Christian Exodus

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“”Forsake the Empire, Seek the Kingdom

—Their slogan

The Christian Exodus, a group of fundamentalist Christian separatist dominionists founded in 2003, with the stated goal of moving "thousands of Christian Constitutionalists to South Carolina to accelerate the return of self-governance based on Christian principles". They also desire "personal secession" by "disentangling from society" wherever possible, using methods of divorcing the modern world that include, but aren't limited to, promoting home schooling, going off the electric grid, adopting self-sufficient farming, and other methods of sheltering their children from the evil forces of atheism and critical thinking.

Quite unsurprisingly, they appear to have succeeded in falling off the grid almost completely shortly after 2013^[When?]. Their website now is little more than a collection of photographs of various sites they own, only one of which has a domain that is actually located in South Carolina.

South Carolina

The Exodus' preferred choice for a new Plymouth is South Carolina, having chosen it on account of its preexisting conservative Christian electorate and its small size making it easier for a small number of activists to take over political life. In order to accomplish their agenda, they are planning to colonize territory by encouraging their particular brand of Christians to move there en masse. Apparently, all of their grand total of fifteen families have emigrated to South Carolina. Their eventual goal is to secede from the Union and form their own little agrarian theocracy. Hey, it worked for the Mormons in Utah and their proposed state of "Deseret", right? And it worked well the first time around in South Carolina for those who were getting all freaked out about federalism and the thought of losing their way of life, right? Right? They're totally not just an irrelevant fringe group, right?

Views

General crank magnetism

The group appears to have some crossover with the Sovereign citizen movement. There is also a theme of rugged individualism, the site promoting agrarianism and survivalism. To add to the general mess, the movement promotes home schooling, as well as assorted woo including natural childbirth and naturopathy. They are also quite antifeminist and are somewhat paranoid about Marxism and socialism that they believe will eventually replace America's democracy with communistic despotism.

On society and secularism

Like most right-wing religious fanatics, the Exodus imagines that the United States has become godless (ONOZ!!!!!!111!!!SHIFT1!!SHIFToneeleventyone11!!!1!), morally and financially bankrupt, and is DOOMED to decline and fall all because of DA AYTEEIIIIZTZ- because of fucking course they do.

On government

Many conservatives believe that the United States government is too big and should not be providing health care for sick people. Christian Exodus, taking this core tenet of conservatism further, wishes for their to be no role for the state, as they believe the government has become an idolatry. They maintain the government should have no role in areas such as our bodies, health, family, children or money. In short, their politics appear to be anarcho-theocratic.

One out of many

There are many currently-operating groups and organizations who are trying to change the demography of some state or another a la mass immigration so that they can take its politics over and make secede from the Union for a variety of different reasons. Christian Exodus is just one.

Furthermore, Christian Exodus can be seen as a small, irrelevant fringe group whose agenda features so many unrealistic aims and pipe-dreams, that it is unlikely to make it very far past the planning phase. Indeed, the initiative has largely gone nowhere, and the Exodus seems to have essentially vanished into the ether, as evidenced by the fact that most of the links on this very page had to be switched to archived versions of their site.^{[citation NOT needed]}

Alternatively, Christian Exodus could also be seen as part of the broader religious right- which is large, relevant, and influential enough for supporters of secularism and the separation of church and state to reasonably be concerned about it.

See also

• Free State Project

External links

• The Christian Exodus website