Turning Point hosts christian nationalist podcaster 

Turning Point USA at Illinois State University hosted Joshua Haymes Wednesday night, a far right pastor turned podcaster who hosts the Reformation Redpill Podcast. 

Haymes, like many in the right wing media ecosystem, is not a stranger to inflammatory rhetoric, once stating, “the institution of slavery is not inherently evil… it is very important that every Christian affirm what I just said.” 

Junior political science major and Vice President of TPUSA Jacob Carstens believed that in spite of these statements, Haymes was worth inviting.

“I think it’s great to invite all different perspectives, whether their views are considered far right or far left. I think all ideas need to be challenged and debated upon. And I think the best thing to do that is through this exactly because if you don’t like somebody’s ideas, you should be able to debate them, prove them wrong, and this is exactly what this event is doing,” Carstens said.

The event, titled “Faith, Immigration, & Deportation,” was advertised alongside a question: “Does Jesus love deportations?” 

In Haymes’ view, the answer was yes. 

“Jesus does, he loves mass deportations because he loves justice,” Haymes said. 

While Haymes used a variety of scripture to support this assertion, his argument was that the Bible explicitly endorses a restrictive immigration policy, which in his view, could be achieved through mass deportations. 

“Millions and millions have to go…mass deportations, that needs to happen. Anyone who’s here illegally just has to go,” Haymes said. 

The event was also protested by the ISU chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America. They positioned themselves at the entrances of the Central for Visual Arts, and their shouting could be heard from inside the event. 

While Carstens respected their right to protest, he believed they should have confronted Haymes directly at the Q&A and debate period after Haymes’ talk. 

“If you want to disagree with someone, you should just do it face to face and try to come to a common ground because that’s what’s best for America,” Carstens said. 

While the bulk of attendees were sympathetic to Haymes, either being a part of a TPUSA chapter or other conservative activist groups, some came to see if he lived up to his reputation as an extremist. 

“I was curious what this guy has to say. You’ve seen a lot of the controversy around… I’m trying to really see who he is and, like, what his viewpoints actually are,” junior finance major Patrick Fields said.

Freshman Nathaniel Spilman, who was accompanying Fields, agreed.

“I heard a bunch of stuff about him. I’m gonna see if he’s actually like that,” Spillman said. 

Haymes did not shy away from discussing his ideology, affirming his belief in christian nationalism within the first few minutes.

 “I’m just your friendly neighborhood Christian nationalist,” Haymes said.

Haymes is also a proud proponent of the great replacement theory, a debunked far right conspiracy theory which asserts that immigrants are engaged in a united effort to replace white Americans.

“Americans are being disenfranchised by foreigners, who are bringing in their co-ethnics and building up ethnic enclaves, and taking over neighborhoods, taking over neighborhoods in the United States,” Haymes said. “Americans are, in fact, being replaced in our own homeland…this is happening, it’s not a theory. It’s a matter of fact.” 

Imbued within his entire speech was a sense of nostalgia and loss for whiter, more Christian U.S. 

“The beautiful, high trust, homogeneous Christian America that your boomer grandparents inherited. It was beautiful,” Haymes said. “And let it just sink in, it’s dead. It’s gone.” 

Haymes also disparaged the Civil Rights Act. 

“The Civil Rights Act…decimated the Black family. We were learning how to live together, in other words. And then, the gay race commies ruined everything, as they do,” Haymes said. 

Overall, Haymes blamed the loss of his mythologized version of post-WW2 U.S. on his perceived decline in Christian values.

“We are currently being invaded and conquered by foreign peoples…it’s because our forefathers walked away from Christ,” Haymes said. 

In his view, God wanted people of different races to remain primarily apart, an attempt to legitimize his racist belief with religious backing. 

“God actually likes that particularity, red, yellow, black, white. He likes that that particularity exists. I don’t think God, in his creativity, intended for the world to just become beige,” Haymes said. 

After the event, Vice President of the ISU College Republicans and junior political science major Alec Cabrera did not find Haymes to be hateful. 

“I would say we had, when we had him over, like, there was no sort of hateful rhetoric. There’s no sort of any hate really from it,” Cabrera said. “He really is a true Christian man.” 

Cabrera also found Haymes’ argument to be effective, if a bit too focused on religion for his taste. 

“Obviously, for me, I’m a little bit more interested in the political side of things. So I did think he had a good, strong argument for the different topics he had immigration, deportations, all that stuff. I was happy with it, but he did go very theologically into it, which again, I’m more of a political sort of minded person,” Cabrera said. 

Altogether, Haymes’ vision for the future of the U.S. is reactionary. In his ideal America, Christianity, particularly Reformed Christianity, would be the basis for national policy, and suffrage would be limited. 

“We used to understand ourselves to be a Christian nation…and I would want to go back to where we self-consciously understood ourselves to be a Christian nation, and kind of the bells and whistles that come along with that,” Haymes said. “I would severely restrict suffrage…I would say it should be heads of household who have a wife and children,” Cabrera said.