*Andra Watkins is an award winning author, survivor of Christian Nationalism and an expert on Project 2025. Read and support her important work here: For Such A Time As This: Decoding America 2025
By Andra Watkins
Be in the world but not of it.
I can’t count how many times I heard this admonition as a young girl being indoctrinated in Christian Nationalism.
Source: John 17:14-15 KJV
I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
In their eyes, Christian Nationalists are doomed to live on a planet filled with a bunch of Satanic, demonic sinners. The tools of indoctrination helped us be in the world but not of it. Though they didn’t have a name for it, I am calling it Purposeful Disengagement, which defines the strategy they deployed to allow themselves to exist in a world they were taught they shouldn’t be part of.
For anyone seeking added context, the evangelist Billy Graham talked about being in the world but not of it A LOT. Here’s one example.
Christian Nationalists indoctrinate their congregations to live in an alternate reality ruled by a strongman, their pastor or priest. They are trained to only listen to sources their pastors recommend and take pride in rejecting critical thinking.
(Any perusal of the internet right now is an orgiastic celebration of their lack of critical thinking skills.)
They aggressively started this in the world but not of it project in the 1970s. When the Internal Revenue Service revoked Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status for refusing to admit Black people, evangelical churches across the south devoted whole sermons to the horrors of liberals determined to prohibit church attendance and Christian belief. My pastor delivered screeds about how we might someday have to kill liberals for Jesus.
Abortion as a galvanizing strategy for the Moral Majority came a bit later. At the time, it wasn’t a good look to say, “We’re doing this because we want tax-free money for our grifting pastors and are fighting for our right to be racists.” Even in a racist country like the United States of America.
Christian Nationalists used the following bricks to build an alternate reality that was the foundation for indoctrination and radicalization:
They aggressively taught that to be in the world but not of it, one had to dress differently, deny one’s urges, and talk differently. It is difficult for them to fit in outside of the world of Christian Nationalism because of how extensive this programming is. (We will return to the topic of URGES next week.)
They developed their own shadow world as a means of purposeful disengagement.
- They shopped amongst themselves. My church had its own recommended insurance agents, attorneys, doctors, florists, shopkeepers and more. These communities still aggressively avoid supporting liberal or woke businesses.
- They built their own entertainment, publishing and news options, the last of which proved catastrophic in our recent election. When I was a child, this looked like the 700 Club running 24/7 even without cable, but it has metastasized into a vast network of regional and national news and entertainment media that captured the attention of more than half of the American population.
- Social media algorithms worked in their favor. They continued to build their own reality online, used exposure to ours to sow fear, and bred a malignant stew of envy, jealousy, resentment, and regret. (We will revisit this topic next week in great detail.)
- They engaged in conscientious investing, where they forced their advisors to avoid buying shares in stocks and mutual funds that violated their religious beliefs.
- They invested in their own schools and colleges, and they encouraged church members to educate their children there instead of in evil public schools that ejected their One True God and prayer.
- They made alliances with an entire political party that was willing to pander to their demands in exchange for their votes. The Moral Majority was the first vehicle, but today thousands of think tanks and faith-based non-profits do this work, including the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation.
- They refused to compromise, no matter how much it jeopardized national safety and security. They cared more about creating a world in their image, a world they dreamed of someday forcing us all to live in.
Christian Nationalists’ decades-long strategy of PURPOSEFUL DISENGAGEMENT gave them the tools to destroy democracy. They succeeded on 5 November without firing a shot.
