Muscular Christianity Event in Tennessee

You've seen the Poster or the Memes - Let's Talk About Them

When I was in the first year of my PhD I wrote a paper on a Christian movement in the MMA. That paper became my first published piece in a book, and being the sarcastic person I am, I titled it “Cage Fighting for Jesus.” I have to this day never seen a MMA fight, but I have seen an abundance of the evolving form of muscular Christianity that this group promoted. I also had no clue how much this one paper would be so useful in my coming years of researching Christian nationalism, conspiracies, and politics.

A friend and colleague sent me a promo piece for an upcoming muscular Christianity event being held in Tennessee. Sadly, there is no online option for attendance, so I had to do the next best thing, dig around in the rabbit hole that is this event.

I am currently working on three separate research pieces that are based in muscular Christianity, mobilizing young men, and populism, so this conference is something I am interested in. I began looking into the speakers’ social media presence and their organizations, and I found exactly what I expected. There are consistent tropes within the writings/posts of these many white, Christian men, including love of Trump, hate of feminists, LGBTQ2SA, Islam, and immigrants. I also found an old faithful “news” outlet of right-wing conspiracists since the 1940s, Human Events. Let’s dig into who is setting the tone of muscularity within Christianity, a new form of the movement, that has little to do with sports, images of a muscular Jesus, and more so to do with extremism, hate, Christian nationalism, and the Second Amendment. Why do I want to write Yee Haw here?

David Harris is the Executive Director of Truthscript, which was founded in 2023 to provide Christians an outlet not “compromised by neo-liberalism.” Another speaker in the event, Josh Abbotoy is also on the board of this organization. Harris is outspoken about his support of mass deportations under Trump and admonishes Christian leaders who are anti-ICE. Harris even positions those who are anti-vaxxers and election/abortion protestors as being persecuted while “open border advocates and illegal immigrants” are not. He uses Romans 13, as validation for the mass deportations with the “federal government is performing the most rudimentary, base-level responsibility” in light of the passage. His examples of the harm caused by immigrants, include the education system. He demands the end of sanctuary schools, because “public education should be open only to citizens and those who are here legally.” He claims as a former ESL instructor that he can “say without hesitation that not one of the migrant students I’ve had in class over the past ten years has thought of themselves as an American.” He maybe should have learned about broad blanket statements not supported by evidence, and purely anecdotal. Here we are seeing a sense of constructed victimhood, of those who believe as he does and justifying the harm to those they consider the oppressors. Those on the left, even religious leaders, cannot “occupy the moral high ground,” that it seems, is the sacred space of the Christian right. The right are the only ones who can understand concepts of national sovereignty and legitimate compassion. How much compassion you ask? Well Harris describes his politics as Charlie Kirk being on the political left of him!

Sean David is the CEO and Co-Founder of The Federalist. His X feed is primarily retweets of such emissaries as Christopher Rufo, End Wokeness, Russ Vought (Heritage Foundation), and Matt Walsh. Writing on X "“You’re either with MAGA and Russ Vought, or you’re with the left-wing bureaucrats who hate this country and want to destroy it.” His name maybe recognizable because he presented in front of the Senate Commerce Committee’s hearing on former President Biden’s supposed censorship of conservatives. The opening lines of his remarks were “it begins with censorship. It moves to the destruction of statues and monuments. And it ends with the murder of people.” In his speech he claims that censorship “advances toward the violent elimination of speakers,” due to the totalitarian and authoritarian impulses to take control including “the murder of one’s political opponents.” This was in reference to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The hypocrisy is almost palatable. He claims he and his media outlet, The Federalist, were censored for having opinions different than liberals. The material under which these claims are made were articles about the conspiracy theory of the rigged election in 2020. Deep critical news from The Federalist includes rating the ring girls’ outfits from the Trump birthday spectacle on a “scale of sexy to Martha Washington to 10,” celebrating the removal of funding for the homeless, and claims that the New York Time’s piece on the anti-immigration attacks in Ireland were misguided by focusing on the anti-immigration sentiments spearheading the violence. Instead the focus should have been on the open border policies of the nation. The New York Times piece also was far too interested in the concerns of immigrants who were living in fear, and not those who were the bystanders of the violent act that instigated the riots!

Jesse Hughes also posts in support of the anti-immigration rioters in Ireland. Comments on his social media also reflect his own feelings about immigration to America, calling for an end to “mass migration from the Third World.” Another anti-immigration speaker at the event is Kenny Cody. Cody was endorsed by Trump for the Tennessee State House. He was the chairman of the Cocke Country Republican Party from 2019 until 2026, and is the Opinion Editor for Human Events. Much like the other event speakers Cody is vocal in his anti-immigration beliefs, writing that “halting migration is the new American civil right.” He argues that despite Trump’s mass deportations, the “greater threat” is legal migration. Oddly he only wants that moratorium on “third world countries” because “open borders and multiculturalism have destroyed any nation they have touched.” I guess white South Africans and Europeans are ok? The vocal Christian, points out that “genuine compassion is reserved for our nation’s people.”

He has also written for Newsmax, and the Daily Wire. Cody, also seems to represent the “manliness” concepts of this event. He has written “It is a great time to be an American. While ICE is arresting and deporting migrants, the Trump Administration is dominating on every front.” Let’s look at his “reporting” on women, such as his article warning men to avoid “cuffing season” that is the epitome of I guess Christian maleness? Cuffing season is when women who were “focusing on themselves: suddenly start hunting for a temporary winter boo like they’re assembling a survival kit.” This apparently is something that is “overwhelming the young men in our nation in the worst possible way.” In what is not overtly spoken, is this seems to be very opportunistic for women, as it begins right after Thanksgiving and ends shortly after Valentine’s day. According to Cody women do this without the intention of marriage, and to “placate social media followers.” The harm these women are doing to men includes hurting their confidence, it can potentially lead the men to seek false companionship, and “succumb to the pressure society puts on them.” During cuffing season women “poach young men for social media clout.” I wonder if that would work to get more subscribers to my Substack?

Another familiar name maybe Josh Abbotoy, who was recently interviewed by Politico about the Christian charter community he is developing in Appalachia. His proposed town, Brewington Farms, would be one of four planned communities. The community will have what he describes as “a distinctively Christian cultural ethos” and while open to anyone, he envisions a community of right-leaning Christians. He claims the community is part of the Right’s aim to attack progressivism, globalism, and secular liberalism. The strategy behind this, is “to remake the country by seizing (and, when necessary, abolishing) the primary institutions of political and cultural power.” These communities are the bottom up, grassroots version of this strategy. In essence, he is part of the creation of a parallel Christian nation within America. Separation is not his only goal though. He also started the American Reformer with Nate Fisher in 2021. (Hughes is also involved.) It is a not for profit organization, that believes that Protestant leadership is missing in the “highest places of power and culturally significant institutions” and wants to change this by elevating a new generation of Protestant leadership. In essence is it Dominionism or the Seven Mountain Mandate, metapolitical movements that want to infiltrate the institutions of society (media, government, the arts, academia etc) to change the ideology of society. He also claims that Protestant Christians, on the right, are “the demographic foundation that really is keeping America relatively sane.” He also thinks that Catholics are holding too many power positions, and do not have “the stark elite versus grassroots divide that we see amongst Protestants.” Given the spectacle for Trump’s birthday, I am wondering if the Protestants have lost the ability to keep America sane.

Conspiracy theories are also at the heart of some of the scheduled speakers, especially with David Schrock. Schrock is the editor in chief of Christ Over All. His X feed is filled with how to minister to Muslims, critical analysis of Islam and anti-Sharia laws in America, anti-vaccine posts, concerns that the church is too effeminate, and celebrations of the Southern Baptist Convention further restrictions on women in pastoral roles.

Christ Over All includes and podcast and sales of merchandise. The podcast theme for this month is “unmasking Islam.” Past themes have included “Christ over all the Isms” which include globalism, feminism, environmentalism, and totalitarianism, which are all “part of a world system designed to enslave God’s people” He uses coded language of conspiracy theories blaming the WEF and Klaus Schwab of trying to “reimagine what the world would look like.” This is the Great Reset, so much so he promotes books about the conspiracy theory in his articles, as well as 15-minute cities, and Project 2030.

The closest to the original muscular Christianity would be J. Chase Davis. Davis is the author of Offensive Christianity Restoring the Strength of Men in a Feminized Age that attempts to rectify the weak version of Christianity offered to men today. The book argues that churches have “absorbed feminist assumptions.” What he calls for in response is a new birth of manliness within an offensive Christianity that is “unworried about offending the world’s dark powers and a Christianity that conquers territory in a dark world.” You can also find his promotion of Christian nationalism and specific brand of manliness here on Substack. Jared Moore’s substack and social media seems to be fixated on combating lust, and same sex attraction. His works are titled “33 days to Freedom from Lust,” The Lust of the Flesh” and “Same-sex Attraction and the Temptation of Christ.” He has written a piece titled “Is God Anti-Gay?” I think we all know his answer. Yes, according to Moore, God is indeed anti-Gay. Moore writes there are three truths we need to know about homosexuality, the first being “You are not Gay,” second God Forbids Homosexuality, and finally, homosexuality is overcome by Jesus. Apparently if you have to turn to Christ, and repent, et voila you can have a heterosexual marriage and have love!

So much compassion and manliness! But the manliest of all the speakers in my sarcastic opinion is Scott Parkinson, the founder of Dangerous but Good a Christian apparel and gear provider for “those who aim to lead lives of strength and virtue.” Most of the clothing is branded with images about owning guns, the second amendment, and being armed. They also sell “Man Candles” where “every flame reflects freedom and faith.” Anyone else suddenly thinking of Goop and candles? Just me? The blog contains posts on faith, freedom, and family, with almost every single image for each post involving a gun. The answer for Parkinson to all that ails America is “the righteous must rise and WE HAVE to in order to take our country back!” “They” are the “socialist progressives removing God from the public space.”

What we find in the speakers under the misleading title of muscular Christianity, is instead a MAGA Christian nationalism, whose men are the victims of progress, feminism, LGBTQ2SA, and democrats. The speakers are a convergence of conspiracy, racism, hate, extremism, and anti-LGBTQ2SA, hoping to mobilize Christian men to support their metapolitical movement. In the past when we have dismissed these movements it has been to the detriment of society, as distasteful as these groups are, they are having an impact. We may make fun of them, we may meme their posts, but we have to be aware and respond to them.