Even the "Great American State Fair" can't escape Christian preachers making it worse

Missionaries are bringing literal scorecards to the National Mall to convert the tens of people in attendance

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This weekend could have been a huge celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary. But a bipartisan-backed festival that could have drawn in millions of Americans was hijacked by Donald Trump, who replaced it with the now-disastrous “Great American State Fair.” There’s a remarkable lack of people on the National Mall, because who wants to visit Washington, D.C. for what’s essentially a giant Trump rally, with live coverage from Fox News, a Confederate flag, overpriced food, and a heat wave that makes it unpleasant to be outside at all.

Despite all that, there are still people who want to make things worse: evangelists.

Ten of people waiting to get converted at the Great American State Fair (screenshot via X/Twitter)

According to an article (gift link) from the Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein, Christian missionaries see the event as fertile ground to convert people:

Jason Jimenez saw a mission field.

“Has anyone told you that God loves you and that he has a plan for your life?” the 38-year-old Bible student began each conversation as he moved in the baking, bright sun.

For Jimenez and the more than 1,000 other missionaries who came to Washington, D.C., to win souls for Christ at the Great American State Fair, the Trump-administration-run event was “the perfect environment,” he said.

A thousand missionaries! Given the tens of people attending the event, it’s entirely possible the missionaries are outnumbering the people they’re trying to target, and vastly outnumbering the people who might actually be willing to be their targets. At some point, mathematically, these missionaries have to be trying to convert other missionaries, right?

These aren’t random Christians, either. They came in with a game plan:

As morning turned to afternoon, Jimenez described some of the tactics of the missionaries he works with. All Revival Ministries missionaries at the Mall have a “stat card” where they write the goal of how many souls they hope to save that day, how many people they spoke with and whether those people said yes or no to Christ. His team also uses an app that reflects the by-minute numbers and where missionaries are on the Mall, so the group doesn’t annoy people by crowding up and reaching out more than once.

Around lunch time, his app said about 40 teams that day had reached 2,231 people.

They’re gamifying conversions and wrongly think it’s not annoying if they reach out only once. They’re even deluded about their delusions. And, of course, there’s no actual accomplishment occurring even if anyone is converted, except in their own fantasies.

There’s another problem with their assumptions: The sort of people who are bothering to come to this event are far more likely to be MAGA types who are already Christian. The evangelists even implied as much, saying they wanted to be on the National Mall because they knew this event would draw in “patriotic people” who might be more receptive to their message. It’s hard to believe, though, that there are Trump-loving “patriots” who haven’t heard about Jesus—much less thousands of them who need to be baptized right away. (For that, David’s Tent, a ministry that’s been on the National Mall for over a decade, has a pool ready to go. You have to wonder if anyone’s voluntarily getting baptized just to avoid the heat.)

Perhaps the best indication of how brainwashed some of these attendees already are is seen in this passage… which may be my favorite sentence in the whole piece:

“This country was based on faith, and we believe God has his hand on this nation,” Jacyln Stursman, 46, a tax accountant from Iowa, said as a Mennonite vocal group performed behind her on a huge stage.

“In the Constitution it says ‘under God,’” her daughter Abigail, 20, who is studying to become a teacher, said — incorrectly. The Pledge of Allegiance includes the phrase “under God.” The Constitution’s text makes no mention of a deity.

Just an astonishing amount of ignorance, in so few words, from someone who thinks she’s qualified to teach… anything. (Kudos to Boorstein for quoting her and correcting her in the same sentence.)

Anyway, to state the obvious, missionaries would have been present even if this had been a truly non-partisan event, but they would have been overshadowed by the sheer number of other storylines. Given how little there is to discuss about the event, the missionaries may have accomplished more by simply being there—and being written about—than converting anyone.

What makes all of this even more futile is the desire by the missionaries to rise above partisan politics.

Into that atmosphere come the evangelists, who are trying to stay away from partisan politics while still tapping into the revival atmosphere the White House has helped elevate.

Democrats and Republicans are “the same snake with two heads,” Eric Gonyon, crusade director at Revival Ministries, said after leading the first of three daily “soul-winning training” sessions Wednesday morning.

If you’re so broken inside that you believe both parties are the “same”—and you can’t even bring yourself to denounce everything the Trump administration, with Republican support, has been doing to destroy the country from the inside, then how can you possibly be trusted on any other issue—especially what these people would consider the most important issue of all? If your religion can’t help you pinpoint evil when it’s staring you in the face, then your moral compass is broken and there’s no reason for anyone to take you seriously.

You could argue that, at this point, progressive Christians who point to all the ways Trump is violating the Gospel message would have a much easier time winning people over to their side. Not conservatives who think politics can be ignored in service of a more transcendent message. We don’t have the luxury of pretending things are normal, yet these evangelists think visitors to the Massive Trump Rally can set aside politics when the very place they’re all at is an extension of our current broken Republican-run system.

If talking to the missionaries is supposed to get you into Heaven, we’re all better off looking forward to Hell, where at least you’ll find some peace and quiet.

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