The Preacher Who Punches The Other Cheek
The Christian preacher Joel Tenney is one among the over 300 members of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition. Understanding the harsh, violent nature of his Christianity helps us to understand the larger agenda of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.
Tenney tells a story about the dangers of tolerating religious diversity. He says that before he was born again, he spent time with a believer in New Age spirituality. This person, he says, taught him to do fortune telling with a crystal on the end of a chain. The idea was to ask a question, and then see which way the chain with the crystal began to swing, counter-clockwise or clockwise. That result would be interpreted as a yes-or-no answer.
Most people can understand that this kind of fortune telling is a silly superstition. It’s not a reasonable method for gaining information about the world, and a person who uses such a practice for making serious decisions will soon suffer from a disordered life. We know that there are no invisible powers hanging around waiting to give us information through the swinging of a chain.
Joel Tenney’s objection to this fortune telling practice wasn’t skeptical in this way. Tenney believes that there is indeed a magical spirit associated with the chain swinging divination. He only disagrees with New Age believers in terms of his understanding of that spirit.
Tenney explained one year ago in a TikTok video that he believes that there was an evil spirit contained within the crystal at the end of the chain that he swung. He believes that this spirit was a demon. He believes that the demon was released from the crystal when he tried to do fortune telling with it. Joel Tenney says that he started having conversations with that demon. Then, he says, the demon possessed his body.
This is not a metaphor that Joel Tenney uses to describe a time of emotional struggle. He means it literally. He says: “I was demon possessed. Demons are real.”
What’s more, Tenney believes that fighting demons isn’t something that needs to be done on just an individual level. He believes that all of Christianity, and eventually all of society, must be consumed in an epic battle between people who are on the side of Jesus and people who he believes are possessed by demons.
Joel Tenney wants all of humanity to go to war, against itself, in the name of religion. His Christianity rejects peace. His religion urges massive violence.
A year ago, Tenney posted a video in which he paces frenetically and shouts the following words into a smartphone:
“We are to wage war. There is a reason we are called the church militant. The church in heaven is the church triumphant. We are the church militant. We are supposed to be militant. The Bible says to put on the full armor of Christ. Why do you put on armor? Because you’ve got to go to freaking war, that’s why… I’m tired of the weak Christianity. We don’t have time for it. We need the soldiers of God to arise.”
What did Donald Trump do when he heard about Joel Tenney, when he heard that a young man in Iowa was preaching for Christians to become militant and to abandon weak Christianity in order to wage war? Donald Trump decided this was exactly the sort of person he wanted to represent his presidential campaign.
So, Donald Trump asked Joel Tenney to make a speech to stir up the crowd at a political rally in Coralville, Iowa on December 13, 2023.
Tenney began his speech by demanding that the United States abandon democracy in favor of an autocratic Christian Nationalism.
“The corruption in Washington is a natural reflection of the spiritual state of our nation. In order to make America great again, I believe we must do two things. We must become godly again, submitting ourselves to the scepter of the most high king, the lord Jesus Christ, and we must reelect President Trump for the third time.”
Joel Tenney equated Donald Trump with Jesus Christ, and then dutifully repeated Donald Trump’s falsehood, the claim that Joe Biden stole the election from him.
I want to confront this dishonesty directly. We should be able to take this for granted, but unfortunately, we can’t.
Donald Trump’s claims that the election of 2020 was stolen from him have been given their day in court, and they have been found to be completely without merit. I don’t just mean that Donald Trump’s lie has been tested in the metaphorical court of public opinion. I mean that Donald Trump’s claims have been thoroughly investigated by law enforcement officials, by congressional committees, and by actual judges in courts of law. Whenever they have been put to the test, Donald Trump’s lie has been found to be completely without justification.
What has emerged in the course of these investigations is that Donald Trump himself attempted to steal the election of 2020 from Joe Biden, calling up election officials in several states and pressuring them to submit fraudulent documents claiming that there were thousands of ballots for Trump that simply never existed, or to refuse to certify election results that were perfectly valid.
When Joel Tenney says that Donald Trump won the election of 2020, he isn’t just stretching the truth. He’s telling a blatant lie.
Tenney’s speech continued with a message that Christian Americans are obligated to obey Donald Trump because Trump has been selected to lead by the Christian god. Therefore, Tenney said, to defy Donald Trump is to defy God.
“Ephesians chapter 6, verse 11 through 12 states: 'Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present age, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.' We must not lose sight that this election is part of a spiritual battle. There are demonic forces at play. But I want to remind those who have fallen prey to the leadership of such demons, have fallen prey to the diabolic forces and have become pawns to their schemes, Romans Chapter 13, verse 1 through 4, this is the warning: 'Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.' And judgment is coming. 'Even for the one in authority is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God's servants against the wrath, of wrath, to bring punishment on the wrongdoer,' and when Donald Trump becomes the 47th President of the United States, there will be retribution against all those who have promoted evil in this country."
Joel Tenney’s speech makes it plain that Donald Trump is planning to punish all of his enemies using the power of government and the righteous fury of Christian Nationalism. Tenney expanded his demonology from a single demon hiding in that single crystal hanging on a little metal chain to a nation full of demons. Tenney asserted that Democrats are not just people who disagree with Donald Trump, but that Democrats have been possessed by demons.
Remember that Tenney called upon Christians to be militant, to become soldiers, to put on the armor of God and wage war against their enemies. Joel Tenney is instructing Christians in Iowa and across America to prepare to engage in a campaign of mass violence against non-Christians and anyone else who refuses to submit to the authority of Donald Trump.
Remember that similar threats have been made by Donald Trump himself. Trump has threatened to put his critics to death, to round his enemies up into concentration camps, and to exterminate them like vermin. Trump has used the same language as Joel Tenney, promising revenge and telling his audiences that “I am your retribution.”
Joel Tenney isn’t just somebody who was invited by Donald Trump to give one speech for the Trump campaign on one day. Joel Tenney is a member of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition. That makes Joel Tenney a member of the Trump campaign.
When Joel Tenney speaks about Democrats being demons who must be judged with violent retribution, he is speaking for the Trump for President campaign.
The Trump for President campaign describes Joel Tenney as a “chaplain” in the list of members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition , but that’s not exactly true. Tenney claims to be the leader of an organization, Alpha Pneuma Ministries, but that organization seems to mostly consist of himself, his brother, and his wife. Their activities seem to mostly consist of posting videos on YouTube and TikTok.
Joel Tenney is not the leader of a church. He just gets online and preaches his version of Christianity. His version of Christianity is a religion devoid of community and untethered from the moral accountability that face to face relationships require.
Tenney’s version of Christianity focuses on threatening and violently punishing its enemies. His version of Christianity teaches that everyone who disagrees with Donald Trump is an agent of evil who must be punished.
When they heard this message, not one of Donald Trump’s supporters in Coralville, Iowa stood up to protest that things had gone too far. Instead, the crowd roared in approval. They wanted more. They wanted blood.
Joel Tenney is a preacher who punches the other cheek, and his followers love it.
Joel Tenney isn’t the only member of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition who is calling for a campaign of violent persecution of anyone who dares to criticize Donald Trump.
We’re just one week away from the Iowa caucuses now. I’ll be back tomorrow with another episode of this podcast, sharing yet more information about the sinister plans taking shape within the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.