Waking up on Saturday morning to the news that two Minnesota lawmakers had been shot – and one killed – was shocking enough. But soon the realization came that the suspected assassin was an Assembly of God pastor by the name of Vance Boelter, and I have to admit, although I am deeply ashamed, this fact does not surprise me in the least.

I’ve been talking about the dangers of Christian Nationalism since 2014. I published a series of articles on my blog in 2015 about the threat of Christian Nationalism that formed the backbone of my first book with Quoir Publishing, Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb.

As I tried to say in that book, the roots of Christian Nationalism run deep in our nation. The propagandists like David Barton and Glenn Beck have repeated the same lie that America is a Christian Nation over and over again until people like Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson [to name just a few] have repeated it and now enshrined this lie into their public rhetoric and even their legislation.

Part of me is too exhausted to try to refute these lies about America being formed as a Christian nation for the millionth time. But I will point you to these articles if you’re unsure about the issue.

Suffice it to say, the Founding Fathers had come to America to escape an oppressive Christian Theocracy in England and the last they wanted was to create another one here. In fact, in the Treaty of Tripoli signed in 1796, Article 11 explicitly says:

“…The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion…”

This document was signed by President John Adams and several other original signers of the Constitution.

The question of whether America is a Christian Nation is at the heart of why Pastors like Vance Boelter believe that it is their duty as American Christians to “fight for Christian values.” But it doesn’t explain why he was willing to use deadly force to do so. To understand that, you’d have to dig even deeper to understand how Conservative Christianity has become so entangled with what we call the “John Wayne American Ethos,” which blurs the teachings of Jesus about loving our enemies and turning the other cheek, into an image of a Savior who looks more like a UFC fighter.

In the words of TheoBro Poster Boy, (and somehow, still a pastor), Mark Driscoll,

“…Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.”

So, when you’re convinced that America was formed as a Christian Nation and that Godless Liberals are trying to destroy it, and that following Jesus means “protecting the innocent” with the blessing of the Second Amendment and the NRA, it’s no surprise that one might find themselves dressing up like a police officer and knocking on the door of your perceived enemies dressed as a police officer to exact God’s righteous vengeance against those who threaten your way of life.

Not surprising, but entirely unnecessary. The lies, the rhetoric, the politicization of faith, and the twisting of Jesus into the very thing he stood against have all coalesced into the execution of a husband and wife by a Christian Pastor who recently preached sermons about “The Power of Joy” and “Living For God” at his Assembly of God Church.

This rebranding of Jesus into a gun-loving Alpha Male has been going on for a long time now. In fact, this isn’t the first time an American Christian has resorted to violence to protect their fragile faith.

Don’t believe me? Here are the Top 10 Christian Terrorists of the last 50 years:

1) Timothy McVeigh (who was an active member of the Christian Identity Movement) blew up the Federal Building in Oaklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people -including children who were in the day care center – and injuring over 600 others.

2) Dylan Roof, a Christian young man who was a member of an Evangelical Lutheran Church and who entered a black church in Charleston, SC in 2015, and shot 9 churchgoers to death, saying he was there “to shoot black people.”

3) Mark David Chapman, was a huge Beatles fan who, after converting to Christianity, could not get over the fact that John Lennon was guilty of blasphemy – for claiming that his band was “bigger than Jesus” – and ended up murdering him for this infraction in 1980.

4) Eric Robert Rudolph was a Christian terrorist who not only carried out the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, but also attacked an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub because of his Christian beliefs.

5) Robert Lewis Dear, in November 2015 committed the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting, in which three were killed and nine injured. He also praised another Christian Terrorist Group, the Army of God, saying that their attacks on abortion clinics were “God’s work”. Dear’s ex-wife said in court documents pertaining to their divorce that Dear “claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic…[and] is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”

6) Mark Anthony Conditt, the 23-year-old responsible for the recent series of bombings in Austin, Texas, was part of a conservative survivalist group called Righteous Invasion of Truth, “a Bible study and outdoors group for homeschooled kids, created and named by the kids and their families that included monthly activities such as archery, gun skills and water balloon fights.”

7), 8) and 9) – In 1996 three men—Charles Barbee, Robert Berry, and Jay Merelle—were charged with two bank robberies and bombings at the banks, a Spokane newspaper, and a Planned Parenthood office in Washington State. The men were anti-Semitic Christian Identity theorists who believed that God wanted them to carry out violent attacks and that such attacks would hasten the ascendancy of the Aryan race.

10) Pastor Vance Boelter – On June 14, 2025,  fatally shot Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, and shot and injured Sen. John Hoffman and his wife.

These are only a few, but their numbers could increase as more-and-more American Christians fall for the lies of people like David Barton, Mark Driscoll, and Mike Johnson.

As Rainn Wilson said:

“The metamorphosis of Jesus Christ from a humble servant of the abject poor to a symbol that stands for gun rights, prosperity theology, anti-science, limited government (that neglects the destitute), and fierce nationalism is truly the strangest transformation in human history.”

This unholy metamorphosis is now complete. Those who preach from the pulpit are now assassinating political opponents in the name of Christ.

May God help us all.

NOTE: My book about the twisting of non-violent Jesus into the kick-ass Messiah is called Jesus Unarmed: How The Prince of Peace Disarms Our Violence, if you’re curious about how we got here and what it will take to find our way back to the Jesus who loves everyone.

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