The Next Four Years

Support the Show • Santiago discusses the current political climate, especially the continued rise of Christian Nationalism in the United States, while reflecting on his personal journey from right-wing authoritarian beliefs to greater empathy and understanding. Listeners are encouraged to stay informed, participate in local elections, maintain hope for justice and positive change.

Resources / Topics Mentioned:
Reddit Post - "My dad woke my fears"
Blog Post - Trump in office Ten Days: the Seventh-day Adventist Church wrote "Keep your mouth shut"
Book - Armageddon by Bart Ehrman
Video - Data Over Dogma Interview with Bart Ehrman
Video - Skeptic.com Interview with Bart Ehrman
Podcast - Sunday School Dropouts
PDF - Ben Carson's Project 2025 Contribution
Video - Don't Believe Him - Ezra Klein

Independent Media Suggestions:
DemocracyNow.org / YouTube
Colonial Outcasts Podcast
Drop Site News
Breaking Points
Legal Eagle - WTF is DOGE?
Last Week Tonight
Adam Conover
More Perfect Union

Full Transcripts, resources and more: hell.bio/notes
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Credits: Music: Hall of the Mountain King Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) • Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Intro and Season 3 Kickoff

[00:00:00] Santiago: Welcome to Haystacks and Hell, an ex-Adventist podcast where we tell stories about growing up Seventh-day Adventist, leaving faith behind, and building new, fulfilling lives.

[00:00:16] Hey everyone, welcome back to Haystacks and Hell. It has been a minute, and I am so glad to be doing the first episode of Season Three. Honestly, it's taken this long partly because of a lack of motivation, given everything going on in the world, but I knew I had to come back.

Political Climate and Deconstruction

[00:00:39] Santiago: I still have multiple unreleased interviews that I need to edit and publish, I have more interviews I need to schedule, so many people that I'm really looking forward to speaking with. But for this first episode back, I figured I'd talk about the next four years and kind of set the stage for some of the future conversations I'm planning to have and some of the topics I'm planning to cover.

[00:01:07] I know most of the people listening to this show live in the United States like I do, but for everyone who doesn't, I know that our politics, for better or for worse, and I know primarily for worse, affect you in some ways as well. And honestly, I am sickened by what we've been seeing.

[00:01:28] Part of my deconstruction started during the presidential election leading up to 2016, and if there's any silver lining, and even that sounds kind of silly to say, but if there's any silver lining that can come out of a second Trump presidency, it's that more people will continue to look at Evangelical Christians in the United States, and even Christians in their own non-evangelical denominations, who are supporting Christian Nationalism and right wing authoritarianism, that they'll look at that and see that the teachings of Jesus that a lot of Christians claim that they're drawn to, those things are lacking from their congregations. And they're lacking from the people in power who claim to be trying to bring God back to this country.

[00:02:32] There's so much that could be said. I'm going to be linking resources to books, news articles, and channels that I watch that I think you might enjoy as well. Honestly, it's, it's exhausting. It's tiring. And I know some of you might be disappointed to be hearing about it here as well. I know that there's gotta be spaces, and there's gotta be times where you don't have to think about the political climate.

[00:03:03] But this episode, at the very least this one, is not gonna be it. I personally feel a responsibility to talk about the next four years and what we are going to do as ex-Adventists to help our family and friends who might still be in the Adventist church or in other fundamentalist faiths, to see the real, very real harm that's being done.

[00:03:29] If you've been on social media at all in the past couple of weeks and months, you may have already come across some stories of people saying they regretted their vote for Trump. And, you know, in some ways, it's too little, too late, but in some ways, there's also room for growth.

Personal Journey and Reflections

[00:03:48] Santiago: I've shared before, and I think I shared on the very first episode of this podcast, that I grew up listening to right wing talk radio in middle school and high school, and I adopted the politics of my parents. And I echoed and regurgitated the right wing authoritarian worldview that I was surrounded by.

[00:04:12] And honestly, If there's hope for somebody like me, who grew up being homophobic, who grew up thinking that universal healthcare is the worst idea ever, and is going to lead to the collapse of our country, no joke, I did believe that, I actually debated about that very topic while I was in high school, and kept mispronouncing Saskatchewan as I cherry picked data showing that the wait times in this rural part of Canada were really long and somehow that justified throwing out the idea of health care as a right in general.

[00:04:52] If I can come around and move so far away from the positions I used to hold, and have greater empathy for people, and not only deconstruct my faith, but also deconstruct a lot of the lies that I had grown up with about politics and about society and the world at large, there's hope for other people as well. I guess that's ultimately what I'm getting at.

[00:05:20] Honestly, there's a lot happening right now and so much of it at once, intentionally, to make us feel hopeless and to make us think that we have no choice but to just accept these things. I honestly don't blame you if you feel hopeless. What we've been witnessing is an intentional bombardment of executive orders and nonsense statements intended to induce shock and awe. And so, if you've been doomscrolling, if you're feeling hopeless, that's because they want you to feel hopeless. And I don't blame you. There is a lot happening. Especially if you are trans. Especially if you are Latino and are undocumented or have family or friends who are. They have been trying to instill fear.

Anxiety and End Times

[00:06:11] Santiago: If I were still an Adventist, I know that I would be looking at everything going on and thinking, "The end is right around the corner, Trump is fulfilling prophecies, we're gonna see the Sunday Law at any moment..." I actually saw a post about this, uh, about a week ago, and I just wanted to read this really quickly because I think for some people listening right now, you can probably relate to this. The title of the post is "My Dad Woke My Fears" and the person writing this said,

[00:06:45] Santiago (Narrating): "I'm a grown man, 51 years old. Grew up Adventist. Dad wasn't just a Revelation lecturer, he worked in the executive branch of the church as well. He's convinced Trump is ushering in the end times. I've blown everything off, but I'm sick right now, and all of my defenses are down. He mentioned in passing that Trump is going to call a Sunday Law, and now my anxiety is getting the best of me. Can someone break down this Project 25 or whatever it's called, and show me all the weaknesses?"

[00:07:21] Santiago: And I absolutely appreciated the top comment in response to this post. The commenter said,

[00:07:28] Santiago (Narrating): "One, it sounds to me like your dad wants to act like he knows what he's talking about, when in fact he does not, on both Trump and Revelation. Two, maybe take comfort in this, the first edition of The Great Controversy didn't even mention the Sunday Law. They added that in there at a time, the 1880s, when a Sunday Law was actually being discussed. There were Sunday Laws in parts of this country going back nearly 200 years before Ellen G. White's time. She wasn't predicting something she saw in a vision, she was riffing off of an overall trend where people try to control other people. There won't be a Sunday Law, friend. There are too many Muslims, Jews, and secularists with power and or influence in Washington, D. C. to let that happen. Now, Trump and his Christian Nationalist goons may try to compel other forms of religious control, and SDAs will use that opportunity to say it's a sign of the end, like they always do. But the Great Controversy, The Final Events doc, these are fictional documents. Satan himself was a concept that turned into a character over time. He's not going to be posing as Jesus to fake the Second Coming. Let the fears rest. They need not have power over you."

[00:09:00] Santiago: That comment got over 50 upvotes, and it definitely deserved each and every one of them, because I couldn't have said it better myself. Again, if I were still Adventist, or if I had just recently deconstructed, I think I would also have anxiety about the end times, the "Time of Trouble," about the Sunday Law. I don't know if I ever told you guys this story, but I actually had tried making videos and sort of like social media content, warning people about the Sunday Law because I took it so seriously and I was so concerned that this was going to be a real thing that would happen in my lifetime.

[00:09:47] It didn't consume me every single day like it might have for some people, but it definitely was something that I thought about. I was one of those Adventists that whenever the Pope would come to the United States to speak in front of Congress, uh, or, you know, whatever nonsense they do, I would look at that and see that as a sign of the times, a sign of the end, a sign of Jesus' soon return.

[00:10:18] I've been doing a lot of reading on The early Adventist movement, and the more I read, the more I realize there were so many cults and new religions springing up in the United States during this time. We just happened to be born or converted into one of the offshoots of one of those groups. And for better or for worse, we found community together and some of us are still dealing with anxiety around this.

[00:10:51] And it's totally understandable. If you're dealing with anxiety around this, I do not blame you at all. No judgment for me whatsoever. I get it. I understand it. I just count myself to be extremely lucky because of circumstances, that I am not particularly anxious for that reason.

Christian Nationalism

[00:11:14] Santiago: I will say, though, like I mentioned in Season One, Episode One, from the very start, I have made it clear, I do believe Christian Nationalism is a real issue. It is a real threat, not only in the United States, but the implications that it has globally.

[00:11:35] One of these days, maybe in this season, maybe in another one, I'm planning to do an episode where we break down how U. S. foreign policy, as well as British foreign policy, has been informed by Bible prophecy, which is wild. It's something that New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman talks about in the book Armageddon, and if you haven't read that book, I highly, highly, highly recommend it.

[00:12:04] If you are still hung up at all on the idea that Revelation has any relevance to us today, that it has any shred of prophetic truth, I recommend reading Bart Ehrman's book, Armageddon, or listening to any of the interviews he's done where he talks about his book and about Revelation in general. Bottom line, it doesn't have any prophetic relevance to us today.

[00:12:32] There is something to be said about how Revelation looked at Rome as an oppressive power, and how it warned people against aligning themselves with that oppressive power. But beyond that, I don't really see that many redeeming qualities in the book. Anyway, all of that to say, if you have anxiety or concerns around the Sunday Law, I would encourage you to do what you can to redirect that energy into Christian Nationalism.

[00:13:06] I've talked before about how we've seen politicians insist that the Ten Commandments need to be placed in school classrooms, and that the Bible must be included in school classrooms. One funny headline I saw some months ago was that a parent in Utah successfully argued that the Bible actually counts as an obscene book, and one of the laws meant for essentially banning LGBTQ books from school libraries, was worded in such a vague way that the Bible actually also counted as a quote unquote "obscene" book based off of this law. And it was temporarily banned in Utah schools, at least in that particular county.

[00:13:55] We're seeing reproductive rights being attacked, LGBTQ rights being attacked, trans people specifically being attacked, and it's sickening. I know I've spoken on this before, but for anyone who might be new here, for anyone who might not be familiar with episodes I've done in the past, I want to make it clear that it's sickening to me, and that I absolutely abhor what is being done to some of the most vulnerable people in our country.

[00:14:27] For a while now, we've seen laws banning books and trying to restrict discussions on race, gender, and just basic history in schools, under the guise of "protecting the children." We've seen political figures using Christian rhetoric to justify their authoritarian policies, like limiting voting rights and undermining democratic institutions.

[00:14:50] And the irony in all of this is that more and more, it seems like many Adventists are aligning themselves with quote unquote "Babylon." They are aligning themselves with the Christian Nationalists, sometimes openly recognizing the fact that they are aligning themselves with the authoritarians. Like I mentioned in the very first episode of this podcast, one of my former Sabbath School students told me that they personally looked forward to the Sunday Law and the end of this quote unquote "sinful world."

[00:15:25] They said that if some good could be accomplished on the slippery slope toward theocracy and oppression of freedom of religion, they would vote in favor of it because Jesus would win in the end, so they didn't have any issues standing up for a religious society.

[00:15:43] I'm hoping that since I uploaded that episode about over two years ago now, I'm hoping that their perspective has changed a bit. To be honest, I have not reached back out to them, and candidly, I am not sure what their answer would be today. I'm afraid I might be disappointed. The reality is that many Adventists, at least in the United States and in some other countries, are sort of accelerationists. They think that everything is going to be made new one day, so we might as well just watch it all burn now. And the sooner it happens, the better, because the sooner they get to be in heaven. Who cares about what happens to everyone else, right?

[00:16:31] It's essentially the same attitude that Christian Zionists have toward the fate of the Jewish people. It's amazing to me that there are more Christian Zionists than there are Jewish people in the world. And the irony, the great and tragic irony of Christian Zionism, is that many of them believe Armageddon will be a literal battle that will be fought in the region of Israel and that literally all of the Jewish people who do not accept Jesus will be annihilated and that they will suffer eternal conscious torment in hell.

[00:17:08] Now, I know that's not an Adventist teaching, I know that's more of an Evangelical, Christian, U. S. type of worldview, but it just strikes me as a huge irony that the people who are some of the biggest supporters of the nation state of Israel, could also care less about what happens to the majority of the population there who are not Christian. It's just a very sad irony to me. And of course, they could care less about what happens to the Palestinian people who have been suffering an ongoing genocide.

[00:17:45] One of the blogs that I read from time to time, it's called Tales from a Cult, they posted a blog post just the other day, talking about Trump's first ten days in office, and how right around that time, the Seventh-day Adventist Church wrote, "Keep Your Mouth Shut" on Instagram. I personally am not gonna say whether or not that's related, but the timing does seem interesting.

[00:18:12] I'm gonna include a link to this post in the show notes. I highly recommend that you go read it., But here are some of the highlights. They wrote that it's now been four weeks since the inauguration, and in just the first ten days of Trump being in office, he signed executive orders that pardoned over 1, 500 people who rioted in the U. S. Capitol. That's actually one of the things I talked about in the very first episode of this podcast.

[00:18:40] He's also doing things that are, you know, immediately gonna bring the egg prices down, like renaming Mount Denali to Mount McKinley, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, because, you know, what could be more important than that? He's had other executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion. They have been purging documents, information, and history from federal websites, including public health data. That is actually something that I saw some public health experts and researchers absolutely just devastated over losing this important data.

[00:19:19] I've mentioned before that my partner is a scientist, and she mentioned to me the other day that there are tons of people who are applying for Masters programs, or PhDs, and so many people who were hoping to go are now going to have to completely change their plans. Because schools who rely on grants and outside funding for a lot of these programs, are just absolutely in chaos and having to turn people away.

[00:19:51] In some cases, people who got accepted into a graduate program have had their acceptance completely rescinded because the money is not there anymore. And so people who are talented researchers, people who are getting into these programs on merit, because they are smart and talented and can contribute to important research, they are no longer going to be able to enter these graduate programs that they got accepted into. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

[00:20:23] We've seen the firing of federal employees. One of our friends is a federal employee, and they work in a position where they are not likely to lose their job. They were skeptical enough and didn't take the bait of that "Fork in the Road" email. But so many people have lost their jobs in critical functions. Just a few hours ago, I saw that Trump is trying to essentially gut the US Postal Service, or at the very least, replace the leadership there, which is something that I don't believe legally he has the ability to do that.

[00:20:55] And those are just the things that are specific to the United States. Trump has also removed the US from the World Health Organization. I'm sure many of you have already seen the headlines and you're already aware of the details of some of these things. And if you're not, I'm not going to tell you to doom scroll and to focus on this and just feel hopeless, because that's absolutely not the solution. But I will tell you to please be aware. Please, if you have family and friends who are either willfully or unwillfully ignorant, please help them not be ignorant.

[00:21:34] And if you personally are experiencing anxiety over the quote unquote Time of Trouble, or the Sunday Law, I want you to think about the logistics of trying to make something like that happen. And the more you think about it, the more you truly think about all of the things that would have to happen in order for something like that to be enforced, I hope you'll realize, like many of us ex-Adventists have, that it is completely ludicrous.

[00:22:03] But like I said, the threat of Christian Nationalism is something that we should take seriously. Even if some Adventists, like Ben Carson, are actively contributing to it. And what I'm referring to here is that Ben Carson actually helped author a portion of Project 2025. If you weren't aware, now you are. I will include a source for that in the show notes.

[00:22:28] In any case, I don't want this first episode of Season Three to be complete doom and gloom. Like I mentioned, the solution is not to doom scroll and to remain hopeless. Even though there's only so much we can do as individuals, we have to recognize the power that we do have collectively.

[00:22:47] I want to remind you, I've said this before, I will say it again, local elections matter. Some of the fights that Christian Nationalists are waging right now, have to do with things as small as local school boards. A lot of the challenges that we're seeing in the United States, and globally, ultimately come down to education.

[00:23:09] People have commented before on how it's interesting or amazing that the United States is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but also one of the most religious and in many ways, fundamentalist countries in the world. A lot of that has to do with the religious movements that have happened throughout the history of this country, and the fact that even though we were not founded as a Christian nation, people have successfully pushed that propaganda. They've put "In God We Trust" on our money. They've put "Under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance, when it wasn't originally there.

[00:23:48] They've done what they can to try and make it seem like this is a Christian nation. But ultimately, this nation is whatever we make of it. Sadly, ever since the founding of this country, it has been marked by othering people, and by subjugating the people that are othered. Whether that was the indigenous people who were here before the colonizers came, whether that was the enslaved people who were brought here through the Atlantic slave trade, this country has a brutal legacy.

[00:24:23] Part of the political climate, as well as the religious climate that we're seeing in the United States and other parts of the world, is a direct reaction to the meager progress that had been made in previous years. It's interesting to see how marriage equality happened, people like Elon Musk and Trump even were embracing LGBTQ people and vocalizing some level of support for them, and yet now we've seen kind of a 180. There is extreme hate and vitriol that is being spewed. And a lot of that, again, is a reaction to the meager progress, the little bit of progress that had been made in previous years.

[00:25:12] But again, I don't want you to lose hope. And if I'm being honest, I'm speaking to myself right now as well. Doomscrolling, again, isn't the solution. We really have to connect with people who have the same values as us. Even if we don't see eye to eye on every single minute detail, having shared values is ultimately one of the most important things, and they'll help us focus on the biggest and most important things at hand.

[00:25:49] Again, I want to encourage you to be informed and be involved in your local elections. Many Christian Nationalist policies start at the local and state levels. And so it's incredibly important to pay attention to those races, pay attention to those ballot measures, pay attention to who's running for school board, pay attention to those things, make your voice heard, and make your vote count.

[00:26:21] Do what you can to support grassroots movements and independent journalism, and make sure that you are taking care of yourself throughout all of this. Burnout is far too easy, and we all need to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves.

Encouragement and Resources

[00:26:38] Santiago: If you are actively going through deconstruction, as all of this is happening, I feel for you. I truly hope that this podcast will be more of an encouragement than anything else, and that you'll be able to connect with other people who are going through the same thing, and people who have gone through it before you. And that you can learn from their experiences.

[00:26:58] There's a podcast I started listening to recently called Sunday School Dropouts. If you haven't already heard of it, I highly, highly recommend it. One of the co-hosts is a former Seventh-day Adventist, his name is Andrew Kerbs, and he has a Master's in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, so he is a mental health professional, who is trauma informed and is very familiar with religious trauma. So he and Dr. Laura Anderson, who is the CEO of Trauma Resolution and Recovery, they are absolutely incredible hosts. They are doing a great job of talking about the process of dealing with religious trauma or adverse religious experiences, and it's absolutely incredible, the show that they've put together.

[00:27:52] I'm very, very encouraged to see trained mental health professionals have a podcast dedicated to this subject, and also interviewing people and talking to them about their experiences. So, I'm going to leave a link in the show notes. Friend of the show, Melissa Spiers, was on their podcast recently, so there is an ex-Adventist episode that you'll get to listen to, uh, on their show, and again, just highly recommend it. I'm gonna include a link to the show notes, but you can also just search for Sunday School Dropouts.

[00:28:27] These are the kinds of shows, and this is the kind of information that is empowering. And if there's somebody you know that is going through deconstruction and having questions and wondering how to deal with any religious trauma they might have, no matter how small or how big it might seem, these are the kinds of resources that I think are so important, and there are definitely other mental health resources linked on the Haystacks and Hell website. I'll include a link to that as well.

[00:28:56] I just want to wrap up by encouraging you to remember that we are not powerless. As wild as things may seem right now, ultimately, there are things that we can do for ourselves, for our communities, and for the future of our world. And it's important to remember that authoritarian movements can and must be resisted. Presidential elections matter, they matter a lot, but there's tons of work to be done in between.

[00:29:28] If you're not already doing this, I want to encourage you to subscribe to independent news sources, and I'm going to link some of those in the show notes. If you can, volunteer with and donate to organizations that are trying to protect our civil rights. And as difficult as it can be, do what you can to encourage friends and family to think about the bigger picture if they're not already doing so.

[00:29:51] The last thing I want to leave you with is a quote that I'm sure many of you have heard before, but I find it helpful to come back to in times like this. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." That's a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I saw this post on the official Martin Luther King, Jr. page some time ago, December of last year, and they added in the post, saying,

[00:30:27] Santiago (Narrating): "To those growing weary in the fight against the injustices of our world, we encourage you to hold on to hope and continue pressing forward. History reminds us that justice, though delayed, will prevail. Every act of love, truth, and courage brings us closer to the world we envision, a world where justice reigns and human dignity is honored."

[00:30:56] Santiago: Don't lose hope, and don't lose sight of what's possible.

Haystacks & Hell Outro

[00:31:01] Santiago: Thanks for listening. If you have a story to share about your Adventist or fundamentalist experience, we'd love to hear it. You can submit stories on our website at hell.bio — that's H E L L . B I O

[00:31:18] or leave us a voicemail at 301-750-8648

[00:31:25] and we might feature it in a future episode. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you on the next one!