On the most recent episode of the Right Response Ministries podcast, radical Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon and his co-hosts advocated for the government to literally seize control of churches that do not share their far-right theology. It’s the latest bit of evidence that they view core American values like religious liberty and religious pluralism as nothing more than roadblocks to be dismantled as they impose their Christian nationalist vision on the U.S.
The discussion began when co-host Wesley Todd complained that there are tens of thousands of "apostate" churches in the United States and thus it would take "decades of work" to properly re-educate their parishioners. Instead, Todd said, the government should investigate every church in the nation and then seize the "wicked" ones and redistribute their holdings to "faithful churches."
"Hear me out," Todd said. "The president, the sovereign, the magistrate, Barron Trump, he comes out and he says, 'I've taken a task force. We've gone through every website. We've driven by every building and we have logged thousands of churches with Pride flags out front, women on the clergy, and there are soldiers on the street now. We are taking their property and we are giving it to the faithful churches in town.'"
"Amen," replied Webbon. "Love it."
"That is completely historically within the realm of the magistrate," Todd continued. "He can do that. You are an apostate, wicked church and your building, your land, your heritage is taken from you and it is given to those that will bear the fruits of it."
Webbon then recounted the inaugural prayer service earlier this year in which Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde urged President Donald Trump to "have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now." Webbon said that Trump should have simply seized control of the service and had it shut down.
"This short-haired Episcopal female priestess is arguing about diversity is our strength and we're mean and we're tyrannical and we need more immigrants from the Third World to be dropped on our doorstep, to come like locusts and eat everything that Americans have built over the last two and a half centuries," Webbon said. "I remember sitting there thinking Trump and [Vice President J.D.] Vance should stand up and say, 'Silly woman, be quiet. Silence, liberal heretic. The magistrate is here and he pronounces that this is not of God. Sit down.'"
"That would have been awesome," Webbon added.
Todd then showed a photo of a church with a Pride flag hanging outside, which he said is dangerous because "every single day, [countless people] walk by that blasphemous sign and are lied to by that church that you can allow that, that God is still speaking, that individuals in this lifestyle are welcome."
"That's why you have to shut it down," Todd said.
"For the civil magistrate, even in our American system, to say, 'Your property is seized and you're out on the street' would be glorious," Webbon responded. "And that's kindness. You're out on the street instead of jail or the guillotine. That is the moderate position."
Webbon is a theocratic fascist who believes that the American people are too degenerate, stupid, and cowardly to abide by the Constitution and must therefore be governed by a Christian dictator. This dictator, Webbon believes, must “rule with an iron fist” and force everyone to, at the very least, “pretend to be Christian.”
Under his preferred form of Christian nationalist theocracy, Webbon wants to see the Apostles’ Creed added to the Constitution; abortion, pornography, no-fault divorce, in vitro fertilization, and birth control outlawed; non-Christians kept out of his neighborhood and out of public office; Catholics relegated to second-class citizenship; immigrants shot for trying to enter the country; adulterers put to death; and women banned from voting and publicly executed for making false claims of sexual assault.
In 2023, Webbon was among the contributors to a document called “The Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel.” Drafted by Christian nationalists like Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, former Trump administration official William Wolfe, and others, the document declared that the United States must formally “acknowledge the Lordship of Christ” in all its laws, “abolish abortion,” outlaw marriage equality, and “recapture our national sovereignty from godless, global entities who present a grave threat to civilization.” Wolfe is a close associate of recently confirmed OMB Director Russ Vought, a proponent of Christian nationalism who declared his desire to put federal bureaucrats "in trauma."
In addition to serving as pastor at Covenant Bible Church in Texas, Webbon is also the founder of Right Response Ministries, through which he organizes events like the upcoming “Christ Is King: How To Defeat Trashworld” conference that is scheduled to feature a variety of far-right Christian nationalist activists like Deevers, Steve Deace, Stephen Wolfe, Auron MacIntyre, Andrew Isker, and others.
