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A political testimony

I was an atheist almost all my adult life. This is the story of how I became a Christian.

Like many, I grew up surrounded with people that thumped the Bible with one day and did evil the next. To me, that became proof that God did not have transformative power that the Bible claimed he had.

The more you live outside Christianity, the more ridiculous it is. It becomes a religion that is based on cannibalizing a zombie carpenter.

I remember the night I decided to break from the pretense and publicly live as an atheist. It felt like chains fell from me. It felt like I had all the power in the world and no one could stop me from doing how I pleased. I was the captain of my fate.

How did I become a Christian?

In 2016, the seeds of doubt began appearing. I am a numbers junkie and have always been.

Every year, there’s some hope that the polls are wrong, but in 2016, they really were wrong. We’re talking about basic errors such as polling 60%+ women, and so on. It wasn’t the usual “maybe the parties are mis-weighted” argument that Rasmussen likes to use (which is bull, by the way).

I created a model from the primary votes, saw there was an unusual movement among rural people. I adjusted the demographics based on primary turnout, then early day turnout, and was able to predict 48 states correctly. Wisconsin and Michigan were ties that I gave to Hillary.

What was disturbing, though, was the insistent gaslighting by the media. If you don’t know the term “gaslighting,” it refers to someone manipulating you into believing that you’re the crazy one.

I certainly felt tugged that way in 2016 staring at my numbers that predicted a Trump win and seeing Clinton being ahead in polls by 10-plus points. There were professional statisticians and data scientists explaining why early votes favored Biden. But I had enough faith in myself to know that I was right and everyone else was lying to me.

This got me questioning… Why are we being lied to? Why did everyone stop seeing facts for what they were and decide to push an agenda? Scott Adams described this phenomenon well.

I have been saying since Trump’s election that the world has split into two realities – or as I prefer to say, two movies on one screen – and most of us don’t realize it. … Figuratively speaking, I’ll hold an apple in my hand and show it to the audience. Half of you will see an apple. The other half will see a gun. That’s how dramatic this two-movie illusion is. I can be watching a comedy movie while you’re in the same theater, sitting next to me, watching a drama. On the same screen. At the same time.

Up to that point, I believed that all humans wanted similar things - peace and prosperity and freedom. I believed that most people contained enough rationality such that you could present them with facts, we could hash out the details, and we’d come to an agreement. That particular foundation started showing cracks.

Growing cracks

After Trump’s election, the tent cities in my blue city exploded. My 3-year-old child came home from daycare saying “Trump is a bad man! I hate Trump! I want to kick Trump!”

Now, we had never spoken politics to her. We certainly hadn’t ever taught her to hate or kick anyone. But either the teachers, or somebody’s parents were teaching literal toddlers this. We pulled her out of daycare and hoped that was the end of it.

But then we started getting promotions for Drag Queen Story Hour. As a libertarian, I had nothing about drag queens - but that is a cabaret activity. Why would you want to expose little kids to that?

Then, when my state declared they’d mandate gender identity teaching in kindergarten, we decided to get the hell out before someone would interpret my tomboy daughter’s proclivity for trucks (same as her mother) as a need to put her on hormone blockers.

Life in a red state is so much better. Oh, so much better. You don’t have to check a playground for hypodermic needles. You can walk on the sidewalk with confidence that you won’t be catcalled or mugged. First-graders wander the streets alone, unthinkable in any blue cities.

This is the first lesson for any Christian considering voting blue:

Evil exists within blue states. (I am not calling LGBT evil.) Don’t take your red state for granted. If what I describe sounds far-fetched, it’s not. It’s reality. The Democrats today aren’t the Democrats of the 90’s interested in solving poverty or homelessness or any real social issues.

The Democrats of today are interested in indoctrinating young children in the LGBT agenda and removing all barriers to hedonism by turning a blind eye to public drug use, public displays of sexuality, and even defecation. This is a cliche statement, but that is exactly what they did in my blue state! They spent their time discussing how to expose children to the concepts of a flexible gender identity, not on how to improve math scores. A vote for a Democrat is a vote for sweeping the dirt for needles and condoms before you let your toddler play, as I did (and yes I found plenty of both).

Evidence of Jesus

God made many personal things happen over the next two years, which I will not share. I’ll focus on the political part of this journey.

After taking my family to a red state, and deciding social conservatism was a necessary evil (so to speak) compared to the virtues of libertarianism, the only thing that kept me from being a Christian was I had to be thoroughly convinced that the zombie carpenter religion was true.

I met a wonderful, scientifically minded pastor who helped me push over the edge over a period of some months.

• Q hypothesis is gaslighting. (No, not THAT Q!) The first “red pill,” so to speak, was in learning that there is exactly zero evidence of the “Q hypothesis” which is 60% of what I learned in theology class. We have literally thousands of early dated Gospel fragments, and none of them show the “phone game” that Q preaches. It’s almost as if the Gospels were written in their current form and shared.

• Gospels were written before the fall of Jerusalem. The second red pill was being convinced that the Gospels were written before 70 AD. The fall of Jerusalem was a cataclysmic event that Jesus predicted. And yet, even though the Gospel authors painstakingly point out all the prophecies Jesus fulfilled, including his own death, none of them say “and see? Jesus predicted the fall of Jerusalem!”

• The epistles were written among eyewitnesses. No scholar disputes that many of Paul’s epistles are authentic. Paul was surrounded by eyewitnesses to Jesus’s death and resurrection. Consider the following quote - per my pastor, the original Greek is a classical/poetic form, suggesting that Paul is riding off a mnemonic that had been circulating as soon as five years after Jesus’ death. (Also note the reference to existing Scriptures!)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

• Why would the apostles become martyrs? The apostles weren’t motivated to blow themselves up like modern day martyrs. They wanted to live, and to tell what they had seen and done. Their suffering was a result of persecution. Why would they all willingly die horrible deaths just to share what they’ve seen, unless they actually saw it and felt compelled to spend the rest of their lives sharing it, even under the threat of horrendous physical torture?

There are many more bits which led me to conclude Jesus’s resurrection really did happen. For me, that was enough to give my life over to Jesus and hope the rest of the bits would gradually fall in place - which they did.

What’s a Christian government?

I read the BIble daily. In my Bible reading, I’m convinced that the concept of a Christian government is a paradox.

If Jesus wanted Christianity to be an earthly kingdom, he would’ve just had the angels of God usurp Pilate. Instead this is what the Bible says:

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”

(Hey, another prophecy come true!)

God’s kingdom transcends the government of man. “Christian government” makes no more sense than “Jesus Football Team.”

That being said, it is possible to have a government led by Christian principles - and I believe that looks like classical liberalism, which is best enshrined by the United States of America.

Life

2000 years ago, Jesus began his ministry by appearing to a Samaritan woman of questionable repute.

He revealed the truth of her: that there exists a water where all sting of death can be removed, and that he is the Living Water. Through drinking this Water, we can be freed from the fear of death and can start living now without having to wait for some eternal reward.

The contrast between living in a blue state and a red state cannot be more stark. In my old blue city, I would be cowering in fear of the protests that happen daily, under strict shelter-at-home orders, and be forced to figure out how to keep my daughter’s mental health thriving in a tiny apartment.

Here in the red state, we can just go out and enjoy life. My daughter goes to school and plays with friends after school everyday until sundown, the way children should. We just set a watch on her that goes off when it’s time to go home and have no concern for her safety.

The kicker is - the death rates for COVID-19, on a case adjusted basis, is much lower in my red state than in my old blue state. So much for that particular argument.

Liberty

Note: I make a distinction between BLM the organization and stopping police brutality. Systemic police brutality exists and I have been a victim of it myself.

With the simple “Neither do I condemn you, now go and from now on sin no more” statement, Jesus affirms that we all have individual agency and are not responsible for anyone’s morality except ourselves.

Through “White Fragility,” we are being asked to repent for the sins of our ancestors, an original sin we can never cleanse ourselves of, not even in death (as even gravesites are desecrated). We are being asked to live a continuous life of repentance that will never result in forgiveness.

Furthermore, the mass corporations and Democrats have proven they would rather defer to a regime that has forced imprisonment, used child slavery, and forced abortion. Joe Biden refuses to call China an opponent. Sports organizations are all-in with BLM, but forbids “Free Hong Kong” on its customized apparel.

Pursuit of Happiness

Ecclestiates says: “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.”

No country on the face of Earth has been better at upholding the pursuit of happiness. Americans have taken their toils, and lifted billions out of poverty, and for it all we enjoy our comforts.

Today, we are denied the freedom to enjoy our fruits of labors, and even the ability to gather in churches. The lockdowns have taken away the ability of millions to make an earning. The riots have taken away countless people’s livelihoods. The few who remain working face oppressive taxation. What happiness is there in getting unearned rations? What happiness is there in giving away labor without reaping its rewards?

Only one party believes that the policy of allowing people to go to casinos but not to churches is a good position to hold, and it is not the Republicans.

The Trump administration has moved a huge number of people off poverty. Even in the COVID-19 era, the United States continues to perform better than almost any Western nation on earth - proving it is not luck.

Conclusion

If you are reading this, and haven’t already, try giving your life over to Jesus today. Then read a Bible chapter a day - setting your homepage to this website is a good way to remember. I promise you, you’re in for an amazing ride.

If you are a Christian and voting Biden, I ask you: are you living in a red state? If so, can you really take what I’ve described about blue states and say this is the future you want for your family? The 90’s Democrat policies you think Biden might be embracing do not exist anywhere in blue cities.

Trump is a flawed person, but these flaws are amplified by the mass media. Ultimately, though, what redeems him for my vote is that he loves America and America’s principles, and proves it with his policies and judicial picks.