Wayne Hamilton Appanoose County Centerville Iowa Donald Trump Christian

Is this Reed Wayne Hamilton the same Wayne Hamilton who is supposed to be a “ministry leader” who has endorsed Donald Trump as part of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition?

Maybe. Maybe not. It’s impossible to say.

Don’t you think it would be odd, though, for a supposed “faith leader” in Iowa to have no online public records of any actual faith leadership, when there are records of something even as obscure as a 1978 drug arrest?

Wayne Hamilton is listed by the Donald Trump campaign as a “ministry leader” in Appanoose County, Iowa…

…but there is no online record of anyone named Wayne Hamilton having any leadership position anywhere in any church or other religious organization in Appanoose County, Iowa.

There is a record of an Iowa Supreme Court case from 1978 involving someone named Reed Wayne Hamilton, in which Hamilton was “observed in a car outside his residence in West Des Moines, acting "strangely" and clad only in a bathrobe, despite severely cold weather. West Des Moines police went to Hamilton's residence to investigate, following a citizen's report of the incident. Hamilton told them several armed men had come to his house and threatened to retaliate against him for the death of Nick Pappas, Jr., the brother of one of them. The officers' investigation failed to reveal any evidence of these "intruders," however, their interest had been piqued by Hamilton's mention of the murder victim, Pappas, and by a quantity of marijuana discovered by them. They had also noticed an empty handgun holster in Hamilton's residence. Hamilton was arrested for drug possession and taken into custody.”

There is a record of Wayne Hamilton becoming a member of the Facebook group of the Centerville First Baptist Church three years ago.

In those three years, Hamilton hasn’t even made one post on the Centerville First Baptist Church Facebook Group.

Wayne Hamilton is not the Pastor, Associate Pastor, or any other staff member at the Centerville First Baptist Church in Appanoose County, Iowa. Their Centerville First Baptist Church web site doesn’t even mention Wayne Hamilton as handing out programs, or helping people find their seats at the church. He isn’t mentioned once.

Are we supposed to think that being an inactive Facebook Group member of a church for three years makes Wayne Hamilton a “ministry leader” whose endorsement of Donald Trump as part of Trump’s Iowa Faith Leader Coalition should make the news?

Should this kind of non-active Facebook membership influence our decision about whether or not to vote for Donald Trump?

Donald Trump says that the United States is a Christian nation. What will that mean in practice, if Trump gains the power of the Presidency?

A new book on the subject avoids abstract political philosophy and theology. Instead, the pages of Donald Trump’s Army of God: Christian Nationalism in the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition are occupied with a detailed examination of the actual Christian Nationalists who propelled Donald Trump to victory in the Iowa caucuses of 2024, enabling him to seize the Republican Party presidential nomination.

What emerges is a case study in magical thinking, an obsession with demons, fantasies of sacred torture and holy wars, and a movement filled with people who believe that they are capable of delivering a new generation of Christian prophecies that carry equal weight to anything found in the Bible.

This is a story that America cannot afford to ignore.

The Iowa Faith Leader Coalition is a radical political organization that violates the law

Let’s learn more about the radical Christian Nationalists who are members of the Iowa Faith Leader Coalition.