A picturesque Tennessee county is being taken over by Christian nationalists who are seeking to create a community of ‘European-derived peoples’ in a bid to bring America back to its pre-Civil Rights days.
Podcasters Andrew Isker and C. Jay Engel want to build a Christian community in tiny Jackson County, located 90 minutes outside of Nashville, where immigrants – even naturalized ones – could be kicked out and women made submissive.
‘It’s like a [Joseph] Stalin thing, we need Christian nationalism in one state,’ Engel said in an October episode of the Contra Mundum podcast.
The pair are recruiting ‘like-minded Christians and patriots in Tennessee’ to join their community of ‘Heritage Americans,’ who they believe are the only ones with the right to own homeland in the country.
‘When I say Heritage American, this is what I mean: Those who are ethno-culturally tied to the ethos and spirit of the United States prior to its definitional transformation into a Propositional Nation after World War II,’ he wrote in an X post in May.
‘This therefore includes the type of people that came here during the Ellis Island generation, even if that was a significant sociopolitical mistake. We are also the product of our mistakes as a nation.
‘It affirms, however, the domination and pre-eminence of the European-derived peoples, their institutions, and their way of life,’ he continued. ‘Heritage America is centered around the experiences and norms of Anglo-Protestants.
‘It was their customs, their instincts, their priorities, their norms, their struggles, their perspectives, that set the tone and vision of Heritage America.’
Podcasters Andrew Isker and C. Jay Engel want to build a Christian community in tiny Jackson County, located 90 minutes outside of Nashville, where immigrants – even naturalized ones – will be kicked out and women will be submissive
The men (pictured) believe that only Heritage American deserve to own land, largely referring to white men. They also said ‘blacks of the Old South’ and Native Americans can also be included as long as they do not have an ‘instinct’ to ‘leverage their experience for the purpose of political guilt in our time’
His definition of Heritage Americans also includes ‘blacks of the Old South’ and ‘integrated Native Americans,’ as long as they do not have an ‘instinct’ to ‘leverage their experience for the purpose of political guilt in our time,’ he said.
The podcasters’ effort to plant a flag in Jackson County is being aided by two real estate companies, New Founding and RidgeRunner, which have pledged to build a community with ‘people who share your values.’
‘America is going to need a Protestant [Francisco] Franco,’ New Founding partner Josh Abbotoy posted on social media, referring to the Catholic Spanish dictator who ruled between 1939 and 1975, according to News Channel 5 Nashville.
Abbotoy purchased 500 acres on the Macon-Jackson County line. An associated corporation bought 100 acres near downtown Gainesboro, as well as an office building where Isker and Engel are setting up a podcast studio, the outlet reported.
Engel often posts pictures on social media of old Norman Rockwell images of white people.
‘I would imagine, in most of those Norman Rockwell pictures, there aren’t any depictions of people who look like me,’ Chris Williamson, a black pastor in Nashville, told News Channel 5.
In one post, Engel, a former Californian, wrote alongside pictures of white people: ‘We used to be an actual country with an actual culture.’
Williamson said he was ‘repulsed’ to learn that ‘people would think of me and people who look like me in such degrading ways.’
The men also believe the Civil Rights Movement ‘ruined everything,’ and are recruiting ‘like-minded Christians and patriots in Tennessee’ to join their community of Heritage Americans
Their project is being helped by two real estate companies, New Founding and RidgeRunner, which promise to build a community with ‘people who share your values’
Engel and Isker deny that they are racist, despite stating on their podcast that ‘all of our heroes were way more racist than we’re allowed to be today.’
Instead, they say the ‘very concept of racism was literally a creation of communists.’
The men have denounced Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, with Engel saying in a social media post: ‘You cannot have both MLK and Heritage America.’
Isker has argued on X that civil rights should go ‘back to the states.’
The two leaders have also mocked the horrific 1955 Emmett Till case, where a black 14-year-old boy was kidnapped and lynched in Mississippi after being accused of offending a white woman.
For Black History Month, Engel decided to celebrate ‘Heritage History Month’ and praised white supremacist Sam Francis as someone ‘who either shaped or defended our European and American heritage.’
Francis argued in his writings that whites could ‘dictate a solution to the racial problem tomorrow’ by ‘imposing fertility controls on non-whites’ and he wanted ‘uncompromising assertion of white will,’ according to News Channel 5.
Engel wrote on his X account that ‘Peoples like Indians, or South East Asians or Ecuadorians or immigrated Africans are the least capable of fitting in and should be sent home immediately.’
He also expressed distrust for Vivek Ramaswamy – who was recently nominated to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency with Elon Musk under Trump – because he was Indian.
‘I wish we had someone – a Heritage American – that was as passionate about, you know, our people,’ Engel said.
Franklin Community Church Pastor Kevin Riggs isn’t falling for the men’s vision: ‘At the end of the day, it’s the same tired ideology of white supremacy,’ he said
Nashville Pastor Chris Williamson was ‘repulsed’ to learn that ‘people would think of me and people who look like me in such degrading ways.’
Isker also expressed ideas that anyone foreign-born granted citizenship since 1965 should have to go under a ‘review’ process that includes investigating if they have worked for ‘left causes.’
‘Deported for anti-Heritage American activities,’ he wrote, according to News Channel 5.
The men also believe the Civil Rights Movement ‘ruined everything,’ the outlet reported.
However, Engel and Isker dismiss their opinions as jokes, with Engel saying: ‘You get in trouble for having fun,’ according to News Channel 5, which spent months scouring their social media pages and podcast.
‘So, they are defining my legacy, my entire legacy really on slavery,’ Williamson, the Nashville pastor, said.
‘I stay – even though I was brought here against my will and treated horrible through chattel slavery for nearly 250 years, but that’s my heritage.
‘Really, you want to keep me in that place of inferior status with you. I’m okay as long as I stay in line and accept how you define me. But these days of white men defining black people, they’re not happening anymore.’
Franklin Community Church Pastor Kevin Riggs isn’t falling for the men’s vision, saying their mission and values constitute white supremacy.
‘It doesn’t matter whether you are a Christian. It doesn’t matter whether you are an atheist. It doesn’t matter if you are a Buddhist. It doesn’t matter what, you are going to be forced to live by this narrow interpretation of Christian principles,’ he told News Channel 5.
‘If you strip it all down, they’re saying the same thing – they are just saying it in a way that may be more acceptable to people. At the end of the day, it’s the same tired ideology of white supremacy.’
The men have denounced Martin Luther King Jr. (pictured in casket) and the Civil Rights Movement, with Engel saying in a social media post : ‘You cannot have both MLK and Heritage America’
Critics say their community is white supremacy that keep white men in power (pictured: neo-Nazis in Nashville)
The podcasters’ discrimination also extends to women, especially those who are college-educated.
‘People who call me racist are innately incapable of comprehending the extent to which I detest the specific impact of college-educated white women on the culture of the world around me,’ Engel wrote in one post.
He called women ‘obnoxious and emotional,’ especially those who work, and celebrated never having had a female boss.
Engel also encouraged men to ‘propagandize your wife’ and to train her ‘to like the things you do,’ according to News Channel 5.
Isker has echoed similar statements, saying: ‘You can have either women’s liberation or civilization, not both.’
‘No one can give me an argument why universal suffrage is good,’ he wrote.
‘I think it’s politically best to have conservatives in power. And blacks and women vote liberal more often than white men,’ Engel agreed.
They also reject Jews and said there is only ‘Christians and unbelievers,’ News Channel 5 reported.
Engel has also claimed that the LGBT+ community shouldn’t be employed until they ‘work on not being gay’ and that journalists are ‘barely human.’
‘We will tear off liberal scales from their eyes and radicalize Main Street,’ he said, according to News Channel 5.
They hope to expand to other towns and eventually gain political power that rivals that of big cities.
