MAGA Exvangelicals or Credulous Tools?
A Critique of Molly Wadzeck’s article “People Who Left 'MAGA Christianity' Share What It Really Took To Step Away”
I have to admit that the Huffington Post is an easy target for criticism. They are not a media outlet known for its objectivity or rigorous reporting. It is both fair and accurate to describe Huffington Post (or HuffPost) as a propaganda outlet and an uncritical mouthpiece for the Democrat Party. It is a quintessential Distrephist media organization (Distrephism is the term I use for the “social justice” religion). There is a risk of attacking a sort of strawman or punching down.
Despite this being the case, I found the article by Wadzeck to be worth discussing for several reasons. The main reason is that it is a good example of how the media promotes a counterfeit “Christianity” designed to manipulate public opinion and spread the religion of Distrephism. A couple of important factors enable this counterfeit. The first is the set of powerful incentives that pseudo-Christians have in claiming identification as a legitimate Christian or “Christ-follower.” Except, to do so while simultaneously hollowing out the real Christian religion so they can replace the core with another, more socially acceptable, religion. One that wears Christian dressings and uses Christian-sounding language but is entirely fraudulent and foreign to orthodox Christianity.
The second factor that matters here is the usage of manipulative terminology and false framing. Specifically, a false framing that creates a non-existent and meaningless category, “MAGA Christianity”, but one that hides a truly serious problem among Christianity in the West. These issues are important to cover because the broader conservative movement usually ignores them. Especially because addressing it means exposing nefarious aspects of the conservative coalition. Specifically, the corrupt and heretical Word of Faith movement, prosperity gospel, and New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).
The article begins with an important (but false) framing of an issue, while referencing a viral video that spawned this discussion. It begins by saying that “for many americans raised in conservative Christian environments, faith once felt like a matter of personal conviction and community — not overt political allegiance. But over the past decade, the boundary between belief and ideology has blurred.” This is already a false premise and a manipulative distortion of what is going on. Besides the fact that they are wrongly appealing to the myth of the “political spectrum” there is the question of what exactly it means to say that “the boundary between belief and ideology has blurred.” This statement doesn’t actually make much sense if you think about it. Even Wikipedia begins its article on Ideology by saying, “An ideology is a set of beliefs…” So, what is the author trying to say? Saying there is some merger between “belief” and “ideology” is a kind of like saying the boundary between words and language has been blurred. A meaningless statement.
This isn’t just incompetent writing, though. I don’t actually believe for a second this is a stupid mistake like a typo or lack of vocabulary. That might be the easy answer, but it is wrong. It is a conceptual error and category confusion rooted in a common myth within society. This is an attempt to separate “belief” (in reality, worldview and/or religion) from political allegiance. As if people can have political “beliefs” without being affected by “belief.” By “belief” you can almost guarantee the author refers to the confused, contradictory and ultimately false idea of religious belief versus “non-belief.” There is no such thing as a “non-believer” nor do the “non-religious” actually exist.
However, the more significant framing issue here concerns the actual identity of Christians/Evangelicals. The article refers to so-called “MAGA Christianity,” but what that is supposed to be is rather confused and arbitrary. The viral video that the article references is of a nurse who is criticizing “MAGA politics”, or various Trump policies on immigration or government welfare, all while reading a section of Matthew 25 claiming it is a “Christian” refutation of “MAGA politics.” I won’t really go into details on those but they revolve around the misquoting of Scripture in the belief that Jesus’ commands about caring for the poor/vulnerable therefore means we must support government welfare on these issues or to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. As if this is what Scripture describes.
The blatant hypocrisy of claiming that “Progressive Christians” are somehow fine for supporting government policy in favor of their religious views (which they adamantly claim to be legitimately Christian/religious) but “conservative Christians” doing it is “Christian Nationalism” and a scary “obedience to authority and nationalism over the traditional Christian values of love, service, and community” is obvious here. Yet, the genuine problem is actually the manipulative depiction of “Christian” or “Evangelical.” We have already seen how evangelical is a term with little meaning, especially when it is used to prop up pseudo-Christianity [put link to disintegration not transformation article here]. This mistake is repeated here, but with another twist. For one, MAGA Christianity doesn’t really exist.
HuffPost claims to have spoken with “former followers of ‘MAGA Christianity’ about their experiences being a part of these communities — and why they made the decision to step away from them” but everyone they describe in this article cannot be considered to be a legitimate Christian. Not in any actual sense, at least. Especially when it is clear, they are just Distrephists and compromised syncretists at best. Even a very loose definition of “Christian” would not encompass these “ex-vangelicals.” They aren’t meaningful representatives of Christianity. They hold to the self-identification of “Christian,” but this is utterly meaningless. I have already gone into depth why. They are useful idiots quoted by media propagandists to give Distrephism a Christian veneer. Though there is a significant caveat here. One that legitimately indicts a significant portion of conservatism. However, this article paints a picture that confuses and conflates the groups involved. Creating a false category in order to manipulate.
One particular example shows just how useless the MAGA Christianity category really is. The article quotes Deidre Sugiuchi and refers to her experience in a “white evangelical reform school.” Leaving aside the fact that there is no such thing as “white evangelicalism” (especially when evangelical itself already means nothing) Sugiuchi’s experience at the infamous Escuela Caribe school is not reflective of this made-up MAGA Christianity. If you do even basic research, you find that Escuela Caribe was closed in 2011. Suguichi is quoted as saying, “MAGA Christianity is a cult. I know because I was in it.” How was Suguichi part of MAGA Christianity when the school closed in 2011? Suguichi, and others like her, who rightly pushed hard to expose the abusive and corrupt nature of that organization, partly forced Escuela Caribe to close.
MAGA (Make America Great Again) was the campaign slogan of Donald Trump. Who didn’t actually start campaigning and really using that phrase until 2015. His first presidency started in 2016. Nobody seriously believes “MAGA” as a meaningful political movement began before 2015. The earliest you can meaningfully trace this phrase is December 2011, but that is stretching it. If MAGA Christianity is now removed from Trump and the political movement associated with him, then either the authors are making things up or they are insinuating a lot more than mere association with Trump. The latter is almost certainly true. The authors really mean orthodox Christian views on various social issues because these views contradict the Distrephist religion in many areas and require people to hold unpopular opinions.
This is playbook we have seen before. The false framing of Christianity to include entirely non-Christian beliefs, using heretics and syncretists, to prop up as examples of supposedly “enlightened” or “progressive” Christians. “Good” people who aren’t like those evil Christian nationalists that actually think the Bible should be taken seriously. Another person quoted, Amy Hawk, explains that “for white evangelicals, I believe part of the waking up often happens to waking up to bigger issues of justice and privilege — i.e., when white folks realize that theirs (which is to say mine) isn’t the only story and perspective.” These are terms we should recognize right away. The racial framing that Distrephists attempt to do for everything. They have created the category of “white evangelicalism” because of the racialism inherent to their religion.
Another exvangelical quoted in the article, Cara Meredith, repeats this playbook. It is explained that “Meredith’s journey toward seeing the ‘image of God in everyone’ underscores how ignoring racial realities, or dismissing progressive ‘woke’ values from the pulpit, can perpetuate harm and marginalize voices seeking justice within the faith community.” Of course, this is just an attempt to shield Distrephism (what “woke” really is) from being called out as the false religion it really is. This is a manipulative attempt to fit another religion within a construct that has the appearance of Christianity. Except, without being honest about the fact that the Christian religion was switched out for another religion entirely.
While it is true that the article is propaganda—meant to facilitate the Trojan horse of Distrephism using a Christian veneer—there is a very serious problem that we can find within the story. In the linked article that covers the viral video with the nurse, we read, “The president has surrounded himself with a coterie of evangelical pastors and faith leaders, including Paula White, a tongue-speaking televangelist…” This is actually a very serious problem. Paula White is part of the Word of Faith movement. She is a false prophet and false teacher who preaches heresy. Without a doubt, she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Amy Hawk is quoted as saying, “In the ten years since Trump came on the scene, I have learned that white evangelical spaces don’t follow Jesus as closely as they pretend to.” Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to this. To reiterate, white evangelicalism is not real. This is a false categorization. What is real is the Word of Faith movement and other heretical forms of charismatic theology. Conservatism is currently experiencing the outsized impact of a considerable surge in heretical churches and their leaders. They are taking up space as representatives of “conservative/white evangelicals” in the minds of many in society. Genuine Christians are being lumped in with heretical movements and frauds. The framing may be false, but a real problem exists nonetheless.
Instead of ambiguous, meaningless terms such as evangelical (used the way we typically see it in articles like this) we need to make better distinctions. Rejecting labels like “MAGA Christianity” which lumps in everything considered “conservative” together, as if there are no distinctions to be made, and calling out those within the conservative movement who bring shame and dishonor to any who associate with them. MAGA Christianity isn’t the problem. It is heretical pseudo-Christianity and the frauds within the larger Word of Faith movement, prosperity gospel, and NAR that give all of Christianity a bad name. They are just as much a problem as Distrephists; who attempt to claim Christian identity and promote the lie that one can adhere to woke/progressive values (the Distrephist religion in reality) while remaining a faithful Christian.
The fact that people like Paula White and so many in the movement she is a part of have such access to, and influence on, Trump (along with other conservative leaders) is a terrible thing. It is a nefarious and toxic influence that will have considerable negative repercussions on our nation. So much of this is facilitated by the flawed terminology and deceptive self-identification rampant in our society. The twisting of terms like evangelical and Christian all lead towards false narratives that deceivers can operate under. Wadzeck’s article should make this clear.