6. April Ajoy (Leaving Christian Nationalism, Keeping Jesus) – Star-Spangled Jesus

🎙️ 6. April Ajoy (Leaving Christian Nationalism, Keeping Jesus) – Star-Spangled Jesus

Alexis Rice speaks with author and commentator April Ajoy (@aprilajoy) about Christian nationalism, deconstruction, and what it costs to leave certainty without leaving faith.

April grew up in white evangelical, Pentecostal spaces where theology, politics, and identity were tightly bound. In this conversation, she describes how Christian nationalism forms people from the inside—how doubt is framed as spiritual failure, how loyalty is enforced, and how questioning can cost you community, family, and belonging.

Together, Alexis and April discuss January 6 as a turning point for many former evangelicals, the pressure Christians face around voting and abortion, and why Christian nationalism is not fringe but structurally embedded in American political and religious life. April also names what comes after deconstruction: uncertainty, grief, and a less coercive faith rooted in the teachings of Jesus rather than fear or power.

This episode is for listeners trying to understand how Christianity became a vehicle for exclusion and control—and for those still inside Christian spaces who sense something is off but don’t yet have language for it.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Why deconstruction is often involuntary and destabilizing
• How Christian nationalism disguises itself as “Biblical truth”
• Why abortion bans fail to reduce abortions, and what does
• The difference between Christianity and Christian nationalism
• What remains when certainty collapses

👤 About Our Guest

April Ajoy is the author of Star-Spangled Jesus, co-host of The Tim & April Show Podcast (@timandaprilshow), and hilarious social media influencer. Her work examines Christian nationalism, evangelical political formation, and what accountability and faith can look like after leaving authoritarian religious systems.

📚 Resources & Mentions

📖 Star-Spangled Jesus – April Ajoy
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1668016284

🎙 The Tim & April Show – @timandaprilshow
🟡 The New Evangelicals – @thenewevangelicals
🗣 Tim Whitaker – @timwhitakerspeaks
📘 The Bible for Normal People – @thebiblefornormalpeople
📖 Pete Enns – @peteenns

Transcript

April Ajoy (00:00)
from the outside, it seems so obvious. Like, how could you believe these two things that contradict each other? And they're both absolute fact. But when you're in it, think one of the hardest things, too, just about deconstructing is that not only are you going through this existential crisis,

but you're being told by your loved ones, by your community, that you're actually being led astray by Satan simultaneously. you're being gaslit. Like you see something's finally off and you feel this tug to explore that because that is starting to make sense to you. But everyone else that you're leaving behind is trying to pull you back and tell you like, no, you're doing it wrong. You're actually, being led astray. This is just the

demons inside of you. We were Pentecostals. We were very demon happy in our talks. literally demonizing you because they're like, this is just the demons speaking. So it's very lonely and isolating, especially if you've built your entire community. Because think so many evangelical churches, they're based on conformity, even though they say it's about community. And so

They tell you don't have A few doubts every once in are OK, but don't have too many doubts. Don't ask too many questions, because one day you're going to wake up and you're going be an atheist, and you're going to go to hell. the slippery slope, exactly. And so your brain is almost trained from early on to accept things that don't make sense in the flesh, logically. That your brain may not be able to make sense of that.

Alexis Rice (01:11)
The Slippery Slope.

April Ajoy (01:28)
But God works in mysterious ways and God's ways are above our ways and you wouldn't question God, right? Of course you're not gonna understand it because we're just human. And so you're taught that if there's something you don't understand, it's just because you're a silly little human and God has it figured out, so just don't worry about it.

Alexis Rice (01:52)
Welcome to the sacred slope where the slippery slope meets sacred ground. I'm Alexis Rice. Wherever you're listening from inside the United States or far beyond it, this is really important what we're talking about today, not just American politics and it's not just a Christian issue. This is about power and faith

and what happens when a certain version of our religion is used to decide whose lives matter and whose don't. Many people did not take warnings seriously in this country, not the threats of mass deportation, not the promises of retribution, not the rollback of bodily autonomy or the targeting of LGBTQ plus people and not the reality that a movement

calling itself Christian was not actually interested in limited government,

only in who that government would protect. This episode matters if you've never been religious and can't understand why millions of Christians were not moved by the harm happening in plain sight It matters if you're still Christian in spaces that sometimes don't sit right anymore, but you don't have language for it quite yet. And it matters if you're watching the United States from the outside wondering,

how faith became such a tool of fear. Today's conversation with April Ajoy the author of Star-Spangled Jesus, helps us understand Christian nationalism from the inside out. How good people to believe harmful things and how many have been waking up in the last 20 years, in the last decade since around 2016.

And we believe that there's also something that's happening right now. here is the invitation. You are not too late and you are not alone. Many of us began this work of deconstruction years ago, of waking up, looking around, analyzing everything we were taught to believe, putting it on the table, doing it with Jesus, with other people that can help you. And this time it's going to be with scholars and clergy

and churches and communities that are ready to walk with you. Asking the questions is not a betrayal of your faith. It is not doubting, okay? It is often the beginning of moral clarity. Because when a belief system starts insisting that nearly everyone else is the enemy, it's time to stop and ask whether that reflects the heart of God or the hunger for power. I'll say it simply, Jesus loves

all the children of the world, all the children of the world equally. And you know that.

Alexis Rice (04:33)
So we're gonna start off with a clip from April Ajoy's Instagram feed, I Need a Laugh.

Alexis Rice (06:37)
Welcome back to the Sacred Slope, friends. a very specific feeling a lot of us know. It's when you realize that you're not just disagreeing with your church, You ask one honest question, you may not accept the answer, and that tone shifts to, well, I'm just gonna pray for you.

You might suggest that Jesus might care about something besides America, or you might think that queer people might actually be made in the image of God. might wonder whether abortion without exceptions in Christianity are as simple as you were told. You might question why Jesus somehow keeps getting depicted as white, or you might wonder if the rapture is really what the book of Revelation is talking about.

You might even suspect that voting Democrat isn't a moral failure, but for some Christians, a faithful choice. am so excited to be joined by someone who really knows about this. This is April Ajoy Hi, April.

April Ajoy (07:29)
Hello, thank you for having me.

Alexis Rice (07:32)
Thank you for coming on today. April is the author of Star-Spangled Jesus. love, love this book. April's also the co-host of the Tim and April show, one of my favorite podcasts.

April Ajoy (07:37)
Woohoo!

Alexis Rice (07:44)
It's a conversation between Tim Whitaker from the New Evangelicals and April, and I love their banter back and forth and how they talk evangelical fundamentalist Christian nationalist spaces we came out of and yet that we are all Christians April's work has helped hundreds of thousands of people name what they were feeling, but couldn't yet articulate and breathe again on the other side.

I'm going to start by saying, I'm not funny. So I hope that we can get like your humor across in this episode. But I the things that you can do because you can see the things that you're actually making light of now. the process?

April Ajoy (08:10)
haha

Yeah, and

in many ways, I'm kind of making fun of how I used to be. and also humor is just how I cope in general. it's just more enjoyable to laugh about something than to cry about something, which to be fair, I also cry, but laughing's more fun.

Alexis Rice (09:45)
I'm curious, draws you to the work online and social media,

April Ajoy (09:49)
I think one thing that really keeps me going is that when you grow up in this world, in this Christian nationalist, white evangelical world, I was taught from a very young age that my life was bigger than me and that I should be willing to sacrifice whatever I need to in order to stand up for the truth and to stand up for what's right.

And so that part never really went away. And so I think that a lot of what I do is kind of my repentance. I was so loud as a Christian nationalist and on the Republican, you know, political side of things in the name of God, that now I feel like I need to own that and then be just as loud realizing that I was wrong.

Alexis Rice (10:33)
gonna read some excerpts today

I followed your social media for a lot of years. I didn't quite realize the...

April Ajoy (10:38)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (10:40)
personalization of January 6th to you so I thought this was a really good place to start.

April Ajoy (10:46)
Sprinkled throughout the crowd, I notice numerous Christian signs and flags. Signs that said, Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president, Jesus saves, Jesus 2020, even a picture of Jesus wearing a MAGA hat. What does Jesus have to do with this? This was my Jesus, the same Jesus who told Peter to lay down his sword and taught his followers to turn the other cheek. What did Trump have to do with him?

I had been a conservative evangelical for most of my life. Despite that, I felt so disconnected from the people on that screen. These were not people I recognized. This was not a Christianity I had ever followed. I could not wrap my head around why this group was committing such horrible acts for a man who seemed only in it for himself. Beecher arrived home just as the dust from the attack began to settle. I still had the television on. News channels were calling it an insurrection.

They showed horrific scenes from inside the Capitol building and talked about the people who had been injured and died in the attacks. Then they started releasing photos identifying people who had participated. The news station flashed a photo of the infamous zip tie guy on screen. Remember him? The guy who had carried zip ties into the Senate chamber so he could allegedly tie up members of Congress? Ugh, I know him, Beecher said in disbelief. Beecher knew zip tie guy as a youth group kid named Eric.

They had gone to the same small Baptist church in middle of nowhere Georgia while they were in high school. While we were still reeling from that discovery, another picture on the TV caught my attention. my gosh, that's Jenna. Jenna was a Dallas realtor who had gone to my dad's church, my church. I had worshiped with her, talked with her at events and eaten church casseroles beside her. That's when it hit home. The people breaching the Capitol were not some extremist sect that I had never interacted with before.

I knew them. These were my people. An unsettling thought popped into my head. If my life had gone differently, I could have been there with them. This was quickly followed by a realization that rocked my world. crap, I was a Christian nationalist.

Alexis Rice (12:52)
Hmm.

this resonated with me because I thought, ⁓ could have been me

What were the emotions thoughts you had?

April Ajoy (13:00)
think there were a lot of different emotions. One was this almost shock I was a never Trumper, never on the Trump train, and I think his first term was really when I started deconstructing, only I wouldn't have called it that. ⁓ But for the longest time, for that first term, it was easy to kind of almost point my finger, like, well, they've all just gone crazy.

Like this is not who we've ever been. They've lost the plot. was able to distance myself from the way that my fellow Christians, fellow evangelicals were behaving. I just thought they had just kind of gone off the deep end. And then when I watched January 6th happen, and then I recognized Jenna from my church, it was just like this light bulb moment where I realized,

they're just going down the same path that I was also on. And I'm the one that deviated from that path. it just kind of hit me. Like it was all there prior, you know, like America's always a Christian nation. Like I had been taught that we need to elect Christian leaders who just also happen to be Republican because Republicans are who the Christian should always vote for. that was always there.

I don't know, it's just weird how your mind works sometimes. I don't know if it's like a survival or just a way to like protect our goodness, that was the moment where I saw my part in Christian nationalism and harm that I had caused, which was very humbling in a lot of ways. had a lot for not recognizing it sooner, you know? And I guess

When you have a realization like that, you're really left with two choices. You can ignore that and keep going and pretend, no, I was never the problem. I've always been good. Or you own it and say, OK, I recognize this. This was wrong. I played a part in this. I used to cause harm. And now I need to take steps to try to undo that. I just.

chose that because I had also been taught like you always stand up for what's right no matter the cost to you, no matter how it feels and that usually the right thing is the hard thing. so yeah, I mean it was a lot of emotions. Disbelief, and then anger too that I was ever apart, that I could be so stupid.

to be a part of something that was so obviously causing harm, because I had been away from it.

I guess to say mixed emotions.

Alexis Rice (15:27)
Yeah, and I think that's really emphasized of the circles that we grew up in is to be good. We want to be good, we thought we were doing the good things, the right things. And so I think sometimes when deconstruction can hit it's not a choice, it's like this realization that you go, maybe,

April Ajoy (15:33)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (15:46)
the choices I think that are good are not, And actually, in fact, maybe a lot of the choices I've been making are harming others in a way that I'm now waking up to.

April Ajoy (15:56)
Yeah. I mean, in a way, it's a bit of an existential crisis too, because not only are you recognizing, ⁓ I wasn't always the good guy in this, and I actually caused harm while thinking I was the good guy, but then you have to question, is who raised me. Everything that I know is because of these people that taught me these things, that instilled all these beliefs. So then you have to question, was everything that I ever believed a lie?

I mean, that's just chaos.

Alexis Rice (16:24)
very painful and it can be really lonely and all of a sudden you don't actually know who to turn to in that moment because very actually want to talk about that next. on in your book, you talk about the pressure. basically like the pressures that I don't think a lot of people outside evangelical or Christian nationalist spaces really understand, which is, know, I have a lot of friends who are liberal, born and raised liberal and just look at all this stuff that's going on right now and just like.

Why don't you just denounce it and move on? But there is such an extreme pressure in so many communities and family systems and in your local church that you've been raised in forever. if you start saying or thinking things out of your very specific lane, there is a lot at stake, including potentially losing your whole community people just start questioning.

April Ajoy (17:09)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (17:12)
Do you love Jesus? Do you even believe of God? It's this myriad of issues. ⁓ And that list, I noticed, seems to be getting narrower and narrower of what's acceptable to believe and think within a lot of these church spaces. What is your thoughts on that?

April Ajoy (17:26)
Yeah, I think it's really hard for people to understand religious indoctrination when they didn't grow up that way. when you're

from the outside, it seems so obvious. Like, how could you believe these two things that contradict each other? And they're both absolute fact. But when you're in it, think one of the hardest things, too, just about deconstructing is that not only are you going through this existential crisis,

but you're being told by your loved ones, by your community, that you're actually being led astray by Satan simultaneously. you're being gaslit. Like you see something's finally off and you feel this tug to explore that because that is starting to make sense to you. But everyone else that you're leaving behind is trying to pull you back and tell you like, no, you're doing it wrong. You're actually, being led astray. This is just the

demons inside of you. We were Pentecostals. We were very demon happy in our talks. literally demonizing you because they're like, this is just the demons speaking. So it's very lonely and isolating, especially if you've built your entire community. Because think so many evangelical churches, they're based on conformity, even though they say it's about community. And so

They tell you don't have A few doubts every once in are OK, but don't have too many doubts. Don't ask too many questions, because one day you're going to wake up and you're going be an atheist, and you're going to go to hell. the slippery slope, exactly. And so your brain is almost trained from early on to accept things that don't make sense in the flesh, logically. That your brain may not be able to make sense of that.

Alexis Rice (18:46)
The Slippery Slope.

April Ajoy (19:03)
But God works in mysterious ways and God's ways are above our ways and you wouldn't question God, right? Of course you're not gonna understand it because we're just human. And so you're taught that if there's something you don't understand, it's just because you're a silly little human and God has it figured out, so just don't worry about it.

you just get kind of stuck in this cycle. And then everyone else around you, you've built yourself a little echo chamber.

is just giving you confirmation bias day after day after day after day. And you get re-indoctrinated week after week when you go to church and a pastor tells you what to think and not how to especially if you're also homeschooled with like Christian curriculum or you go to private Christian schools, you literally only ever hear one specific way of thinking and everything else is demonized.

Alexis Rice (19:53)
Yep. remember when I heard Pete ends, I love the Bible for normal people. And Pete said, the mental gymnastics that we have to do to convince ourselves that there was really a talking snake or talking donkey. have to believe it,

April Ajoy (20:06)
Mm.

Alexis Rice (20:08)
magic is not okay unless it's in the Bible. maybe we could have been taught, hey, this is the story of God and it may not have been read to be literal. It may be trying to tell us a story. That would have been such a different way of beginning that interaction with the story in Genesis. But we don't really get to have that in a lot of fundamentalist spaces.

April Ajoy (20:12)
Right, right.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Nope.

Alexis Rice (20:33)
All

right, so we're going to go to page 121. Antifa Super Soldiers demonizing enemies.

When she was two, she walked up on stage where her daddy was preaching and asked to sing, which began her singing career in churches all over the world. As she grew, she started speaking up for Jesus to anyone who would listen. No part of her life was excluded from sharing the gospel, including dating. She even gave one non-Christian guy a Biblem with his name on it as a parting breakup gift, since they obviously couldn't be unequally yolked

She worked in Christian media and spread the gospel professionally. She married a Christian, had two Christian babies whom they had dedicated to God and continued going to church where she led worship. She had everything going on for her as a godly Christian woman until one day she voted for a Democrat, became a false prophet, and being used by Satan to take thousands of souls to hell with her. Guess she was never really a Christian to begin with.

just a really convincing actor for the first 30 years of her life. This is my story, street cred I earned was flushed down the toilet, gone the moment I didn't vote red.

April Ajoy (21:46)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (21:49)
When I think about the 2024 80+ million people did not vote. They chose not to vote. That means they didn't vote for Trump, but they couldn't vote blue. They couldn't vote for a Democrat.

April Ajoy (22:06)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (22:06)
And you and

I know a lot of these people are Christians and they're in the middle and they have been told repeatedly their whole lives that no matter what, no matter how bad it is, you can't vote Democrat if you want to be a faithful Christian. just like to hear about your experience about that and what would you say to Christians who are in that space, who are continuously told that? what have you learned?

April Ajoy (22:27)
Yeah.

Yeah,

I I was taught that my entire life. When I was in high school and we had Myspace back in the day, I'm dating myself a bit. ⁓ But I made a Myspace group and I called it I'm a Christian, therefore I'm a Republican. Because it was just kind of, it was said without being said. It was just kind of this unwritten rule. If you are a good Christian, you vote

Alexis Rice (22:40)
Same, same.

April Ajoy (22:56)
mean, some people would blatantly say it and I was a pastor's kid. So I heard all the behind the scenes conversations where that was blatantly really the main issue at the time was abortion. And that does still seem to be the main issue, which I get. I I voted third party in 2016 because I knew I could not vote for Donald Trump, but I also knew I couldn't vote for a Democrat.

You know, and when you bring in like in times prophecy I remember being told that pretty much any president running as a Democrat could potentially be the Antichrist that that every single year, like every single election without fail. So I understand that because if you only grow up in these conservative circles, you're only ever taught a very sensationalized understanding of what abortion.

is, and you know I still personally like don't love abortion. But I don't know anybody that loves abortion. I don't know anyone that's like wants to get pregnant just so they can have an abortion. It's not like going to a theme park and you know it's not a fun experience from what I hear. But I was never taught that a DNC is recorded the same way in your medical charts

whether it's from a miscarriage or from an abortion. like, really,

Alexis Rice (24:11)
Yep. That's what happened to me, actually. Yeah.

I lost my first baby. It was a DNC. It said abortion. I was very confused. And had I not had that health care and they had cleaned my body out well, I wouldn't have my two babies. Yeah. Neither was I.

April Ajoy (24:26)
Right, see, and I was never taught that. I thought, I was taught

know, late term abortion, mothers carrying babies through the ninth month and then just deciding willy nilly to have an abortion. Like that's what was taught. And they're like, they're decapitating babies. I went to a hell house, which if, I don't know if you know what that is, but they're basically haunted houses put on by churches. Yeah, so they're.

Alexis Rice (24:48)
I read about it. ⁓ my God. That's terrifying.

April Ajoy (24:52)
Yeah, they are haunted houses put on by churches, but instead of like ghosts and zombies or Michael Myers, it's demons and like regular people committing quote unquote sins and then those demons dragging them to hell. And the very first room of this hell house that I went to when I was 12 was an abortion clinic and it looked, there was like, I don't know, she was probably 14, 15 maybe a girl having like pregnant and they rip out.

what looked like a six month, nine month old baby, like out of the womb baby. It was a huge baby doll that they ripped out and there's just blood going everywhere and there's little demons in the background being like, this is what she gets when she thinks that my body, my choice is about women's rights. Shouldn't have slept with football player. And it's like, my God. So I just decided right then, well, I'm never having sex because I don't ever want to go through whatever this is.

So that was literally my introduction to abortion. And so I'm like, well, that's awful. Yeah, who would want that? ⁓ But that's by no means the only thing either. They would talk like abortion is the worst thing you could ever do. You are murdering a baby. And so of course, you don't want to be on the side that's murdering babies. You want to be against the side that's murdering babies. And that's literally all I was taught about it.

And to me, it was just a black and white baby murder or not baby murder. I'm like, I'll take the not baby murder. Thank you. And of course, you're not told to go research it and figure out the harm that happens when you take away a woman's right to just the nuance involved or what the Bible says about it. You would have thought, right, it doesn't say anything.

Alexis Rice (26:39)
and doesn't say.

April Ajoy (26:42)
But the way that it was presented to me, you would have thought that the church was always against abortion and that there was a clear verse that said, thou shall not have an abortion ever, period. It's murder. But that's not there at all. And in fact, I was surprised to learn this too, that when Roe v. Wade was first ruled on in the 70s, the majority of white evangelicals were either indifferent or supported it.

Alexis Rice (27:09)
Yep.

April Ajoy (27:09)
And the

president of the Southern Baptist Convention at the time even came out publicly and said that he supported a woman's right to choose and that it should be between her and her doctor and her family and what's best for her. You would think though that the church had always been against abortion. It wasn't until it was politically convenient for them to go after abortion that they did.

Alexis Rice (27:33)
what do you think about those people that are in the middle I don't know who you voted for in 2024, I remember the first time I voted was Orange County, California and I went with my parents and they were just appalled. I was.

April Ajoy (27:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (27:49)
voting for Democrat and that they were voting for Republicans, of course, because our family votes for a Republican. I had a family member that told me one time, well, my kids are a lot of things, but they were never liberals, you know, as if it was the worst thing you could be if you were a Christian. kind of advice do you have for people who are in that space now?

April Ajoy (28:01)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (28:11)
and really wrestling with this as we're witnessing the atrocities that daily unfold in our nation and in this world. Midterms are coming up and I think a lot of people have a lot of gut-wrenching feelings about what to do.

April Ajoy (28:18)
Mm-hmm.

it's one thing to be personally against abortion, you know, where you personally would never have an abortion. And then it's another thing to tell other people what they can and can't do because of how you feel. But also, what really shifted my mind was when I realized that abortion was a symptom.

of a problem, it wasn't the problem. The problem is unwanted pregnancies. And there was really only one party that I saw that was actively trying to tackle the problem through comprehensive sex education, providing health care, providing contraceptives to people who needed easy and free access to try to help women who need maternity leave or just other family leave.

childcare, Democrats, and I'm not like a rah-rah Democrat person. Like think the two party system is flawed in many ways, but Democrat the only party that I saw when I was realizing that was actually trying to make life better so that women if they got pregnant and didn't want the baby, that they could be in positions to actually have that baby.

Alexis Rice (29:23)
Totally.

April Ajoy (29:37)
Because a lot of this choice is made because of economic pressures or because they're in abusive relationships and they don't have the resources to be able to provide for that child. And side, not only were they not providing solutions for the problem, they were actively fighting against those solutions. They wanted abstinence only sex education, which does not work. Like the data historically, like that doesn't work. They wanted...

Alexis Rice (29:38)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

April Ajoy (30:04)
to take away birth control on people's health insurance. They didn't want their taxes paying for that. Not to mention just the way the church in general shames women who get pregnant out of wedlock. a conversation that they don't wanna have. I I was in Christian college and I a girl who got pregnant and she got expelled, but the boyfriend didn't get expelled. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (30:28)
No way.

April Ajoy (30:30)
Like that, and that happens all the time. and that's what I think too, like if she would have had  gone and gotten abortion, she would have been able to continue on with her degree without being expelled and no one would have ever known. But she did the right thing in their eyes and kept the baby and was punished for it. So I'm like, y'all are not, you're not doing anything to try to actually save these babies. Like

You're having these babies be birthed and then completely forgetting about them. And so that was when I realized I'm not voting for abortion. I'm voting for women's health care. I'm voting

Alexis Rice (30:57)
Mm-hmm.

April Ajoy (31:08)
for families to have the most resources that they can to bring children into the world. And I'm voting for people that are going to actually tackle the problem, which is unwanted pregnancies, not the symptoms. Because the symptom will always be there if you don't go after the problem. And not to bans don't work either. I mean, we saw a national rise in the abortion rate after Roe v. Wade was overturned. And then I looked historically, too.

Alexis Rice (31:32)
That's right.

April Ajoy (31:35)
the abortion rate nationally always goes down under Democrats. It has a lower rate under Democrats than it does under Republicans, and that's because they actually go after the problem, not the symptom. And so it's kind of a rewiring. And yeah, I mean, I had to deconstruct that because in my head, I'm like, am I a baby murderer? But I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm actually voting for the least amount of harm that is being caused. And that doesn't even count the myriad

Alexis Rice (31:52)
Mm-hmm. I know. I get that.

April Ajoy (32:04)
of other issues that honestly I probably would have voted Democrat way earlier if not for the one abortion issue because I do think I just I feel like we're like when I was Republican I was kind of on the wrong side of a lot of things but I couldn't get past the abortion issue.

Alexis Rice (32:11)
Yes.

This one.

exactly. Thank you for talking about that because I don't know if people who, have not been in our shoes, in our church spaces, in our communities understand that deep pressure. It is not just about like, we'll just vote blue this time and you can go back to voting red. It's like, it was so drilled into us that a murderer, I go ahead.

April Ajoy (32:41)
I was told I

was thwarting the will of God by not voting for Trump.

Alexis Rice (32:47)
people. Jeez, man. cool. ⁓ yeah. vibes on One of the things that helped me a lot with abortion is an episode from The New Evangelicals that Tim talked about something similar that you said is that if you really want fewer abortions, if that's really what you care about, then giving

April Ajoy (32:47)
That was a direct quote and a DM from a woman from my dad's Different one from the one that was at the insurrection, but very similar vibes.

Alexis Rice (33:08)
access to contraceptives and then also to abortion care actually lowers the rates of abortion, like you said. just hearing that was you want there to be fewer, let's look at it from a practical perspective. How do we get fewer

April Ajoy (33:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Alexis Rice (33:28)
we are going to go talk about

Page is going to be about Christianity versus Christian nationalism. This is getting really conflated in our media right now, especially when people don't understand the differences.

By the way, you guys, April reading this book, the audio book, if you've read this, I would suggest to go get the audio book as well because I loved hearing you read it with all the nuance I really, really loved it. So get

April Ajoy (33:50)
Oh, thank

loved reading it because it was the first time I actually got to read it without also trying to edit it at the same time. I was like, oh my gosh, it's a book. It makes sense. So anyway, wanted a government that honored God in all its ways. My dad preached about electing people of faith into roles of authority. He preached against social policies that he thought went against the Bible.

Alexis Rice (34:01)
It does make sense.

April Ajoy (34:13)
We were convinced that living godly was what was best for the country and every citizen within it. And this is where the line between conservative Christianity and Christian nationalism gets fuzzy. Both generally want, as my father did, to see more Christians in leadership positions in the government. But if you want your congressmen to be an evangelical, someone with your same worldview, because you want someone in government who truly represents you at the table, I'd say that's basic conservative Christianity.

This sounds like just wanting your voice heard and accounted for as the country makes decisions. We all vote for people who line up with our values in some way after all. But if you want all governmental leaders to have the exact same evangelical worldview as you do and want them to make laws and policies that line up with your particular beliefs while ignoring other voices or opinions, this feels very much like you've entered Christian nationalist territory. Think about it.

In only 14 % of America classified themselves as white evangelicals. By the ideas put forth by democracy, the government should roughly match that number with only 14 % of those in Congress also being white evangelicals. But in 2023, 87 % of Congress identified as Christian, with 57 % considering themselves Protestant. Now, I'm not sure how many of these consider themselves evangelical, but I'm guessing it's over 14%.

And with 75 % of Congress being white Americans, this means white evangelicals are overrepresented in government. It's almost as if this power imbalance is intentional. Which it is. Some Christian nationalists believe taking control of the nation is actually mandated by God. Those who adhere to the Seven Mountain Mandate believe Christians are called by God to have dominion over not just America, but eventually the world. I suppose this is a good time to tell you about the Seven Mountain Mandate.

The Seven Mountain Mandate is a global strategy that seeks to spread Christianity to all corners of the world and often focuses on America as the vessel to do this. It's the belief that the best way to expand the kingdom of God is for Christians to take control of the world, bringing heaven to earth through the seven main spheres or mountains of influence in the world. Education, religion, family, business, government slash military, entertainment, and media. Though there's slight variation on this list depending on who you ask.

Those who adhere to this ideology believe Christians must prepare the earth for Christ's return by controlling these mountains. Only when all seven have been conquered will Jesus roll out the end times.

Alexis Rice (36:45)
When I read this, I thought I would love to mail this book to every single congressperson and senator in the United States, but also leaders around the world to help them understand how serious this is. this isn't some fringe kind of thing. this is actually the core of what, you know, to some extent, a lot of us were raised with, but then the people in power really serious about this. So

April Ajoy (37:00)
Mm.

Alexis Rice (37:13)
what do you want people who are unfamiliar with American Christian nationalism, but now see that this is the framework that is affecting all of us, regardless of belief or background, to understand?

April Ajoy (37:27)
just not as fringe as you want to think that it is. And the amount of power that Christian nationalists have gained in the last several years, especially through the Trump administration, is not talked about enough in secular mainstream a very intentional plan. It's not like, we have a bunch of Christians. that's great.

It's not an Project 2025 is practically a Christian nationalist playbook. There are Christian nationalist pastors, like Pete Hegseth's pastor, Pete Hegseth, who's the defense secretary or the secretary of war, as they want to call His pastor, Doug Wilson.

like wants to repeal the 19th Amendment and take away a woman's right to

hard because there are so many different sects of Christian nationalism. You have your more reformed group, which would be the Doug Wilsons of the world, that in some ways much more extreme when it comes to wanting to just make women breeders that are home and popping out babies, which I think is another reason they fight so hard against abortion too. They don't like the idea of women being able to live their lives however they want, and they view a pregnancy as a punishment.

that they think they're cheating if they, anyway, but that's another story. So you have your reformed Christian nationalist. You've got your charismatic Christian nationalist, which is where I came from. And that's kind of the new apostolic reformation. That's your Paula White's she's over The White House faith office that they created. And then they started this anti-Christian bias task force. And then you kind of have your non-denominational everyday,

Christian nationalists. And the thing is, of all of these different groups, there's only a small percentage that would actually call themselves Christian nationalists. I think that is something that most people need to realize, that there are a lot of people out here pushing Christian nationalism, but saying they're just pushing Christianity, that what they're doing is just being good only trying to take away your rights because it's what God wants them.

to do. They're just standing up for biblical truth. Which, by the way, biblical truth is a dog whistle for Christian nationalism because there is no one biblical truth in the Bible. It has multiple worldviews within it. And so I think that makes it really hard because unless you're at the very tippy top and those in power, most people don't even think they're being Christian nationalists.

Alexis Rice (39:57)
Right.

April Ajoy (39:58)
Like they think they're being good Christians because of all that indoctrination that we talked about earlier. that's why too, which I think is one reason why a lot of secular media won't touch it as much is because they play the Christian persecution card and it works. I mean, it's the best play that they have. They play the persecution card and then everyone backs off because they don't want to come across as they're being anti-Christian or anti-religion.

Alexis Rice (40:13)
Right. Yep.

April Ajoy (40:23)
Because America was founded on the idea of religious freedom, and I fully believe in religious freedom. they will say they are for religious freedom while actively trying to take away those freedoms from anyone who is not a white Christian.

Alexis Rice (40:39)
It's weird to understand the nuances of all of this, isn't it?

April Ajoy (40:42)
it is weird, because I do understand it so well because I come from it, but then sometimes I'll catch myself saying it all out loud. I'm like, gosh, this is so crazy.

Alexis Rice (40:44)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's

totally. we're actually going to go to page 18, Christian equals evangelical. this is actually going into exactly what you're talking about. it's saying, like, I'm a Christian. Some things that I hear sometimes is, I go to a Bible-believing church, right?

April Ajoy (41:05)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (41:06)
What are the other ones that you hear? There's so many dog whistles.

April Ajoy (41:07)
A biblical worldview.

Yeah, Bible believing is one you hear a lot. Yeah.

Alexis Rice (41:09)
Those things, yeah. It's the Bible

because the other Christians don't believe the Bible. this is something that I talk about a lot on the sacred slope as I go around the world and talk to people of all these different denominations. So I really appreciated that you highlighted this. We grew up thinking that Christian equals evangelical.

But guess what? As you just said, there's 14 are evangelical Christians within the United States. if you zoom out, there's around 2 billion people on the planet who are within the body of Christ. So if you think about the percentage of people who are American white Christian nationalists, it is so tiny compared to our global body of Christ. And yet,

within media and within government, the microphone is so large. The funding is so intense on that side. So it makes it feel like this is speaking for all Christians. But you're going about that a little So it says, today, there are over 45,000 denominations worldwide that fall under the Christian umbrella. 45,000. I spent most of my life deeply embedded in Christian evangelical culture.

April Ajoy (42:00)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (42:14)
And I could have listed maybe 15 denominations total. In fact, I was sheltered from just how the Christian umbrella is. My family and I didn't need to know or talk about the thousands of other denominations because they didn't matter. They all believed slightly different things, but we were the ones who had it right. The Bible was clear about that. All the long and glorious history of Christianity had led up to our very church with its unique

to practice the faith exactly as God intended. We were non-denominational Pentecostals and everyone around me assured me that we all had the answers for everything. Any Christian who said otherwise or had slight theological differences was just sadly misinformed. We could bless their little hearts for trying though, unless they were a Democrat. Then there was a good chance they were in cahoots demonic forces to purposely throw us off.

Today, the term narrow-minded is mostly meant as an insult, but we wore that term like a badge of honor. This is really important, April, right? people need to understand that we don't think that was an insult. My dad regularly touted from the pulpit, people call us narrow-minded, maybe that's true, but we can afford to be because we're right. He used that one a lot and congregations around the country always roared at it.

April Ajoy (43:19)
right.

Alexis Rice (43:33)
I included the same sentiment in one of the verses in my America Say Jesus song. They say we're narrow-minded, always trusting in God's might, but they can argue all they want because we know we're right. It makes me cringe now, but I believed every word. And in the self-published book I wrote when I was 19, I said one of Satan's most dangerous tactics was convincing people to be open-minded.

April Ajoy (44:01)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, open-minded was like a curse word.

Alexis Rice (44:05)
crazy that we grew up in different parts of the country and things that we learn in church, like all these subtleties are in there, right? How many people really understand that we were taught that to be a good Christian, don't get too open-minded because that's going to lead you down a slippery slope.

April Ajoy (44:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. not only are you taught not to be open minded, but that your basic instincts and like fleshly thoughts, AKA like your normal human thoughts are sinful and can't be trusted. So you have all these ideas in your head that one, you can't trust your own instincts because they're sinful. And then two, don't ever

think too hard. Don't have too much of an open mind because that's how Satan gets in. An open mind was an open door for Satan to come in with all his satanic and wrong ideas. I mean, you're just it's not even conscious. You don't even do it consciously. You're doing it just because you've always done it that way. It took me so long from deconstructing, and honestly, still to this day, I struggle with knowing what

I, April, actually want. Because I was conditioned to only want what the church told me to want and that anything else outside of that needed to be squashed. So for the first 30 years of my life, I was taught to just squash me, really. it takes a long time to get the you that you killed over time to come back.

Alexis Rice (45:41)
was thinking about how persecution complex is something that we really loved to do. we were called narrow-minded, right? And I really relate to this because I felt like I was being such a good Christian middle school and high school spaces where my anti-abortion speech in high school. I had that Jesus Freak badge of honor. was so proud about my purity culture

April Ajoy (45:49)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (46:02)
loved making audible groans while my poor science teacher tried to teach about the Big Bang and evolution and I was feeling persecuted. go to college and I was angrily submitting a college essay about affirmative action, which all comes from this whole idea of like, we're being persecuted if we're not agreed really, it's like if we're out there,

April Ajoy (46:07)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (46:25)
potentially hurting people or not making room for other thoughts. People don't like that.

April Ajoy (46:32)
yeah, mean hindsight is 20-20. I mean I remember being called bigot once and being like, yes, finally, I finally got called one. know, like didn't it take any account for like, I said something really mean to that person, you know, like no, yay, I was persecuted. Like you wanted to be persecuted. If you were persecuted, it was like proof that you were being a good Christian. So you could just go and treat people however you wanted to treat them, however badly. And if they pushed back at all, then it's off.

Well you're just being mad because you hate my god.

Alexis Rice (47:05)
Yeah, and to take that to today's context, I feel like this is people who were raised cannot be queer, And so if I come out as a Christian and I say, well, you know, these are my beliefs that like, I just really believe that you can't be gay or you can't be trans. And then people are upset with that person. like, I'm being persecuted for my beliefs. And it's like...

April Ajoy (47:26)
Right.

Alexis Rice (47:29)
You're hurting people, right? You're not allowing people to be, but that's where we need more Bible literacy, right? Allowing Christians to understand that It is not that you have to be a Bible believing fundamentalist Christian or a godless liberal atheist communist Marxist, right? Like there's a lot of nuance in between.

April Ajoy (47:31)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, there's so much nuance. And that's one thing that I'm learning still, is just realizing that everything is much more nuanced than most people would try to make things seem. And the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know.

Alexis Rice (48:09)
behalf of people who are or listening outside of the US, who are watching America right now, watching Christian language being used to justify our government, our power, our exclusion, our violence.

What do you want them to know about Americans and Christians who do not subscribe and agree to what's going on?

April Ajoy (48:33)
Mm-hmm.

So the more the MAGA Christians, the Christian nationalists, they're the loudest. They've got the microphones, they've got the pulpits, the churches, they've got the White House currently, and they are the loudest. But I don't think they're the majority. There are far more people that are against what the Trump regime is doing.

a lot of Christians. I mean, I've gone to several just in this last year since Trump's taken office. And I've seen tons of fellow Christians at these protests with Bible verses on their protest I think easy to assume. hear a lot of pushback, especially people that are anti-theist or anti-religion, like all.

together and I understand their sentiments do think like organized religion in many ways probably cause more harm than good. that's different for me than like faith, like your personal faith and your personal beliefs in God or whatever you want to believe But I would just say response to people that are like, well, you should just leave Christianity altogether. Like what is worth saving? me,

I've just always loved Jesus and I've always had this connection to this spirituality. I know how that can sound crazy to people who are not religious, but I just know like, can't let Jesus go. And Jesus is the name that I use for this being this spirit that's always been with of recognize that.

I think just God is much bigger than the evangelical box that I used to put God into. And on a very practical level, I think it's important to maintain my Christian faith publicly. One, because it's true. But also because I really believe that the teachings of Jesus, the red letters, are a kryptonite to Maga. Because what Christian nationalists stand for,

is about as opposite from who Jesus was as you can possibly get. And it's going to take other Christians, I think, to stop it. especially Christians who come from that world too, because I know the language, I know why they're doing it, I know what they think, because I used to think and do all of those things too. And I know what worked on me so that I can have these conversations.

reality is, because they're taught to not be open-minded, they're much more likely to listen to someone who's still a Christian than they are to someone who's completely left the faith. So that's one of several reasons. I am also just a Christian still, but I do just gonna be more likely to listen to me if I still claim the faith.

Alexis Rice (51:19)
Yep.

I want to end on something that was really moving. And I've spent a lot of years in deconstruction spaces, but I hadn't heard the cost of deconstruction and for Christians trying to do better what you wrote in the end of your book. I was wondering if you could read a little to personalize this journey of what that looks like. It's page

April Ajoy (51:49)
Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (51:50)
219.

nationalism.

April Ajoy (51:53)
Christian nationalism offered certainty and leaving their conclusiveness was terrifying. Researching topics and finding answers that could destroy meaningful relationships in my life was incredibly lonely. Asking God questions I was told to never ask was gut wrenching. Acknowledging the harm I caused when I was in the movement was agonizing to reckon with.

Before this, there had always been a pastor or a church leader I could go to and ask the hard spiritual questions. Unfortunately, the typical answers didn't work for me anymore and the conversations couldn't go any further. I was just warned about the dangerous path I was on. There was no one to talk to and I was tired of being reprimanded on top of already feeling lost within uncertainty. Am I a terrible person for questioning my entire life? But I couldn't stop.

That's the thing evangelical pastors don't mention about deconstruction. No one chooses to do it. It just happens. One day you wake and the years of little things that never made sense rise to the surface. Or your brother comes out to you and you're faced with the reality you were told didn't exist. Or you see people you know storming the Capitol and realize you were a freaking Christian nationalist the entire time.

Alexis Rice (53:06)
So what I think was really important about this is that you talked about how you had to take everything apart. you didn't know which parts of your beliefs were going to be true versus not. And tearing down that foundation was really hard and it was really painful. But it was really necessary for you to be able to rebuild the faith that you have today. I just want to...

April Ajoy (53:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Alexis Rice (53:28)
hear about how that's been since you've reflected on writing this what are the parts that mean something to you in this moment?

April Ajoy (53:35)
Mm-hmm.

one thing, ⁓ I don't know if you remember this phrase. There was this phrase that was said a lot in evangelical churches when I was growing up. And it's that we had freedom in Christ. And that freedom in Christ is why we were Christians. And that the world just didn't understand where we were coming from because they didn't feel what we felt, this freedom. And I believed that.

for a really long time that I was free and that I could never feel more peace than I did when I was holding on to a lot of this dogma that came from being like fundamentalist.

since deconstructing that fundamentalism away and realizing that it's okay to have uncertainty. And in fact, that's very normal to not just have this like rigid dogmatic belief system where you know that you know that you know that you know, because even though we said that deep know, nobody actually knows. But

leaving all of that behind and not holding on to that mindset where I questioned every little thought I ever had is the actual freedom in Christ. Like I feel so much more peace and freedom now knowing that I don't have to limit an experience with God with the church building. I can go have an experience with God at a drag show, you know, at a protest in the woods.

Alexis Rice (54:57)
Absolutely. Yes.

April Ajoy (55:01)
that's been a really fun experience is just finding God in places the church told me not to look and just realizing that in a lot of ways we're a lot more connected than my belief system had me think. I don't it's been really hard. not, I'm not trying to sugarcoat it. It's been very hard. It's very isolating. There are a lot of tears for sure.

but it was absolutely worth it. Like you don't realize how heavy that mindset is and how much of a burden you are constantly carrying and how exhausting it is to live with all those mental gymnastics and that cognitive dissonance and feeling this need to defend the things that don't make sense all the time. Letting that go is truly life-changing. Like in a way,

I was living in a hell on earth own making, like trapping myself in my own body, not being free because of what I was told to do, because I was told, you know, that was sinful and I needed to die to yourself. And now realizing I can be myself and worship God and those two things are not in conflict, been the greatest thing.

Alexis Rice (56:15)
⁓ that's so beautiful. You ready for the quick lightning round? Okay. what is the Christian internet comment that you could recite in your sleep? The one that you've heard a thousand times.

April Ajoy (56:20)
Okay. Yes.

⁓ you were never really a Christian. Or you were never really a Republican. One of those.

Alexis Rice (56:33)
Cool.

favorite worship song or hymn or Christmas

April Ajoy (56:37)
I still love how great thou art. It still gets me.

Alexis Rice (56:39)
Mmm.

What is one thing that you've lost and one thing that you've gained that you really treasure when you started naming this publicly?

April Ajoy (56:48)
Well, I've gained freedom many senses of the word. And lost, I think as a preacher's kid, we cared a lot about what people think, and I still struggle with that a little bit, but I've lost a lot of that.

You kind of have to by, you know, the hundredth time you're called the anti-Christ. So, you know, I've gained some thick skin too.

Alexis Rice (57:10)
question. Favorite TV show that you and Beecher are binging right now?

April Ajoy (57:14)
Beecher's not really a binger. ⁓ we are watching Traitors though. I mean, we've watched every season. this season, I mean, it's interesting. We love Traitors though. Beecher wants to try out and send in it. But like really wants to be on Traders. So if someone that works for NBC happens to be seeing this, my spouse Beecher would die if they could be on Traitors

Alexis Rice (57:15)
Mmm.

Is it good?

April Ajoy (57:41)
That's it, that's my pitch for the world.

Alexis Rice (57:45)
April Ajoy We will make sure that that's going to happen. Somebody at NBC is going to see this. Thank you so much for being with us today on the sacred slope.

April Ajoy (57:48)
Ha ha ha!

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Alexis Rice (57:54)
Thank you for joining us today on The Sacred Slope. If you'd like to nominate a pastor, priest, or clergy member anywhere in the world, send me an email at Alexis @ thesacredslope.com. Music was by Brett Rutledge, Eddie Irvin, and Sean Spence. May the fruit of the spirit guide you this week. I'm Alexis Rice. Go in peace, friends.

Alexis Rice (59:50)
and if you like this content, follow The Sacred Slope on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, threads, TikTok, and BlueSky @TheSacredSlope

watch on YouTube or Spotify listen on Apple and everywhere you get your podcasts. Till next time.