Recently I had a church member of my husband’s church ask me why I could not commit to the church and fully embrace the teachings. My answer was vague and slightly comedic to this true believer. I deflected hard. Why? Because there is simply no reasoning with many at this place that describes itself as “That Little Megachurch in the Jungle!” I cringe every single time I hear that sobriquet spill from someone’s lips.

I feel like telling them it’s because of Jerry, a man that walks around with a hand written legend on his grimy once white button up shirt. Jerry took a marker and lettered onto the shirt the words “I am single! I want a lady! I have 3 sisters already! Call 506 5555 1212!” He’s extremely free with his opinions on every topic under the sun, even when you don’t care.

It’s hard to attend the services there as well. I don’t believe much of what I hear coming out of anyone’s mouth in that pulpit. Phrases like “The victory gives us the victory” and “Change the luggage of your soul and mind.” I attend just to keep tabs on what awful thing they are promoting this week. Forewarned is forearmed.

They posit themselves as a ‘revival’ church, which that alone makes me cringe. Thirty year old worship music, every single service feels like a wistful yet unthinking attempt to return to the 1990s when revival was sweeping through the non-denominational Evangelical churches. I lived through that time, I loved it while it was going on, but my views on what we were doing then aren’t all positive. Now it seems a belly button-focused moment of self hypnotism than any real move of God. Zero long term fruit. Movements must have long term positive effects on groups of people before you can genuinely call it revival. Like the Azuza Street Revival did.

But like the shark that must maintain forward motion or die, so it is with churches and just life in general. You must move forward, or you die horribly stuck in ancient history. But staying in the same place wouldn’t have half the awful impact for me if the church was open to more than one opinion. Like what? So many things, such as how disabled people are treated. My recent receiving a spate of nasty comments for donning an N95 mask during a severe asthma attack shows me anew there is only one accepted opinion on anything. I learned I will need to label my mask in big letters “Mastocytosis Asthma” to avoid ignoramuses tossing their keenest insults.

This morning I get up to a social media post by the well-meaning pastor urging members to attend a church sponsored outing to a nearby city to see the film “Sound of Freedom” Purportedly the film is about child trafficking. It’s a heavily fictionalized version of the work being done by an actual organization. The organization, Operation Underground Railroad, isn’t even central to the international fight against child sexual trafficking, more a bit player in a global consortium.

The film was completed in 2018, and languished on studio shelves unreleased and doomed to likely disappear from sight. But instead of dying before arrival it has been reborn and mythologized by the less than logical QANON. It fits Q’s core false claims about Hillary Clinton and that pizza joint in downtown Washington D.C. All it took was Vice News doing a series of articles exposing the problematic nature of OUR and it’s founder Tim Ballard to catch the eye of QANON, Trump and many others in the Christian Nationalist movement.

Critics are describing the film as confusing, belabored and just plain old substandard, which means adding in the political gerrymandering by the Christian Nationalist movement that the standard non denomination Evangelical world has embraced it with full rib-crushing strength. They love extremely bad movies because Jesus, or what they perceive as the savior. Jesus wept because this has little to nothing to do with the words of Christ. It’s simply another cynical attempt to politically steer the church towards the extreme right. The Jerrys of this world will believe every lying word of it.

I can see I will be having a not so fun conversation with the pastor soon about this film. Thankfully I have all the links to legitimate news organizations to back up what I’m saying here. Unlike QANON. Pretty sure my efforts will be in vain, and those up at the little megachurch in the jungle will continue to fling the worst of political ideology at me every time I have a medical emergency. This is what brainwashing looks like, this is how despots seize power by using The Big Lie.