The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) was alarmed when Trump chose Kristi Noem to run the Department of Homeland Security. They identified her as a “Christian Nationalist” with “some of the most extremist religious views of any of his appointments.”
Thus far, though, her tenure has focused more on deportation-related photo ops than spreading the faith. Aside from some lingering questions about FEMA’s flood response in Texas, “ICE Barbie” has mostly posed for secular propaganda … usually during stage-managed raids on the rough-and-tumble streets of America. Her biggest photo op came in front of minimally-clothed, but maximally-secured prisoners in El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison.
But that was before a months-old tweak to FEMA’s disaster preparedness fund was revealed by Reuters on Monday morning. According to security notice issued by DHS in April, recipients of disaster preparedness funds must guarantee the entity they represent would never boycott anything from Israel. Pledge allegiance to Israel and voila! … you get FEMA money. Or … refuse the pledge and forgo the funds.
Well, that went over like the Hindenburg with the America Firsters who populate MAGA nation. After a few hours of vociferous feedback, DHS reversed the policy. But how did it make it into a DHS security notice in the first place?
I found a clue in March 2024 press release attributed to then-Governor Noem. And by “clue” I mean a parade float and a marching band coming down Broadway. Titled “Ensuring the Security of God’s Chosen People,” Noem touted passage and signing of a law to combat Antisemitism. She begins by taking us back to her childhood:
When I was growing up, my dad would always gather our family together and we would pray for Israel. It was instilled in me from a very young age that the Jews were Gods chosen people, that Israel was the Holy Land, and that we should always pray for them.
…and further explains…
It’s important to support Israel for spiritual, historical, and national security reasons.
National security is a reasonable impetus … debatable … but reasonable for a government entity to assert. Maybe not the State of South Dakota … but … whatevs. It’s the spiritual and historical reasons that get tricky. Particularly in a nation that has a traditional Wall of Separation between church and state. And yes, I know the “Wall” is not explicitly written in the Constitution. But the bricks and the foundation are there … and, until recently, the Supreme Court has a long history of piling those bricks high enough to protect us all.
Now, however, we have a loyalty pledge to a foreign nation based on the belief that God wants it to be so. Take a look at the final line of Noem’s press release:
I hope that more states across our great nation will follow this example that we are setting here in South Dakota. It is more important now than ever for our nation’s leaders to stand up and fight against antisemitism. We must always work to ensure the security of God’s chosen people.
“I hope more states … will follow this example.”
Perhaps one way to get them on-board … is to require a pledge?
And that’s not the only red flag Neom’s DHS is waving.
Guthrie Graves-Fitzimmons is a vice president of programs at Interfaith Alliance and he’s currently “pursuing a Doctor of Ministry in Prophetic Leadership degree.” In other words, not an FFRF atheist like Ron Reagan. He was alarmed nonetheless by the DHS’s use of the Bible to justify mass deportation, which he pointed out in a newish op-ed for MSNBC:
Twice in the past month, the Department of Homeland Security has posted Bible-themed propaganda on its social media accounts. Isaiah 6 was the first passage DHS bastardized. As images of helicopters and tactical agents ominously scroll, the narrator says: “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me.’”
The second hype video mirrors the first. Dark images of militaristic immigration enforcement actions are paired with Proverbs 28: “The wicked flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
Graves-Fitzimmons objects as a believer who sees his religion being hijacked, distorted and misrepresented … for entirely cynical reasons:
Imbuing millions of deportations with a divine mandate acts as a sort of pre-emptive pardon for actions that would otherwise be condemned by basic morality. Nothing girds the conscience like saying you’re on a mission from God.
DHS’ Bible craze also arrives at a time when the department is facing increasingly vocal opposition from a broad spectrum of religious groups in the United States.
Given Noem’s history of loudly-professing her Christianity, it doesn’t take Columbo to figure where this is coming from. Noem is not above using religion as political tool. But using the Bible to propagandize on behalf of deportation is particularly troubling for anyone who’s familiar with the Bible and it’s repeated advocacy for the migrant and the stranger. For Graves-Fitzimmons, that’s where the real problem lies…
The Trump administration officials who created this propaganda either don’t understand basic concepts in the Bible or are attempting something much more sinister. What if they do understand the consistent call across faith traditions to welcome immigrants? What if they understand it so deeply that they need to create this propaganda to muddy the waters? The religious appeal would then become less than some benign Christian nationalism and morph into a state-sponsored attempt to undermine a core religious teaching.
This is a case-in-point for devoutly religious Americans who question the need for a Wall of Separation. The best way to preserve your faith is to keep government mouthpieces from putting their self-serving words in your mouth … or the mouths of your gods, prophets or gurus.
Alas, that’s where we are now. From the President to the Speaker, from Noem at DHS to Hegseth in the Pentagon, the comingling of church and state conflates human-directed policy objectives with the will of God.
That’s particularly true of the Christian doctrine of “Dispensationalism.” Noem certainly sounds and acts like a Dispensationalist. It would account for the now-retracted pledge. It’s the same dogma Sen. Ted Cruz infamously professed to Tucker Carlson and it’s the worldview that puts the goal of a greater Israel at the center of US foreign policy.
To wit, Ambassador Mike Huckabee has just been joined by Speaker Mike Johnson in rubberstamping Israel’s impending annexation of the West Bank. They both believe God “gave” the Palestinians’ homes, olive groves and mosques to Jews thousands of years ago, and they intend on making good on God’s promise to his Chosen few.
As for the Palestinians, Huckabee once remarked “there is no such thing as a Palestinian.” He demonstrated once again that not being Chosen by God tends to make people disposable ... particularly when they are seen as obstacles to God’s plan for his Chosen people.
That was true of indigenous Americans during the “Winning of the West,” which is yet another front in the propaganda war being waged by Noem’s DHS and tracked by the design community at TAXI:
When the Department of Homeland Security turned to 19th-century art to frame modern immigration messaging, the response was anything but picture-perfect. A recent series of DHS social media posts has drawn sharp criticism from artists, historians, and the public, who have accused the government agency of propaganda and whitewashed nationalism.
Its response? “Get used to it.”
The backlash intensified on July 23, when DHS shared John Gast’s American Progress, an 1872 painting often cited as a visual embodiment of Manifest Destiny. The image, depicting a glowing female figure leading white settlers westward as Indigenous people and animals fade into darkness, appeared on DHS channels paired with the phrase, “A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending.”
Writing in Religion Dispatches, Sara J. Moslener unpacked some of the curious coincidences of the “Homeland Heritage” campaign:
Earlier this month President Trump’s DHS started posting images that depict what they call “Homeland Heritage.” If you follow White supremacist movements you know that these capital H’s are not incidental. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, HH is a reference to Heil Hitler, usually transposed numerically as 88 (H is the eighth letter of the alphabet). Aside from a practice more akin to 6th grade clubhouse culture, these codes allow the truly dedicated to display their loyalties.
It would be quite a coincidence if happenstance is the source of the symmetry. It could also be someone trolling us. Either way, Noem’s tenure does, as the FFRF warned, seem to be imbued with Christian Nationalism:
These images from the DHS with their sinister handle promote the innocence myths of a White Christian America—that is, the stories used to invent an American past that exonerates us from our actual past which is rife with racist violence and Christian supremacy. They, of course, celebrate the trials and successes of White Americans and our presumed claims to this land. Both the presence and absence of Indigenous people in these images denote the ideology of Manifest Destiny, the belief held by American leaders in the 19th century—and maintained by many on the Right to this day—that the nation had a providential destiny to populate the land with White-bodied, Christian people.
Of course, this is exactly the critique that has been written off as “Woke” and is now being written out of museums and national parks. The same is true of history classes in Florida and Oklahoma and Texas, among other states. A few of those states are moving to add religion … specifically a Christian Nationalist brand of religion to America’s classrooms. - jp
THE THREE:
The DHS is blasphemously quoting Bible verses to defend deporting migrants
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/dhs-bible-verses-videos-deportations-rcna223009
DHS’s ‘Homeland Heritage’ Campaign Highlights Danger of Innocence Myths of a White Christian America
https://religiondispatches.org/dhss-homeland-heritage-posts-highlight-danger-of-innocence-myths-of-a-white-christian-america/
US Department of Homeland Security defends 'propaganda' use of American paintings: 'Get used to it'
https://community.designtaxi.com/topic/15122-us-department-of-homeland-security-defends-propaganda-use-of-american-paintings-get-used-to-it/