Last month, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy appeared on the Christian nationalist program “FlashPoint,” where he assured the audience that even though he is Hindu, he shares their “Judeo-Christian values.”
Ramaswamy’s comments deeply impressed Christian nationalist Rick Green, founder of Patriot Academy and co-host of the radio program “WallBuilders Live” with religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton, who gushed following Ramaswamy’s appearance that he “would love to see him, if not in the White House, certainly in the administration, and a major player for helping us restore America.”
But that brief celebration of religious pluralism did not sit well with many religious-right leaders and activists who have been steeped in the Christian nationalist teachings promoted by Barton and Green.
In the wake of Ramaswamy’s appearance, “FlashPoint” host Gene Bailey has worked to assure his audience that he still supports former President Donald Trump and that “neither I nor anyone else on this team has or will ever embrace another religion.”
MAGA pastor Hank Kunneman, a New Apostolic Reformation-affiliated “prophet” and regular “FlashPoint” contributor, has been even bolder, using a Sunday sermon the week after appearing on the program with Ramaswamy to warn any Christian who might support his campaign that they “will have a fight with God” if they do so.
Earlier this month, far-right anti-choice activist Abby Johnson appeared on “FlashPoint” where she too declared that no Christian can support Ramaswamy “because our God will not be mocked.”
Last Thursday, Green, Kunneman, and Johnson all appeared on “FlashPoint” together and Green took the opportunity to apologize for having declared that he would like to see Ramaswamy in the White House.
“Now would be a great time for me to eat some crow right here for what I said a couple of weeks ago about Vivek,” Green declared.
“Why are we at a point in America where the church has done such a lousy job of raising up leaders that a Hindu articulates Christian principles better than any Christian candidate on the ballot?” Green wondered. “[We are at that point] because the church has failed to raise up leaders. We’ve failed to articulate the truth about our country.”
“So, my gushing was the fact that this guy—a Hindu—is actually saying what we believe, he’s articulating our positions better than anybody else,” Green said. “And where I got it wrong was, I said, ‘Either, if not in the White House, [then] on the team.’ What I meant was I’d like to see him in the cabinet—not the actual president or vice president—I think it’d be great secretary of commerce.”
“So, there’s my crow,” Green apologized. “But Hank [Kunneman] is 100 percent right that we want Christian leaders. The Founders said that. The Founders said it over and over again: You want leaders that are biblical leaders.”
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