Rob McCoy is a right-wing pastor and Christian nationalist activist who has long urged conservative Christians to get more involved in politics. McCoy himself served on the city council in Thousand Oak, California, for several years, including one year as mayor, only to resign in opposition to the state's COVID-19 restrictions.
McCoy has deep ties to Christian nationalist activists Dan Wilks, David Lane, who attends McCoy's church, and Charlie Kirk, whom McCoy was instrumental in transforming into a full-blown Christian nationalist.
Given that McCoy is a Christian nationalist himself and that the central thesis of Christian nationalism is that government must operate by the "principles rooted in Scripture’s teaching that Christ rules as supreme Lord and King of all creation," it was rather shocking to hear McCoy state on a recent episode of his "Faith Forward" podcast that Jesus' teachings are in no way directed at the government.
McCoy was reacting to a quote from actress Elizabeth Tabish, who portrays Mary Magdalene in the television series "The Chosen," that she is a "hardcore leftist."
"I believe in healthcare and education for all," Tabish recently told Vanity Fair. "I believe that America’s best quality is taking care of refugees. I think those are deeply Christian values.”
McCoy vehemently disagreed.
"They project Jesus' teachings to a government when Jesus' teachings were to the individual," McCoy asserted. "There's nothing stopping you, dear, from bringing as many illegal immigrants into your home as you like and feeding as many homeless as you like, but you're not going to declare that Jesus is commanding the government to do that. His Kingdom is not of this Earth, and so we're contending for religious freedom so that you can do that. No one's stopping you from doing that, but don't take the government and tell us that the government is now in charge of healthcare. They stink at it. Government was never designed for that, and it's limited in the foundation of this country."
"His teachings are always to the individual, never for the government," McCoy declared.
The idea that the teachings of Jesus are directed only at the individual and not at the government is a rather startling assertion for a Christian nationalist to make considering that the core message from Christian nationalists from the last decade has been that Jesus' teaching are to serve as the very foundation of our government and its policies.
