FFRF Action Fund’s “Theocrats of the Week” are two white supremacist podcasters who recently moved to rural Tennessee in the hopes of establishing a Christian nationalist town to “radicalize Main Street.”
Podcasters Pastor Andrew Isker and C. Jay Engel are targeting Tennessee’s Jackson County, located 90 minutes outside Nashville. In a July podcast, they announced their move to Tennessee, with Isker saying, “We’re building a town, right? We’re building a community there.”
They hope to spread their Christian nationalism and white supremacy throughout Tennessee via recruiting. “The question is, is there room for like-minded Christians and patriots in Tennessee? Yes, there’s an imperative for like-minded Christians to gather and fight with us,” Engel said in October. He continued, “We need Christian nationalism in one state.”
Isker graduated from a ministerial training program created by Christian nationalist Doug Wilson, who has described slavery as “a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence” and is similarly trying to turn Moscow, Idaho, into a “church town.”
Two real estate companies, New Founding and RidgeRunner, manage the logistics of building the Jackson County community. The companies focus on charter communities in Kentucky and Tennessee and attract newcomers by promising that they will be a “part of building a community with people who share your values.” Isker and Engel function as pseudo-ambassadors for the project, using their podcast, “Contra Mundum,” to recruit people to move to Tennessee. They call the podcast the “Number One Christian Nationalist Podcast in the World.”
The fanatical podcast proclaims that the only people who have a so-called legitimate right to a homeland in the United States are “Heritage Americans,” which the duo depicts with Norman Rockwell images of white people, particularly white men. Engel further explained the concept in a social media post, writing that Heritage America “affirms the domination and preeminence of European derived peoples, their institutions and their way of life.”
The two white men offer a laundry list of racist drivel, including denouncing the Civil Rights Movement, defending racial discrimination, spreading the Great Replacement conspiracy theories and laughing at the kidnapping and lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955. In one podcast episode, Engel lamented that “all of our heroes were way more racist than we’re allowed to be today.”
The two also perpetuate misogyny, saying things such as “I detest the specific impact of college-educated white women on the culture of the world around me” and “You can have either women’s liberation or civilization, not both.” The pair denounces universal suffrage and professes that God made men to lead. Engel has said, “I think it’s politically best to have conservatives in power. And blacks and women vote liberal more often than white men.”
Isker and Engel continually repeat that the democratic setup of the United States has ruined the country, that they “support the breakup and crushing of the United States regime” and that they “are willing to use political means to do it.” In one post, Isker wrote, “The institutions matter. The mainline churches matter. One day we will retake them — by force if necessary.”
While talking about their efforts in Jackson County, Isker said, “If you have towns that we’re going to be building — where there are a lot of people that are very politically motivated and very well organized and are out-punching, you know, their weight class in terms of influence — you can have as much influence as one of the big cities in Tennessee.” Engel promised that they have a “multiyear project” to put pressure on the Tennessee GOP to address issues such as immigration.
Isker and Engel see nothing wrong with their abhorrent writings and podcast episodes. They are proud and open Christian nationalists and white supremacists. FFRF Action Fund decries these “Theocrats of the Week” and will continue to track their efforts in Jackson County and similar endeavors nationwide.
FFRF Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization that develops and advocates for legislation, regulations and government programs to preserve the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. It also advocates for the rights and views of nonbelievers, endorses candidates for political office, and publicizes the views of elected officials concerning religious liberty issues.