AI Is A Gateway To The Welfare State
October 6, 2026 |
Keith Giles
J.R.R. Tolkien once said that The Lord of the Rings was fundamentally a “Catholic work,” and while he insisted his magnum opus was not allegory, the spiritual resonance of his epic is unmistakable. In fact, if you squint just a little—and read attentively—it’s not hard to see the One Ring as more than just a plot device. It’s a sacrament of temptation, a symbol of domination, the ultimate test of whether one truly believes in goodness without coercion. And if that’s true, then Tolkien’s Ring might be the most theologically rich object in 20th-century fiction—one that condemns, with devastating clarity, the very political theology espoused by MAGA Christianity today.
Let’s just put everything on the table: the MAGA movement has become the greatest test of American Christianity’s commitment to Jesus’ ethic of renunciation. And by “renunciation,” I mean the refusal to grasp power, even when that power could be used (allegedly) for “good.” It is, as Tolkien understood, the refusal to become a tyrant even if the tyranny promises security, control, and the illusion of moral order.
Put this way: it’s not just that the MAGA movement misuses power. It’s that, like Boromir (at his worst) and Saruman (at his most corrupted), it doesn’t understand that the very act of grasping for it is corruption.
Let’s tease this out.
First things first: the Ring is not a neutral tool. It doesn’t matter if a good person picks it up with noble intentions. Galadriel knows this. Gandalf knows this. Frodo learns this. Even Boromir—who tries to justify using it to “save his people”—eventually sees the darkness creeping in. The very temptation to use the Ring reveals a tragic misunderstanding of what true strength looks like. It is the delusion that one can dominate without being deformed, that one can wield power over others and remain morally intact.
Sound familiar?
This is the logic that has gripped the MAGA movement like Gollum gripped his “precious.” It believes that by taking back America for Christianity, by legislating morality, by using the courts, the guns, and the gods of empire, they can rescue the soul of the nation. But they don’t see what they’ve become in the process. Or worse, they do see and don’t care.
Now let’s pivot from Tolkien to the Gospels. When Jesus is baptized and led into the wilderness (see Luke 3 and 4), the devil offers him three temptations. One of them—arguably the climax—is this: “All the kingdoms of the world I will give you… if you will worship me.”
Let that sink in.
Political power. The kind that could establish righteous rule from the top down. The kind that could install religious laws, protect the faithful, and squash the pagans. The very thing many modern American Christians dream of. And Jesus—who could have justified taking that deal in a thousand ways—flat out rejects it.
Why?
Because he knows that to take power this way is to betray the very kingdom he came to announce. The kingdom of God isn’t built through coercion. It’s built through co-suffering love. It doesn’t come with swords and ballots and culture wars, but with foot-washing and cross-bearing. In other words, to follow Jesus is to follow him in his rejection of power.
This isn’t a theological abstraction; it’s the core of the gospel. And it stands diametrically opposed to the entire MAGA movement.
I find it particularly ironic—and honestly, a little tragic—that JD Vance counts himself a fan of Professor Tolkien. If he’s read the books carefully (and he strikes me as at least somewhat literate), then he should know better than to play the part of Boromir on the Senate floor. He should know better than to back a political movement that demands Christians take up the Ring “for the good of the nation.” He should know what happens to those who try to use dark means for allegedly good ends.
Boromir—Eru bless him—thinks he’s acting for Gondor. He believes the Ring can be turned to noble purposes. But in the end, he tries to seize it by force and nearly destroys the Fellowship in the process. Tolkien gives him a death scene to remember—repentant, yes, but broken and wrong.
That’s MAGA Christianity at its best. Boromir. At its most sincere, most well-intentioned, it still falls prey to the delusion that moral goodness can be legislated through imperial power.
But more often than not, MAGA Christianity doesn’t look like Boromir. It looks like Saruman.
If you’ve forgotten, Saruman began as the wisest of the wizards. A servant of the Valar. A Maia, no less. But he studied the enemy too closely. He imitated his methods. And before long, he became what he beheld—a second-rate Sauron, complete with a tower, an army, and a lust for domination.
MAGA Christianity imitates Trumpism the way Saruman mimics Sauron. And Trumpism, let’s be honest, is already a mimicry of something older and darker—what Tolkien could have called the Melkorian impulse: the will to dominate all life through force. Melkor was the first to try it in Middle-earth. Sauron followed. Then Saruman. And now, in our time, we have a whole movement of religious leaders who preach Jesus while grasping for the power of the Ring.
They call it “taking back the culture.” I call it bullshit.
The hardest truth for many Christians to accept is this: Jesus doesn’t want your power. He wants your faithfulness. And faithfulness, in the Gospels, looks like losing—at least by the world’s standards. It looks like crucifixion, not conquest. Like exile, not empire. Like following Jesus to Golgotha, not to Caesar’s throne.
This is what Tolkien understood in the depths of his soul. And it’s why Frodo is one of the real heroes of Middle-earth. The small, weak, unimpressive Hobbit who carries the Ring without trying to use it. And even he is nearly destroyed by it! In the end, he needs Gollum—yes, Gollum!—to finish the job. Because no one, not even the purest, can be trusted with power over others.
That’s the point. Power corrupts. Especially religious and political power. Especially when it’s wrapped in the language of “saving the nation” or “protecting the children” or “restoring Christian values.” It always starts with noble language. But it ends in fire.
Jesus knew this. Tolkien knew this. It’s time MAGA Christians learned it too.
I don’t write this to dunk on JD Vance or the millions of Americans who have been caught up in the manipulative MAGA machine. I get it. The world feels chaotic. People are scared. They want certainty. They want order. And most of all, they want to believe that someone—some party, some politician, some law—can bring it about.
But if Tolkien taught us anything, it’s this: there are no shortcuts to goodness. You cannot force the Shire to be good by threatening it with swords. You cannot save Gondor by becoming what Gondor fears. And you cannot follow Jesus by clinging to power he himself rejected.
So to those who still believe that American Christianity must fight to “regain” its dominance—I offer a different vision: follow Jesus. Literally. Follow him into the desert. Follow him into the place where Satan tempts with empire—and say no. Follow him to the margins. Follow him to the cross. Because there, and only there, will you find resurrection.
Not in the White House. Not in the Senate. Not at the Supreme Court.
But in the broken body of God, laid down willingly, not for domination—but for love.
Let me end with one more Tolkien reference—because, well, that’s kind of the point of this whole thing.
At the end of The Return of the King, Frodo doesn’t get a medal. He doesn’t get a kingdom. He doesn’t even get to enjoy the Shire he saved. He’s too wounded for that. He sails away, broken but beloved, to a place beyond this world. It’s not a victory lap. It’s a renunciation.
If you don’t understand why that’s the most beautiful ending, perhaps in all of literature, then maybe you don’t understand the Gospel either. Because in the end, power isn’t the goal. Love is. And love—true, cruciform, Jesus-shaped love—doesn’t grasp, doesn’t dominate, doesn’t coerce. It lays down its life in the way Jesus did for us and in the way Frodo did for the Shire.
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