Grace City Church Pastor Lays Out Christian Nationalist Vision For An 'Orderly' Society
Says people who are suspicious and frustrated with government should run for positions of power so they can 'get inside and just start dismantling it'
Grace City Church Pastor Josh McPherson laid out his vision for a society “ordered” by Christian nationalism over the last three weeks and explained what kind of people need to be running for office.
“We need people who are suspicious of government and who are frustrated and tired of it running for office, positions of power in it,” he said. “So they can get inside and just start dismantling it.”
With so much “over-regulation” from the “bureaucratic tyranny” it’s impossible to go an entire week without committing a felony, he said.
People need to stop saying that we live in a “democracy,” McPherson said, and claimed that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation because the original colonies had their own official religions. He also took aim at the Democratic party, saying they’re promoting assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump.
“The Democrat, progressive left, wing nut, woke party has normalized all kind of evil including sexual perversion and social perversions,” McPherson said. “And now they’re normalizing assassination attempts by the most crazy rhetoric going on on legacy news outlets days after, weeks after someone actually attempted to kill President Trump.”
You can watch the clip with those quote here:
Then he turned to a slide he had prepared to explain what governments do and got a little flustered.
“How does government’s do it’s job. Wow, that’s nice. How do governments do it’s job. So many problems with that,” he said. “And I wasn’t even public-school trained.”
Throughout the rest of that sermon, and the other hours of video content GCC produced on the issue in the lead up to the November elections, McPherson not-so-subtly hints who his followers should vote for, said you can legislate morality and offers those in the crowd advice on how to answer the question “Are you a Christian nationalist?” if confronted by family, coworkers or neighbors.
His advice: answer the question with a question. Ask if they’d prefer a “pagan globalist” or “godless tribalist” instead.
The rhetorical question is a mainstay of McPherson’s repertoire, and many of the lessons throughout the series start with a question.
“Are you voting on policy or personality?,” one title asks.
In another he ponders the question, “When does the government become illegitimate?”
You can watch most of those videos on McPherson’s personally-branded YouTube channel here. Others are on Facebook, and some clips have apparently been deleted.
McPherson’s predictions for the future are apocalyptic and dire, unless people take action right now.
“I don’t think it’s going to get better. I do think it’s going to get worse. I think we are on a path to judgement,” he said. “Under judgement, and depending on where we go as a culture and what we do as a church will greatly determine what happens in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years.”
In a clip called “What happens when a nation rebels against God?” he makes the point that the more a government “yields” to Jesus the more helpful it is to the people.
The teaser image for that video on McPherson’s YouTube channel features President Joe Biden and what appears to be the US Capitol Building on fire.
At the beginning of each sermon in the series, an intro with a voiceover reminds the viewer that “Jesus is lord over all nations and governments and it’s time somebody says it.”
The images that accompany the voiceover are clearly meant to provoke emotional responses from the viewer. Onscreen the minute-long montage showcases pictures of a bald eagle, a cartoon of Jesus looking over an assortment of flags, liberal protestors, President Biden, people fighting in the street, ancient warriors clashing with swords and shields, the Bible and McPherson himself.
Throughout the series an outline for what an “orderly” society looks and operates like under the auspices and blessing of God began to take shape on the whiteboard onstage.
By week three it had become a multi-tiered graphic showing how protestant nationalism is the only system that produces a social outcome in which people can flourish.
The alternatives are anarchy, in which the only authority the self and the social outcome is chaos.
“In the anarchist there is no authority higher than the self,” he said. “It’s Planet Of The Apes and I reject all authority that tells me I cannot do what I want to do.”
The only other alternative is tyranny, which concentrates power in the hands of a few global elites and leads to oppression.
Those well versed in the parlance of the far-right conspiracy theory world may recognize the term “globalist elites” as one of Alex Jones’ favorite phrases. Critics say its used as a euphemism for Jewish people and is a dogwhistle for antisemites.
In the last installment of the series, titled “It’s not the government’s job to ‘do good,’” McPherson asks another question: “What’s wrong with Christian nationalism?”
He said it’s a phrase that is getting “framed as bad” and “thrown at Christians” as a way to “steer them into silence.”
In his mind, it’s those defecting from the middle path of Christian nationalism and jumping off into anarchy and tyranny who are bringing the nation down and hastening God’s judgement.
“In an ordered society that is theistic in nature that nation, those leaders recognize that God is the one who is in authority,” he said. “And it’s our job to submit to his power, his authority, his job descriptions.”
And an ordered government that follows the Biblical model as he sees it is “empowered by God as a viceregent.”
And he explained what that theological concept is.
“A viceregent is someone on earth empowered to represent heaven,” McPherson said. “Or someone on earth acting in behalf of God in heaven.”
Fathers are viceregent to their families. So too are godly leaders for the nation. If a leader is godly and you disobey him, that’s pretty much the same thing as disobeying God.
“If you rebel against the authority that God has put in place it’s as if you are rebelling against God himself,” he said.
But how do you know who to obey as a representative of God on earth and who are globalist elites or tribal anarchists?
“That’s the part that the American church, for whatever reason, has failed to understand,” McPherson said. “It’s not obey all authorities everywhere no matter what they tell you to do. It’s you obey authorities when they are acting under the authority of God submitted to his moral law.”
If the leaders of a nation move out from under God’s moral law and authority, then they should not be submitted to. They should be confronted and called to repent.
He didn’t get any more specific on what policies, decisions, or positions would move a leader from viceregent status to champion of a demonic counterfeit.
But there’s another weekend of politics and religion ahead, so he might explain further.
You can watch the entire clip on McPherson’s YouTube channel here.
For The Record
I have reached out to McPherson and Grace City church leaders many times to ask specific questions regarding his teachings and theology. So far they have not returned my calls, emails or text messages.
However, I do have a list of questions I will send McPherson and GCC leaders before my long-form piece on them is complete. A question about interests and phrases McPherson shares with Alex Jones is on that list.
I’m considering making that list public before I send it to allow others to give their input and perhaps suggest questions I haven’t thought of. But I want to gauge interest in that. So for the first time ever I’m including a reader poll at the end of a piece.
Thanks. You have inspired me to compile a list of all his dog whistles, which are many.
I would like to know how each person is committing a felony on a weekly basis. He talks so much, but says so little