The Gospel of Deportation: Why Christian Nationalists Love ICE (Reign of Error Pilot Episode)

Brad Onishi: What's up, y'all. Happy New Year. It's been a while. I took a couple of weeks off in order to finish my book and to take some time away with my family. I hope you've all had a restful couple of weeks and been able to find time to restore and prepare for what's ahead. Appreciate Dan Miller carrying the water on the weekly roundup. And as I've been hinting at, we have just a bunch of new things planned for this show coming in 2026.

The first one I want to share with you today is the very first teaser episode of a new series that we are going to be producing and releasing in a couple of weeks from the amazing investigative journalist Sarah Posner, author of Unholy and somebody who, to me, has always been an essential voice on understanding religion and politics in the United States, particularly white evangelicalism. Sarah is the kind of person who is a reporter's reporter, is an intellect and a journalist, somebody who I respect deeply.

Her new series is called Reign of Error, and we're trying to do two things with this show. We want to follow the headlines. A lot of you listen to news podcasts, you listen to the Bulwark or you listen to shows that are bringing you up to date info on what's happening right now. But I think a lot of you are here at Straight White American Jesus because you appreciate deep dives and analysis. You want to go beyond the surface, and it's hard to do both. The shows that are able to dig in and really unravel the various layers of what's happening in the world tend to do that, and they're behind the news cycle. With Sarah's show, with Reign of Error, which is going to be coming out here in just a couple of weeks, we want to try to thread that needle.

So Sarah is going to be following the headlines and keeping up to date on what's happening in real time, and in doing so, she's going to be calling on just the long list of friends and colleagues she has—journalists and academics, scholars and researchers who have at their fingertips just absolutely in-depth knowledge of things related to religion, politics, immigration, foreign policy, race, gender and so on in this country. And so the goal is to give you every week a 45-minute deep dive into the headlines that are happening right now.

So for this first episode, Sarah and I sat down and she interviewed me, Brad Onishi, and we talked about the DHS and ICE. We talked about why Kristi Noem is the symbol of the deportation crusade in this country. We also talked about the very startling and disgusting messaging coming from DHS that uses biblical imagery, Christian imagery, religious imagery to sell its crusade.

I know that for a lot of you, what's on your mind today is Venezuela, and we're going to talk about that on Friday. But I think that you can think about what's happening with DHS and ICE and Venezuela as all tied together. There is a deep sense coming from every level of the Trump government that the goal is Western supremacy. And by Western, they do not mean the Western Hemisphere. What they mean is Western as in a European Christian heritage that will take over the Western Hemisphere. And that is, to me, what's coming out of Christian nationalists when it comes to Venezuela. That is what is coming out of this renewed call for some kind of Monroe Doctrine of United States supremacy over its hemisphere. It's a clash of civilizations approach. In many ways, Trump is dividing up the world with Putin and Xi and saying, this is ours, this is yours, and we'll do what we want in this sector of the world.

Well, that isn't unrelated to ICE and DHS. And so when you listen to Sarah and I's conversation, keep that in mind, because you're already hearing people say that now that Maduro is out, all the Venezuelans in the United States should go back to Venezuela, that now that the United States has rescued the country from this, quote unquote, whatever leader, now they can all go back. So the two are not separate.

So if you're thinking about Venezuela today, to me, this is deeply related. Sarah and I recorded this a few weeks ago, so you'll hear references that are a little bit in a news cycle that comes from that time. But you'll also hear us talk about American football, which sounds weird, but we get a little bit of the Bad Bunny. And again, any Bad Bunny plays into everything related to Venezuela, to deportation, to everything. And with the Super Bowl coming up, that seems really important.

Gonna play for you our teaser episode of the new series, Reign of Error, with Sarah Posner, who is just an amazing interviewer and somebody who I'm so thrilled to get to bring to this audience and to the wider Axis Mundi Media audience. We've got more in store this year, and we're going to be rolling those things out very soon. Going to have an expanded interview set. We're going to invite new contributors to do interviews here at Straight White American Jesus. Can have a brand new newsletter, live streaming, and much more. More to come, I promise. But without further ado, here is my interview with Sarah.

Sarah Posner: Los Angeles, Portland, Washington DC, Chicago. Over the past several months, the Trump regime has been flooding blue cities with federal immigration agents and National Guard troops, lying that these are necessary because immigrants are gang members and criminals and that these cities illegally harbor them. Trump's army of heavily armed, poorly trained and overly aggressive federal immigration agents, often wearing masks and displaying no identification, is stripping people—non-citizens and citizens alike—of a multitude of constitutional rights: to due process, to be free from illegal searches and seizures, and to free speech, assembly and religion.

Over the past several weeks, the Trump regime has escalated these assaults in Chicago in particular, where the state's governor, JB Pritzker, has been one of the most assertive Democratic leaders fighting these fascist tactics. In what the regime is calling Operation Midway Blitz, we've seen Department of Homeland Security agents descend on apartment buildings from Black Hawk helicopters. We've seen them, without a warrant, pull parents and kids out of their beds in the middle of the night, separate families and zip-tie children, beat people bloody in the streets, violently arrest a preschool teacher in front of young students, strike protesters including clergy with pepper balls and chemical agents, threaten people with guns, pepper spray a one-year-old, deploy tear gas at a Halloween parade in residential neighborhoods and near a public school.

In issuing an injunction against these supposed crowd control tactics, which officials lied was necessary because of rioters and agitators, a federal judge said the government's use of force "shocks the conscience." The government has imprisoned people detained in these raids at the nearby Broadview detention facility under conditions that another federal judge, in granting a temporary restraining order against the government, described as disgusting, unnecessarily cruel and inhumane.

As winter descends on the Windy City, signs are that ICE is decamping to warmer climes to wreak its havoc. The question remains: is this America? It's the America MAGA's Christian nationalists want—one where Black and brown immigrants are deemed criminals and gang members, and US citizens who support them are deemed enemies of the state, all justifying unrestrained state violence against them.

This week, we're going to take a deeper look at how Trump's Christian nationalist supporters use religion to justify this violence and why they believe Trump's lies that blue cities are ground zero for violent crime and what they claim is anti-American political activity.

Welcome to Reign of Error. I'm your host, Sarah Posner, an investigative journalist who has spent decades covering the Christian right. This is the podcast where we break down the latest news headlines about religion and politics with deep analysis by scholars, journalists and other experts.

I'm joined this week by Bradley Onishi, host of the acclaimed Straight White American Jesus podcast and author of the book Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism and What Comes Next. Brad understands from the inside the role that violence plays in the white evangelical imagination and why they believe they are in a spiritual and even physical war to save America as a Christian nation.

We are going to talk in particular about how Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, an evangelical woman, uses religion to promote a brutal police state to Trump's evangelical base. Welcome to Reign of Error, Brad.

Brad: Great to be here.

Sarah: So Kristi Noem has been the face of the federal government's absolutely brutalizing crackdowns and deportations of immigrants. She's an evangelical woman who previously was governor of South Dakota and congresswoman from that state, and she's also thought to be a 2028 presidential primary contender for the Republican Party. Can you talk a little bit about how she has turned her Christian nationalist beliefs into policy and why that may have made her a top candidate to be a cabinet secretary in Trump's administration?

Brad: I think there's two elements to foreground right at the start. One of them is Kristi Noem as an evangelical. And I think that we just have to admit that in 2025, evangelical theology—mainstream evangelical theology in the United States—includes the idea of mass deportation as something that is what Jesus would want and what is good for the country. This is not a fringe idea. It's not something that is held by those who are considered extremists in the community. Mass deportation is part of the gospel of white Christian evangelicalism now, and other aspects of American Christianity too. So Kristi Noem as a kind of representative of that American religious tradition is a kind of general foundation of the discussion I think we should have today.

I think a second aspect of Kristi Noem, though, is that Kristi Noem is a woman, and that might surprise people—that Trump would nominate, and that some of the religious actors in Trump's orbit would accept a woman in the role that includes visiting sites that are in their minds the battle lines for America, places where these mass deportations are going to happen. I don't think that's an accident. I think that her, as somebody who is wearing all of the uniforms and costumes and all of the cosplay that she's doing, is representative of the white Christian female innocence that needs to be protected in this country. And so she is both warrior and the attractive, slender cosplay Barbie that everyone has been calling her, as a kind of symbol of the white, feminine Christian woman who is the very one who needs to be protected from the Black and brown immigrants that you've just mentioned.

Sarah: That's an interesting contrast, right, that she both represents this innocence or delicate constitution that typically, I think evangelicals would say she needs a man to protect her. But maybe the role being played there is by Trump, that she's in carrying out Trump's agenda—she's actually both carrying out this agenda, but being protected by Trump at the same time.

Brad: And also being, you know, I think also being protected by all of these masked men. You know, she's the one standing on top of the building overseeing the men engaging the protesters in Portland, or Greg Bovino going out with his flash bangs and his warrior garb. So I think that she's both this—there's this double role for her as the leader of the mass deportation squad that is delivering the kinds of promises that Trump made, but is also part of the creation, part of the Christian gospel in her community. But she's also—every time she's on the front lines, it's a reminder of, oh, that's exactly who needs protecting: that innocent, vulnerable, beautiful Christian woman who represents America. I mean, I'm almost surprised she hasn't dressed up as Columbia from the John Gast painting yet. I thought that's what she was going to be for Halloween, right?

Sarah: Back in February, she told the Conservative Political Action Conference that Trump wants her to be the face of videos that the Department of Homeland Security puts out on social media, warning immigrants that "we will hunt you down." We've got some audio from a Facebook ad that they put out.

Kristi Noem: I'm Kristi Noem, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Thank you, President Donald J. Trump, for securing our border and putting America first. Let me deliver a message from President Trump to the world: if you are considering entering America illegally, don't even think about it. Let me be clear: if you come to our country and you break our laws, we will hunt you down. Criminals are not welcome in the United States. For too long, weak leadership has left our borders wide open, flooding our communities with drugs, human trafficking and violent criminals. Well, those days are over. Under President Trump, we are defending American families and restoring their safety. If you try to enter illegally, you will be caught, you will be removed, and you will never return. Follow the law and you'll find opportunity. If you break it, you'll find consequences. Strong borders mean a stronger America. President Trump is making America safe again.

Sarah: Really, really, truly aggressive language. So what do you think it means that Trump wanted her to be the face of this ad where they're saying we're going to hunt you down? And how do you think the evangelical base would receive her as the face of this army that's hunting down these immigrants who they consider to be, you know, invading the country?

Brad: Yeah, you know, again, I think that Kristi Noem has really played this role to the exact tone that Donald Trump wanted. She is a Christian who is unfazed by the idea that you would use Bible verses and a call to serve God as the motivation to join ICE or DHS, and also to, quote, "hunt people down." So Kristi Noem is the kind of Christian who thinks by showing up in unmarked cars, wearing masks, taking people from hospitals or from schools or from court appointments or from their neighborhoods, walking their kids home from daycare, "I am doing what Jesus wants."

And so she is a candidate here that has fit the role that she was cast for perfectly by using that Christian story as a way to explain, justify and recruit for the larger story of mass deportation in the United States. I think secondly, once again, if this had been someone—you know, let's say Pete Hegseth had been tapped for this role rather than the role he was tapped for at the Department of War—we would have Pete Hegseth out there looking tough, and he would do his Pete Hegseth macho performance. But I think once again, just to make this point, Pete Hegseth would look like a knight strolling out of the court ready to go on the crusade and defend Christendom, the masculine servant of the king.

I think when you send Kristi Noem out, you get the warrior Christian. You get the person unfazed by using the Bible to deliver on a vicious, inhumane deportation program. But every time you see her, you're reminded of the people that evangelicals and other Christian nationalists are always claiming they're going to protect. "We're here to protect the vulnerable and those who are going to be hunted down by these immigrants and these criminals and these violent agitators we're letting into our country." This is the very person that they target. You know, all we heard about in the wake of the off-cycle elections in the fall was, "Well, those women who voted for leftists like Mamdani, they voted to allow the violent un-American invaders to come after them, because that's exactly what they want."

And so I think when you send Kristi Noem out, I really do believe you get an effect in that role that you would not get if Pete Hegseth or someone else had been deployed in front of those cameras. In addition, Kristi Noem has accepted wholeheartedly, "I am here to create content." For sure, yeah. Like cinematic, like, you know, violent content made for Instagram and Truth Social and everywhere else. And she's embraced that in ways that some other actors may not have.

Sarah: So I think that for a long time in the evangelical world, women were not really expected to play that kind of role. I mean, within evangelicalism, there's still a debate about whether women should preach from the pulpit, both within the Southern Baptist Convention and within broader evangelicalism. The debate between the Doug Wilson brand of evangelicalism, where he's uber-patriarchal, yes, and the Paula Whites, you know, here are two Trump allies, and she's a very successful preacher, televangelist, and, you know, preaches from the pulpit every Sunday. Where does Noem fit exactly in that whole universe where you have that span of belief about gender roles, and she's kind of breaking a lot of them in a lot of ways?

Brad: I agree. She is. I'm glad you brought up Paula White because I think Paula White-Cain is somebody who has opened a lot of doors in the presidential orbit for evangelical women to play roles that they never had before. If we go back, you know, eight or nine years when Trump chose her as kind of this leader of his faith office and somebody who was really going to have the reins over the administration's relationship to pastors and clergy and faith leaders, that took a lot of getting used to from folks in the kind of old school religious right spaces. I mean, I'm sure you know this better than I do that the Family Research Council and the Falwell family and the Graham family, they're not used to having a charismatic woman as the one who's kind of the touch point between the president and Christian leaders. So I think that's point number one.

I think point number two is, in some ways, she is sort of playing roles that you wouldn't expect, and that I think 10 years ago and 15 years ago, in a George W. Bush administration, you would not see women playing this role. Again, though, I have not seen Kristi Noem throw a grenade, punch anyone, detain anyone. I've not seen her tackle anybody. And so you might say, well, that's not her job anyway. But I would argue that she's deployed as the kind of overseer of the men who do violence and the men who do the actual kind of work of deportation physically. And I think as long as she stays behind that line, that some of those folks who are more tilted towards the Doug Wilson uber-patriarchal wing of evangelical Christianity in the United States can at least stomach it. Because if Kristi Noem was a woman out here who was actually—we had video of her actually like running and tackling an immigrant to the ground and striking him and being the one yelling and grunting and doing that kind of thing—I think we might hear a little bit more about how, well, isn't she doing what the men are supposed to do? So, yeah, as long as she's hands off.

Sarah: You know, as you said, she's been spending quite a bit of time making content. She's heavily made up. Her hair is very coiffed. She's wearing clothes that really show off that, you know, she's got a personal trainer. And she's posted brutal, performative videos of herself in front of the CECOT concentration camp in El Salvador and Alligator Alcatraz in Florida, calling it the perfect location to detain the worst of the worst. So how does this fascistic prison guard act play with how evangelicals perceive immigrants? And how do you think they respond to that video of her standing in front of CECOT with the men sort of inhumanely piled up on top of each other? I mean, it's just so awful and cruel and sadistic.

And, you know, in my reporting life, I've interviewed a lot of evangelicals who were pro-immigration reform. You know, they've been silenced by the Trump era, but it was a thing in the mid-2010s for evangelicals to get involved in advocating for immigration reform and a path to citizenship and all of that. But obviously, you know, the Trump contingent has won out. But how do you think evangelicals are looking at that video, and what do you think they're thinking seeing her in that role?

Brad: I really do think this is a moment where we have to accept that we've come to a place in American religious history where many—not all, but many, and I would dare say a decent majority—of evangelicals, and especially white evangelicals, but I would also include many white Catholics in this, charismatics, as we've been talking about, that we have arrived at a point where when they see Kristi Noem standing in front of those imprisoned men, they see something they've been praying for. Like, this is an answer to their prayers. This is Donald Trump delivering on his promises, and this is a sign that there's finally somebody willing to do the hard thing, the thing that was deemed politically out of bounds, not okay by Republican or Democrat standards, something the post-war consensus, as they call it, would never allow for. This is a sign that our country is back on track.

And so when most of us see something that is repulsive and makes us sick, a lot of folks have arrived at a place where they're saying, "Finally, if you come here illegally, I don't care why. I don't care if you call yourself a Christian. I don't care if you say I'm your brother in Christ. The result should be that you are taken swiftly out of this country, flown to the worst prison possible and made a spectacle of so that others don't try it."

Sarah: Let's talk a little bit about how Noem has used specific Bible verses to support what DHS is doing. One of the ads that DHS has put up on social media quoted Isaiah 6. And I thought that Brian Kaylor, who writes an excellent newsletter, had a really good post on this. You know, the reference in the Bible verse is when the biblical prophet, quote, "experienced a divine call that included a vision of seraphim flying around, the voice of God calling out and a hot coal placed on his mouth before he answers to God for God to send him." But in the DHS version, there are definitely no angels, but rather men in military-grade gear searching, not for divine instruction—or maybe they are searching for what they consider to be divine instruction—to send them to hunt down immigrants. Here's the Bible verse:

DHS Video Voice: I think about sometimes, many times. It goes, "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?'" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me."

Sarah: So do you think this is playing to this notion, very prominent in charismatic communities, that you are a modern-day prophet? God is talking directly to you, and you're saying directly to God, "Send me. Send me to hunt down immigrants."

Brad: I think there's an element of that. I think the motif that is more popular now than ever in what I would call mainstream evangelical circles is the theme of spiritual warfare and the idea that we are all called to fight in a spiritual battle through prayer, through all kinds of different ways that Christians practice this. So I think that on one hand, you have this motif in the air—the podcasts, the sermons, the books, all of it—that is saying, "You, Christian, are always in a spiritual battle against the demonic, against the satanic, against the enemies of God."

So to me, that Bible verse is playing on that and saying, "All right, call me to take my spiritual battle into a physical battle. I will join up those who are physically putting their bodies on the line to create Christian revival, which just happens to be helping to detain and kidnap and deport people all over the country."

I also think, though—and I'm not saying this to be snarky, and I'm not saying it to be funny—I think this is a moment where those who claim to love scripture often are least familiar with it and its context. Yes, because the prophet Isaiah—I mean, there's so many other aspects of the Hebrew Bible's prophets that are coming from a place of exile and fighting against the empire, fighting against occupation, fighting against those who have taken the Israelites into captivity or into other places. And here we have just a quintessential American empire, an imperial call to violence that takes no notice of any of that context and any of that kind of consideration. And so it, I think, in some—it's just a classic example of using scripture how you need it in the moment to justify your political action. And in this case, what I think many of us would consider a very cruel campaign against vulnerable people.

Sarah: Right. She's also used the Bible to suggest that she and her allies are superior to other people and more worthy of God's favor. She was asked by right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson if ICE was going to be present at the Super Bowl because of the NFL choosing Bad Bunny as the halftime act. We have some audio of her talking to Johnson and saying that the NFL sucks and God will bless us. And it was funny. Let's listen to that audio.

Benny Johnson: Bad Bunny was selected as the Super Bowl halftime performer. This is an individual who is anti-ICE, who is anti-immigration—says he refuses to tour in America because of that. The NFL is sending a message, presumably, to MAGA, to the Trump administration, by choosing this anti-ICE, anti-immigration enforcement performer. He's scared to perform in America because he's worried that ICE will have enforcement at his concerts. That's been said in multiple interviews. What is your message to the NFL? What is your message to Bad Bunny? Will there be ICE enforcement at the Super Bowl?

Kristi Noem: There will be, because the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for keeping it safe, so I have the responsibility for making sure everybody goes to the Super Bowl has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave, and that's what America is about. So yeah, we'll be all over that place, and I can't—we're going to enforce the law. So I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they are law-abiding Americans who love this country.

Benny Johnson: And you messaged the NFL with this decision? It seems like they were trying to send a message to the Trump administration.

Kristi Noem: Well, they saw it, and we'll win, and God will bless us, and we'll stand and be proud of ourselves at the end of the day, and they won't be able to sleep at night because they don't know what they believe and they're so weak. Thank you.

Benny Johnson: Thank you, Madam Secretary.

Sarah: You know, it's interesting to me how I kind of thought this when the first time that Taylor Swift went to a Kansas City Chiefs game and there was this blowback from the right, I felt like they were reacting in a way where they believed that Taylor Swift had contaminated their football stadium, right?

Brad: Yep.

Sarah: And this is the same kind of idea that Noem is expressing here, that the NFL sucks because Bad Bunny is contaminating this all-American sport that evangelicals love, right? And then she's almost at a loss for what to say and then just blurts out, "God will bless us," yeah. Can you talk about that? Because it's just sort of like, we don't like Bad Bunny, but, you know, the NFL sucks all of a sudden, and God will bless us.

Brad: This is a tricky one, and it's not a position I think that Noem and the Trump administration thought they'd be in, which is, you know, so many folks from MAGA nation, the core Trump voter, they are also an NFL fan. And, you know, there is a deep overlap there in the audiences. And I think the NFL, who has billions and billions of dollars to do this work, did their research and said having Bad Bunny as the halftime act is a good move for us. Bad Bunny gets 79 million streams on Spotify every month, and so there's clearly an audience here.

However, I think for me, what I took from this whole set of events was that American football has always represented the imperial force and the national strength of the United States in ways that other sports do not. Baseball is our pastime, but it's losing popularity. It's much less exciting for the social media age. Basketball is a sport that for many Americans, and I should say white Americans, has been coded as a Black sport or as a minority sport or as a sport—if you look at the statistics, the folks who watch NASCAR in this country are the least likely to watch the NBA. So the NBA does not represent this kind of imperial American empire, but American football does. This is where you often get, right, the American fighter jets flying over, right? This is where the military is honored explicitly and overwhelmingly.

So to me, when you invite Bad Bunny in there, Kristi Noem is thinking, this is, as you just perfectly said, a contamination. He's gonna sing in Spanish. This is a Latin person, a brown person, somebody whose audience is worldwide. This is not Lee Greenwood. This is not, you know, someone in that vein. And so it feels to them like an invader has reached a sacred American space. And that, I think, is why this is such a big deal.

Sarah: Yeah. So one last bit on Kristi Noem and using the Bible and praying: she has prayed publicly, both with ICE officers and interestingly at a Turning Point USA conference, for a hedge of protection around ICE and law enforcement. We're going to hear her give that prayer at the TPUSA Summit.

Kristi Noem: Listen, I spent the day today with a bunch of officers out arresting bad guys and getting them off the streets. Aren't you grateful for our law enforcement officers? In fact, I want to do this. I'm sure my team put together a fantastic speech for me to give to you, and I will use some of it, but I'm going to go a little off the rails here, a little bit, because that's the mood that I'm in. But I want you all to stand up with me, and we're gonna cover our law enforcement officers in prayer right now. Let's bow our heads.

Dear Heavenly Father, we just come before you tonight. Grateful. We come before you extremely thankful for the blessings that you have given us, Lord. Recognizing that we are a privileged people living in the greatest experiment on earth. Lord, you have given us a country that defends our freedoms and our liberties, and you have surrounded us with good men and women who care about the rule of law, who every single day stand up and they defend the oath that they have taken to protect people.

Lord, we were created to serve you. The purpose you've placed inside of us as human beings is to serve other people, and when we serve other people, we will be happier because we are fulfilling the purpose for which you have created us. Lord, I just ask right now that you would put your hand in a covering over every single law enforcement officer in this country. Lord, that you would build a hedge of protection around them. And Lord, as they go out and they defend our streets from rioters, from violent criminals, from people who would wish to do others harm, Lord, that you would give them a peace that passes all understanding, that you would keep your hand on them and their families, protect them, keep them safe and help them to know, Lord, that they are standing for right, that they are standing for good, that they are fighting evil and that they are fulfilling the purpose to which you have called them.

Dear Lord, we thank you and we praise you for each and every single one of them, Lord. And I ask that everyone in this room and all of America would find ways to bless our law enforcement officers. Lord, bless them. Have their backs. Defend them. Stand for what's right and to continue to walk in the purpose for which you've called each and every one of us. In your name, amen.

Audience: Amen.

Sarah: So what does it mean that she's praying for a covering and a hedge of protection? And do you think that evangelicals think that law enforcement deserves some sort of special divine protection?

Brad: To answer your second question first, I do think that evangelicals believe that law enforcement deserve that hedge of protection. I think that there is a—again, a coding that says law enforcement is on the side of order and good, and therefore they're on the side of God, that what they are enforcing, the social order they're enforcing, is the order that God wants for society. All the statistics from sociologists like Sam Perry and Andrew Whitehead show us that white evangelicals are some of the least likely people in the country to believe that there are problems with police brutality in the United States, right? And so to me, that says they don't think that there's anything wrong with even further escalations of violence and brutality against people like migrants, because, as we've talked about already, in their minds, those people are doing exactly what God does not want them to do, even if they identify as Catholic or Protestant or whatever.

The prayer for a hedge of protection—when she says that—is a pretty standard evangelical prayer. When I was an evangelical minister, we prayed this all the time. "God, would you protect us on our trip from here to summer camp? Would you protect those who are going on this mission trip or on vacation or traveling for a conference?" Et cetera. This is pretty standard fare. It's unnotable in some ways.

In another way, it's very notable because prayer tells a story. Prayer is a story. Prayer tells you who the good guys are and the bad guys are, who we want to win and who we want to lose, what we want to happen and what we will consider victory. Here, the story is: "Lord, we assume you are on the side of ICE and DHS and the operation to mass deport people. Please protect us, the good guys, against all of the bad guys outside who would protest, who would stand up and say this isn't okay, who would resist, who would somehow express the fact that they don't want this to happen. We are the ones on your side, God, and so protect us as we do the work that we know and believe you want us to do out there in the very dangerous world full of Black and brown criminals who are prowling our streets."

Sarah: That's a great segue, and such a good point, and a great segue to my next question, which is, you know, they have tried so hard to depict Chicago—Chicago's not the only one, they've tried to depict it as this, you know, den of rioters and gang bangers and, you know, agitators and criminals. And what is it that sort of provokes the evangelical imagination to think that, you know, they live in very peaceful communities, but people who aren't like them necessarily live in very unpeaceful and violent communities?

Brad: Well, I think Fox News and Newsmax and other news media that evangelicals are likely to watch depicts these cities in that fashion all day, every day. So I think that's point number one. I think point number two, the rural-urban divide that has a long history in American religious landscapes is as deep and divided as ever. There is an imagination in the white conservative Christian mind that American cities are unlivable. The depiction of San Francisco or Chicago or Seattle in the conservative imaginary is one of a place that is constantly burning, full of chaos, unlivable, scary, and the very kind of place that a pretty white woman like Kristi Noem would get attacked in as soon as she walked down the street. So I think that's one.

Number two, Chicago has been the target of conservative media for a long time because of the ways that they can use statistics about murder rates and homicide to depict a place that is a liberal hellscape. And it helps that there is a large and historic Black community in Chicago that is much different than, say, Boise, Idaho or Austin, Texas or anywhere that Gavin Newsom has suggested Mike Johnson and Kristi Noem and others might focus their attention—places in the Deep South that have much higher murder rates than other parts of the country. But nonetheless, none of those seem to count.

I think a final thing about Chicago is that Chicago is a blue city in the Midwest, and there is a deep desire here to make an example out of blue cities and show them to be places that simply do not work. I've maintained for the last six months that Trump represents a new Lost Cause, yeah? And instead of the Confederacy seceding this time, MAGA nation is invading the rest of the country. Like that's their goal. And Chicago and Portland and LA are the perfect examples of the places they think need invading in order to be saved. And no amount of statistics, no viral footage, no amount of media is going to convince them otherwise.

Sarah: So do you think—do you see in their mind that Noem, when she shows up in Chicago to sort of supervise these raids that Greg Bovino is carrying out, right? Do you think they see her as a purifying figure, a sanctifying figure? She's sanctifying the DHS agents, and she's there to purify this broken American city—broken in their minds?

Brad: I think that—I think "sanctify" is such a great word. I think that's just so powerful because I think they think of ICE and DHS as sanctifying the city in general. And then again, Kristi Noem is this wonderful symbol of that sanctification. Here is the ideal white Christian woman there to oversee the men who are imposing order on a place that is lawless.

And one of the arguments that Phil Gorski and Sam Perry make in their book The Flag and the Cross that has always stuck with me is that white Christian nationalism, when it's all said and done, is about social order—that God is on the side of order, that the people who should have power and the authority to control the social square, the public square, are able to impose that on places like Chicago. And so whether or not it corresponds to reality, in the Fox News mind, in the white evangelical podcast space, Kristi Noem showing up with those armed men unhinged by procedure or concerns about brutality or the Constitution or civil liberties—this is sanctified. I mean, the word you used, I think, is absolutely perfect. This is sanctifying a place of disorder.

Sarah: I wanted to pivot with one last question about another area where violence figures prominently in the evangelical imagination, and that's Israel. Noem visited Israel in May following the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington. And while she was there, she prayed at the Western Wall, and she left a Christian Zionist note in its guest book. She wrote, "Israel is the chosen people, and the United States stands by you."

Christian Zionism is so prevalent in evangelicalism and in the charismatic world as well. Yet MAGA is now embroiled in this fight, this turmoil over the support for Nazi podcaster Nick Fuentes among many people in MAGA land. And even though Christian Zionists reject—they will, you know, they did come out and reject an outward Nazi like Fuentes—their own theology about the end of days hardly ends well for the Jews either. Do you think these factions can continue to coexist inside MAGA?

Brad: This is an open question, and we are seeing the fallout of this. And so one of the places you can see the cracks in the MAGA coalition surrounding this set of issues is at the Heritage Foundation, right? Kevin Roberts came out and he said, "Look, I condemn what Nick Fuentes stands for, but I am not going to chastise Tucker Carlson for having him on his show and introducing him to the 17 or 20 million people that are likely to tune in or at least be aware of the Tucker Carlson interview. I'm not gonna say that that was a mistake or that I'm in shock or that he probably should not have platformed an open Nazi," right?

And in the wake of that, we've seen a number of people tender their resignations at the Heritage Foundation, including a number of Jewish staffers at the think tank. You've also seen, you know, people like Mike Huckabee, right, the ambassador to Israel—

Sarah: Right. I was just gonna say, the ambassador to Israel.

Brad: Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene—you know, there's a lot of infighting about this issue, right? I think you hit something on the head, though, that is so poignant, and that is even the Christian Zionist believes that at the end of times, the Jews who have not accepted Jesus as the Messiah will burn in hell with all the other heathens and non-Christians. So the question that I hear you asking is really important, which is like, well, you Christian Zionists also think a grand majority of the Jews will undergo violence at some point and spend eternity in like damnation. What's the difference between now and then?

And my argument would be the difference is not that there's a deep investment in Jewish people. Like, I don't think that white evangelicals and Christian Zionists have ever been invested in the flourishing of Jewish people in the United States, in New York City, in Tel Aviv, in Germany. It doesn't matter. They're invested in Israel as a political tool and a political prop in their cosmic narrative. I think this is an argument about a Christian relationship to Israel rather than a deep investment in Jewish life and safety and health.

I'll make one more comment on the Heritage Foundation here. Most folks are really aware of Project 2025 that came from the Heritage Foundation and Kevin Roberts as the shepherd. They also published Project Esther, which was this whole—great point—yeah, to Project 2025, which was all about rooting out antisemitism because there are so many folks in this country, by way of their support for Palestine, the Heritage Foundation considers a Hamas support network. That is their language, right? So there's this deep commitment in one hand on the Heritage Foundation to root out antisemitism. And yet when one of their friends and allies, Tucker Carlson, interviews a known antisemite, they're like, "Yeah, no big deal. I mean, we can't do anything about that. We're not going to fight with our friends. We don't cancel people. We're not the libs. We don't engage in cancel culture. Sorry, we're not up for that."

It shows you the hypocrisy. It shows you the possibility for cleavage here. And, you know, I think the last thing about the Project Esther example is that there are a lot of Jewish groups that went to the Heritage Foundation and were like, "Hey, seems like you're really anti—like getting rid of antisemitism. Should we get together and help?" And Heritage was like, "Now we got it. We're good. We're led by Christians. We know what Jews need. We know how to keep them safe. We know what's better for you than you do. We got the antisemitism thing. Don't worry about it."

And then Kevin Roberts comes out and says, "Well, I'm not mad at you, Tucker. You had Nick on. That's fine. No big deal," right? This is a real place of possible cleavage that needs to be monitored going forward.

Sarah: Right. I mean, their definition of antisemitism is, like you said, you know, anyone who expresses support for the Palestinian cause is ipso facto antisemitic. Anyone who criticizes Benjamin Netanyahu is automatically antisemitic. And then, you know, along comes an actual Nazi, a person who actually thought that Hitler—actually thinks that Hitler was great. And then they're like, "I don't know, you know, we have a big tent."

Brad: Yeah, a big tent. Very—seems like too big a tent, yeah.

Sarah: Well, listen, Brad, this was such a great discussion that's going to be so important for people to listen to. And I thank you so much for joining me today.

Brad: Thank you for the invitation.

Sarah: I hope you all enjoyed that terrific interview with Brad. It's time now for our regular segment, Anti-Doom, where we bring you some good news and reasons to hope we will emerge from this.

It's horrific to watch this fascistic militarization of American cities, with officials like Noem and Bovino and even Trump himself gloating about it. But the past week has given us glimmers of hope for the future. Although the Supreme Court so far has given us little confidence it will rein in Trump's worst abuses, lower courts are upholding the rule of law, which must be continually upheld as regime agents continue to flout it.

In Chicago, US District Judge Sarah Ellis, in ruling against DHS's excessive use of force, used John Adams's 1775 words that "liberty once lost is lost forever," reminding us that despite Christian nationalist efforts to co-opt the narrative of America's founding, its central pillar remains freedom from government assaults on our fundamental rights.

We've seen evidence that the jury system still works, upholding the rights of criminal defendants to be judged by a jury of their peers. Last week, a District of Columbia jury acquitted Sean Dunn, also known as the Sandwich Guy, on charges he assaulted a federal immigration officer by throwing a submarine sandwich at him in protest. Of course, there were many jokes about Dunn being a hero, but jokes aside, heroes come in all kinds of forms, and we've seen a lot of heroes in the countless brave Chicagoans who have protected their neighbors, taken to the streets at great physical risk to protest ICE and CBP, and documented their abuses on their phones.

Mark Wolf, a federal judge who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan, resigned to free himself to speak out against Trump's corruption of the government and particularly the federal judiciary. Don't worry—because he was on senior status, Wolf's resignation does not create a judicial vacancy for Trump to fill. In an essay published in The Atlantic, Wolf wrote that he made this move to support litigation and other efforts to uphold democracy and the rule of law and to speak for judges, many besieged by Trumpist threats, who are barred from making such public statements.

Wolf wrote that he was reminded of what Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope." Enough of these ripples, Wolf concluded, can become a tidal wave.

Thank you for listening today. Reign of Error is made possible thanks to generous funding from the Henry Luce Foundation, executive produced by Brad Onishi for the Institute for Religion, Media and Civic Engagement and Axis Mundi Media, co-produced by Jared Fitzgerald. I'm the show creator and host. Be sure to subscribe to Reign of Error in your favorite podcast app and like and share it on social media. That all really helps to spread the word. And join us next week for another episode along with our regular Anti-Doom feature.

Brad: Thanks for listening today, all. Once again, this series will debut January 22nd, Reign of Error, Sarah Posner. And you'll hear voices who are familiar if you've been paying attention to this space, people like Anthea Butler and others who just have a lot to share when it comes to the current political landscape.

We'll be back Wednesday with "It's in the Code" and Friday with the weekly roundup, and be on the lookout for announcements about new things coming from us very soon. Happy New Year. We'll catch you next time.