In October 2005, an Air Force Academy graduate sued the United States Air Force for religious bias. His lawsuit claimed that officers in the highest levels of the Air Force command imposed Evangelical Christian doctrine to cadets at the Colorado Springs campus and throughout that branch of the armed forces.
That lawsuit, brought forth by Mikey Weinstein, a Jewish servicemember, registered Republican and former member of the Reagan White House was dismissed by a federal judge. But Weinstein had provided America with the first indications of Christian Nationalism and has, since that time, continued to expose the troubling growth of Evangelical leadership ignoring the separation of church and state in our military. His organization, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, continues to work to make our military free of any religious bias.
He cannot do it alone. And the highest echelons are being flooded with extremists and religious zealots like Michael Flynn. Their efforts to indoctrinate the rank and file servicemembers has developed a generation of veterans that are well-trained in military tactics and brainwashed in the false propheteering of American Evangelical "Christianity." These are the men and women that lead terrorist organizations like the Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys, Patriot Front and other alt-right, Christian groups.
The American Evangelical Christian movement has been playing a long-game. They have been patient and purpose-driven, with eyes on a gleaming prize, the United States. One must wonder how many Republican members of Congress and the Senate are true believers and how many have latched on to the nefarious coattails, just to curry support in their election efforts. Surely, no one believes that Donald Trump was in any way a pious Christian, yet his unabashed desire for the presidency and the artificial credibility he thought it would provide put him in cahoots with some of the most twisted religious zealots in America. Politics truly has made for the strangest bedfellows.
It is time for decent, law-abiding Americans to realize there is a clear and present danger in this country. It is an organized, coordinate effort to control the nation and force everyone to bend to their will. We are well past the days when people could dismiss the Evangelical movement and its followers as outliers in our American mosaic. Evangelical Christianity is every bit the same as the ruling Shi'a Muslims of Iran. Their intention become evident on January 6, 2021.
For secular Iranians, there was a level of complacency in 1979. In fact, many were in favor of revolution as their country was an absolute dictatorship. The Shah ruled with absolute power. Despite being a modern, secular country, the citizens lived in a constant state of uncertainty. There were secret police stealing away political adversaries in the night. Freedom of speech was none existent. But still, the secular, middle class Iranian lived with a high quality of life. It was the students and children that were swayed to religious extremism in an effort to displace the very real authoritarianism they lived beneath.
In the United States, the move to Christian extremism has been driven by a similar narrative, however false that narrative is. Right-wing propaganda mills like Fox News (and its parent company, News Corp), Newsmax, OAN and EIB networks have been pounding a neocon agenda since President Ronald Reagan fast-tracked Rupert Murdoch's bid for citizenship. Otherwise intelligent, honorable Americans have been conditioned to believe that there are coordinated efforts to stamp out their beliefs. They have been convinced that their "way of life" is under attack. And in that false narrative, they have been told repeatedly that the only ones that will protect America as a "Christian nation" are the most extreme, most zealous, loudest defenders.
Everything that does not line up in lockstep perfection with Evangelical beliefs are questioned. Science is under attack and the scientists that would work to protect humanity aren't just targeted, but vilified. Any politician that isn't aligned completely and blindly to the Republican platform is marked a communist or traitor. And nothing is more terrifying to the GOP than that which they deem "socialism."
What fuels the political neo conservativism? What pays the bills? Why, industry of course. The captains of industry have managed to convince the Evangelical extremists that completely unrestricted, unregulated economics is the backbone of the American prosperity. Laissez faire business practices, according to capitalist policymakers, are the most fair, most efficient form of social construction. Indeed, as Reagan was actively destroying consumer protections and empowering corporations for maximum profit, he was also was putting the world's most virulent conservative media mogul in place to become the Right's national mouthpiece. Fox News, the New York Post and countless smaller News Corp outlets pounded the message home-- socialism is the devil. Communists are godless heathens and if you vote for ideas like socialized medicine, regulation of the financial markets, public education and public works, you are likely godless, too.
It is time to recognize the threat Christian Nationalism is to the United States. It is time to defend democracy from the enemy within. It is time to expose the rapidly accelerating Christian extremism that is taking over the companies, organizations and agencies throughout this country. And it must be done before the United States is thrown into the kind of theocratic authoritarianism that rules Iran.