Joy Reid warns us of the threat of Christian Nationalism as Iowa caucus reveals the danger it poses

Joy Reid wisely and correctly (in my opinion) stated, "I think what we have to actually confront and you know this is what the Democrats are going to face is this is now what white evangelicalism is. It is Christian nationalism. That's the name of it, right? These are people to whom Robert Jones again who does these numbers, they believe that God has promised them, specifically white evangelical Christians of a certain mindset that they own this country, that immigrants, that Brown people, Hindus like Vivak Ramaswamy and his wife are illegitimate Americans. They are less legitimate Americans than they are. " 66% say Biden did NOT win the 2020 presidential election legitimately.  63% say Trump still fit if convicted. 

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My former pastor serves in my view as a great example of this.  I remembered him pushing his congregation to vote for Donald Trump shortly after the Hollywood Access video came out and shortly before the 2016 presidential election. I looked for that and couldn't find it. However, I did find a sermon right after the 2016 presidential election in which he rejoices in Trump's victory and says all the things that this means, essentially theonomy, hard right bigoted backward culture war theology (e.g. no marriage equality -, forced birtherism...). It's painful to watch, but it might be enlightening as to how the Christian nationalist fundamentalists want to impose their culture war views upon the rest of us. . 

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Below I will relate how I ended caught up in the fundamentalist Christian movement and a sermon from my former pastor explaining less than a week after the election why it was so good and so important that Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. I must warn you that the message is extremely extremely ugly, repulsive to be frank. I only watched it because I have lost confidence in my memory because my substance abuse rehabilitation medication has led me into serious insomnia and thus serious memory problems and I thought I remembered my former pastor pushing the need to vote for Trump shortly after the Hollywood Access video came out and right before the 2016 presidential election and I wanted to confirm my memory. Thus, the video is in the diary. 

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As many may recall, I became a fundamentalist Christian when I was a sophomore, as an undergraduate, and I started attending Denton Bible Church. I must explain briefly how I got there. 

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I had a complicated childhood. My parents divorced and I lived with my Mom and my sister. I desperately wanted to live with my Dad. I bore my father's name and may have resembled him. My friends said that I was treated like a third class citizen in my home. The reasons seem obvious. Thus, my battle with self-harm and suicide attempts (first was poison) was in middle school. My life grew ever more painful. I was a freshman and I took a Bible and said, "God, if you exist, which I doubt, then come down and do something about this " while I was literally burning a Bible. A few months later, a neighbor at my dorm shared the gospel with me and I became a Christian. I was in great emotional pain.

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I had two mentors early. One taught me hermeneutics and consistent daily Bible study word by word, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter through each book of the Bible and sincere prayer and Scripture memory (I memorized hundreds of individual verses and 3 books of the Bible word for word). The other was a counselor in the public school and was very kind as I tried to recover from my pain.  I served on eight mission trips and taught Bible studies and mentored young men and did Evangelism Explosion for two years and did a lot more in ministry. After being told by my spiritual leaders, the pastoral team that they believed I belonged in vocational ministry, and then that not panning out despite their vision from God, I became spiritually confused. 

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I was married and needed a career and so returned to earn a couple more degrees in mathematics. As I became less spiritual and my concern about climate change and social justice increased dramatically. I was not the spiritual person I should have been admittedly. Nevertheless, I was and remain absolutely devastated by the divorce. I have never even come close to recovering from it. I started lurking on Daily Kos around 2005 and became a member some time late 2005 or early 2006. The fundamentalist tie to the Republican Party led me to believe that my core values which I deeply believe in as a democrat are correct.

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 From 2016 on I must admit that I believe that the tie of fundamentalism to Donald Trump through all of this (and I believed this from the beginning of his ascendance in the 2015/2016 March to be the Republican Party's nominee for president) served and continues to serve as a formal disproof of Christianity.  If you knew anything about Donald Trump, you knew he was a bigot. In addition to the most meager education which would have been barely acceptable if he had vast experience and great ethics and morality and character, he was and remains a bigot. So, if you voted for him, then bigotry was not a deal breaker for you. How somebody is not a bigot if bigotry is not a deal breaker is for somebody else to explain to me as I can't see that. 

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I must include a brief mention of what some know, I entered into a very abusive relationship out of the devastating emotional pain of the divorce and wanting someone anyone and she had a huge supply of narcotics and I was responsible for my choice to accept it and once I was addicted, she pounced. In any event I left her and enrolled myself alone at Laurel Ridge at the end of July of 2017 or was it 2018? I have stayed with my substance abuse rehabilitation doctor and stayed clean since then with no relapses ever. 

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I thought I remembered my pastor for all those years essentially telling his congregation (obviously I was no longer in it as I left that in 2008 or sooner ) to vote for Donald Trump shortly before the 2016 election and shortly after the Hollywood Access video came out. Now, years later, I decided to see on YouTube if my memory of that was correct or was I creating a memory of an event that . I found this video below which confirms my belief. 

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Tom Nelson is the senior pastor of the church. In my opinion, he is extremely smart. He has earned three degrees including his Master's degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. He knows the Old Testament as well as probably any person alive. He memorized all the Epistles from Romans to Jude. He has a discipleship program in which 12 young guys live with him and his family and he teaches them verse by verse each morning very early the entire Old Testament. He overwhelmingly teaches word by word, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter, through one book of the Bible every Sunday. When he completes one book, he starts another book. From the beginning. He occasionally will teach a topic if he feels it is important anything that is controversial between Fundamentalists and the rest of us. He was an athlete. He is extremely strong. He ran a marathon. One of his sons went to West Point. He has reformed theology with the change of dispensationalism and is only a four point Calvinist, not a five point Calvinist. 

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