Taylor believes that the spread of what he calls MAGA Christianity is serving as cover for the authoritarian turn in right-wing politics: if your enemies are controlled by demonic forces, why would you respect how they voted? “When you think back to the nineteen-eighties and the rise of the religious right, the James Dobson, Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell moment, they were naming their organizations things like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition. I’m not a fan of those guys—I think many of them were scoundrels—but they were still assuming the rules of liberal democracy as the frame,” he said. Much like the earlier religious right, For Liberty & Justice hopes to “invade and reform” the Republican Party, Schatzline has said. But rather than claiming a popular mandate its authority comes from prophetic revelation.
Carlos Turcios, the Tarrant County director of For Liberty & Justice, was born in 2001 and grew up in Fort Worth, in a politically divided household. In high school, he was entranced by Bernie Sanders, though he soon switched his allegiance to Trump, whom he saw as the most authentically anti-establishment candidate. Along the way, he came to believe that Christian values should be more thoroughly reflected in the country’s laws. These days, Turcios’s politics encompass economic populism, America First nationalism, and religious authoritarianism. This constellation of beliefs can sometimes put Turcios at odds with older conservatives. “Forty, fifty years ago, we probably would have been called liberal for supporting big government,” he told me. “But, you know, it’s a different time.” On the phone, Turcios and I had a pleasant and wide-ranging conversation about housing affordability, war, and the perils of smartphone distraction. At the For Liberty & Justice event, I was startled—but probably should not have been—when he gave an apocalyptic speech invoking blood, enemies, evil, Satan, and urgent spiritual warfare.
Christian nationalism is arguably the dominant political force in Texas today, thanks, in part, to multimillion-dollar donations from two West Texas billionaires, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. It has become routine to hear Republican leaders proclaim that the principle of separation of church and state is not aligned with the Founding Fathers’ true wishes. In the past few years, Texas has mandated posting the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms, approved an optional “Bible-infused” curriculum for public elementary schools, and forced school boards to vote on instituting a daily prayer program. The Christian-nationalist wing of the state’s Republican Party has pushed the legislature’s recent crackdown on L.G.B.T.Q. rights and its passage of a multibillion-dollar school-voucher program, the largest of its kind. (The voucher program was widely considered a boon to Christian schools; so far, no Islamic schools have been approved for funding.) For Liberty & Justice’s chapter coördinator, Joshua Moore, told me that, though some people consider “Christian nationalist” to be a derogatory term, it’s an accurate descriptor of the organization’s philosophy. I asked him whether non-Christians should hold positions of power in the U.S. “As a general rule, I would say no,” he said.
