When the war in Ukraine broke out within the last month in bloody and ruthless fashion at the hands of Vladimir Putin and the Russian state, I immediately searched to find what the response from the Russian Orthodox church would be. My admiration for the church led me to believe that I would find a strong rebuke of Putin’s actions from church leadership. Instead, I was dismayed to see Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox church, express support for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, an invasion characterized by the brutal killing of Ukrainian civilians, with the chilling assertion that the invasion was justified due to Ukraine’s embrace of Western values and support of gay rights.

My reaction was partly due to the fact that I was not up to speed with the history of Kirill and Putin. I learned recently in an interview with Cyril Hovorun, Orthodox Archimandrite and professor at the Stockholm School of Theology, on The Unbelievable Podcast that the Kremlin and the Orthodox church had entered into a collusion of power shortly after Putin’s election as President.

Hovorun describes how when Putin came to power, “there was an offer from the Russian church, an offer of a sort of ideology to substitute the Communist ideology. … And it was exactly this idea of the ‘Holy Rus’ … And the Russian church managed to offer, I would say to sell, this ideology to the Kremlin, to Putin, and the Kremlin adopted it… And when I listened to Putin just a week ago before he launched his attacks against Ukraine, I heard the voice of the church.”

What strikes me most about Hovorun’s description is the idea of the church reaching out to the political power of the state with an offer to collude with it on Nationalistic terms. The concept of Holy Russia concerns the idea that Russia and several of the surrounding countries, such as Ukraine and Belarus, are part of a holy land established over the last thousand years, and that it is a holy duty carried out by both the church and state to protect this Holy Land from the influences of the West.

Such an agreement between church leaders and authoritarian political leaders should seem chillingly familiar to us in America. It was in January 2016, in a campaign speech at a Christian college, that Donald Trump promised that if he was elected president of the United States, that “Christianity will have power. If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that” (qtd. in Dias).

In the election later that year, 81 percent of white evangelicals seemed to accept that deal when they helped to vote him into office. At that moment, like the agreement made between the Russian church and Putin, the church threw its hat in with the strong arm of the state. Trump had already tipped his authoritarian hand in with a preview of his penchant for lawlessness as it was in this same speech that he infamously stated, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”

READ: An Open Letter to His Holiness Kirill from US Christian Leaders  

We have seen the repercussions of that agreement between this large swath of the American church and Trump in the frothing forms of Christian Nationalism that have emerged in the U.S. One needs to look no farther than the crosses and Jesus signs held high by those storming the capitol building in Washington DC, to use what power they still shared with Donald Trump to disrupt the functioning of democracy in murderous fashion.

The idea of something like a “Holy Russia” as a Holy Land made special by God should not be unfamiliar to Americans either. Many of the original European settlers brought this view with them to the new world, the Puritans most of all, as seen in ideas like John Winthrop’s Puritan colony as a “city upon a hill.” Puritan descendant and theological leader of the First Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards, once planted the eschatological seed in American theology that concerning God’s ultimate renewal of all mankind, “this great work of God must be near. And there are many things that make it probable that this work will begin in America.”

Edwards believed it was specifically America’s chosen destiny to fulfill God’s ultimate will. When we consider the similarities that America shares historically with Russia when it comes to deep-seated beliefs that our countries represent some holy reiteration of God’s chosen people, and then combine that with these beliefs being used to infuse dictatorial, and cruel, strongmen with great power, we see the terrible danger that is being posed.

This current crisis causes us to ask, what if they had succeeded in their goals to upset democracy and handed power to a burgeoning autocrat? What would have happened if the representatives of the American Church that yearned for political power aligned themselves with a dictator and helped to hand him control of the country? What would the fruit of such a union be? Perhaps this moment of Vladimir Putin, authoritarian dictator, marching in-step with the leader of the Russian Orthodox church, has shown us the true consequences of Christian Nationalism: slaughter in the name of Christ.

Jesus warned us about the combination of religion and earthly human power, when he denied a similar offer made by Satan himself. In the book of Matthew, while Jesus is fasting in the desert, it is written that “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only’” (Matthew 4: 8-10). It often seems that the temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness are ones which humanity must also confront time and time again. So, we must take this moment to learn from Christ that our allegiance is to God, and we “serve him only,” for when the allegiance of the church is tied to the aspirations of the state, we have lost any moral authority, and we have departed from the way of Jesus.

As we watch the current tragedy unfold in Ukraine, our hearts and prayers must be with the suffering, and we must pray fervently that the Holy Spirit will change the heart of Patriarch Kirill and the leaders of the Russian church, but at this flashpoint of outrage that has so uniquely unified the people of America, we must let the horror we feel in our hearts as we gaze upon the violent fruit of the oxymorons of Christian Nationalism and Holy War cause us to remember how close America has come to handing the reins of our religious conscious to authoritarian power, and how seriously that threat still looms on our horizon.

Today I did what I do most days. I woke up before my children (as if I actually slept), make my way downstairs to pour a cup of coffee and enjoy some quiet time. I like to come down just before the sunrise because there’s nothing more spiritual to me than meeting my maker in the morning as God slows down to paint the sky. 

But lately, there’s been this pit in my stomach. This dread. And recently, I was finally able to confess to God out loud, “Lord, I am dreading the anniversary of January 6th.” 

I grew up in a medium sized southern town and my family attended a prominent Methodist church in the community. I knew all of the rules. I followed most of them, but I was a fairly quiet kid who battled anxiety for most of my childhood. As I grew up, my anxiety grew too. We called it perfectionism and a hard work ethic back then. 

As a teenager I found myself spiraling spiritually and emotionally until I attempted suicide the week before my 14th birthday. I failed even at that. My parents did the best they could, but mental illness isn’t something that was acknowledged by my circles back then. So their response was to rip me out of public school and enroll me in several conservative Christian homeschool groups. 

In a post 9/11 world, these groups offered a sense of belonging and purpose. There was a huge focus on defending the faith. But, I confess, I didn’t really know Jesus then. So, I’m not exactly sure what I was defending. Our group was the go-to group of “junior republicans”  to help on republican election campaigns, canvas neighborhoods, march in parades with candidates, and work the polls on Election Day. We couldn’t vote yet, but we sure could expedite any future plans to rise in the republican ranks. Our group traveled to Washington for CPAC and prayer breakfasts. We often paged at the Georgia state Capitol. We did all of these things in the name of God and country. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was being thoroughly discipled in Christian Nationalism: the idolatrous entangling of God and country for the sake of power. 

So fast forward a couple decades to 2020. My husband is Black, and we have four amazing nonwhite children. And as the world began to experience this collective racial reckoning in the middle of a global pandemic, I too realized that there is so much I had to learn—and unlearn. 

As tensions heightened with the election and prominent evangelicals became consumed with conspiracy theories, I began to question the foundation that was laid so many decades before, and I lamented over the roots. 

You see, my family wasn’t just southern, evangelical, and republican, but our lineage descended directly from confederate soldiers. In Heard County, Georgia, the biggest memorial of anyone in my family is of Hezekiah Almon, confederate soldier. My husbands parents are pastors in a rural Black church in North Carolina, but they descended from enslaved people. Probably one of the most painful experiences as a parent is doing one of those family tree assignments with your kids when their genealogy is either unknown or shameful. In our case, it was both. 2020 was the year I had to look my young daughters in the eye and communicate that a side of their lineage is unknown because of slavery. And a side includes people who were fighting to keep people like them enslaved.

READ: Jesus Among the Insurrectionists

Pretending that these details don’t affect our theology and the way we see each other is wholly unhelpful, and the only posture that feels honest is one of humility and repentance. Am I responsible for the sins of my ancestors? No. But I am responsible for mine. I’m responsible for all of the times I was and still at times am complicit in this systemic sin. But because I love God and my husband and children, there is nothing I won’t do to work towards healing and repair for our family. Because I love God, I know that racism and nationalism are evil and contrary to the kingdom of God. Because I love my home, I can say January 6th wrecked me to the core. And because I know hope in Christ, I take comfort that he will get the last word—because he is the Word. 

That day I stood in the kitchen, stirring a pot of chili, and watched the attack unfold in real time. I hid tears from my children as they played and read books on the living room floor while the TV above the fireplace showed the smoke covering the Capitol. As I thought of all the times that I visited that building and worked so hard to advance republican politics, I felt so ashamed. I never had the stomach to vote for Donald Trump, but I was still ashamed even for my small contribution to the rise of the Religious Right. There were thousands of kids just like me. There still are. 

As I sip my coffee this morning and count down the days on the calendar as we approach the one-year anniversary, I mostly grieve for my evangelical siblings that are wholly unwilling to search their hearts and see if there is any wicked way within them like our faith leads us to. Because when I searched mine, I found wickedness. I still find it sometimes. Rooting out the sickness of sin isn’t a practice of degrading ourselves, but it’s freeing ourselves towards the magnificent love of Jesus. Our faith leads us to lay down our crosses, not pick up torches or guns or flags. Our faith leads us to wage peace, not covet power and influence. Our faith leads us towards family, community, and belonging. Our faith leads us towards an otherworldly, upside-down kin-dom where the last and least are first. And as empires rise and empires fall, we would do well to remember that our patriotic anthems do not get us any extra points with Jesus of Nazareth. 

When we are ultimately judged by a God who made us and loves us, we will give an account for how and who we loved. This is why I repent for all the years that I thought God needed a republican president to do God’s will. I repent for all the years I centered America and Americanism. I repent for all the years I weaponized Jesus and the Bible for political and personal gain. I repent for how my focus towards political power distracted me from seeing and centering the marginalized all over the world that God so loves. 

As I curl up next to the fire with my children, I have hope. God has gifted our family this living picture of what holy restoration looks like and it is so beautiful. Regardless of power or politics or whatever happens in the future in America, I know my children will be armed with love, capable of waging peace and reconciliation, and invited to be led on an unexpected adventure towards the upside down kingdom of heaven by Hope incarnate.

He was yelling so I could hear him over the wind.

“Later on, while we were riding along the border wall, we saw someone fall and break their leg!!” 

I peddled my bicycle faster, so I was near enough to hear him, while also listening to the car that was coming behind us. 

“It’s built just high enough, if you jump or fall off, you won’t be able to walk away!” 

I am riding across the state of Florida on the final stretch of a 3200-mile cross country bicycle ride with the group We The People Ride. The purpose of the ride was to highlight the need for better immigration policies that do exactly what our faith asks of us: to welcome the foreigner and the stranger (Lev. 19:34), to remember this land is God’s, and we are all immigrants (Lev. 25:23). 

I joined the group in November for the last section of the ride. I didn’t know anyone in the group. When I flew into the Tallahassee airport, two strangers driving from Ohio picked me up. I was provided with a bike, food, and a place to sleep each night. This little community was living out the very way of life they were asking our larger country to live out: to welcome and care for the stranger.  

Though I wasn’t able to ride along the border, I was able to learn a lot from the riders who did. I found that immigration is at the intersection of so many of our deep struggles in the U.S. At the core, immigration speaks to our tendency to devalue life. We The People Ride spent the first 1600 miles of the trip riding along our southern border meeting immigrants, refugees, border patrol, and communities who are directly impacted by our immigration policies. It became very clear that the purpose of the border wall isn’t just to deter immigrants. It’s meant to permanently harm and kill people. The term used is “Deterrence by death.” 

The border wall used to be 10 feet high. Then, it was increased to 17 feet high. Now it is 30 feet high so that, if you fall from 30 feet, you won’t be able to walk away. Our group not only heard stories about this but saw the effects first hand. The border wall is also strategically placed to funnel people into death traps, such as the desert in Ajo, Arizona. The wall stops and invites people to try their luck crossing the desert. Thousands of people have died trying to make this journey as they run out of water and food. A wall doesn’t deter desperate people, and neither do deserts. In June 2021, 380 people died in this Arizona region attempting to reach safety. 

People try to cross the wall and desert in hopes of a better life. As people of faith, we know these stories. This is the story of Hagar in the desert, the story of the Israelites in the wilderness, the story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus fleeing to Egypt—all searching for life and hope and freedom. 

READ: Jesus is Waiting at Our Border

Our government doesn’t track migrant deaths, but the communities on the border do. These cities and towns care deeply for the immigrants and refugees. Groups from these communities travel into the desert and leave food and water hoping people might find it and survive their trek through.  Maria Singleton lives in Ajo and shared that they’re deeply impacted knowing people are dying around their community. Bodies are found all around the desert and even just outside of town. In Arizona, over the past 10 years, almost 4,000 migrant bodies have been found. Surely, more people have died since it takes as little as three weeks for a body to disappear in the desert. 

As our group road through these communities along the U.S. border, we asked the same question to everyone: “What do you know that you wish everyone else in our country knew?” Citizens, mayors, people of all backgrounds answered the same way: “Would you please tell people that it’s not dangerous here. It’s not true what people are saying about us. It’s not dangerous to live on the border.” 

What is happening on our southern border is a result of the false stereotypes we have created. We’ve been fed the story that living on the border is filled with immigrant criminals, rapists, drug lords, and the cartel. These are lies that feed our fear of strangers, of non-white bodies, and of people who are poor and from poor countries. This has created the extremely toxic narrative in our country that everyone coming across the southern border is a threat. 

This is not what the communities who live on the border in the U.S. experience though. These communities care deeply for immigrants and refugees. They advocate for a change in our immigration policies. These cities and towns are teaching us how to live and work for the common good of all people. 

As people of faith, and in my own United Methodist tradition, we are called to advocate for Common Good immigration policies. We The People Ride understands the “Common Good” to mean “setting policies leading to the inclusion of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers through a clear, fair, accessible path to migrate into the United States.” Every person I spoke with on the ride agreed that our immigration system is not working, but most people don’t understand how harmful our border policies are for immigrants.

Take for instance the policy coined “Remain in Mexico” – a Trump era policy that is continuing under President Biden. This policy massively reduced the number of asylum seekers to a record low of 15,000 and requires anyone seeking asylum to wait in Mexico. Now, tens of thousands of asylum seekers are in make-shift camps with no money or resources. Everyone to whom our group talked said they paid to make the journey (many selling everything they had) and ended up in debt to criminal cartels along the way. They are to pay off the debt with the money they make in the U.S., which would also guarantee the safety of their families back home. Now they are stuck in Mexico, with no money or resources, at the mercy of the cartels.

While the Biden administration has raised the number of asylum seekers, it still isn’t high enough to fix the problem we’ve created. People came to the border, not only with the hopes of gaining asylum, but of being able to wait safely in the U.S. as their case is adjudicated (which can take 6 months or more). By drastically lowering the number of people granted asylum, and by requiring everyone to wait in Mexico, we have trapped people. They cannot come, and they cannot go. They cannot find a safe place. 

We have strengthened the power and influence of the cartels and we have created more desperation, which will lead to more people taking more chances . . . which will lead to more deaths . . . 

Our immigration policies have been, and continue to be, literal death sentences for thousands of innocent people.

But, there are people who want to change this. 

People who are doing amazing work. 

People who know that we need Common Good immigration policies. 

People who know our faith demands it. 

Find out more about We The People Ride and help make change here.

In the vintage Denver neighborhood of Capitol Hill we wedged the van into the only empty space for blocks—a zone clearly marked “no parking.” Fortunately, their twenty-something friends hustled all the heavy boxes out of the building and loaded us up in short order. We were ready for the road. In the midst of this somewhat controlled chaos, I asked my son for directions since we would be leaving before they did.

I wish I had listened better. It wasn’t his fault. He and his wife had driven this route countless times. All we had to do was stay on the same road for 208 miles before making our first turn.

And it could have been simple. After breaking free of the city, we climbed through the almost total wilderness for about two hours, finally reaching the tiny town of Fairplay. At around 10,000 feet in elevation, Fairplay lies atop a grassland basin in a windswept no-man’s land.  Once you leave town, there’s nothing for miles. No people. No cell service. No internet. No buildings. There aren’t even any trees. And unlike civilized areas, very few signs. We came upon what looked like a fork in the road. And for probably the first time in my hyper-vigilant life, I had missed the only sign.

“Bear left,” I said confidently.

Since I’ve been navigating our travels for forty years, Kevin just went ahead and turned left. Compulsively over-prepared and occasionally accused of ‘overthinking’ things, rarely have I pointed us in the wrong direction.

So we continued to cruise through the middle of nowhere for about twenty minutes, seeing only the occasional car.

Finally, we saw a tiny blue sign that said, “9.” Just “9.” If only it had said, “Eventually you are going to end up in Colorado Springs, you nitwit”- that would have been helpful.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Kevin asked.

“I don’t know what 9 means. Let me look.”

I reached into the glove box for a map.

“Where are your maps?’”

“This is my work truck. I don’t need any maps.”

They were all in our car, tucked safely away in our garage back home. I fired up my phone and tried to pull up directions. No signal. I tried to call my son. No service. Meanwhile, the occasional tumbleweed somersaulted across the road ahead of us as the miles rolled by.

“Should we turn around?”

READ: Money and Activism: Faith-Fueled Investing to Fight Climate Change

“I don’t know. What if we’re going in the right direction? It’s quite a ways back to Fairplay. Let’s keep going for a while. We’re bound to run into someone eventually. A gas station. Something.”

So we kept our eyes open for signs of civilization, possibly hidden in the tall grass that sways perpetually in the endless wind.

Do you know what maps do? They take the guesswork out of travel. One of the things I loved about the Evangelical life was the structure; it seemed like a map to wholeness. I was raised in chaos. My father was an abusive, bipolar alcoholic and my mother worked two jobs to support us all. There was no reliable structure to our lives. Each morning brought a fresh dread that kept us ever-vigilant. Over time, my brothers and I fell into patterns of self-destruction. Finding marijuana at fifteen actually saved my sanity for a few years.  Predictably though, better living through anesthesia leads to addled living through addiction. And no one hates addiction more than the addict herself.

Addiction eventually dead-ends in hopelessness, no matter which map you follow.

By the grace of God and a miracle of God’s power, Jesus reached out to me through a friend. For seven years, she prayed. Occasionally, she told me about her savior. Not often, not overbearingly, not threateningly, not shaming me. Just loving me. And one day, thirty-five years ago, I said yes.

I fell into Jesus’ arms through the folks at an Evangelical Church. They taught me how to love the Bible. They taught me that I could trust God. And they did this by inviting me to join them in the living structure that is the church: getting involved. Participating in Bible studies. Volunteering to serve others. Showing up on Sunday mornings. And on one of those Sundays, I heard the voice of God thunder through my chest telling me that this day, January 15, 1989, was the day God wanted me to get sober. God said that on this day, the Spirit would help me. And if I didn’t, God would have to get my attention.

I may not have been sure of much, but I was dead-on certain that I did not want to force God to get my attention.

So I found an additional community of kind souls, and their road map for recovery was even clearer than the church’s opportunities for spiritual growth. Between the two of them, I started to get well. Life got better. And I learned how to live without the dread of abuse, without the need for hyper-vigilance, and without the soul-deadening anesthesia of drugs and alcohol.

I found freedom within the healthy boundaries of a community; I found a roadmap for life. And it worked so very well until November 8, 2016.

I’ve written quite a lot about that day. My own people, Evangelical Christians, voted Donald Trump into office. It’s been five years, and I think I’ve finally grasped the depth of my loss from that event. Rather than rehash the pain, I’ve begun to think about the path ahead. I’ve just been reacting to the loss. Now it’s time to proactively start charting a course for the future.

There’s only one problem. No map.

For someone who thrives on order and stability, drawing my own map is more than navigating uncharted territory. It’s calling me to trust myself, trust God, and believe that the journey towards my own healing is worth the effort.

That I am worth the effort.

That I will eventually find my way.

Long into the afternoon of moving day,  Kevin and I came upon a log cabin/gas station/hunting supply store, all by itself in the middle of nowhere. With a smile (possibly a smirk), the proprietor pointed us toward Podunk Cutoff, saving us further embarrassment and even more miles headed in the wrong direction. When we finally arrived in Creede, our kids were relieved to see us, and even more relieved that we hadn’t absconded with their belongings.

As I search for a new direction in this post-evangelical world, I don’t have to be afraid of making mistakes. I do have to rely on the lessons I’ve already learned. I do have to continue to read the Gospels, pray, and trust God.

But I’ve got a big sketch pad, my tattered old Bible, an abundance of resources, a collection of colored markers,a handful of like-minded Ex-vangelical friends online, a database of organizations devoted to following the teachings of Jesus, a terrific family, an amazing Savior, a lot of faith, a soft heart, and the ability to write. I’m going to draw my own map.

It doesn’t seem to matter how often or how soundly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has refuted the white horse prophecy as having nothing to do with Mormon founder Joseph Smith. Although he made a few vague claims about Mormonism one day saving the nation, the full-on prophecy as we know it was not written until he’d been dead for nearly 60 years.

The Church denounced the prophecy at its October 1918 General Conference, saying it proceeded “out of darkness, concocted in some corner,” and had not come “through the proper channels of the Church.” The religion’s president at that time, also named Joseph Smith (yes, we do know that is confusing) called the so-called prophecy “ridiculous” and “simply false; that is all there is to it.” Yet the prophecy persists in the Mormon American imagination; we Latter-day Saints seem to love the image of ourselves as saviors who swoop in at the eleventh hour to save the nation from itself.

Speaking for myself, I think the white horse prophecy is bogus. That doesn’t mean that every part of it is BS, however. There is a way in which Mormons can save America from itself — and with every passing year, America needs that particular kind of salvation more and more.

Let me paint a picture. Right now, we live in a country in which it is entirely possible for liberals and conservatives to inhabit unprickable bubbles of their own design. Liberals get their news from CNN and MSNBC, while conservatives tune in to Fox News. Liberals log on to their self-selecting Facebook feeds and see outrage about how the Trump administration botched the coronavirus response, cozied up to Russia, exaggerated his administration’s achievements, and rolled back environmental protections. Conservatives log on to their self-selecting Facebook feeds and share their outrage about Antifa, improper care of military veterans, and Trump not getting more credit for pre-pandemic job growth.

Politically, America has not been this divided in many decades, perhaps even since the eve of the Civil War. Since the 1950s, the Gallup Organization has tracked public approval ratings of U.S. presidents by party. Back in the 1950s, a majority of Americans could legitimately say “I like Ike” and mean it: not only did 88% of the members of his own party approve of him, but 49% of Democrats did too. What we see now, by contrast, is a country split right down party lines: in Donald Trump’s America, on the eve of the 2020 presidential election, a stunning 95% of Republicans said they approved of the way he was running the country. Only 3% of Democrats could say the same.

In other words, we used to have a political gap in this country of thirty or forty points separating Republicans and Democrats. In the Eisenhower example above, it was 39 percentage points. In Trump’s America, it was 92 points, making him the most polarizing figure in modern political history.

Such hyper-partisanship shows little sign of abating even now that Trump is no longer in office. Republicans and Democrats are inhabiting completely different worlds.

And in most of the country, they attend religious congregations that reinforce their views. Over the past three decades, social scientists have tracked a remarkable re-sorting of Americans as Republicans have become more, and Democrats less, religious. In the 1970s, there was no “God gap” in American politics — members of both parties were more or less equally committed to faith. Now, though, Republicans are not only more religious, but are a particular kind of religious, with growing numbers embracing a brand of conservative evangelical Protestantism. Churches become echo chambers, and those who don’t agree with the politics preached from the pulpit become increasingly isolated. One study found that two-thirds of Republicans attended religious congregations where they felt that most of their fellow parishioners shared their political views. Only a quarter of Democrats had the same experience. Not surprisingly given how lonely their experience with religion can be, a strong percentage of Democrats are leaving religion, which compounds the “God gap” even more.

I’m in my early 50s and can’t remember a more politically and religiously divided time. In 2018, I voted a straight-party ticket for the first time in my life. I feel great despair at the way so many people in the Republican Party have abandoned their alleged Christian values to cast their lot with a fear-mongering narcissist.

But I find some hope in my own Mormon people. In my life, all the aforementioned echo chambers apply: where I get my news, for example, and what my social media looks like. Even the neighborhood I live in is largely reflective of my political views, judging from the yard signs I see come election time.

But all that fades away when I go to church, because in Mormonism I don’t have a choice about the community I belong to.

Mormons attend church based on geography, plain and simple. You don’t get to congregation-shop based on which ward has the hippest bishop or the largest youth group (though some Mormons will actually hunt around in different wards before buying a house, knowing that once they move they’ll be locked in to those ward boundaries). And you certainly don’t get to choose where to go to church based on your political tendencies.

I used to rail against this policy, especially when I moved to a rural area where I knew no one and had little in common with the long-term residents of that ward. They were Kentuckians born and bred, and I was a carpetbagger, just passing through. Many hadn’t finished college, and I’d just gotten my PhD. I was the only one with a John Kerry sticker on my car in the parking lot.

And yet in the seven years I lived there, something magical happened to me. I came to genuinely love them, and even laugh about our differences. I once pointed out to a woman in my book club that she had stenciled the Mormon hymn lyrics “peace and plenty here abide” right on top of the gun cabinet in her family room. She laughed too, saying she had never considered the irony. She baked me cookies for my birthday.

Back in those days, my Mormon ward was not the only place in my life where I regularly encountered — and loved — people whose views were diametrically opposed to mine. But I would say it is now. The worlds I swim in at work are primarily academia and journalism, both of which have a particular political persuasion. As I’ve said, our online interactions nowadays tend to merely reinforce our thinking. If they don’t, we all-too-quickly unfriend one another, often in ugly ways.

As a Mormon I don’t get that option. In 2016, I noted with dread that a number of key members of my ward had Donald Trump signs in their yards. It was difficult for me to understand how they could be taken in by this man whose actions and values were so antithetical to the gospel we believed in. But because I knew and served alongside these people personally, I had a duty to attempt to understand. My bishop with the Trump sign was a salt-of-the-earth individual who spent Saturdays helping church members and even total strangers, raking their leaves and visiting them in the hospital. While many of my fellow liberals were denigrating Trump voters as dupes at best and evildoers at worst, there was my bishop, a Trump supporter who fit neither of those categories. Because of geography, I had to sit with that contradiction every Sunday. I think I emerged from it a better person. A better American.

Mormonism teaches me that I don’t get to excommunicate folks from my world just because we disagree. And I am so, so glad of it. Being forced out of my comfort zone is — well, uncomfortable. But it’s uncomfortable in an important way, as we become better in community with one another than we are when we can pretend the other side is anything less than human.

America needs that now more than ever before. So if there is a white horse prophecy in which my religion really does swoop in to save the nation, it will surely be because of this: Mormons have not yet given up on each other, and on the possibility of life together.

This excerpt is from How to Heal Our Divides: A Practical Guide, edited by Brian Allain, and is republished with permission. This essay has been expanded and adapted from the Religion News Service column “How Mormonism Can Save America,” which was published on August 3, 2018 and is used with permission of Religion News Service.

But here is the challenge that I rarely see addressed by my friends or the mission organizations they serve with. They are often serving in countries where Christians are often persecuted, and much of the time, especially recently, persecution is resulting from a dangerous and pervasive form of nationalism. Nationalism is not always harmful. Nationalism can be unifying such as when a country does well in the Olympics or World Cup, or when a tragedy strikes and the nation largely pulls together to mutually support one another. But in the past decade or more, as a backlash to increasing globalization, a very dangerous kind of nationalism has set in; one that does not just lift up a perceived national identity, but goes further and identifies those who do not fit the very narrow defined nationality as “others” or enemies. 

We have seen this in India where, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they have turned their backs on a secular and inclusive constitution that began their country, and have instead embraced Hindu supremacy with violent attacks against religious minorities. 

Nationalism is often seen in harsh anti-immigrant policies in such places as Hungary under the leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Nationalism is also seen in the bizarre belief in the super-human qualities of being a member of that country’s nationality, such that they do not need to pay attention to science. This is seen right now in Brazil under President Jair Bolsonaro where, in the face of the uncontrolled spread of COVID, Bolsonaro has repeatedly lied about the pandemic to such an extent that some are accusing him of wanting to spread COVID for his own twisted political gain. 

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I have evangelical Christian missionary friends who have served or are serving in all of these places and other places as well. And, for the most part, these faithful missionaries want nothing to do with any form of political engagement since they are more focused on evangelism and discipleship. And they are – mostly – right to steer clear of direct advocacy in the countries they serve because of the damaging history of western missionaries’ political, economic, and even military intrusion into the affairs in other cultures.

However, where my friends and many other evangelical Christian missionaries go wrong is in their complete abdication of political engagement in their interactions with their mostly evangelical missionary funders back home in the States. All of the countries I mentioned – India, Brazil, Hungary, and so many more – have been heavily influenced by Trump-inspired nationalism that has spread like a plague, as dangerous as COVID. trump’s nationalism included all of which I described under the other leaders – anti-immigrant policies and hatred, a rejection of science, and a fusion of allegiance to the country which is intimately tied to cult-like allegiance to the leader. 

What is most ironic is that nationalism is not spread in a vacuum. Nationalism breeds nationalism. So, the trump-supporting, America-first, evangelical, Christian nationalist that gives money to evangelical Christian missionaries to do evangelism and discipleship in foreign lands – often out of the principle that they do not want to support missions that engage in any sort of politics – is at the same time supporting a political ideology that is doing such damage both domestically and in the foreign policy of the United States, that it is hurting the ministry of the missionary they are financially and prayerfully supporting. 

The missionary, serving nationals who are faced with persecution because of the pervasive spread of nationalism that is drastically limiting the evangelism and discipleship work they engage in safely, is in danger of becoming ineffective or even removed altogether from the country they serve and the people they love. 

Thus, what I have strongly urged my evangelical Christian missionary friends serving in other countries to do is to lovingly and strongly confront the nationalism of their supporters. I know this is challenging. Some funders, when confronted with their possible idolatry, could very well choose their idol over their call to support and spread the gospel. Funds will be lost. But unless funders are lovingly yet forcefully shown that support for nationalism at home directly impacts the effectiveness of their ministry in other countries, my missionary friends will be like the one who pushes the boulder up a giant hill, receiving help from their friends, all the while those same friends are funding excavators to add dirt to the top of the hill. The hill eventually becomes impossible to climb. 

Among those at the rally proceeding the break-in at the Capitol building along with Maga hats, American and Confederate flags, were signs proclaiming “Jesus Saves.” Seven buses from Lancaster County in Pennsylvania attended that event. These Christian folks believed that Trump was ushering in a Christian revival. Many others responding to Trump’s Twitter calls were from other towns and communities. Tragically, most of them have been in pathological bondage to Trump’s cult-like personality. His words and actions deceive them.

Shofars and “my pillow” promotions notwithstanding, Trump thumping tweets and events, including the Washington Save America March and Stop the Steal rally, expose the Christian nationalistic part of Trumpism, finally culminating when Trump encouraged his loyal troops to go to the Capitol with strength, while Trump, his family, and enablers watched it unfold from their tent at the White House. His loyal troops marched to his orders and six were killed, along with police officers, and many injured. 

In their book, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers, Bob Altmeyer and John Dean describe Trump’s followers as having a preference for strongly hierarchical and ethnocentric social orders that favor them or those like them and who reject political establishments.  Waving their American flags and Trump banners, they consider themselves to be true American Patriots left behind as society changes around them. They want to be winners like Trump but resent the fact that they’re not. We might argue that, like him, they lack empathy or grew up in abusive households like his, and become abusers themselves or its victims. These Trump believers are prone to conspiracy theories, magical thinking, and scapegoating. Trump has become their god-like savior. Like him, they won’t wear masks or keep socially distanced. Instead, they congregate in large groups to pray endlessly for and over Trump because God has given them visions to do so.  Their leaders, such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse, have been frequent visitors to the White House to lay hands on President Trump.  Influenced by these leaders and supportive pastors they live in rural areas and worship in local conservative churches, which have been infiltrated by Dominionists. 

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In the 1980s, a form of Conservative Christian Dominionism took over the Southern Baptists. Frederick Clarkson defines Dominionism as a “theocratic idea that, regardless of theological camp, means, or timetable, God has called conservative Christians to exercise dominion over society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.”   Those influenced by this theology believe that America was founded as a Christian country. Because the country has fallen away from these roots, Christians are needed to run for and to be elected to public office. In addition, they encourage and recruit elected politicians to attend their bible studies and fellowships. In America, Christianity has been hijacked by this false theology.   

When Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine, that was the beginning of the melding of the Christian faith with political and cultural institutions. Popes and emperors consorted and fought wars together, eventually leading to the disastrous crusades and the Spanish inquisitions.  Sometimes referred to as Right-Wing Christian Evangelicalism, Christian Nationalism, Christian Reconstructionism or, more recently, The New Apostolic Reformation, this kind of church and state mixed theology has found its way into American evangelical and charismatic denominational congregations in both the South and the North, especially in more fundamentalist and charismatic churches. This theocratic theology contrasts with historic Christian polity, based on the life and teachings of Jesus who espouses a domain called the Kingdom of Heaven, different from and challenging to the governing entity leading the country. In Jesus’  day that was the Roman Empire. Today that has been a kind of American Empire recently led by someone who considers he is the greatest, an emperor or a king. He has used and abused his Christian followers.

The Trumpism movement can also be called a white religious conservative populism.  Such movements in America are not new. In the late 1880s, William Jennings Bryan and the People’s Party exemplified biblical populism; in the mid-19th Century the Know-Nothings spouted conspiracy theories and anti-immigration rhetoric; in the 20th century, McCarthyism was both nationalistic and racist in its origins. Trumpism has roots in the Tea Party Movement with its conservative Christian underpinnings and White Nationalism. Today, Tea party-affiliated elected politicians have been caught up in following the Trump cult. Many of them were the Senators and Congressmen who objected to authorizing the Electoral votes for Biden and Harris, the lawful winners of the 2020 election.

How do we break the stranglehold of Trumpism? Dr. Brandy Lee, in her new book, Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul, provides a prescription that includes removal of Trump from power and his ability to influence including impeachment that keeps him from running for office again, prosecuting him under the full extent of our laws for criminal and treasonous behavior, and diminishing his social media platforms.  This is now in process.

However, what can each of us do to help Trump’s followers? We can reach out to try and build relationships and provide emotional support, accepting that some will resist, be angry, and will not be persuaded by facts. Our task as true American patriots will be enhanced by Christians willing to stand up as Jesus did and confront the hypocrisy of both the leaders of this American theocratic movement and also love its followers back to being true to the teachings of Jesus.

Johnnie: . . . Let me just say, I remember at the inauguration in 2016. And I remember the protests around the inauguration. I remember how the city was shut down. I happened to be in the city during the inauguration. And so there are more National Guard troops in DC today than there were then because of what happened at the Capitol last week. But I think we have to remember that the opposition to Donald Trump, you know, preceded his presidency, and we had the most significant sort of anti-election sentiment, let’s say back then. You know, the only thing to compare to it is what we’re seeing now. And so for that time, it came from one side of the aisle.

And I’m not saying all that to say, “Well, what about this, or what about that?” But what I am saying is, for some reason, over the last four years, the information hasn’t gotten through. And I think our media—and I’ve no criticism of the media, generally, I work with the media every day and have many friends who are in the press, I’m not a critic of the press—but I do think the press has become hyper politicised in the United States of America. And, even some of the information that changed: it’s just stuff I just patently disagree with. The pictures of the cages, you know, came from the Obama administration. The first term of the Obama administration, I believe, there were more deportations of immigrants in the United States in the first term of the Obama administration, than in most of the Trump administration. Shane and I agree that we need to bring in more persecuted Christians and other immigrants in the United States.

I am a pro-refugee, pro-immigrant evangelical. Shane and I agree on addressing poverty and all of these other issues. We’re both pro-life, as he said. Where we disagree is in the way of addressing those problems. So, you know, for instance, I’m critical of the way the United States government has outsourced a lot of its refugee resettlement policy to multilateral international organisations. And the reason why I’m critical with that is because when I was in Lebanon, in Iraq, in 2014, you know, Christians were telling me, and Yazidi were telling me, they wouldn’t go into the UN camps because you had ISIS fighters who were sending their families to the UN camps. They didn’t feel safe there, and our refugee resettlement process was and still is, to this day, in need of reform.

When it comes to border security, I mean, one of the most amazing things that has happened over the last administration is we have significantly—because of bipartisan effort of evangelicalism . . . — moderated some of the original positions of the administration on human trafficking, and on our southern border it has gone down drastically. The amount of fentanyl coming across the border of the United States, largely from China’s killing 1000s of people every single month in the United States of America is just one more example. And I could go on. Even when the pandemic was happening, the Trump administration—not the Obama administration, or the Biden administration—the Trump administration, through an incredibly innovative program has delivered 130 million boxes of food to families all across the United States of America by taking a different approach by buying food from farmers who had access and then giving healthy food to people who needed it. Like there are all these other pieces of this equation that just aren’t given any time. And misinformation and disinformation can come from both sides of the argument. And that concerns me too, because I feel like it’s unnecessarily dividing.

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Justin: Do you think that’s fair in any way? Shame that we are sometimes only given the worst possible picture of Trump—while I’m sure Johnny doesn’t think he’s a saint, either. Nonetheless, they do not. Yeah, what’s your view on that, Shane?

Shane:I don’t know, if you’ve been down to the border, you know, Johnny, I went down to the border. I went to one of the detention centers there. We went to the encampment where, with our policy right now, they remain in Mexico—you know, stay over on that side. There’s an encampment of 300 families that we visited there. And so I mean, I just saw all of that firsthand and met folks that had been detained, not because they were in a gang in El Salvador, but because they were a young family trying to find a better life. And so I mean, that’s what I saw. And I know that is true. And I have critiques of the Obama administration, and this is why I say I’m not partisan because some of our highest numbers of immigrants coming into our country have been under republican presidents but the lowest numbers that we’ve had ever are under Donald Trump. And this is before the pandemic even, so I think that’s the concern.

But you know, I’m not a single-issue person either. I mean, my ethic is one of life. I believe every person is made in the image of God. So for me, the immigration issue is a pro-life issue. The death penalty is. Our obsession with guns is. The Black Lives Matter movement and racial justice are. All of these are issues of life. And Donald Trump has unleashed some of the most horrific principalities and powers. That’s what I would name it, as scripture calls it: that these are dark forces that are at work. And Donald Trump is just a manifestation of some of that with his policies and his rhetoric. But, boy, when we see what happened at the Capitol . . . that’s why it’s unsurprising to me. This didn’t come out of nowhere.

We have 400 years of history that we haven’t reckoned with that is surfacing. And so what we see in our streets, I think, is fueled by white fear and fragility, a white rage and anger. This has so much to do with race, which is why when we talk about the Christians who support Trump, it’s so important to say that it’s 80% of white Christians, white evangelicals. When you look outside of that to people of color that are Christians, 80% of them are against the policies and rhetoric of Trump. So there is a fault-line of race that we really have to recognize. And what happened at the Capitol was an uprising of white supremacy that was totally baptized by Trump. 

Justin: We’ll come back to you, Johnnie. We’re just gonna go to a quick break. And I do want to then open up sort of the wider issues of the church’s relationship with politics in the US and what that has looked like and will look like going forward.

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But especially during the Trump years, they have proven themselves to be the real ethical relativists. They have echoed Trump’s cry, “Fake news!” every time reliable, internationally respected news sources contradict the claims of Trump and other politicians with whom they have aligned themselves. They have condemned scientists and other renowned experts by derisively calling them “the elite,” preferring instead to trust right-wing pundits and conspiracy theorists.

Trump supporting evangelicals have shown that while they may be honest in their personal lives among friends and family, their commitment to truthfulness in public affairs is absent. Their ethical relativism allowed them to compartmentalize their attachment to honesty. “Truth” is whatever serves their interests and protects their partisan political loyalties. This is what allowed Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition to say, “There has never been anyone who has defended us and who has fought for us, who we have loved more than Donald J. Trump. No one!” Such words do not represent a people of the truth but a people of the lie who seek power or security at the cost of integrity.

Regardless of what they may claim, Christians of this sort are not, to cite the words of Jesus, “salt and light,” influencing the world for good, but agents of darkness and deceit. White evangelicals and other Christians who have willingly embraced the lies of Trump or his surrogates and who have chosen to dismiss the apparent truth have discredited themselves before the nation and the world. They share responsibility for the deadly and destructive insurrection of January 6. And they shouldn’t be surprised that their trust in the lies of Trump leads many people to distrust them about Jesus.

This verse is usually pulled out and dusted off whenever youth ministers want to convince teen girls not to wear crop tops and short shorts. “Others” is often switched out for “your brother,” as in your brother in Christ who would be ignited by lust with such dress. But these days, it’s come to mean something very different to me, personally—a lowly seeking agnostic.

During this tumultuous election season, a week doesn’t pass that I don’t receive some chain message touting a “prophecy” about how Donald Trump is ordained by God to remain in power. It’s usually sent by well-meaning older relatives or people I used to be good friends with at church.

It’s a warning wrapped in a hysterical call to action. And just as these believers have spent decades spreading the gospel of Jesus with such urgency, working to save as many souls as possible from eternal damnation, they’ve now shifted crucial words once again; this time replacing Jesus Christ with Donald Trump.

For so long, I’ve ignored these “prophecies” when I’ve received them. I don’t reply. There’s no thumbs-up reaction or even a response because how do you respond in contradiction when someone truly believes these are words directly from the creator of the universe?

For me to be against them would make me “anti-Christ,” after all.

And I’m already on very shaky ground there. See, back in 2017, I left the church. Everything had become so political and divisive. Yes, it’s a hospital for the sick. No church is perfect. The problem is, I didn’t see anyone getting better. Instead, I saw them spreading a toxic ideology amongst their masses. So, I inoculated myself from this contagion by leaving.

My extended family was horrified when I announced my loss of faith in man and an institution. But for me, personally, it felt like I now had complete dependency on my higher power alone. There were no more middle men, no more Pharisees, no more “Gods with skin on” which I now realize were tantamount to idols for me.

Jesus is all I ever really knew when it came to examples of unconditional love, and while I struggle with so many other parts of the Bible that have been used in the past by power hungry people attempting to tell me what to think or how to act through twisted scriptures and clever justifications, I’ve always seen the exact opposite in Christ.

So I went where I thought Jesus would go.

I marched with those in pain because people who looked like them were being killed in the streets with little regard and even less justice. I sat with the pregnant mom who’d been trapped in sex work for the last 11 years, never fully understanding her true worth. I went to the border and broke bread with pregnant migrant women—the most ignored and vulnerable among us.

And as the world caught fire with the rage of politics, I knew my work would never change. Oppressors will always prey on someone, and even if all we can do is make sure they know they’re not alone in that debilitating darkness, that’s something.

That’s what I learned from the Jesus I fell in love with as a child. And that’s the same love I feel coming from the higher power I now connect to, even if I don’t know exactly what or who it is. That spirit implores me to go and see the reality rather than hearing about it from people with vested interests on TV, at rallies, or standing behind pulpits. And I get to help. Because we all can in some small way.

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So today, when I received yet another message from a long time family friend whom I adore, talking about the “wickedness” in this nation trying to steal this election from Trump, I responded. Not out of anger, though perhaps out of a bit of hurt.

I told her how fragile my faith was. I told her I’d seen “wickedness” first hand in the cruel policies her chosen candidate was carrying out on the pregnant migrant women I’ve come to love at the border. Wickedness is white supremacy. Wickedness is supporting systems that discard women deemed “unworthy” by the rest of the world. I told her that my speck of dirt on a mustard seed of spirituality either had to believe we had a different higher power, or that hers was one I would never want to worship.

In so many words, I told her she was causing me to stumble.

And, sadly, I’m not the only one. Far from it. I was on a Zoom call on election night, when an atheist friend of mine mentioned something rather powerful.

He said, “As someone who used to believe, but no longer does, the enthusiasm by Christians for this man is disturbing. They see what he’s said and done, and yet they still support him. Why would I ever want to be a part of their ‘church’ again?”

And here’s the thing, believe it or not, this isn’t about Trump. I’m no fan of Biden either. And if you told me he’s the man that God is putting on the throne of America to carry out God’s plan, I’d struggle with that too, because no man is perfect. All humans are flawed. That’s the whole point of religion in the first place: that we need something bigger and better to help us.

The problem is when we exalt any politician to the level of God, we are making God so small and God’s followers even smaller. Humans will always fall short, and as they fall, they will take so many of us down with them.

This is merely a plea to believers to keep their eyes focused on the right person, not a politician.

Look for the people in your community experiencing injustices, and search your heart for how to serve them, not a candidate. Focus on the issues, not those looking to use them for personal gain. Your God should be bigger than a ballot box—because people like me, stumbling and lost, need God to be. I don’t know if I will ever return to the church, but I also know exactly what’s keeping so many in my generation away.