Church Recon Project - A Cultural and Spiritual Field Report

I’ve been tracking the rise of Christian Nationalism and its use of Trump and the MAGA movement to push America toward authoritarianism. Its roots are not political - they are theological. And because I’ve also heard that churches are fracturing from within, I decided to step into a Christian church for the first time in more than a decade and observe the dynamic from the inside.

What I found clarified the entire puzzle.

The Exemplar vs. Savior Divide

Christianity has always drawn a hard line:

• Seeing Jesus as an exemplar makes you a heretic.

• Seeing Jesus as a savior makes you orthodox.

This divide is not theoretical - it has fueled roughly 450 million deaths over 1700 years. Christianity’s insistence on substitutionary atonement - the belief that innocence can absorb guilt - has shaped Western morality and trained billions to avoid responsibility.

The church I visited leaned heavily into “saved by the blood” and “my debt is forgiven” language. Nothing new there. But something else stood out: the pastor’s own cognitive dissonance.

The Pastor’s Mini-Damascus Road

During the sermon, the pastor shared a personal conflict with a family member-likely part of the political fracture I went to observe-but what mattered wasn’t the story. It was how he sought guidance.

He said he planned to sit with his Bible, but “wasn’t feeling it.”

Then: “I’m not a heretic…”

And instead went on a walk.

On that walk he received the insight he needed.

Then he referenced Paul’s Damascus road experience - a moment of direct, unscripted revelation that bypassed Scripture and bypassed the institution.

This is exactly what’s causing the fracture in churches:

People are starting to trust direct mystical insight over institutional doctrine.

And that observation led me back to the real story Christians have forgotten.

What Actually Happened to Paul

The early Christians Paul hunted were Jews who rejected temple dogma and saw Jesus as an exemplar - a moral teacher pointing to the inner conscience. Paul wasn’t persecuting outsiders; he was killing his own people who had awakened.

On the road to Damascus, Paul collapses into a mystical state virtually identical to modern entheogenic revelation:

• He is blinded

• He cannot walk

• He descends inward

• He confronts his shadow

• He hears a voice:“Why do you persecute me?” “Go into the city and you will be told what to do.”

  
  

Two instructions. That’s it.

1. Stop killing people.

2. Stop outsourcing your conscience to religious dogma.

Paul obeyed the first instruction - he stopped killing. But the second instruction? His integration was partial.

And this is where history breaks.

Paul’s Incomplete Integration Became Doctrine

I’ve guided enough people through confrontations with heavy karmic material to know this:When someone has killed, the karmic weight is often unbearable.

People either accept their consequences - or they look for an escape hatch.

Paul chose the escape hatch.

He reached back into Jewish sacrificial theology and resurrected its core idea:

“Innocence can die to absolve guilt.”

This was not Jesus’ teaching.This was not the message of his vision. This was not the ethic that ended Paul’s violence.

It was a psychological coping mechanism - Paul attempting to soothe unbearable guilt.

And 2.5 billion people now follow that coping mechanism.

Christianity = Following a Killer’s Distorted Integration

The modern church does not emulate what changed Paul (direct confrontation with conscience).It emulates the doctrine Paul invented to feel better (substitutionary atonement).

The result?

• 32% of the world is following the post-homicidal theology of a man wrestling with his own karma.

• They embrace a doctrine that excuses harm rather than ending it.

• They worship the innocent being sacrificed instead of facing their own shadow.

• They outsource conscience to authority, exactly as Paul was told not to do.

This is why Christian culture produces authoritarianism.This is why Christian politics produces fascism.This is why Christian institutions produce staggering rates of abuse.This is why the MAGA movement mirrors a church revival.

Substitutionary atonement is the antichrist doctrine - the inversion of responsibility.

Meanwhile, Back in Durango

A pastor stands in front of his congregation apologizing for being “a heretic” because the Spirit spoke to him in real time - through a walk, not a book.

He knows what the institution will say about him.He knows what the label means.He knows what happened to people who trusted their inner knowing.

And yet, he followed it anyway.

He is living the same divide that shattered Christianity at its origin:

• Direct revelation vs. religious dogma

• Personal conscience vs. institutional authority

• Inner Christ vs. the Christian church

Just like Paul.Just like the early Christians Paul killed.Just like anyone today who dares trust the truth within.

He doesn’t yet realize it, but his fear of being a “heretic” is the final proof of his awakening. Because in Christian history, both Jesus and Paul would be labeled heretics by the church that later canonized them.

The cycle is repeating. And this time, the truth is surfacing collectively - not just individually.