A bunch of right-wing pastors and influencers met up in California this week for a conference hosted by conservative activist group Turning Point USA, where several of them encouraged the promotion of hate, the pursuit of social domination and the use of churches as vehicles to promote MAGA ideology. 

This particular faith-based Turning Point USA event seems to have partnered with fewer registered sex offenders than in the past. But this event was disturbing for other reasons, namely the embrace of bigotry and the pulpit as a means of achieving political dominance.

Speakers like far-right influencer Eric Metaxas and Erika Kirk portrayed her late husband and TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk as a martyr in a right-wing holy war against liberals and Muslims. The hate-mongering comes as Republicans have ramped up their Islamophobic rhetoric in advance of the midterm elections. 

Metaxas has denounced church-state separation and has been involved with the Trump administration’s so-called Religious Liberty Commission, which helped to plan Christian nationalist celebrations around the United States’ 250th anniversary. At the TPUSA event, Metaxas called Islam a “demonic parody of a religion” and told attendees that God “has called us to a crusade,” according to conservative outlet Church Leaders.

Another speaker was pastor Greg Laurie, who has promoted messianic rhetoric about President Donald Trump as a divine instrument, has preached that women should submit to their husbands and, like Metaxas, has denounced church-state separation. During his address, Laurie encouraged attendees to proselytize against communism, socialism, antisemitism (which is notable given its proliferation in the MAGA movement), as well as what he called an “Islamic invasion.” Laurie said pastors who confront these movements are akin to Jonah preaching the gospel to the biblical city of Nineveh, “a city that was known for its wickedness.” 

With Trump having marched the nation into a war to the detriment of the U.S. economy, conservatives don’t seem to have much to run on, in terms of results. So the Republican Party seems to be broadly relying on Islamophobia and jingoism as its last bastion of hope to energize the conservative base before the midterms. And this week’s pastors summit shows us that some conservative faith leaders are all too eager to fan those flames.

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