Christian Dominionism and Civil Government–No separation at all…
Sergei Matveyuk stood at the pulpit of Pastor Ed Shirley’s Mountain High Chapel in Morrison on Sunday, April 7, 2024, telling the congregation God called him to run for Congress. “Not,” he said, “for my personal fame or enrichment or any other reason. God wants me to be there.”
Matveyuk, who immigrated to the United States in 1985 from Belarus, says on his campaign site that once he became a US citizen, he got a degree from a respectable university and became a business owner. He says he is running for Congress because America is on a “slippery slope toward socialism.”
I do not know what “respectable” university Matveyuk graduated from, nor what the nature of his small business is.
The Colorado GOP Assembly in Pueblo on April 6, 2024, welcomed Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz as its keynote speaker. Among other things, Gaetz said, “This is Donald Trump’s party, and I am a Donald Trump Republican.”
When Gaetz said that, there had to have been a heartfelt “DUH! YA THINK!” that resonated throughout the hall.
At the April 6, 2024 assembly, Sergei Matveryuk received 91% of the delegate vote to run for Congress in Congressional District 7. Consequently, he will not have to participate in the Republican primary. He believes the 91% of votes he got from the assembly was a miracle from God via the Holy Spirit.
More likely, Matveyuk’s opponent, Jim Hemenway, was as fragrant to the Colorado Christian Dominionist Republican Party as ammonia is to the nose. He says on his campaign site, “For a Republican to win in CD7, they’ll have to be different enough to attract Independents and moderate Democrats. Let me say it right up front – the Democrats aren’t wrong about everything. If we want to win in Colorado’s Seventh district or nationwide and govern with confidence, we need to appropriate some of their positions and take some of their voters.” And, concerning the Second Amendment, “…we should be magnanimous about trying to address legitimate voter concerns about gun violence, especially mass shootings. I am open to testing sensible gun safety laws with sunset provisions.”
No, Jim Hemenway didn’t have a chance of besting the Christian Dominionist candidate, Matveryuk, at the assembly on April 6, 2024. Had the die already been cast?
How could it have been otherwise when Dave Williams, the Chair of the Colorado Christian Dominionist Republican Party, proclaims we must help to “…bring about Kingdom values. To fulfill what the Lord has told us to do. To make disciples of all nations. Spreading the gospel. The truth. I believe the Lord gave Donald Trump immense favor.”
On April 9, 2024, State Representative Richard Holtorf, candidate for Colorado’s 4th Congressional District, called on Williams to resign his post. He said, “The COGOP under Dave Williams’ leadership has made more unethical endorsements and changes to bylaws and resolutions in one year than any other Colorado GOP leader in recent history. The changes are far-reaching, and Dave Williams seems to think he can now pre-select a slate of candidates, including himself, before the 2024 primary election. These actions deliberately bypass delegates and voters, polarize candidates and voters, create discord amongst Republicans across the entire state of Colorado, and ultimately may discourage good people from running as Republican candidates for public office if they do not wish to ‘kiss the ring’ of the COGOP.”
Did I wonder if the die had already been cast for Matveyuk to win the assembly vote on April 6, 2024? Or was it God’s will through the Holy Spirit?
Matveyuk will be running against the incumbent, Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat.
I don’t think Pettersen depends upon the Holy Spirit for the wherewithal to serve the people of District 7 in the US Congress. Among other things, she recently secured nearly $14 million in federal funding for the district, including flood protection, affordable housing, health care, and clean drinking water, to name just a few of the funded projects.
Matveyuk was invited to Mountain High Chapel by Pastor Ed to give a “testimony” to the congregation or, as most of us would call it, a campaign speech. Pastor Ed’s Sunday service was given over entirely to Matveyuk. How far Christian dominionist churches have become politicized was no secret this past Sunday. God politics is their religion, Donald Trump is God’s ordained candidate for president, and Matveyuk is God’s candidate in the race for District 7.
When Matveyuk gets to Congress, he says his “…dream is to have a bible study group there. My dream is to have a small church there. …Into that catacomb… Into those halls of darkness… Bring light to this world, preach the gospel, and start a revival there. That is my goal, and I want that to happen. Just simple people fighting for God for the truth.”
Sergei Mateyuk, knowing where his political bread is buttered, had to leave Pastor Ed’s congregation in a hurry because he was scheduled to appear before yet another congregation down the hill. Of note, Mateyuk was accompanied to Mountain High Chapel by Jeremiah Sinsheimer and his campaign manager, Andrew. I don’t know Andrew’s last name, but I’m sure it will pop up somewhere very soon.
Matveyuk’s FEC Statement of Organization for the Sergei for Congress Committee, dated February 16, 2024, lists Jeremiah Sinsheimer at 3260 W. 95th Avenue in Westminster as the Custodian of Records. Sinsheimer runs Good News Christian Church at 3575 W. 96th Avenue in Westminster. It caters primarily to the Slavik Community, where Sunday services preached by Sinsheimer are interpreted from English to Russian. Since at least July 2022, the interpreter has been Sergei Mateyuk, Sinsheimer’s Sunday sidekick and Republican candidate for Congress.
On March 26, 2024, the FEC Statement of Organization for Sergei for the Congress Committee was amended to Lisa Lisker, Hukaby David Lisker, Inc., of Alexandria, Virginia, as both the treasurer and custodian of records for the committee. Hukaby David Lisker, Inc. is a national political compliance and accounting firm for Republican candidates and causes.
Only five years after Matveyuk arrived in the United States, he became a board member of RCR Ministries, which strives to make [Christian] disciples of all nations. RCR Ministries’ mission is to reach “…hopeless and broken Russian-speaking people with the transforming love and power of Jesus Christ.”
Pastor Ed’s sermonizing at Mountain High Chapel on Sunday, April 7, 2024, before Matveyuk took the pulpit, was peppered with politics as it usually is. He said he was an elected delegate to the state assembly, cheering and holding up signage when Matveyuk’s name was placed in nomination.
It was sometime before the state assembly when Pastor Ed first met Matveyuk. Pastor Ed describes that first meeting as a “Divine appointment.”
If you don’t know, a divine appointment is a meeting with another person God has specifically and unmistakably arranged. It is a meeting set up by the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Ed’s remarks before Matveyuk spoke recapitulated much of what he says often during Sunday sermons. “We want a Biblical World view,” he said. “We don’t want that crazy, sick, warped junk that’s telling people it’s okay to mutilate children,” he continued. “That’s telling people it’s okay to sell children as sex slaves. Huh! You didn’t hear about that? Is our government involved in that? Yes! They are! …You know what, guys, we are for Donald J. Trump. They say you can’t say that from a pulpit, but I just did. I said it. You say you’re going to take away my 501(c)(3) because I endorse a candidate like Donald J. Trump. Go ahead, punk! Make my day. I don’t care!”
If Pastor Ed thinks someone is lurking nearby, waiting for him to violate IRS regulations related to 501(c) organizations, and come after him for doing so, he can relax.
The 1954 Johnson Amendment (Yes, Lyndon Johnson) to the US Tax Code established those restrictions, explicitly barring churches and nonprofits from directly or indirectly participating in political campaigns. Donald Trump wants it repealed, as do Christian Dominionist preachers. Trump unsuccessfully tried to eliminate it through an executive order in 2017. Nevertheless, IRS enforcement of the Johnson Amendment is nearly nonexistent.
As an aside, I searched for Pastor’s Ed’s 501(c) designation and found none. Maybe he’s got one. Perhaps he doesn’t. It’s moot, however, because churches that meet the requirements of section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are automatically considered tax-exempt and are not required to apply for and obtain recognition of exempt status from the IRS.
Pastor Ed’s “Go ahead, punk! Make my day” is, after all, another example of performance art from the pulpit. Republican politics these days is primarily performance art featuring the Biblical Worldview, wisdom from burning bushes, ignoring the entire gamut of Western Civilization because the only answers needed are found in a single tome, the unprovable lore of antiquity.
Pastor Ed solicited two collections on April 7, 2024: one for the usual tithe and the other for Sergei Matveyuk. When one of his congregation asked if they should make their checks out directly to Matveyuk, Pastor Ed responded, “Only make out checks to MHC (Mountain High Chapel). He doesn’t want a bunch of checks. Make the checks to MHC, and Mile High Chapel will give him only one check.”
So much for directly or indirectly participating in political campaigns.
Before Matveyuk left, some of Pastor Ed’s congregation gathered around him. One woman captured the sentiment: “He will go to Washington, DC. He will take his rightful place. He will be a light. You say there’s a fragrance, Father, on this man, and that fragrance will fill those chambers, Lord God, where the rotgut has been, it’s gonna be gone, and the fragrance of Jesus will be in those chambers. Lord God, we give you praise. There’s going to be a revival in those chambers. Father, you will rise against the wickedness in Jesus’ name. Cut a swath, man. God says you’re gonna cut a swath. Father, we thank you for Colorado changing. Colorado belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we’re gonna be pulled into the glory of God because of the men and women you’re sending to Washington, DC.”
Christian Dominionists have every right to participate in American politics. They have every right to believe whatever they want to believe. They can vote according to their Biblical principles. They can scream from the pulpit twice on Sunday. They can bemoan whatever they wish to bemoan about the evil scum of the earth they categorize as socialists, Marxists, Democrats, and RINOS.
What they don’t have the right to do is to assume everyone who doesn’t share their beliefs and biases is required by force, if necessary, to toe their Biblical line, to bow down to their God, to succumb to their Christian minority edicts as a matter of civil law or policy. If the Constitution means nothing else, it means that. Our Constitutional Republic is at stake.
There are fundamental differences between nationalism (Christian Dominionism) and patriotism.
Nationalism is idolatry, a toxic fetish that exalts symbolism rather than the essential guts of a place. It births jingoism and demagoguery. It replaces history with lore. From whole cloth or mere kernels of truth, it grows pernicious fantasies, conspiracies, and lies to justify itself. It struts its righteousness with the claim of divine intervention and sanction.
Patriotism is knowing the guts of a place and its history. It is knowing the truth of a place, whether good or bad, knowing that the bad can be and has been changed for the good. Patriotism is gratitude for your nation and home and the undying dedication to preserving what sparks that gratitude. Patriotism is not wrapping yourself in a flag; it is embracing the fabric of the place you love, the essence of what it is, not the phantasm it isn’t.
Christian Dominionism is the rock upon which MAGA and America First are built. It necessarily champions a nationalistic fervor, providing the stage for demagogues to reel in the gullible with the symbolic fetishism not only of Christianity but of a fantastically skewed perception of America. Believing they are We, the People, they strut pathetic righteousness by calling themselves patriots. Their nationalistic rhetoric is delivered with aplomb and impunity. They think because they are aggrieved, it is they who are entitled to overthrow the republic from within by legislating their minority Christian dominionism into law and policy, which will affect all of us.
I don’t know if that is Sergei Matveyuk’s intent if he takes the District 7 seat from Brittany Pettersen this November. The evidence, however, is compelling. I think that is precisely his intent; it is the intent of the Christian Dominionist Republican Party, both nationally and locally. After all, as Dave Williams, Chair of the Colorado Christian Dominionist Republican organization, said, it is our duty to “…bring about Kingdom values. To fulfill what the Lord has told us to do. To make disciples of all nations. Spreading the gospel. The truth.” And, after he professed his Biblical Worldview, he concluded, “I believe the Lord gave Donald Trump immense favor.”
Do you suppose Williams believes it will be Donald Trump who will bring about Kingdom values? That it is Trump who will be the one to make disciples of all nations?
“Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion — several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight.” — Mark Twain.
