By Darrell Lucus
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For almost eight years, the religious right has tried to convince us that Donald Trump is God’s choice to lead our country, while the Democrats are God-hating, baby-killing heathens. That talking point rings extremely hollow in the wake of Trump’s many depravities. The religious right is all in for a man who plastered a news anchor’s personal cell number on social media, mocked the disabled, condoned violence at his rallies and against the media, reveled in degrading women, and stirred up a violent mob to attack the Capitol in hopes of stealing another term that (based on the published record) he knew he didn’t win.
Well, add another depravity to the list. On Thursday, Trump dropped in at a town hall event at a church in Phoenix sponsored by hardcore MAGA youth group Turning Point USA. At that rally, Trump actually dropped a curse word about immigrants—and encouraged the crowd to chant said curse word despite children being present.
The rally took place at Dream City Church, an Assemblies of God megachurch in northern Phoenix. A day after the rally, E. J. Montini of The Arizona Republic raked Dream City over the coals for letting Kirk and his minions behind their doors. Montini argued that it was a flagrant violation of IRS regulations governing political activity that apply to ALL nonprofits, secular and religious.
The Internal Revenue Service is quite specific in describing the limitations of 501(c)(3) organizations, saying, “Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”
And yet here is Dream City hosting a “town hall” sponsored by Turning Point Action, run by former Trump aide Charlie Kirk.
The group on its website said that Trump will speak in Phoenix “with authenticity, strength, and compassion for the plight facing everyday people under Joe Biden’s failing policies.”
Sounds like they are directly “participating in” and “intervening in” a political campaign, doesn’t it? As if Dream City is less a house of God and more a politically procurable right-wing Airbnb.
Which is illegal.
Supposedly.
This isn’t the first time that Dream City has gone all in for Trump. In one of my left-leaning Christian groups, a man who was a longtime media ministry staffer at Dream City—formerly Phoenix First Assembly of God—revealed that he walked out in disgust in 2020 when the church’s leadership went full-on MAGA. According to the former staffer, ahead of another TPUSA rally at Dream City, church leadership issued an ex cathedra demand to all staffers—align with MAGA and culture war ideology or resign.
Believe it or not, the IRS issues weren’t the worst of it. Podcaster Jesse Dollmore flagged a portion of Trump’s speech in which he actually encouraged the crowd to chant a curse word—in a church, with kids in earshot. Watch here.
While railing about immigrants “invading” this country, Trump claimed these immigrants’ kids “speak languages we’ve never even heard of” while taking the place of the “child(ren) of citizens.” Typical Trumpian word salad and lies, right?
But later on in the speech, Trump started ranting anew about Biden’s latest executive order on immigration amounting to an endorsement of “the largest border invasion in the history of the world.” In Trump’s eyes, this was yet another case of Biden doing something “fake.” But he thought there was a stronger word for “fake.”
So they come up with this order—I won’t say it because I don’t like using the word “bullshit” in front of these beautiful children. So I won’t say it, I will not say it! But this thing allows millions of people...
At that point, as if on cue, the young red hats started chanting, “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” In a church. In front of children.
Most of you know that I don’t exactly have the cleanest mouth. But one absolute red line that I will not cross and never will cross has always been using profanity while speaking in church. And coming from the party that, for the better part of four decades, has tried to convince us that “GOP” stands for “God’s Own Party” or “God’s Only Party”? The hypocrisy burns.
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