Weekly Roundup: Iran, the End Times, and Christian Nihilism + Appeal to Heaven Flag at the SBA
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Is Trump Preparing for a Holy War?
In this episode of Straight White American Jesus, Brad Onishi examines Donald Trump’s mixed messaging on U.S. involvement in Israel’s conflict with Iran—through the lens of evangelical influence. He unpacks how Christian nationalist leaders frame the conflict as a cosmic battle between good and evil, and how that spiritualized rhetoric could shape Trump’s future actions.
Brad also investigates the growing signs that the ideology behind January 6th is becoming embedded in U.S. institutions—highlighted by the presence of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at key government sites. He then turns to the media’s uneven response to recent political violence, comparing coverage of two alleged shooters and what it reveals about race, ideology, and public perception.
The episode wraps with updates on military and judicial developments tied to the Trump era—and what they signal about where we might be headed next.
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We learned last night that Donald Trump is going to give it two more weeks to figure out if he's going to involve the U.S. in Israel's war against Iran.
This is a famous tactic of Trump to say that he's going to give it two more weeks to figure it out, which is just kicking the can down the road and not deciding.
But one of the things we need to talk about today, is how evangelicals and other conservative Christians view the conflict between Israel and Iran and how that might be playing into Trump's understanding of how he should act as the commander-in-chief.
We'll look to prominent evangelical pastors and an evangelical senator to give us insight into how this worldview is approaching a potential conflict.
We'll then turn to a disturbing set of events in Washington, D.C. Where the Small Business Administration, led by Linda McMahon and also led by Kelly Loeffler, the former senator, is now flying the Appeal to Heaven flag.
The Appeal to Heaven flag comes from extremist Christians who want to instill Christian supremacy in the United States.
I'll explain why this is so worrying and what it says about the way that January 6th has become institutionalized.
Finally, I want to spend some time talking a little bit further about the alleged Minnesota shooter, Vance Bolter, the ways that the news has covered his actions in comparison to Luigi Mangione.
I'm Brad Onishi, and this is Straight White American Jesus.
Straight White American Jesus.
All right, y 'all.
Dan Miller is out today on a family trip, so it is just me.
I'm Brad Onishi, flying solo for the Weekly Roundup.
And as I said, I want to jump into, I think, a bunch of things that are really important.
If you are wondering about coverage of the Supreme Court decision banning trans healthcare for minors, that is going to come Monday.
I'm going to be interviewing Kelsey Burke, who is an expert on these issues and has been researching them for years, a sociologist from the University of Nebraska.
So I won't be touching it on touching.
I think all of you know by now that there's a huge question looming over the country, and that is, will the United States become directly involved in Israel's conflict with Iran?
One of the phenomena that we've seen come to the surface this week is the way that that has split the MAGA base.
Folks like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and other war hawks have called for direct action by the United States and even regime change.
And others like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with numerous podcasters and pundits and others, have said that getting involved would be a betrayal of the America First ideals that Trump has touted since he started running for president 10 years ago.
I want to jump into that.
And I think elsewhere, there's going to be a lot of commentary about that MAGA split and what it means.
I think the contribution we can make here is to help explain why so many evangelicals and conservative Christians are so supportive of conflict with Iran and why they see it as a kind of cosmic set of events.
Now it's obviously not a homogeneous perspective.
because Marjorie Taylor Greene is always talking about being a conservative Christian and calls herself a Christian nationalist, and she's somebody who wants to stay out of it.
But nonetheless, it is worth digging into those who are seeing this as a moment, not of simply geopolitical conflict and a looming decision about American foreign policy in the Middle East, but as a cosmic battle in the kind of...
But let's ease into it, friends, shall we?
Let's ease into it with a little schadenfreude.
I think a lot of you know by now that Tucker Carlson interviewed Ted Cruz this week, and it was one of those moments where Tucker Carlson clearly didn't care if someone within his MAGA universe was upset with him because he peppered Cruz with questions that were incisive.
And follow-up after follow-up.
And a lot of you on social media were mad that you actually agreed with Tucker Carlson for once and thought he did a good job with an interview.
I agree with you.
Here's a clip of Ted Cruz answering questions about Iran from Tucker Carlson.
How many people live in Iran, by the way?
I don't know the population.
At all?
No, I don't know the population.
You don't know the population in the country you seek to topple?
How many people live in Iran?
92 million.
Okay.
How could you not know that?
I don't sit around memorizing population tables.
Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government.
Why is it relevant whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million?
Why is that relevant?
Because if you don't know anything about the country, Okay, what's the ethnic mix of Iran?
They are Persians and predominantly Shia.
Okay.
No, it's not even...
Okay, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.
You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of the government and you don't know anything about the country.
No, you don't know anything about the country.
You're the one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump.
No, I'm not saying that.
You're the one who can't figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani and you said it was bad.
You don't believe they're trying to murder Trump.
Yes, I do.
Because you're not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation.
Okay, we're carrying out military strikes today.
You said Israel was.
Right.
With our help.
I've said we.
Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them.
Well, you're breaking news here because the U.S. government last night denied, the National Security Council spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied on behalf of Trump that we were acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity at all.
We're not bombing them.
Israel's bombing them.
You just said we were.
We are supporting Israel.
It's high stakes.
You're a senator.
If you're saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.
All right.
It's one of those moments.
You really do miss Dan Miller because you know he would have some great stuff to say here.
A couple of comments to start.
One would be that this really shows you how easy it would be for American journalists to actually call our politicians on their BS.
Some of you are not like me and have an unhealthy relationship with religion and politics and study it all day like I do.
But the times historically Ted Cruz has looked like a complete buffoon have been when you might think, well, he always looks like a buffoon.
But when he looks like he's out of sorts, as he does in this interview, is when outlets from other countries press him on basic questions.
I remember an infamous one with the BBC.
Here, Tucker is just not letting him out of it.
He's not afraid if Cruz gets mad.
He's not both sides in it.
He's just saying this and this and this.
Do you know about Iran?
And it's clear Cruz has not prepared.
He's not thought critically about this.
He's not thought deeply about it.
And he leads him to this place where there's a couple of things to notice.
One is, he says, Tucker, you don't know anything about Iran because you can't figure out if they're trying to kill Donald Trump.
Which, again, there's this weird tell in how conservatives talk about Trump in the sense that the thing that should be decisive somehow in our foreign policy is Donald Trump and not the global perspective, the national interest, the loss of life, whatever.
It's just, well, they're trying to kill Donald Trump, so we should do this.
Don't get me wrong.
if there is a foreign entity that is actively trying to assassinate the sitting president, yes, of course, that's a very serious thing.
But it's just fascinating that that's Cruz's retort after being embarrassed about not knowing basic facts about a country that he has called for regime change in...
He said, we are doing strikes today.
Like, that's a quote.
It's a quote.
We are carrying out strikes today.
And then Tucker calls him on it, and he's like, look, you're breaking news here, Senator.
Is the United States at war with Iran?
And he backs up.
He says, oh, no, no, no.
I mean, Israel is.
Israel is.
Israel is doing that, not us.
There's this just weird, like, weird Ted Cruz caught off guard.
Spilling the tea and saying things out loud he should not.
But the question, you know, for us here at Straight Runner Fing Jesus, despite the schadenfreude of like seeing Ted Cruz look like a complete buffoon, which if you watch the whole interview, it never stops.
He's always on defense.
He's clearly not prepared for the test.
He looks like that kid who thinks that he's really smart, didn't need to get ready for the exam, and just was not going to score like he thought he would or didn't think the exam was going to be a real one.
The real question, though, is how do evangelicals like Cruz and others feel about conflict with Iran?
And I think it's worth digging into that here.
I want to do so by playing a clip from Josh Howerton.
The Bible says that this attack at the end of time will come on Israel from the north and the south, and that that will be the final war, the war to end all wars that will usher in the end of time.
Now, here's the question.
Are we entering into that war right now?
In Ezekiel 38 and 39, it mentions nations Gog and Magog.
That would be like modern-day Russia.
It also mentions Persia in Ezekiel 38 and 39. That corresponds to modern-day Iran.
What we do know is that if Iran enters the war, that Turkey and Russia will probably go with them.
Right behind them will be North Korea and China.
And if all of the world powers start attacking from the north and the south, start trying to attack Israel.
That could be the war to end all wars that ushers in the end of history.
You may be going right now like, bro, this is heavy, man.
Can I just say this?
There's a lot of hope in Ezekiel 38 and 39 because we know how that battle ends.
But the Bible says exactly at the moment when it looks like all hope is lost for the descendants of Isaac that the Lord himself, Jesus Christ, will descend.
He will take the battlefield and he will win the war once and for all, for all time.
So, for those of you who don't know, Josh Howerton is the senior pastor at Lake Point Church in Dallas.
Lake Point has a membership or an attendance, a weekly attendance of about 16,000 people.
It's kind of in the top 25 largest churches in the United States, part of the Southern Baptist Convention.
This is not a small church.
This is not a fringe pastor.
This is somebody who has a lot of influence over a lot of Christians in this country.
He gives a view that I'm very familiar with.
This is a view that I heard when I was a kid.
And I think some of you listening heard this too, if you grew up in any kind of evangelical or fundamentalist space.
What always happens in these spaces when there is conflict in Iran is that there begins the talk of, is this the end times?
Is this the moment of the apocalypse when Jesus will return, when God will institute the end of all things?
Is this the final battle?
As Howerton talks about it.
And there's always this kind of, it's amazing how a sermon, you know, you go to a sermon on a weekly basis at Josh Howerton's church and you might hear things about how to be a good husband or how to be a better father or the best way to be a good parent or I don't know, whatever, whatever kind of mega church stuff you hear on a weekly basis.
But when these things come in, it turns into this like, You know, the meme from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where there's these, you know, pieces, scraps of paper linked to a pamphlet, linked to a scripture, and Josh Howerton's up there trying to explain to everybody how what is prophesied in Ezekiel and talked about in Gog and Magog corresponds to modern-day Iran, the state of Israel, as it is led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
And all of the different allies that may or may not come into a conflict between all of them.
Howerton talks about the ways that this is heavy and this is a lot.
And I think this is a really good place to stop because we can all agree on that.
We can all agree that a war between Iran and Israel, or the war as it is taking place right now, is really heavy.
There are people who are dying in that.
Conflict right now.
There are people who are in hospitals that are getting bombed.
There are children who are losing parents.
It is already heavy.
If we zoom out, there's the potential for just an overwhelming conflict that could include the United States.
It could include Russia.
It could include Turkey.
It could include a whole host of things.
And as many of you, I'm sure, read and listened to and Our secretary of defense is a Fox News host.
So our DNI, the leader of our intelligence, is Tulsi Gabbard, who has close ties to Putin.
So it's not really the cast of characters that any of you would want.
I don't think I need to repeat that.
Nonetheless, we all know this is heavy.
But what comes next to me is, I think, something that is really where this descends into nihilism.
And it's a place where, for me, it became hard to stomach this kind of theology.
Because what Howerton is describing is a scenario where the Iran-Israel conflict really descends into World War III.
Turkey, Russia, the United States, North Korea, China, so on.
That's heavy.
Yeah.
Do you know how many lives would be lost?
I mean, there are nuclear capabilities here coming from numerous directions.
We're talking about, I mean, loss of life that is unimaginable.
But he goes straight in for this.
Can I just say this?
Pastor voice.
I got to put on my pastor voice.
You ready?
Can I just say this?
There's a lot of hope in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Because we know how that battle ends.
This is when the Lord Jesus Christ will descend.
He turns something that will include unimaginable suffering into something that everyone in this suburban church can walk away on that Sunday.
When they go to Applebee's or to get their chicken fingers after church, they can tell themselves, yeah, there's going to be a war.
It'll be terrible.
A lot of loss of life, a lot of violence.
But there's hope, and that's great.
We can feel really good at the Cheesecake Factory right now.
No problem.
The idea here is a sense of war and violence and the dissension into what could be the nuclear abyss is like switched in one sentence into the greatest thing ever.
I want you to take away from that that when anything with Iran comes up, you are going to hear evangelicals who see this as a point in time where they are so overjoyed that Trump is in office rather than worried or fearsome that he's not the right guy.
And they're going to see this as somehow a good thing.
That their understanding of Israel is an Israel that is...
I've said for a long time, evangelicals and fundamentalists and many Christian conservatives, are they invested in Jewish people, Jewish flourishing, Jewish communities?
No.
They're invested in the abstraction of the idea of Israel playing a character in the story that they are telling themselves and anyone else who will listen.
I went back to 2020, five years ago, and an interview I did with...
And here's what he said five years ago when there was potential for conflict with Iran back then.
What's happened in evangelical theology is that Gog and Magog have been mapped onto, at various times, Iran and Russia.
Is that correct?
Yeah, especially, in fact, especially Russia.
Because in Ezekiel 38, there is the mention of Persia, which would be associated to Iran.
So it's a kind of a coalition of various nations, at least dispensationalists, how they interpret this passage as being something that will happen in the future.
But now we are in this future time where you will have this coalition led by Gog and Magog that they identify as Russia with Russia.
And they see this moment as just prior to what they understand as being the rapture.
And you said something very interesting and very important, Bradley, when you mentioned their worldview.
I think that people that are close to the president at this moment and that have this kind of worldview, they will, of course, push for policies that will facilitate the enactment of those ideas.
So this is why it's dangerous, because you have people that have this worldview that are very close to the political power in the U.S. at the moment.
And for them, they have no qualms in just making sure that this will happen.
And that is a serious concern.
Maybe things have changed.
Maybe things are different.
Well, they haven't.
And in fact, our ambassador to Israel, the man that Donald Trump appointed in that position for when he got into his second term, is somebody who is pushing these very ideas that Professor Gagné is talking about.
Let's take a break and we'll get to that in a minute.
Mike Huckabee, the father of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the guy who was governor of Arkansas and Let me read to you what he sent Donald Trump this week over text message.
Mr. President, God spared you and Butler, PA, to be the most consequential president in a century, maybe ever.
The decisions on your soldiers I would not want to be made by anyone else.
You have many voices speaking to you, sir, but there is only one voice, all capitals, that matters.
His voice.
I am your appointed servant in this land and am available for you, but I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts.
No president in my lifetime has been in a position like yours.
Not since Truman in 1945.
I don't reach out to persuade you, only to encourage you.
I believe you will hear from heaven.
And that voice is far more important than mine or anyone else's.
You sent me to Israel to be your eyes, ears, and voice and to make sure our flag flies above our embassy.
My job is to be the last one to leave.
I will not abandon this post.
Our flag will not come down.
You did not seek this moment.
This moment sought you.
It is my honor to serve you.
Mike Huckabee.
Ay-yi-yi.
That's a lot.
I'm not going to jump into it.
I have so many snarky comments I want to make about it.
I'm not going to.
Here's what I'm going to say.
He says that no one has been in your place since Truman in 1945.
That is a clear reference to a nuclear bomb.
That's just straight out terrifying.
But who is Mike Huckabee?
Mike Huckabee is the kind of Christian that Andre Gagné just described to you.
If you look at Mike Huckabee's life, before he was governor, he was a minister.
He was a minister from the worldview that Andre Gagné just outlined.
And he has the eschatology, the view of the end times, that Andre Gagne just said.
Now, that's not the only place that we might be getting this kind of theology.
Let's go back to Ted Cruz talking to Tucker Carlson.
Growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.
And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things.
Of those who bless the government of Israel?
Those who bless Israel is what it says.
It doesn't say the government of, it says the nation of Israel.
So that's in the Bible.
As a Christian, I believe that.
Where is that?
I can find it to you.
I don't have the scripture off the tip of mine.
You pull out the phone and use it.
It's in Genesis.
So you're quoting a Bible phrase.
You don't have context for it.
You don't know where in the Bible it is, but that's like your theology?
I'm confused.
What does that even mean?
Tucker.
I'm a Christian.
I want to know what you're talking about.
Where does my support for Israel come from?
Number one, because biblically we are commanded to support Israel.
All right, I got to jump in.
I'm going to play more of the clip.
But he just said that support from Israel for him comes explicitly from the fact that biblically that is what is commanded.
Now, Tucker has already asked him, like, where does that come from?
Where's the Bible verse?
And he's like, I don't know.
I was just taught it in Sunday school.
So friends, get it straight.
A sitting U.S. senator, a senator from Texas, one of the largest states in the nation, population-wise, says, I support Israel.
My foreign policy as a U.S. senator is to support Israel.
Why?
Because the Bible says so, even though I don't know which verse, I don't know the context, I don't have any kind of robust theological interpretive framework for that.
But I'm just telling you that's what somebody taught me in Sunday school 40 years ago, so that is what I'm going to use as how I should approach foreign policy when the stakes are nuclear war.
That is Christian nationalism in a nutshell.
It's a theological imposition on politics that says, because that is my theology, it is a legitimate position in the public square, and I'm not going to defend it using data.
I'm not going to give you reasons in terms of strategy or geopolitical maneuvering or just consider.
Nope.
Simply, the first reason I support Israel is because an ancient text that I don't really know anything about supposedly says so, even though I can't tell you where or how.
All right.
Here's more of the interview.
But number two.
You're a senator, and now you're throwing out theology, and I am a Christian, and I am allowed to weigh in on this.
We are commanded as Christians to support the government of Israel?
We are commanded to support Israel.
What does that mean, Israel?
We're told those who bless Israel will be blessed.
But hold on.
Define Israel.
This is important.
Are you kidding?
This is a majority Christian country.
Define Israel?
Do you not know what Israel is?
That would be the country you've asked like 49 questions about.
So that's what, The nation of Israel, yes.
So is that the current borders, the current leadership?
He's talking about the political entity called Israel?
He's talking about the nation of Israel.
Yeah, nations exist, and he's discussing a nation.
A nation was the people of Israel.
Is the nation God's referring to in Genesis, is that the same as the country run by Benjamin Netanyahu right now?
Yes, yes.
It is.
And by the way, it's not run by Benjamin Netanyahu as a dictator.
It's a democratic country that elected— He's the prime minister, right?
But just like...
No, actually, the American people elected Donald Trump.
The same principle is there.
This is silly.
I'm talking about the political entity of modern Israel.
Yes, and that is Israel.
You believe that's what God was talking about in Genesis.
I do.
That country's existed since when?
For thousands of years.
Now, there was a time when it didn't exist, and then it was recreated just over 70 years ago.
I'm saying, I think most people understand that line in Genesis to refer to the Jewish people, God's chosen people.
That's not what it says.
Okay, Israel, but you don't even know where in the Bible This is amazing for so many reasons.
One is, I'm just very bitter that I'm actually cheering on Carlson in this segment.
He's making a good point.
One that I think Dan Miller would make if Dan Miller were here.
Supporting the nation of Israel.
Means that you don't have to identify the state of Israel with the Jewish people or with the nation of Israel and so on.
There's distinctions to make there.
The end of this clip, though, is really interesting to me, where Ted Cruz is already on, like, the thinnest of ice.
He's on complete defense.
And Tucker says, well, I think most people, you know, interpret that to refer to the Jewish people, God's chosen people.
And Crew says, "That's not what it says." And Carlson's like, You don't know what it says, Ted Cruz.
You're talking complete nonsense.
In terms of, you haven't done the homework.
You don't even know the theology you're basing your foreign policy on, much less do you have a foreign policy that's not based on theology.
This is Christian nationalism in a nutshell, but the thing that is a takeaway and that we should focus on here...
And if Trump thinks that this is a way to keep those Christians and those MAGA Christian Trumpists in his good graces, it may or may not have some kind of sway over his decision-making.
Now, there are MAGA types like Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene who are thoroughly against any kind of war with Iran.
Now, many of those seem to be favorable to Vladimir Putin.
Tucker Carlson is one.
I mean, if you listen to the entire interview with Ted Cruz, there is a back and forth about how Tucker is very friendly to Vladimir Putin.
And Tucker says, well, what's he done to us?
So there's a way to see behind the curtain and say, well, those MAGA Christians who are not wanting this, Are looking down the road and thinking, well, if we get into a war with Iran and we side with Israel, Putin is going to side with Iran, and then we are crossing Putin.
And surprise, surprise, that's probably something Donald Trump is weighing too.
If I come out in support of Israel and we jump into this conflict, Vladimir is not going to be happy with me.
So that's there.
None of this is going to solve anything.
None of this is going to do anything except for to give you some background and some information about how a lot of Trump is thinking about these things and the ways that Trump is perhaps thinking about this decision.
All right, let's take one more break and then we'll come back and talk about the Appeal to Heaven flag flying over the Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C. Okay.
This story was reported by Wired.
It's also been reported by The Independent and others.
Here's Mike Bedigan from The Independent.
A flag associated with far-right groups that was used by January 6th riders was flown above a government agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. last week.
Today at SBA's Flag Day ceremony, we proudly raised a new American-made flag over our headquarters in Washington, Kelly Loeffler wrote.
Kelly Loeffler is a former senator, now working at the SBA.
It is a privilege to serve under its stars and stripes on behalf of the 34 million small businesses who represent the best of America.
Now, many of you listening already know this, but the Appeal to Heaven flag comes from the New Apostolic Reformation.
It was revived in 2013 by Dutch Sheets.
It has spread.
It has overflowed the bounds of the New Apostolic Reformation such that it is the flag that was discovered to be flying at the beach house of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
It's also flown by Leonard Leo, the dark money conduit for the Supreme Court, and it hangs outside of Mike Johnson's office in Washington, D.C. Matt Johnson, excuse me, Matt Taylor and I wrote about the fact that Mike Johnson hangs this flag outside of his office for Rolling Stone about a year and a half ago.
And in that piece, we described the kind of what the appeal to heaven flag means.
In 2013, Dutch Sheets was given an appeal to heaven flag.
Dutch Sheets is a key member of the New Apostolic Reformation.
He's an extremist Christian, and I'm going to get to him in a second.
Dutch Sheets was given an Appeal to Heaven flag by a friend who told him that because it predated the Stars and Stripes, it was the flag that had flown over our nation at its birthing.
Sheets describes this experience as revelatory and he seized upon the flag as a symbol of the spiritual warfare-driven Christian nationalist revolution he hoped to see in American politics.
In 2015, he published a book titled An Appeal to Heaven and rolled out a systematic campaign to propagate this symbol in right-wing Christian circles.
That same year, Sarah Palin wrote an opinion piece in Breitbart endorsing the Appeal to Heaven campaign.
Sheets and his fellow New Apostolic Reformation leaders were the tip of the spear of Christian Trumpism, endorsing Trump's candidacy early on and championing his cause to their fellow Christians.
But since 2015, you can find this flag popping up everywhere.
State legislatures' offices, right-wing rallies, and so on.
Now, Dutch Sheets is a really important character.
He was integral to the effort of mobilizing people to January 6th.
And he used the appeal to heaven flag as a way to tell the story of their mission on January 6th.
According to him, the stop the steal narrative was a matter of appealing to a higher authority, that of heaven, rather than to the earthly authorities that had supposedly stole the election from Donald Trump.
When you look at January 6th, you can see appeal to heaven flags everywhere.
It's an award-winning series.
The series has been covered on Yahoo News and NPR.
It has been touted as the most definitive source.
At least audio source about the New Apostolic Reformation.
But this clip is going to give you more insight into how Dutch Sheets thinks about politics and government and its great context for thinking about the meaning of the Appeal to Heaven flag for many people.
As I've said before, the origin point of particular ideas can be hard to track in these independent charismatic circles.
Because you have these prophetic memes floating around, and everyone's riffing on each other's potent ideas.
But near as I can tell, this ecclesia theology really begins with Dutch sheets.
Central to this ecclesia theology is the idea that apostles and prophets are empowered to govern the earth with God's kingly authority.
They represent God's government on earth, and they can decree and declare, using divine power, So I think there's a couple of things to add to this and make sure we don't miss.
One is the appeal to heaven flag does go back to the colonial period, but that doesn't mean that its symbolism is the same as it was in the colonial period.
The flag only became popular when Dutch sheets re-imagined it as a way to appeal to heaven such that God's kingly authority
The appeal to heaven is to say that no matter what an earthly authority says, even, and this is me gleaning from my understanding of his theology, the Constitution, or the certification of the election by Congress on January 6th, 2021, there's a higher authority.
There's always a higher authority than any government.
This was a flag that was everywhere January 6th.
It's now a flag that represents those who believe that, if necessary, you can call on a higher authority than the Constitution or the state legislature or the state constitution or anything else.
So when the Small Business Association flies this flag, they're doing two things.
They're appealing to an extremist movement that has...
And two, this is the institutionalization of January 6th in our government.
I warned over and over and over.
I went across the country in 2022 and 23 and 2024 telling people that a second Trump term would mean the institutionalization of January 6th in our government.
That J6 was a beginning and not an end.
That it was a chance to mark a new American conflict.
A way to see the beginning of a war, not the end of one.
He's now pardoned all the J6 rioters.
He's now put extremists in charge of the government.
He's now emboldened Christian supremacists.
He's put J.D. Vance on his ticket and in his administration and so on and so on and so on.
January 6th has become The guiding ethos of our government, our federal government.
Revenge for that day, but also the goals of that day.
It's as if the lost cause theology of the South has become the guiding force of the Union.
And I think that's really scary.
I need to make one more point though about this, which is to say Dutch Sheets, progenitor of the modern appeal to heaven flag.
Dutch Sheets, the guy that, And that is the same place where the alleged Minnesota shooter, Vance Bolter, went to school.
We talked on our emergency episode last week all about his connections to CFNI and the independent charismatic world.
Please go listen to that episode.
It is on our feed right now.
And appeared just after the shootings happened.
But this is just a reminder that the guy, Dutch Sheets, who popularized the Appeal to Heaven flag and has this ecclesia view of government, is the guy that taught at the institution where the Minnesota shooter attended.
All right, y 'all.
I want to stay on that topic.
We've talked about the alleged Minnesota shooter here on our show.
We released our...
Luigi Mangione committed, allegedly, an act of violence that sent shockwaves throughout our media landscape.
We covered it in an episode, a weekly roundup called Luigi Mangione and the End of Civilization.
We called it that because the outcry was so immense about what had happened that some people were claiming this was how civilization existed.
And there was another article at The Atlantic called Decivilization May Already Be Underway.
So that one was by Adrienne LaFrance, and the subheading was The Brazen Murder of a CEO in Midtown Manhattan, and the cheering reaction to his execution amounts to a blinking and blaring warning signal for society that has already become too inured to bloodshed.
And, you know, I think that one of the things we said at that time was that there was a sense of media outrage and law enforcement outrage at what had happened.
Now, I am not, and please don't misquote me, trying to reduce or minimize the fact that somebody was murdered.
What happened at the time Was a lot of outpouring of grief and resentment from people who had been mistreated and hurt by our healthcare system.
A system that is unique in the world in the sense of developed nation not providing healthcare in a nationalized way for its citizens.
There were so many posts and articles about the ways that our healthcare system kills people unnecessarily.
That people can't get the medicine, they can't get the treatment, they cannot get what they need.
Now, none of that is to minimize somebody being murdered.
But it was to say that there was a lot of young people, especially, but others, who saw this event as something that represented a kind of resentment that they had felt.
Now, I'm not saying that's good.
I'm not justifying it.
I'm not a proponent.
I'm not doing any of that.
So please don't misquote me.
Don't email me.
Don't put me on right-wing media saying that's what I'm doing.
But Adrian LaFrance wrote this, the line between a normal functioning society and a catastrophic de-civilization can be crossed with a single act of mayhem.
That is what should have been written about the murder of Representative Hortman.
Friends, I cannot explain what I think the reaction would be if a self-proclaimed leftist did this to a MAGA state representative.
There would be news cycle and news cycle and ritual and outcry for a long time.
And we have a situation where this is going to go away soon.
Like, people are not going to talk about this.
This is just not going to be a thing outside of Minnesota.
But what it signifies is catastrophic de-civilization.
It, it, it...
not only going to Representative Hortman's home, but going to several other.
Politicians' homes.
Elected officials' homes.
If you're an elected official in this country, you need to accept that that's your reality.
Donald Trump is not going to even call the mayor, excuse me, the governor of your state.
He said it was a waste of time.
It'll go out of the news cycle in two, three days.
The line between a normal functioning society and catastrophic de-civilization can be crossed with a single act of mayhem.
Just want to note that...
And what I mean by that is something that we recognize and we ritualize and we mourn together.
This should be something we mourn together as Americans.
That every official from every state legislature and Congress should be together, united, saying no.
And I know there's been statements and tweets and whatever.
What I mean is a national ritual.
This has to be seen as so beyond what is part of our civilized society that it cannot be condoned in any corner in any utterance in any way.
It cannot be allowed for the young 23-year-old or the 36-year-old dude driving to work to mutter or make a joke about or to say under his breath, oh, she probably deserved it or something like that.
It has to be condemned so far.
That when somebody makes the uncouth joke at work, they are called on it.
Not okay, bro.
That's not what we have.
So I just want to note that today before we go.
Let's turn to reasons for hope.
I got to pull mine up.
I lost it.
I lost my place here.
Let me try to pull it up.
Comes from Joyce White Vance, who says on Blue Sky, today's decision out of Rhode Island isn't getting a lot of attention.
But it's very important.
Trump tried to withhold federal funds from states that won't help with his immigration policy and mass deportations.
A judge just told him he can't do that.
We will see what happens with this case, but for now, it's good news.
Now, I didn't get to the fact that the Ninth Circuit ruled that Trump can control the National Guard in California and anywhere he wants.
So that's not good news and not something we got to today.
But the National Guard, 2,000 more troops on the way to Los Angeles for no reason.
And they can stay there indefinitely We also didn't talk about the SCOTUS decision on minors and trans healthcare.
As I said, we will be covering that on Monday, so please stay tuned.
I am so thankful for all of you listening to this show.
We could really use your help.
I'm going to ask you to do me a favor and go rate our show on Apple Podcasts and leave us a comment.
It would really help us in this moment.
Other than that, we'll be back later this week with the Weekly Roundup.
And excuse me.
Sorry, I'm losing my mind here.
We'll be back next week with that interview I just promised.
