#2: A Christian Nationalist Deserter

There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor.
I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm.
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain’t got the faith to stand its ground.

          Bruce Springsteen, 'The Promised Land'

I can just read it to you, if you’re too lazy to do it yourself:

I was in the Pennsylvania woods and I was alone, after the last of my squad mates had fallen. The wolves were circling. I hid behind a discarded metal drum and glanced down at what remained of my arsenal: a slingshot and three paintballs.

This was how we young men in the upper echelons of our church’s Christian Service Brigade unit entertained ourselves on occasion – by shooting at each other. Using slingshots instead of paintball guns made it more cost efficient and more sporting. You’d have to let your adversary get close and stare point blank into his cold eyes if you wanted to make that shot count.

Now, those adversaries had me surrounded and were closing the distance, so I had two minutes, maybe less, to consider my options. The way I saw it, there were two.

I could rush out with a guttural yell, Butch-Cassidy-and-the-Sundance-Kid-style, firing off my last three rounds at the enemy and falling in an awe-inspiring blaze of death and honor. I might even take a few of them with me. But let’s face it, I had already launched, like, 15 shots from my wrist rocket and only ever hit a weather-beaten barn door. And I wasn’t even aiming for that.

Besides that, those paintballs could sting; I had a couple welts to prove it. In fact, I had just seen one of my fellow Brigade members hit square in the groin. The groin, for God’s sake! Well hell if I was going out like that, writhing in agony, cradling whatever remained of my sensitive organs, feeling that familiar sour ache worm its way through my guts.

So I did the only rational thing I could. I fired two paintballs into that rusty metal drum serving as my shelter, dabbed some paint on my left shoulder, then wandered out claiming to be already ‘dead’.

A 180º TURN

It wouldn’t be the last battle I’d leave behind. Within the decade, I would start to distance myself from the holy war my tribe was fighting in the name of conservative values. I would become more introspective about just what was fuelling that crusade. Eventually, I would desert our camp. I would exit the fight altogether. I would turn my back on the Christian nationalism that formed so much of my identity.

How could something like that happen? How, indeed. Because unlike that pitched battle in the woods, cowering behind my barrel and looking for a painless exit, I lived for the Christian nationalist fight against America’s (and therefore God’s) enemies. I relished the thought of eviscerating those baby-killing, man-hating, gay-loving, big-spending pinko leftists and utterly decimating their credibility, to liberate America from their power and influence, so she could recapture her former glory.

Somehow, I went from that to actively speaking against the Christian nationalism I once championed.

That’s what these posts are about; they’ll try to tell those stories. They’ll reflect on some of my experiences coming of age in a Christian nationalist community. And they’ll try to explain how I negotiated a 180-degree turn.

You’ll see that at the vertex of that turn stood a shit-stirring seaside woodworker named Jesus. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed. He wandered in lonely places and ate with outcast people. He proclaimed the Kingdom of God.

THE TWO KINGDOMS PROBLEM

And therein lay the problem. The more I came face to face with Jesus’ kingdom, the more I contemplated it, the more I discerned about it, the more it looked hopelessly at odds with the ‘kingdom’ of the American state. The aims and ambitions of these two kingdoms never truly aligned, and the way they pursue these aims clashed dramatically. In the end, the two could not coexist.

So once again, I had to choose. I could continue to invest my energies in American interests, American power and nationalist values. Or I could withdraw those commitments and attempt to follow the Way of Jesus more fully. I chose the latter. Not all at once, not in a straight line, not without backward steps, but finally and unalterably.

At the vertex of my 180-degree turn away from Christian nationalism stood a shit-stirring seaside woodworker named Jesus…

And therein lay the problem. The more I came face to face with Jesus’ kingdom, the more it looked at odds with the ‘kingdom’ of the American state.

Adam Lee Benner

WHAT’S WORTH SAVING

That doesn’t mean I ‘hate America’ (once, I would have accused opponents of just that). No, I love its landscapes. I love my hometown. More than that, I love its people. But I’m not interested in saving America either.

What I am interested in is us – in the Christian faith we’ve lost to Christian nationalism, in how much we’ve sacrificed to it, and how much of that faith we can restore and rediscover. That’s what I think is worth saving.

If you’re someone with a similar background, or on a similar journey, I hope you’ll find some resonance in these reflections. Here, you’ll find some whimsy, some irreverence and yes, a healthy dose of hyperbole. But most of all, I hope you find something helpful. I’d love to hear your own stories and thoughts as well. I mean, that’s what comment sections are for.

Even if you’re still committed to American patriotism, to God and country, even if you’re reading to find ideas to refute, I welcome you. I hope we can converse and discuss in good faith.

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Years of the story stood on the horizon after that ignominious paintball affair, and years of it lay behind me – years of innocence, years of self-assurance, years of resolute commitment to Christian nationalist principles and to combatting our enemies.

It wouldn’t last.

Until next time…

Let the grace and peace of God strengthen you,
As you opt for less-travelled paths
Toward a better kind of existence.

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