Wrecking Ball Blow #2: FBC Jax Helps Create the Ergun Caner Phenomenon

It was November 2001. America was still reeling from the September 11 terrorist attacks. Americans were scared, angry, confused and suddenly very interested in Islam. And into the pulpit of First Baptist Jacksonville walked a preacher with one heck of a testimony.

His name was Ergun Caner, and boy, did he have a story. Caner told the packed First Baptist auditorium that he had been raised in Europe, had been involved in "Islamic Youth Jihad," and had been "trained to do that which was done on 11 September." I was sitting there with my family listening to it, and I believed him. Talk about having the right testimony at exactly the right time. A former Muslim supposedly immersed in Islamic jihad, converted to Christianity and now able to explain the Muslim world to frightened American Christians? You couldn't have ordered a better speaker from Central Casting.

There was just one teeny-tiny problem: the dramatic biography Caner was presenting to us didn't hold up. And one of the churches that gave the emerging Ergun Caner phenomenon one heck of a launch into Southern Baptist stardom? You guessed it: First Baptist Church Jacksonville.

Before and After 9/11

Years later, I posted what I still think is one of the most remarkable visual summaries of the whole Caner affair: two photographs of Caner before and after 9/11. I called the post "Caner - Before and After 9/11 Shots."

See the two Caner photographs in my October 29, 2013 Watchdog post

Look at those two pictures. On the left was the pre-9/11 version, known as "Butch Caner" or "E. Michael Caner." As I wrote at the time, he was an obscure preacher who had grown up in Ohio from about the age of three. I certainly don't remember seeing the George Costanza-looking version of Caner making the megachurch circuit.

Then came 9/11, and just a few weeks later Jerry Vines brought a considerably more exotic version of Caner into First Baptist Jacksonville. Now we had "Ergun Mehmet Giovanni Caner." Same guy, much better marketing. Caner stood before thousands of us talking about Islamic Youth Jihad and being trained to do what had happened on September 11. He spoke with an accent, rolled his R's and talked about having difficulty speaking English as a teenager; except Caner had been living in Ohio since he was a small child.

When I wrote about those two photographs in 2013, I described what had happened to those of us sitting in that auditorium with two words: "We were tricked. Bamboozled."

Nine Years Later, I Got the Tape

In 2010, as questions about Caner's biography began circulating on the Internet, I remembered that sermon at First Baptist Jacksonville. I knew what I had heard that morning, but there was a problem: this was November 2001. There wasn't a convenient YouTube archive where I could type "Ergun Caner FBC Jax" and pull up the video.

Believe it or not, First Baptist still had something resembling the old church tape ministry.

And this is where the story gets interesting.

I had a friend who was still a member of First Baptist Jacksonville. Through the church's own resources, that person was able to get her hands on an audio recording of Caner's November 20, 2001 sermon and get it to me.

Think about the irony of that.

One of the most important pieces of evidence in the Ergun Caner controversy didn't come from some sophisticated investigative operation. It came from an old FBC Jax audio tape that had apparently been sitting in the church's own archives for nearly nine years.

I listened to it.

And what I heard was worse than I remembered.

Caner told us he had been "raised in Europe." He said that until age 15 he had been in "Islamic Youth Jihad." Then came the whopper: "until I came to America, until I found Jesus Christ as Lord, I was trained to do that which was done on 11 September."

I posted the audio on the Watchdog.

And I have to imagine there were some people who deeply regretted that the old FBC Jax tape ministry had been so diligent about preserving sermons.

Because as far as I have ever been able to determine, that FBC Jacksonville recording was the surviving record of the sermon where Caner was making some of the most extraordinary claims about his life at the very beginning of his post-9/11 rise. I was contacted by a trustee at Liberty University about that tape, and the recordings I had archived from an Ohio Free Will Baptists website where Caner told outlandish stories of learning about American culture as a teenager in Istanbul, Turkey. Total rubbish. 

Read my March 2010 Watchdog investigation of Caner's FBC Jax sermon

That recording is also why the Caner story became so personal to me. I wasn't investigating something that supposedly happened at somebody else's church. I was there, with my family. I remembered believing that we had just heard the testimony of essentially a former Islamic jihadist who had been saved by Jesus just in the nick of time before becoming one of the people we had watched flying airplanes into buildings. That was precisely why the story was so powerful in November 2001.

We Got the Testimony We Wanted

The really fascinating part is that Caner's actual testimony was already a perfectly good Christian testimony. He had been raised Muslim and converted to Christianity as a teenager. Isn't that enough?

Apparently not for the evangelical celebrity machine.

Regular Muslim kid growing up in Ohio converts to Christianity? Nice. But apparently that doesn't provide quite enough horsepower for the evangelical conference circuit. Former Islamic jihadist raised overseas, trained in terrorism, finds Jesus and arrives in your church immediately after September 11? 

Books, conferences, speaking engagements, seminary positions and packed auditoriums followed. Jerry Vines and other prominent Southern Baptist leaders gave Caner tremendous credibility. And when Caner stood in the First Baptist Jacksonville pulpit, he wasn't speaking at some storefront church next to a laundromat. He was speaking to thousands from one of the most influential pulpits in Southern Baptist life.

That platform mattered. If Jerry Vines had this guy standing in the FBC Jax pulpit telling us this incredible story, surely somebody had checked him out, right? 

Then the Bloggers Ruined Everything

Eventually the Caner controversy became too large to dismiss as pesky Internet bloggers tapping away in their mothers' basements, as Ergun Caner liked to say. I posted the FBC Jax recording so people could listen and judge for themselves, and by the end of 2010 I had written more than 20 articles about Caner. The Watchdog material became part of the larger investigation into the contradictions in Caner's public biography.

Liberty University eventually investigated Caner's public statements and concluded there were factual statements that were self-contradictory involving dates, names and places of residence. His appointment as seminary dean was not renewed.

But what bothered me almost as much as Caner's stories was the reaction from the evangelical establishment. Where were all the guardians of biblical truth? These were guys who could detect theological liberalism at 500 yards. Say the wrong thing about the creation story in Genesis and somebody would convene the discipline committee. Let a woman get within 25 feet of the pulpit and somebody would need smelling salts. (which reminds me of the time Ergun joked to the Ohio Free Will Baptists: "Do I believe in women behind the pulpit? You bet I do, how else do you expect them to vacuum back here if they can't get behind it?")

But when serious questions emerged about the autobiographical claims of a nationally prominent evangelical celebrity, suddenly everybody became very cautious: "Well, we don't know all the facts." Funny how that works.

And amazingly, Caner was back at the FBC Jax Pastors' Conference in January 2011. At the time I argued that putting him back on the program, surrounded again by major SBC personalities, effectively communicated that Caner was back in good standing with the evangelical preaching establishment.

Why This Was Another Swing of the Wrecking Ball

I'm not arguing that Ergun Caner caused First Baptist Jacksonville's attendance decline, and I'm certainly not claiming his 2001 sermon caused the financial problems that eventually resulted in the Main Auditorium being sold. That would be ridiculous.

Caner was a symptom. He showed what could happen when enormous evangelical platforms became fascinated with sensational testimonies, celebrity personalities and incredible stories while forgetting to ask boring little questions such as: Is this true? Did anybody verify it? Should this person really be standing in our pulpit? And when we discover that something isn't true, are we willing to admit publicly that we got fooled?

That's where institutions either correct themselves or begin deteriorating. First Baptist Jacksonville helped give Ergun Caner an enormous platform. The Southern Baptist celebrity machine helped turn him into a star. And when the story eventually unraveled, precious few of the people who helped create the phenomenon seemed particularly interested in standing up and saying, "We got this wrong."

Maybe that's because accountability is considerably more enjoyable when you're preaching it to the people sitting in the pews. It's a little less fun when the sermon on accountability is about you, the "man of God".

The Main Auditorium was still standing. The crowds were still coming, the conferences were still going, the celebrity preachers were still arriving, and everything looked fine.

But another swing had landed.

Wrecking Ball Blow #2.

The Wrecking Ball that Brought Down FBC Jax: Blow Number 1, Homer Died

Before going any further, let's be clear about something.

First Baptist Jacksonville is not dead. The church still exists, it still has a significant ministry, and under Heath Lambert it has made the painful decisions necessary to get itself back onto solid financial footing.

But let's not kid ourselves about what happened either.

The First Baptist Jacksonville of the 1980s and 1990s, the church that was once one of the largest and most influential churches in America is gone.

This was once a church that drew enormous crowds into downtown Jacksonville every Sunday. It hosted one of the premier pastors' conferences in the country. Its pastors were nationally known Southern Baptist leaders. Its downtown campus sprawled across city blocks, and in 1993 it opened an approximately 11,000-seat Main Auditorium because, amazingly enough, they actually needed the seats.

Today, First Baptist isn't even close to being the largest church in metropolitan Jacksonville, much less one of the largest churches in America.

And perhaps nothing illustrates that decline better than what is happening right now to the Main Auditorium.

They're tearing the thing down.

For those of us who were actually sitting inside that building when it opened in 1993, that's difficult to comprehend. This isn't some 120-year-old sanctuary with rotting floorboards and bats living in the steeple. The building is barely more than 30 years old.

The auditorium isn't being demolished because First Baptist Jacksonville ceased to exist.

It is being demolished because the First Baptist Jacksonville that needed an 11,000-seat auditorium ceased to exist.

That's an important distinction.

And that's what I mean when I say the wrecking ball came twice.

The literal wrecking ball is arriving now. The figurative wrecking ball began swinging years ago as the church lost thousands of members, financial resources, national influence and ultimately much of the downtown campus that generations of First Baptist members sacrificed to build.

Heath Lambert eventually inherited the aftermath. To his credit, Lambert made some extraordinarily difficult decisions. He sold property, dramatically reduced the church's footprint and put First Baptist on a sustainable financial course.

But by then, the old First Baptist Jacksonville empire had already been decimated.

So while we're watching the Main Auditorium come down, I thought it might be interesting to go back through nearly two decades of Watchdog history and ask a rather obvious question:

How in the world did we get here?

How does one of America's great megachurches go from needing an 11,000-seat auditorium to watching that same auditorium demolished barely three decades after opening it?

It wasn't one thing.

The wrecking ball swung several times.

I'm going to look at what I believe were the five biggest blows.

And here is blow number one.

Blow #1: Homer Died, and Nobody Was Looking Out for First Baptist Anymore

It would be tempting for me to rewrite history and claim that First Baptist's problems began when church leadership stopped listening to ordinary members.

But longtime First Baptist members would laugh at that one.

Let's be honest.

Homer Lindsay wasn't exactly running a congregational democracy.

Homer ran First Baptist Jax.

Jerry Vines, Homer's co-pastor beginning in the mid-1980s, was the magnificent preacher in the pulpit. But Homer was the guy running the church.

Homer didn't spend his time traveling around the country building the Homer Lindsay Ministries brand. He wasn't constantly looking for the next conference, book deal or opportunity to expand his national profile. Homer was in Jacksonville. He knew what was happening at First Baptist because First Baptist was his life.

And let's not romanticize the governance structure either. The trustees weren't exactly sitting around a mahogany conference table carefully exercising independent oversight over Homer Lindsay.

Homer made the decisions. The trustees knew Homer made the decisions. The congregation knew Homer made the decisions. And Homer knew everybody knew Homer made the decisions.

That was First Baptist Jacksonville.

And Homer didn't particularly care for critics either. Homer would have hated this blog.

Years later, after Homer had died, Vines had retired and the Watchdog was in full swing, Vines returned to preach at the Pastors' Conference. During his sermon he talked about what he did with anonymous critical letters, and therefore presumably anonymous blogs.

He threw them away.

And, as I remember it, he joked that he would spit on them first.

The crowd loved it and giggled and clapped. 

So spare me any revisionist history about the golden age of First Baptist leadership carefully considering anonymous criticism, distributing member surveys and holding listening sessions.

[Revision after posting: I have to be fair to Heath Lambert - one of the aspects of his leadership when he was leading the church through the massive restructuring: huge personnel cuts, selling properties, etc., was he actually held town hall meetings where members could step up to an open microphone and ask questions or air grievances. That was absolutely unheard of in FBC Jax history! Imagine ANY mega church having an open microphone session, live streamed online and posted to YouTube!!  So it certainly was a different day under Heath's leadership as he led them through the darkest period of the church's history]

That wasn't First Baptist Jacksonville.

But there was one enormous difference between the Homer era and what followed.

Homer loved that church.

Whatever you think about his leadership style - and there was plenty to criticize for sure - Homer had a vision for First Baptist Jacksonville. He believed that enormous downtown campus existed to build the church and fulfill what he believed was the Great Commission.

He wasn't building a personal brand.

He wasn't using First Baptist to sell Homer Lindsay books transcripted from his sermons.

He didn't negotiate the intellectual rights to his sermons.

He wasn't selling cruises like "Sail the Danube with the Lindsays" or "Holy Land with Homer" trips

First Baptist wasn't a platform for Homer Lindsay Enterprises, LLC.

It was First Baptist Church of Jacksonville.

Then Homer died.

And in hindsight, I believe that may have been the first swing of the wrecking ball.

As Heath Lambert himself chronicled years later in his podcast series "What Happened at FBC Jax," the decline in membership and attendance began around 2000. Interesting timing.

Because First Baptist's problem wasn't simply that enormous authority had been concentrated in a few hands.

Let's be more accurate.

It had been concentrated largely in one hand: Homer's.

The problem was what happened when Homer disappeared but the system didn't.

First Baptist still had a congregation conditioned to trust its senior leadership. It still had enormous financial resources. It still had tremendous institutional prestige. It still had trustees accustomed to deferring to the senior pastor.

What it didn't have anymore was Homer Lindsay standing there making sure that First Baptist Jacksonville came first.

And slowly, in my view, other interests began creeping in.

I wrote about events such as "A Time to Stand With Israel," which I believed had precious little to do with the actual mission of First Baptist Jacksonville and looked much more like a fundraising enterprise taking advantage of the church's enormous platform.

My criticism of that event apparently didn't win me any Christmas cards from the powerful layman who helped coordinate it. In fact, I have long believed my criticism of that event helped seal my fate when it came to the extraordinary efforts eventually undertaken to discover the identity of the anonymous Watchdog blogger.

Then there was the once-great Pastors' Conference.

I watched something that had been a genuine ministry of First Baptist Jacksonville increasingly resemble a Christian marketing convention.

Products. Promotions. Celebrity preachers. Cruises with the pastor. Holy Land trips.

Apparently the Great Commission needed a travel agent.

Somewhere along the way, it seemed to me that the question changed.

The old question was:

"How can First Baptist use its resources and the sacrificial giving of its members, to accomplish its mission?"

Increasingly, the question seemed to become:

"How can this enormous audience and platform be used to advance the interests and opportunities (and pocketbook) of the senior pastor?"

And that distinction matters.

Homer Lindsay could be controlling. He could be stubborn. He could run the church with an iron fist.

But I never doubted whose interests Homer believed he was protecting.

First Baptist Jacksonville's.

Once Homer was gone, the church retained all the vulnerabilities of the system he had created: concentrated authority, tremendous institutional prestige, trustees accustomed to deferring to the senior pastor, and a congregation conditioned for decades to blindly trust the man behind the pulpit.

What it no longer had was Homer.

And perhaps that was the first swing of the wrecking ball.

The one hitting the Main Auditorium today is just a lot easier to see.

Wrecking Ball Blow #1.

Stay tuned.

We've got four more swings to go.

The Wrecking Ball Came Twice...

...the real demolition of FBC Jax occurred years ago when the first wrecking ball arrived. But now the literal wrecking ball is taking down the main auditorium to make way for a Publix and 11 stories of condominiums. 

A few weeks ago I stopped by the old First Baptist Jacksonville auditorium, where demolition is underway. I've included some of my own photos from a few weeks ago, and some more recent ones that were in the newspaper this week after more demolition has occurred (credited to David Bauerlein and Florida Times Union)

I'll admit, it was a little emotional.

My young family and I were there when this building opened in 1993. At the time, it represented an exciting new chapter in the church's history, and over the next three decades countless worship services, concerts, weddings, funerals, and other significant moments took place inside its walls. For many of us, there are a lot of memories attached to this place.

That's why it's hard to see a building that's only about thirty years old already facing demolition.

The sad reality is that it didn't have to end this way. As downtown Jacksonville experiences a remarkable resurgence, with new residential development, major investment around the Jaguars stadium, and renewed interest in urban living; FBC Jax could have remained an important part of that story.

Instead, years of financial mismanagement, institutional arrogance, and pastors and their sycophants more interested in enriching themselves and their families, left the church with impossible decisions. By the time Heath Lambert became senior pastor, there really were no easy options left. Selling portions of the downtown campus, including this auditorium, wasn't a visionary choice as much as it was a necessary one to deal with the financial realities he inherited.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing some photos, memories, and reflections as this chapter in First Baptist Jacksonville's history comes to a close. Kudos to the current FBC Jax pastor, Heath Lambert, for doing what was necessary to save the church from the years of mismanagement that led to the arrival of the second wrecking ball.

The Great Myth of “I’ll Be Happy When This Is Over”

The Watchdog is turning 62 this year, which means two things are now undeniably true:

1. I’ve spent a lot of years confidently believing things that turned out not to be true.

2. I now recognize just how stubborn I was about letting go of them.

For most of my adult life, I believed in what I now recognize as a complete fairy tale: Once I get past this season of trouble, then I’ll be happy. You know the story. Just get through this financial stress. Just get past this conflict. Just survive this season. Then, finally, peace, joy, happiness, a hammock, and maybe a gentle breeze.

Spoiler alert: that day never comes.

Trouble never really leaves. It recedes for a while, then comes back from a different direction. Different decade, different problem. Same reality.

When you’re young, the trouble feels dramatic and urgent. When you’re middle-aged, it’s heavier and more complicated. When you’re older, it’s maybe more tame but more relentless. Some troubles are big. Some are long. Some are short. But even the short ones have a nasty habit of being replaced by something else waiting just around the corner.

I honestly thought, well into adulthood, that someday trouble would finally be behind me. As if life were a math problem you eventually solve and then close the book.

Turns out, life is not a math problem. It’s a recurring quiz.

And here’s a verse that finally wrecked my illusion, even though I’d heard it my whole life:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”
James 1:2–3

Notice what that verse does not say. It does not say, “Be joyful after the trial.” It does not say, “Hang on until happiness arrives later.” It says consider it joy when you face trials. Not because the trouble is good, but because trouble is unavoidable, and how you respond to it is where maturity is forged.

That realization took me nearly 60 years to grasp, I mean to really understand it. I suppose when you hit 60, you start to see the end in sight and part of this has caused me to realize this about trouble. When I shared this hard-earned insight with my wife, she simply said, “I’ve always known that.” And of course she had. Same truth, same destination, she just didn’t need decades to figure out that trouble isn’t a detour in life; it’s the road.

That’s not Christian fluff. That’s ancient, hard-earned wisdom.

Some of my preachers tried to tell me this for years. I distinctly remember Homer Lindsey coming back again and again to one simple idea: thankfulness. He leaned heavily on this verse:

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18

Notice the precision of the language. It doesn’t say give thanks for all circumstances. It says in all circumstances. That’s not denial. That’s discipline. That’s learning how to live without postponing gratitude until life finally behaves itself.

Paul says something similar from a much more personal angle:

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances…whether living in plenty or in want.”
Philippians 4:11–12

Contentment, according to Paul, was something learned over time. In my wife’s case, though, it really does seem to be part of who she is. Through ups and downs, through seasons of real difficulty, she has consistently been content in a way that never depended on circumstances cooperating. I lived right next to that example for decades, and somehow still managed to miss the lesson.

Recently, I found myself having a conversation with one of my adult children who is going through a genuinely difficult and emotionally painful season. And I had to admit something that surprised even me: that it wasn’t until I was about 60 years old that I finally learned this lesson. I told them that when trouble comes, even severe trouble, you eventually have to accept that this is part of life, and that waiting for it to end before allowing yourself joy is a losing strategy. You have to enjoy the journey somehow. You have to appreciate what you have now. I had to admit to my adult child that I lived most of my life not realizing that I was actually in the best years of my life, and was stupidly waiting for a better time to come!

I also told them something else that felt important to say out loud. While I may not be facing severe trouble at this exact moment, I know full well that something is always waiting around the corner. Jerry Vines always said "you're either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or about to go into a storm". I could get sick. My wife could get sick. Our elderly parents could get sick. Life has no shortage of ways to remind you that control is an illusion. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make you wise; it just delays the lesson.

That conversation is part of why I’m writing this.

What Homer was really saying, and what I was too stubborn to learn was this: If you wait for trouble to leave before you allow yourself to be happy, you will die waiting.

Money won’t save you from this. People love to believe that financial success is a force field against trouble. It’s not. Money simply upgrades the class of problems you get. A lack of money causes trouble. Having money causes a different kind of trouble. Lose it? Trouble. Manage it? Trouble. Protect it? Trouble. Argue about it? Trouble.

Pick your poison.

Health issues don’t wait for your bank account. Family conflict doesn’t care about your retirement plan. Aging doesn’t pause because you finally got things “figured out.”

Another verse says it even more bluntly when Jesus himself said:

“In this world you will have trouble.”
John 16:33

Not might. Not occasionally. Will.

The lie we tell ourselves is that happiness is the absence of trouble. It isn’t. Happiness, real happiness, is learning to live inside the trouble without being owned by it.

I no longer wait for the storm to pass before I allow myself peace. I don’t postpone joy until the next chapter. I don’t tell myself, Just get through this, then you can breathe. Because there is always another “this.”

The secret, if you want to call it that, that my wife has always known is learning to be content, grateful, and even joyful while life is doing what life has always done: being hard.

I’m thankful I finally learned that. Late, yes. But better late than still believing the lie at 80.

Trouble isn’t leaving. That’s okay.

I don’t need it to.

Magical Thinking, Flashbangs, Lost Fingers, and the New Fundamentalists

If you’re trying to make sense of the increasingly unhinged behavior surrounding ICE protests; blocking vehicles, wrestling armed agents, biting fingers, smashing taillights, charging officers with cars; and you’re doing it through a political lens alone, you’re going to miss the point entirely. What you’re watching isn’t political activism gone a little too far. It’s fundamentalism. And once you understand how fundamentalists actually think, the behavior stops being surprising and starts being tragically predictable.

Fundamentalists don’t live in reality the way normal adults do. They live in a story. A script. A moral drama where the outcome is already decided because they are convinced they are on the “right side of history,” or more dangerously, the “right side of God.” Reality, consequences, physics, and law enforcement procedures are just inconvenient details that are supposed to bend at the climax of the movie.

That’s why you see protesters reacting to flashbangs - such as the protestor in the viral video has her finger blown off - like they’re props in an action film. Somewhere in their brains, this isn’t a controlled explosive used by law enforcement for crowd control; it’s a grenade from a movie scene where the hero scoops it up, throws it back at just the right moment, and watches the bad guy get his comeuppance while the crowd cheers. They are genuinely surprised when the real world doesn’t follow the screenplay and they're missing half their finger in the freezing cold.

But that delusion isn’t new. I’ve seen it before. I lived around it for years in religious fundamentalism.

Religious fundamentalists routinely make life-altering decisions based on the belief that reality will be overridden by divine intervention. They’re told explicitly that if they tithe ten percent, God will protect their finances. Your refrigerator won’t break. Your roof won’t leak. Your kid won’t wreck their car. You're robbing God and inviting his curses. And if those bad things do happen? Well, you must not have tithed correctly, faithfully, or joyfully enough, or whatever.

It’s magical thinking dressed up as faith.

And while many church members quietly roll their eyes and tolerate that nonsense from their man of God, the mental framework is still there: make irrational decisions now, because a higher power will sort out the consequences later. Don’t plan. Don’t assess risk. Don’t question the premise. Don't use common sense and history as your guide to measure their words. Just act and trust the system to reward your obedience. I’ve seen this up close: people I care about, steeped in religious fundamentalism, making disastrous life decisions because they were convinced they had no choice, that obedience to God required it, armed with Bible verses and reinforced by other believers who eagerly sanctified the damage.

Now swap out God for ideology, preachers for activists and left-wing politicians, and tithing sermons for viral talking points, and you have the modern ICE protester.

They honestly believe that law enforcement will somehow stop behaving like law enforcement because their cause is righteous enough. They block vehicles as if federal agents will politely reverse course. They grab officers as if guns are just decorative accessories. They kick patrol cars, bite agents, charge with weapons on them, spit on them, and seem genuinely shocked when the situation escalates exactly the way it always does and always has for decades.

In their minds, they aren’t obstructing federal law enforcement; they’re playing the hero. They imagine the scene ending with the bad guys exposed, the crowd applauding, and history vindicating them. What they don’t imagine, because fundamentalists never do, is the part where reality asserts itself and people get seriously injured or killed.

This is the same mindset that convinces a church member to give away money they can’t afford to lose because “God will work it out.” and they must do it to show obedience. It’s the same mindset that convinces a protester that running a car toward armed agents is a symbolic act or a heroic act, instead of a potentially fatal one. The belief system differs, but the brain wiring is identical.

Fundamentalism always disconnects people from consequences. It trains them to believe outcomes are certain because their cause is pure. And when that belief collides with the real world: with laws, weapons, physics, and human reactions and predictable human behavior, the result is chaos.

That’s why none of this can be explained by “passion” or “anger” alone. Plenty of people are passionate without being delusional. What you’re watching is what happens when adults are taught over and over that thinking is optional and obedience to the narrative is everything.

And here’s the cruel irony: the same people who mock religious believers for trusting invisible forces are now trusting an invisible moral force to suspend reality on their behalf.

It never does.

Fundamentalism always promises a miracle. Reality always collects the bill.