The myth of Antifa has become one of the right’s most enduring magic tricks — a shadowy, shape-shifting villain invoked whenever reality becomes too inconvenient. When fascism needs cover, it points the finger at “anti-fascists.” When the state turns its weapons inward, it calls its targets terrorists.
What Tim and April are wrestling with here isn’t just propaganda — it’s theology. It’s the way fear has been baptized in American churches. The way “law and order” has been sanctified while mercy is mocked. And the way the same Christians who once warned their kids about government persecution are now cheering as ICE agents pepper-spray ministers who dare to say, Love your neighbor.
There’s something sacred about laughter in this space — not the laughter of dismissal, but of reclamation. The laughter of people who grew up believing the rapture was coming any day and now find themselves still here, watching a different kind of apocalypse unfold — one of empathy and truth being crucified on the altar of power.
If there’s a gospel for this moment, maybe it’s this: real faith doesn’t protect empire. It confronts it. And sometimes, the holiest thing you can do is call out the lie — and then laugh in its face.
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Tim Whitaker is the founder of The New Evangelicals, and April Ajoy is the author of Star Spangled Jesus: Leaving Christian Nationalism And Finding True Faith.
