As we all know, the religious right is virtually the only reason why Donald Trump is still standing, despite approval ratings that would be reason to call a code even at this stage. It’s been amply established one main factor behind that support is that the likes of Jim Bakker, Rick Joyner, Lance Wallnau and others have their followers convinced that those who oppose Trump are doing the devil’s work for him. But there may be one other factor at play—the persecution complex that has long run rampant in hyperfundie culture.
I’ve seen this mentality first hand. As many longtime Kossacks know, during my freshman year at Carolina, I was suckered into joining a hypercharismatic and borderline cultish campus ministry, Waymaker Christian Fellowship. Something was a bit off about this bunch from the start, but I only realized how off they were when they tried to turn me into a Christian Coalition Republican. Even with this, the mind games they played with me were strong enough that it took me until early in my second semester to get out of there.
I later found out that their mother church, King’s Park International Church in Durham, had once been the Carolina chapter of Maranatha Campus Ministries, one of the many “campus cults” that sprung up like weeds in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s one of the most important churches in Every Nation, a network of charismatic churches built around Maranatha’s remains. KPIC, like Every Nation as a whole, is part and parcel of the New Apostolic Reformation, the overtly fascist offshoot of the religious right from which Trump drew a large chunk of his early fundie support. They actually believe they can bring about the Second Coming by taking over the world.
Not long after I began blogging extensively about my experience with this bunch at my new blog, Child of the Truth, something happened that threw me back to my days in this Christianist cult. You may recall that Wallnau joined the right-wing smear campaign against James Comey by sharing a video from Milo Yiannopoulos’ Facebook. As in super troll and pedophilia apologist Milo Yiannopoulos. I later discovered that soon after Milo was pushed out of CPAC and Breitbart, Wallnau actually came to his defense, claiming that liberals were trying to do to Milo what they tried to do to Trump. Remember, most fundies brushed off the “Access Hollywood” tapes as an attempt to persecute Trump just because he was fighting against the establishment.
Now where had I heard this before? I remembered back when I was in Waymaker, the point was driven home, week in and week out, that people hated us “because of what we believe.” This mentality seemed to have metastasized by the time I burrowed back into Waymaker in my sophomore year to get more evidence of their deceitful tactics. They believed that by seemingly going from criticizing them up and down to becoming one of them, I was just like the Apostle Paul, who had gone from persecuting Christians to writing half of the New Testament.
Since making it appear that I’d been “convicted” and was now living a “victorious Christian life,” I’d heard some out-to-lunch stuff from my “brothers” and “sisters.” For instance, I’d only spoken out against them so loudly because of my “sinful nature.” And in their narrative, I’d only walked out on them because I’d trusted my mind and not my heart. In the Waymakers’ world, you can’t do Christianity with your mind—but your heart. Additionally, we can’t trust our minds at all because rational minds can’t comprehend simple truths.
But this took the cake. You mean to tell me speaking out about how these people had almost brainwashed me was the same as having people executed? It still blows my mind two decades later. Where was their sense of proportion? Oh, that’s right—having a sense of proportion requires rational thought.
The more I think about it, the religious right’s loyalty to Trump is the logical end of years of claiming that those pointy-headed librul elites are out to get them. Need more proof? In case you missed it, a number of Trump tailenders are claiming that Donald Jr.’s meeting at Trump Tower was a Democratic false flag—even after Donald Jr. admitted to the meeting. Among those pushing that line—two of Trump’s staunchest fundie supporters, Pat Robertson and Rick Wiles. They both claim that the Democrats and the “deep state” are out to destabilize Trump by any means possible.
This is where we have sunk, folks—even when Donald Jr. admits to this meeting, they’re still claiming it’s a false flag. But I suspect that the mentality that drives this head-in-the-sand stance may have begun as early as two decades ago.