Josh Howerton redefines following Jesus as becoming empire

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 5, 2026.

Josh Howerton is an authoritarian theocrat who thinks his penis, pulpit and piety give him the right to rule the world.

In a recent episode of his “Live Free” podcast, Howerton accuses YouTuber Rhett McLaughlin of gaslighting Christians. And in doing so, Howerton demonstrates how white evangelicals are redefining following Jesus as becoming the empire.

“Christians should have radically different postures toward people who are standing in their faith and wrestling with some doubts to try to keep following Jesus, than they should have toward people who are standing in their unbelief and then promulgating unbelief to try to get other people to move to unbelief,” Howerton said. “We should have compassion and tenderness toward a doubter. Really, we should be a lot more forceful with people who are trying to get other people to doubt.”

Rhett McLaughlin

In Howerton’s mind, McLaughlin is a wolf who hates Christians and who is attempting to convince Christians to doubt their faith and obey him instead.

“You got a guy who has de-converted from Christianity, says he hates Christianity, doesn’t believe a single word of the Bible. But he’s really gonna make sure you obey his interpretation of it,” Howerton declared. “You will see this from non-Christian people constantly. It’s the guy that you know who hates everything about the Bible, wants to advance every evil cause that’s in opposition to the Bible. He couldn’t quote one verse from the Sermon on the Mount. But he knows the verse ‘Judge not.’ And he’s gonna make sure you don’t do it.”

Howerton spends 32 minutes responding to this threat with his smug, infantilizing tone in a pathetic attempt to be forceful with McLaughlin the wolf.

Does McLaughlin actually hate Christians and the Bible?

Of course, McLaughlin never said he hates Christians or that he doesn’t believe a single word of the Bible. He also doesn’t promote “every evil cause that’s in opposition to the Bible.”

To the contrary, McLaughlin says during one interview, “If we’re talking about subscription to the teachings of Jesus, then I’m a Christian.” The reason he doesn’t identify as a Christian is that the Christian identity today includes way too many ideas McLaughlin finds harmful and because a lot of the faith statements about Jesus’ divinity or resurrection are impossible to prove. As McLaughlin puts it, “The person of Jesus, the nature of Jesus and what is fiction and what’s fact, I’m not really that concerned with.”

In another video, McLaughlin asks, “What if the president and a lot of the most powerful people in your country were doing all sorts of stuff that seemed to be very inconsistent with what you remember about the character and teachings of Jesus, so much so that you found yourself almost compelled to defend Jesus’ reputation against these people?”

With that background, McLaughlin’s YouTube short Howerton misrepresents is a video where McLaughlin talks about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness when Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world.

McLaughlin on the temptation of Jesus

After reading from Luke 4, McLaughlin says, “To me, this is pretty wild, considering the state of the current American church because the one opportunity that Jesus has to make a commentary about embracing political power over the kingdom or the kingdoms of this world is presented as a temptation of Satan. This is presented as a temptation of Satan. To fall for this, ‘We’ve gotta be in control of the kingdoms of the world.’ Does Jesus say, ‘Well OK, maybe you’re in charge right now. But you just wait until a few of my followers are in government,’ or ‘You wait until we’re in charge’?”

McLaughlin says Jesus didn’t promote a kingdom about attaining political power.

“It just blows my mind that we’ve gotten to this place where this seems to be the way that the kingdom of God is going to be established is by infiltrating and taking over the government,” he says. “I think it’s worth noting that the more that Christians have embraced this pursuit of political power, the more they have embraced political leadership that looks a lot less like Jesus and a lot more like the devil himself.”

The kingdom according to Howerton

Filled with supposedly righteous indignation at McLaughlin’s understanding of Jesus, Howerton attempts to correct the record.

Continue reading at Baptist News Global.