McAtee advocates for a strict hierarchy of obedience, because that’s the model she finds in the Christian Bible. Because she believes that her god’s “Kingdom rules over all”, she promotes a top-down approach to the relationship between people and dogs that centers on commands and obedience, when effective dog training is more mutual, with dog and human coming to a kind of shared understanding.
Kelley McAtee’s teachings that dogs must be taught to obey their owners because the Christian god has given humans absolute dominion over all animals is reminiscent of the bizarre pride with which Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem recently bragged about dragging a puppy down into a gravel pit and then killing it with a gun.
It’s difficult to understand how a dog trainer could look at the erratic approach to leadership demonstrated by Donald Trump and still endorse his methods. Trump threatens, and shouts, and hurls insults, avoiding responsibility, and encouraging his followers to behave in the same way, in a violent, intimidating way that no decent dog owner would want their dog to behave.
If Donald Trump was a dog, he would be the kind that shows up at a dog park and starts an ugly, bloody fight within the first 60 seconds, with an owner who, no matter how many times the dog misbehaves, always insists that it’s somebody else’s fault.
Donald Trump’s behavior as a politician is exactly the opposite of what any sane dog owner would expect from their pet. What makes Kelley McAtee think he should be allowed to run around the White House off-leash?
Kelley McAtee is listed in Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition as a “ministry leader” in Pottawattamie County, Iowa.
The truth about McAtee, however, is much more interesting than just what we might expect from a typical ministry leader. McAtee has had the creativity to blend her Christian theology into dog training practice.
Kelley McAtee is a professional dog trainer, but she tries to use dog training to spread the word about her version of Christianity. It’s what she calls “the good news for all creatures”.
This will sound outlandish to people who haven’t spend much time in the company of Christian Nationalists, but Kelley McAtee seems to believe that dogs need to accept Jesus Christ as their savior as much as people do. She cites the Bible’s Gospel of Mark, chapter 16 verse 15, which in some translations reads, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”
It’s a bold choice for McAtee to take, combining two passions of hers and finding a way to make a living at the place where they meet. It requires some deeply original thinking to come up with something like that.
Nonetheless, McAtee’s mashup of dog training and Christianity sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense.
There’s the time, for example, when McAtee tried to promote her dog training business using a biblical message about evil spirits that are always out to get us. She quoted a verse that’s used frequently in Christian Nationalist circles to justify the belief that Democrats are controlled by demons.
“Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
It’s difficult to fathom how dog training fits in with spiritual warfare against demons. Are we supposed to believe that dogs engage in challenging behaviors because horned monsters from the infernal realms of the underworld have been sent to tempt them into evil? How exactly is a dog owner supposed to compensate for that? Puppy prayers?
McAtee explains, “God doesn't want us to be confused, He gives us the BIBLE that outlines a set of BASIC COMMANDS for us to follow, also the RED LETTER teachings of His Son Jesus to keep us on track and help us overcome our enemy.” The enemy, of course, is Satan.
Some of the commands of Bible are not to eat shellfish, or to combine different types of grain. At other times, the Bible reports commands to commit genocide. If a dog were given that many commands, it would likely be confused.
The 317 members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition each carry a story in their minds about what led them as individuals to proclaim that their religious leadership would be devoted to the political career of Donald Trump. Some of those stories have been shared in public, though many of them remain in the privacy of Coalition members’ own consciences.
Beyond these individual stories, there is a larger narrative about the impact of Christian Nationalism on American politics and the radically transformative plans of Christian Nationalists for the American future.
These stories are told in a new book on the subject. It’s called Donald Trump’s Army of God: Christian Nationalism in the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.
It sounds crazy, but it’s real. What they intend to do to America is too extreme for us to ignore.
The Iowa Faith Leader Coalition is a radical political organization that violates American law
Let’s learn more about the extremist Christian Nationalists who are members of Donald Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.