When Churches Participate in Politics

The TheoBros...

I am a former Southern Baptist. A former Evangelical.

Religion dominated my life for years. Southern Baptists are a strict sect and one that takes away free will and replaces it with indoctrination.

You know I am rural and you know I live in a red state. A state where folks continually ask me, “Why do your neighbors vote against their self-interest?” I’ve written on this numerous times, but I thought I would give you some tangible examples to understand what religious folks are exposed to in some evangelical churches.

That last part is important…what folks are exposed to in church.

Meet Pastor Josh Blevins of Grace Calvary Chapel in St Joseph, Missouri. He says his mission is: Awakening people to the love, truth, and power of God, however, his actions say that he is anti-LGBTQ, anti-democracy, and anti-woman. He seems to be pro-consolidating power through local and state politics.

TheoBro and Pastor Josh Blevins, via The Shepherd’s Voice Podcast.

Let me introduce you to the term TheoBro:

A group of young pastors hope to spearhead a Christian nationalist glow-up as they eagerly await a “Christian prince” to rule America. These often bearded thirty- and forty-somethings have suits that actually fit. They are extremely online, constantly posting on myriad platforms, broadcasting their YouTube shows from mancaves, and convening an endless stream of conferences for like-minded followers. Let’s call them, as one scholar I spoke with did, the TheoBros.

Pastor Josh Blevins certainly falls into the TheoBro category. He often preaches in skinny jeans, a plain white tee shirt, and Blundstone boots. He sports a beard and comes across as witty and relevant with online quips and trends. He is on every social media app you can name and regularly posts content. He seems cool…not like those other preachers. He is the definition of a TheoBro.

You may think this new brand of preacher would be a little more liberal or tolerant but you would be wrong.

I first heard of Pastor Blevins when he and his church started meddling in local politics — St Joseph is only about 45 minutes south of me, so I know most of the players. I started paying attention when his church, Grace Calvary Chapel, started trying to fill school board positions with parishioners.

This church was also involved in a campaign to ban books from St Joseph Public School libraries. They lost.

It got worse. Pastor Blevins went after another pastor, Brian Kirk.

Kirk is the pastor of First Christian Church and was on the City Library Board for a decade — he is also gay. Brian didn’t pick out or approve library books; he regularly worked on making sure the steps into the library were ADA compliant and made recommendations for building repairs. It’s kind of a boring job that someone needs to do and Brian did it with passion and commitment.

Brian Kirk was ultimately removed from the Library Board in 2023 after a decade of service because he is gay. Yes, you read that right. He was removed from a city position because he is gay.

Guess who worked with the City of St Joseph to have Pastor Brian Kirk removed? Pastor Josh Blevins.

Blevins stated, “We are against the practice of homosexuality. Part of the grooming is normalizing sinful behavior in the culture.” His bigotry helped oust Pastor Kirk.

You’ll be pleased to know that Pastor Brian Kirk has filed suit against Pastor Blevins.

Josh Blevins didn’t stop there…he started preaching Republican politics from the pulpit which brings us back to the beginning: why do some folks vote against their self-interest?

Because the person in charge of their soul is telling them how to vote. And it’s not even covert. It is out in the open.

Grace Calvary Chapel created a website called Vote St Joe. The site lays out the voting for everything from the presidential election to amendments to local candidates. Here is that website…it comes across as biased to say the least.

I started watching Blevins’s online activity and what I noticed will make your jaw hit the floor.

Pastor Blevins created an Instagram post on October 25, 2024 meant to sway folks to vote for Donald Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot. Just two weeks before the election, he was clear about how he expected his congregation to vote.

An Instagram post via Josh Blevins posted on October 25, 2024.

The first thing I noticed is that the Pastor is using the rhetoric of the extreme right by writing the word “Democrat” rather than “Democratic.” And then…well, you can read it for yourself.

Democrats are demonically engineered. We murder babies. We celebrate perverse sexuality. And, that God hates Democrats.

I think you can understand how someone who attends Grace Calvary Chapel could vote against their self-interest. They can argue that it is better to live under the iron-grip and jackboot of the GOP if voting for a Democrat will consign you to hell. If voting against the GOP will bring fire and brimstone down on you and your family, it’s best to stick with what the preacher is preaching.

The TheoBros’ strategy is bottom-up: They aim to convert small American towns into Christian enclaves. But it is also top-down: Some are working to position themselves close to the locus of federal power.

And this is how they do it…Josh Blevins is participating in Christian nationalism but also in altering local politics. The worst part is that his methods have been successful. He has led his flock astray and had them vote for politicians who do not have their best interests at heart. He has promoted a culture of intolerance and bigotry and hate.

But why?

The consolidation of power. To amass more and more power. To protect a GOP supermajority that ensures their tax cuts and cheap labor and forced births and constant effort to punch down. To oppress some. To marginalize others.

Bringing in pastors to do the work of politicians is as old as time. Before and during the Civil War, Southern pastors regularly preached on the necessity of slavery and the benevolence of the plantation class. They preached on the evils of the “atheist northerners.”

Not much has really changed since then.

The Confederates became MAGA. And just like poor white folks took up the Lost Cause to protect the oligarchs during the Civil War, the poor white folks of this century have taken up the cause of protecting the wealth of the current oligarchs.

Preachers have always been indispensable in reminding their congregants that they may have to suffer as a martyr in this life…their reward will be in the next. This is exactly the type of thinking the oligarchs hope we all embrace.

What a sleight of hand. What a con. What a crock of shit.

How do we stop the churches from meddling in politics? We talk about it. We shine a light on it. We fill out forms for the IRS to investigate.

We stand tall and unmovable in the knowledge that we are not a Christian nation and never will be. We have free will and brains to vote in our self-interest.

The oligarchs and the TheoBros can use those Blundstones to kick rocks.

~Jess

Postscript: I actually love Blundstones :)

Correction: Brian Kirk’s new suit names Josh Blevins and a Missouri Republican leader, not the City of St Joseph.