In almost every interview about how my experience led to my expertise on Project 2025, I’ve been asked the question: How did you escape Christian Nationalism? I carefully crafted a compelling non-answer…in part to protect myself and keep the bulk of my personal trauma behind the curtain.
Last week, I committed to read Colleen Hoover’s novel It Ends With Us to assess its place in the Christian Nationalist canon of pornographic content. When I made that commitment to readers, I didn’t expect the story to trigger me. Now, I believe I must answer the question How did you escape Christian Nationalism? more directly. Along the way, I’ll also explain why Christian Nationalists would call this story porn.
I value every experience that got me here. I paid for them with my body and my sanity. More than once, I almost paid with my life. That price means this series is reserved for paid subscribers.
Readers who may be triggered by frank descriptions of domestic violence, narcissist abuse, gaslighting, or other psychological abuse may want to avoid this series. Those who persevere will learn how Christian Nationalism has permeated every corner of our society, even places where Americans think they’re safe.
Maybe especially where they think they’re safe.
We’ve all seen those stories, right? The ones with a house or an apartment building or an office complex surrounded by emergency vehicles and flashing lights. Equal parts riveted and repelled, we cannot look away as we await the story’s conclusion.
Did anyone die? Who survived? What drove someone to this?
We see gurneys and body bags, and we wonder what caused a human being to kill one or more human beings before turning the gun on himself.
I know how it happens. It almost happened to me.
As a little girl, I never fantasized about marrying a handsome prince. I didn’t long for a dashing hero. I wasn’t even allowed to see rated-G Disney movies, because they might teach me to value worldly things like handsome princes and dashing heroes, material possessions and my own dreams.
From the time I was small, I was taught that my life had one purpose. I would marry a Good Christian Husband who saw fit to choose me, and I would sacrifice myself to make him a shining success.
I still have the actual note with the marital list my pastor prescribed for Christian Nationalist girls.
Boys were given a different set of rules for selecting a Godly Wife. I don’t have that list in my King James Bible, but it contained things like being the leader of the home and disciplining a wife with love when she failed to submit.
Violence wasn’t endorsed. But girls were told a Godly Wife kept her Good Christian Husband happy. If a future Good Christian Husband was ever unhappy, it would most assuredly be the less-than-Godly Wife’s fault.
Of course, I married a Good Christian Man at twenty-three. I was programmed to submit. To follow. To always say yes. To blame myself when things turned ugly, even when he endangered my life.
I clutched my Bible and prayed as I reread that list and begged God to make me a Godly Wife. I had faith that a divine being could help me stop my Good Christian Husband from doing things in fits of rage that could’ve killed me or him or both of us.
It took surviving the appearance of a gun to make me end that marriage. Godly Wives don’t choose to leave. My ungodly decision to divorce began my trek out of Christian Nationalism. I was judged. I was tainted. Sometimes, I was shunned. The actions of others forced me to seek comfort in other things, and some of those things led me here.
I hope readers will learn more about the tactics of Christian Nationalism (and other oppressive groups) if I share how my indoctrination put me in that inevitable situation. Because red state Republicans are using these tactics today. More generally, Republicans have built their definition of family on this foundation. It has jumped the Christian Nationalist fence and permeates the toxic versions of masculinity we see everywhere in our culture.
I don’t share this story because I need anything from you. Through lots of self-work and therapy, I’ve learned to give myself what I need. I’m sharing because I hope to help readers find new tools to fight this scourge in their own communities.
DISCLAIMER: I wouldn’t want anyone to judge me now for things I did in my 20s. Especially since I know how much work I’ve done on myself in thirty years. I sometimes look at pictures of myself from that era and am convinced she wasn't me. It’s a standard coping mechanism for trauma: Imagine it happened to somebody else.
Likewise, I know my ex has gone on to have a happy marriage and a lovely family. He learned from this experience; he worked on himself; and he is a better person today. He does not deserve to be judged for things that happened three decades ago.
Thank you for being here and for valuing this work. If you know someone who might benefit from this series, I hope you’ll click the Share button above.
Horrible. If one is honest, how are these precepts and conditions that different from the Taliban, or any other fundamentalist cult. And that’s what they are, cults. These behaviors can also been seen in the ultra orthodox Jewish community. It’s not about faith…it’s about control.
I'm so so glad you escaped. I just read Tia Leving's book " A Well Trained Wife" and she describes her experience which sounds almost identical to yours. Even though I experienced high control religion in an indirect way the stories of religious trauma and abuse trigger me so much. Lately I've been sounding the alarm about Project2025 on social media and warning that our country could end up like Iran. I get told I am crazy and brainwashed by the the media. I appreciate you sharing what you lived through and I understand how difficult it must be.