Hi. Are you somebody who wonders why you're always seeing Christians justify things like what ICE is doing? Even if what that leads to is a very violent, awful outcome that is obviously not justified.
>> You literally can join ICE and be God's appointed avenger. Right. Right.
Who seeks to to carry out God's vengeance on the evil immigration is evil. >> Some of you might say, "No, I don't wonder that at all. I already know why.
" And some of you might say, "Yeah, I do wonder. " I want to give you my thoughts if you're interested. I wrote everything down so I don't forget what I want to say.
And I also don't want to get distracted because sometimes I go on side tangents. So, let's get started. Um, obviously Trump and his admin, his main supporter base are evangelical Christian nationalists.
And I believe it's because a lot of those people have already been pre-programmed into supporting authoritarianism. They're used to carrying the water for authoritarianism. Um, now am I saying that every single evangelical is a is authoritarian or is supportive of a authoritarian system?
No, I'm not saying that. But I think that it sets people up to be okay with it. Um, and I think honestly, in my opinion, religion does in general.
And in many of these spaces, they normalize unquestioning obedience and submission to authority in ways that map cleanly onto authoritarian thinking. So, obviously, you should obey God no matter what. You shouldn't question it.
And even if you do question it, it's only okay to question to an extent, but you better still obey. Um it basically teaches people that obedience is a virtue. Obedience is a good thing when it's from your authority.
Um many people are taught that it's equal to righteousness. Obedience equals righteousness, right? Um it also teaches people to lean not on your own understanding.
So it is so much easier for authoritarians to convince these people that you shouldn't trust yourself and trust instead trust what we tell you. Think about it in this video where we clearly saw Alex Prey get held down. We clearly saw he wasn't a threat to these ICE officers.
We clearly saw he had a phone in his hand and not a gun. But it doesn't matter what you saw with your own eyes. Don't trust what you saw in that video.
Instead, the Trump admin and Christ gnome and Trump, they want the people to trust what they say instead. Lean not on your own understanding. Instead, trust what we tell you.
Don't think for yourself. Don't watch for yourself. Just trust what we tell you.
>> Individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism. That's the facts. >> And that is a similarity I see there.
There's an there's a lot of issues I see with this whole lean not on your own understanding because it gets people to distrust themselves all the time and that obviously leads to a lot of issues because of what we're seeing right now. Um, and then you hear them say insane stuff like just comply in reference to these violent acts done by ICE. >> My warning to you is this.
If you comply, you will not die. That's it. Just comply.
If you comply, you will not die. >> Um, it's justified in a lot of people's minds because they are used to submitting authority to no matter no matter what that authority might do, even violence. >> Make Jesus smile uh as you with a gun pack foreigners into the back of a van.
Um, for example, if you are fundamentalist and you take the Bible literally, there's a lot of stuff that God does in the Bible that is messed up, that is violent. Some of that includes um, like I said in my last video, some of that includes violence towards innocent people. Well, unless of course you're going to say nobody's innocent.
Um, and children, babies, um, killing them, ordering other people to kill them. And when you take that stuff literally, you have to constantly do this thing where you're justifying unjustifiable acts so that way you can keep that authority good and you can keep submitting to that authority and feeling righteous about it. Um and a lot of people for instance let's say you know let's say the flood let's say like everybody died obviously in the story everybody died in the flood including children and a lot of responses I get from Christians is well they should have just complied you know they should have just listened to God um even though that doesn't make a lot of sense as far as let's say children goes but they're perfectly fine justifying violence and the whole just comply type thinking.
Um, I do want to mention though that I have seen people respond. I've seen two strong reactions to Trump basically acting as an authoritarian. I see some Christians say, "No, only God is the ultimate authority.
" So, they completely reject him acting being power hungry essentially. But then the other side of the coin is what I have what I am talking about where people are kind of pre-taught to accept authoritarianism. So, I've I've noticed it can go either way.
Um, but obviously in evangelicalism, we see more often the acceptance of Trump acting like an authoritarian and them justifying that. Um, a lot of evangelicals are actually convinced Trump is being used by God even if he is an imperfect person, which is a giant understatement obviously. Um, but you even see Trump's spiritual adviser Paula White say to say no to Donald Trump is like saying no to God.
>> Say no to President Trump would be saying no to God. And there and I won't do that. >> And in my opinion, um, I think vile and cruel people benefit from this.
God uses imperfect people because it basically gives them a free pass. So does the saying everybody sins or people who say all sin is created equal. It gives very very awful people this past because they can just say well you know everybody sins nobody's perfect guys even if those parts of even if them being imperfect means being in the Epstein files or being found liable for rape or being a felon.
Um the list goes on and on. I don't I wouldn't just refer to that as being an imperfect person if I'm being honest. Um, and it it kind of blocks them from getting the consequences too, right?
Because are you really going to give them are they really going to have to face the consequences if we have this mentality of, well, guys, you know, I mean, nobody's perfect. I mean, we all sin, so we're all equal. No.
All that's going to do is protect abusers and vile cruel people in my opinion. Um, for a while during the end of uh me being a Christian and sometimes even now if I'm not thinking too hard about it, I say how on earth can these evangelicals support this when what is going to be their breaking point? And for so many I don't think there is one because again they're conditioned to carry water for authoritarianism.
So I don't think holding hope out is bad because obviously people change their mind, right? I see people changing their mind right now. Some are, some aren't obviously.
So I think we should always hold hope. But also part of me has learned to accept that for some people there is no breaking point. There is no straw that broke the camel's back.
I think a lot of us have thought when we learned about like World War II that this couldn't possibly happen here in modern day. Um, people were obviously very wrong about that and we need to be reminded that there were people back then that were okay with it, that were justifying it, that were supporting it. And that's how they got there is by at least groups of people trying to justify it and say this is fine.
Um, and there wasn't there wasn't a line for them. There wasn't a line in the sand. There wasn't any straw that broke the camel's back.
It was just they were just going to accept it for what it was. Um, and in my opinion, it's not a huge leap to go from an ultimate authority to another one. I don't think it's a big jump to go from an all like an ultimate authority uh ultimate authority god to an ultimate authority government or political leader, whatever you want to or cult, whatever you want to call it.
especially especially when they they believe they're connected. Especially when evangelicals think that God is connected to that leader. >> It is God that raises up a king.
It is God that sets one down. And so when you fight against the plan of God, you're fighting against the hand of God. >> Um it's just not a very big jump.
In my um opinion, these this conditions people to partake in sanctified hatred. And what do I mean by sanctified hatred? I mean the harmful actions towards others are framed as righteous through God in any kind of authority God is working through.
Um this is them moralizing opposition. So you hear this a lot in Christian talking points where they will say uh they just don't like what I'm saying because I'm saying the truth. They just don't agree with me because they know I'm on the side of truth.
um in and instead of saying things like we don't like these people or we don't accept these people, they'll say things like we're just being honest. We're just being truthful. Um I see a lot of people do this on a smaller scale, which I've talked about before, where a lot of people now feel emboldened, I think even more now than before, to be or dicks and then be and then say, "I'm just being honest.
I'm I'm just telling the truth. " I'm sure all of you guys know somebody like that, right? Who they will say something absolutely not necessary, unnecessary, and cruel and mean, and if you confront them about it, they'll just say, "What?
I'm just telling the truth. " That way, they can never get um they can never get any kind of backlash from being a cruel person. Um, and like I said, instead of being instead of admitting, I just don't like you or, you know, I'm being a jerk, they'll say, I'm just telling the truth and you don't like that.
So, or um something a lot of us see is, well, this is like real biblical love, right? So, if they if they basically tell gay people they're an abomination or they tell trans people they're an abomination, instead of being like, "Yeah, we we are um we are oppressing these people. We are dehumanizing these people.
" Instead, they'll just say, "Well, this is actual biblical love. " You know, that's what real love is. And you guys just don't know what real love is.
Um, and when you smash together religious identity with national identity, you get things like evangelicals treating descent as both unpatriot unpatriotic and ungodly. Now, these two things are the same to them, smashing their religion and nationalism into one scary hybrid. And I've seen this so often with evangelical Christian nationalists where being patriotic is like this godly virtue, this godly thing to do is be like that's what God wants you to do.
He wants you to be so loyal to your country and so patriotic. Even though obviously we know none of that's in the Bible, like that's not coming from the Bible, but it is coming from the the mixing of the national identity and the religious identity together to create this giant monster of you have to be patriotic and you have to be Christian and that's what it is. Um, and they get to have a lot of these justifications because they said we're they say we're on God's side.
And when you're on God's God's side, you can't be wrong. You're always going to be right. You're always going to be the righteous ones.
And when you're when you're the righteous ones, like, who can even be against you, right? >> And any tongue that rises against them will be condemned according to the word of God. >> Always gonna have it in their minds that we are justified no matter what because we are on the side of God.
If we are on the side of God, we cannot be wrong. Um, and that's how we get sanctified hatred um that we are seeing on a huge scale now. And cruelty is being rebranded as a virtue.
That's why you see the rise in books of uh the rise in books called like sin of empathy. It's because they have to sell to you that their cruelty is actually a good thing. And that lack of empathy is actually a good thing.
Not only are there are these good things, but they're commanded by the divine himself. So, you better not have too much empathy because that's not what God wants, guys. And it's okay to be cruel because that's also what God wants because it's in the name of truth, guys.
This is coming from God. We cannot be wrong even if we're being cruel or violent or whatever it is because this is actually what God wants. Um, and again, am am I saying this is all Christians?
Of course not. But this is a huge issue we're watching emerge out of evangelical culture and American culture. Um, and from the history classes I've taken, sanctified hatred is worse than regular hatred, right?
Because I feel like the just the typical human opinion is very flimsy. There's not much holding it up. People can question it.
People can dismantle it. But when you claim that it's coming from the divine, if you claim you are working with God directly, you are you are being used by God, it becomes a lot less flimsy to people because they're like, "Oh, this is what a higher being wants. " So, I mean, if that's what the higher being wants, who are we to go against that?
Who are we to question that, right? Um, it must be right. It must be justified if that's what a higher being wants.
So, it seems like it has a much stronger pull than just someone saying, "Hey, I don't like these people. " So, let's uh let's stop having empathy for them. Obviously, it's going to be a lot more effective if you say, "Hey, God actually wants this, right?
" Um, this is just something I think about a lot is just the conditioning. And I don't think many people realize this who didn't grow up in the culture, how often people in evangelicalism are conditioned to wholeheartedly accept an ultimate authority. And when you accept an ultimate authority and you justify everything they do, and you have to keep that authority good, like what I talked about in my last video and a lot of other videos, you have to do a crazy amount of mental gymnastics to justify what's going on and to keep the leader your leader good and to keep submitting to that system.
And that's why you see crazy things like even though we have the video of this shooting from so many different angles, we see that he was dogpiled. We see that he just had a a phone in his hand. Um, you also see in the video where one of the agents takes the gun out of um the gun he was carrying out of this out of his side or whatever.
Um, he was disarmed before he was shot. Um, we can have all of that in front of our eyes and I really think it's because people are preconditioned to authoritarianism. I know there's other things, but I think this is a big thing in evangelicalism.
because they're preconditioned for this. It's so much easier for the Trump admin to get their claws in them and just say, "Guys, don't believe what you're really seeing. Believe what we're saying.
We're on the side of God. We're on the side of righteousness. " Um, they continue to demonize these people.
Anytime now, even the second time this happening of somebody being murdered unjustifiably, obviously, they're all of a sudden domestic terrorists. They don't have to have proof for this. They don't have to have proof for literally anything they're saying because they know that's not how this works.
They don't need that. They don't need that. They just need blind loyalty.
Um, and it they're saying this about someone now who is a ICU nurse at the VA. That doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who Renee Good was.
It doesn't matter who Alex Pedi was. It doesn't matter who the immigrants are that they're taking off the streets. It doesn't matter the citizens they're taking off the streets.
It doesn't matter. None of that matters because they'll just label everybody a domestic terrorist. They'll just label everybody as violent criminals.
They'll just label anybody as just wanting to do massive amounts of harm. And what proof do they have for this? They don't need any.
And they know they don't need any. Um so they'll just blatantly lie. And truth to them doesn't matter.
And that's what's maddening about this whole thing because you're not really I feel like when I'm speaking to some of these people like um evangelical Christian nationalists about this kind of stuff, we're not even talking about what's true. It feels like I'm just talking to somebody about their identity at this point and and they don't want to give up that identity. Obviously, that identity is important to them, their their identity with politics and nationalism and Christianity.
It's who it's it's it's not just a political opinion. It's not just something they can evaluate. It is who they are.
It's it's who they feel like they are. Um and that makes the conversation a lot harder a ton harder. Um again, how do you have these conversations when the person you're talking to believe that they're justified by God himself?
I don't know the answer to that yet. Um, but I do think it's important to be aware of these things when having these conversations. And obviously, like I said in my last video, people can change.
People can change their minds. People change their minds every day. I changed my mind.
Was I ever part of MAGA? No. But I still changed my mind on religion and like conservative politics kind of.
Um, so people can change, but I think we need to remember that this isn't for a lot of people it's about identity. It's about who they believe they are. Um, and they're going to be hardressed to give that up.
And yeah, I just wanted to talk about the things I was seeing with that. It's so horrific. When I saw that video, my stomach dropped.
I'm sure a lot of you had the same reaction and just the horrifying feeling of they're going to keep justifying this no matter what. And one of the most heartbreaking things is knowing that people around me are going to justify it no matter what. That's a heartbreaking realization.
It makes me angry. It makes me confused sometimes. Um, but I'm also so proud of people speaking up and protesting and doing what they feel like they can.
And Alex Petty died helping the people around him, helping those women around him. And that's what he was spending his whole life doing is helping people as a nurse. Um, and that's one thing they can't take away from us is our empathy and our hope and our resistance.
They can try. And obviously they murdered Alex, but as a collective, I firmly just do not think they will win in the end. I really, really don't.
I think that I think that one day I think it could possibly get worse before it gets better. But I just want to encourage all of you to have hope because there is hope. This isn't the end.
Um, and I think that a lot of people are seeing that this administration, it's getting harder and harder for them to lie. Obviously, because we have eyeballs and we have things on video. And like I said on a video on TikTok is their biggest issue right now is that we have eyes that we can see with our own two eyes.
Our eyeballs are their biggest op. Like truly, it that's their biggest issue is that we can see. They rather us not be able to see and the only way they have people on their team is if they have blind loyalty and they don't use their eyeballs to see what's going on.
But that's about it. Um I really do hope you guys are taking care of yourselves. I know that these are really hard times, difficult for so many different reasons, but I really do hope you're taking care of yourself.
I really hope you're not losing hope. And if you're somebody who was part of the storm um this past weekend, I hope you're okay. I hope you have are, you know, made it through and are making it through.
And I just wanted to say that I appreciate you guys. And I'm I'm just thinking about everybody else who is seeing this news and and experiencing loved ones getting detained by ICE, neighbors getting detained by ICE, being people being afraid to go outside. And it's it's really heartbreaking and it's honestly really weird and hard to move through life when you see all of this happening and you know what people are experiencing.
Um but yeah, I think that's it.
