succeed, or they will fail, within the next eleven months.

We need all hands on deck. It’s time to get active.