Defending Peter Thiel. Sort Of. March 23, 2026March 22, 2026 Yesterday, I linked to a chilling piece by Jim Stewartson: The Pentagon is integrating Peter Thiel’s surveillance software throughout the military. Be very afraid. I asked a friend who knows Thiel well to review it. Even though I consider Peter Thiel to be a villain [he replied], I do not consider him to be a bloodthirsty maniac who wants to drown the world in blood so that he can make more money. I think some of the things that this author writes are true but that lot is conjecture based on negative press that is not accurate. Some of the things in the article I know to be not factual and some of it is just plain, you know, personal attack. The guy was born in South Africa. It’s not his fault. He was born during Apartheid. Not his fault either. His parents emigrated here. He went to Stanford. Wrote a book about political correctness and started the libertarian newspaper. That doesn’t make him a Nazi. Attacking him for hiring Oswald Mosley’s grandson is the sort of low blow that reduces credibility. I had never heard of Oswald Mosley until I read Stewartson: Finally, out of everyone in the United Kingdom, Peter Thiel chose Louis Mosley to run Palantir UK, which has taken over the National Health Service, and is getting into business with the British military. Mosley is the only grandson of Oswald Mosley, the most infamous fascist in British history, who was so enamored with the Nazis that he had his wedding at Joseph Goebbels’ house so Hitler could attend. WHAT THE MILITARY AND THE CHURCH HAVE IN COMMON Michael J: “This analysis is a piercing revelation of what has been going on with republicans since Reagan. It was clearly composed by a Protestant soundly grounded in reality. I am a retired Catholic priest. I hope you find it interesting.” The Militarization of MAGA and God: Hearts Turned to ICE That Would Kill Jesus By A Country Pastor When I was a child, sitting in a country church with my parents, voting instructions were handed out in the pews. They came from organizations connected to Pat Robertson’s movement. Everyone knew what they were for. They told us how faithful people voted. No one suggested these were merely informational. The expectation was understood, and so was the cost of ignoring it. Faith was being shaped toward compliance long before most of us had language for what was happening. At the front of that sanctuary, the Christian flag stood beside the American flag. That placement mattered. It taught without words. Allegiance to God and allegiance to nation were being aligned visually and symbolically, week after week. Jesus was no longer the sole focal point. Power had entered the frame. Worship was slowly learning the posture of loyalty rather than discernment. That pairing prepared us. It trained us to hear political direction as moral guidance. It trained us to associate faithfulness with obedience to authority. Long before MAGA had a name, the groundwork for white Christian nationalism was being laid inside places meant to form people in the way of Jesus. Anyone who has watched military formation understands the logic that followed. You are broken down before you are rebuilt. Identity is narrowed. Orders replace questions. Conscience is subordinated to command. On a battlefield, that process has a purpose. In a spiritual community, it reshapes the soul in dangerous ways. Jesus also calls people to change, but the direction is entirely different. God does not erase conscience. God sharpens it. God does not break people down to make them manageable. God restores people so they can love. Jesus calls disciples by name and teaches them to discern, not simply to obey. It is important to honor those who enter the military with integrity. I know many who did so willing to give their lives for others. That impulse reflects the deepest teaching of Jesus, that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for another. Many return carrying wounds that are visible and wounds that are not. Bodies are damaged. Minds are burdened. Souls are stretched thin. They return changed, still human, still worthy of care and truth. What emerged later was something else entirely. MAGA did not honor sacrifice. It redefined strength to exclude it. Humility was treated as weakness. Service was dismissed as foolish. What was elevated instead was domination, aggression, and loyalty to power. Military language was borrowed, but military discipline was not. Courage was replaced with intimidation. Strength was recast as the ability to harm without consequence. That formation was not accidental. It was cultivated. Religious media helped lead the way. Repetition replaced reflection. Political loyalty was framed as spiritual obedience. Fear was presented as faithfulness. What was being formed was not political opinion, but a moral reflex. The same approach moved into churches through voter guides and partisan instruction. They worked because pastors, entrusted with the care of souls, allowed political authority to speak from the pulpit, redirecting trust meant for Jesus toward a national identity instead. What was perverted in that process was the faith people brought with them. It happened slowly, over years, embedding itself into hearts formed to trust their churches and leaders. That trust was redirected away from Jesus and toward a militant posture that framed faith as constant warfare, discipleship as loyalty, and righteousness as being right and unquestioning. Hearts were hardened not through argument, but through repetition, fear, and obedience. Faith was trained to stand guard, to carry weapons, to distrust neighbors, and to confuse aggression with strength. By the time Donald Trump emerged, the movement was ready for him. A man whose morals are the antithesis of God’s character was able to step forward and be received as a spiritual authority. Truth was replaced with grievance. Humility with domination. Repentance with defiance. Compassion with cruelty. What had once been centered on Jesus was displaced, as the space at the front of the pulpit was given over to MAGA and white Christian nationalism. God was not merely sidelined. God was replaced by a figure who embodied everything Jesus warned against, and faith, long trained to follow power, followed him instead. That conditioning was amplified through partisan media. It did more than report events. It trained people to see the world as a battlefield and themselves as besieged patriots. Fear was constant. Grievance was rewarded. Complexity was mocked. Over time, people were broken down emotionally and rebuilt around outrage and suspicion. A sense of belonging replaced critical thought. This is how a private army forms without barracks. The hat becomes a uniform. The slogans function like drills. The screen becomes the command center. Obedience is enforced through belonging. Dissent becomes betrayal. January 6 made this visible. Christian symbols appeared alongside symbols of racism and authoritarianism. A hangman’s noose stood on the Capitol grounds. These images did not clash. They blended. Faith, violence, and power occupied the same space without resistance. That blending reveals the loss of moral discernment. When symbols of Jesus coexist comfortably with symbols of terror, something essential has already been stripped away. Scripture names this moment clearly, when good is called evil and darkness is treated as light. What was on display that day was not discipline or real sacrifice. It was fantasy. Many arrived speaking the language of civil war, convinced they were warriors. Most had never lived under real military discipline, where bravado is stripped away because bravado costs lives. What appeared instead was aggression without humility and confidence without accountability. When January 6 failed, that posture did not disappear. It shifted into institutions. It took on procedures and uniforms. It found legitimacy. When this kind of formation moves from crowds into institutions, it no longer needs chants or rallies. This is how cruelty becomes policy, and how human beings are reduced to numbers and processed without mercy. This is not about individual agents. It is about formation. Scripture describes what happens when people stop seeing others as neighbors. Understanding darkens. Sensitivity fades. Souls disconnect from the life that gives fullness. Scripture has traced this arc before. When people demanded a king to fight their battles, God warned them what that choice would bring. Power would concentrate. Violence would expand. The vulnerable would suffer. They insisted anyway, because fear prefers control to trust. The prophets later condemned a faith that trusted horses and chariots instead of justice and mercy. By the time of Jesus, that formation had hardened. Religious leaders guarded power rather than people. Control replaced compassion. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, welcomed outsiders, and rejected violence, he threatened the entire system. That is why he was killed. One moment in the garden makes the contrast unmistakable. When violence breaks out, Jesus stops it. He heals the ear of the man who came to arrest him, restoring the capacity to hear at the very moment force is rising. Violence destroys listening, and Jesus restores it so that love can speak again. It is important to say clearly that this is not the whole story. Many followers of Jesus did not follow this path. Many resisted the militarization of faith even when it cost them relationships, churches, and a sense of belonging. They kept putting Jesus first. They chose love over loyalty, discernment over obedience, and compassion over power. Their faith was not loud, but it was faithful. They understood what the Bible has always been. Not a war manual. Not a roadmap to domination. Not a story that ends with a strongman as savior. The Bible is the greatest love story ever told, the story of a God who refuses to give up on humanity and keeps moving toward us with mercy, truth, and grace. Jesus is not the champion of a nation. Jesus is the revelation of God’s heart. In that light, Donald Trump is not the fulfillment of Christian history. He is the great test of it. A test of whether faith would cling to love or surrender to fear. A test of whether churches would remain rooted in Jesus or allow themselves to be hijacked by power. A test that revealed how much formation had already taken place and how urgently re-formation is now needed. The good news is that the story is not over. The way back has always been the same. It is the way of Jesus, the way that teaches us how to see again, how to listen again, and how to love again. That way has never been closed. It is still open, and many are already walking it. → Some, indeed, are Leaving MAGA.