Iowa Democrat U.S. House candidate Sarah Trone Garriott expressed discomfort in 2023 over public displays of Christianity and politics together, while also claiming so-called “Christian nationalism” began with the late Rev. Billy Graham.
Trone Garriott, who is running against Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) in November’s midterms, made her comments during a speech at a Methodist church, Fox News reported Friday.
The Fox article noted Trone Garriott is a state legislator and Lutheran minister. Her speech was posted November, 1 2023, on the United Methodist Church Iowa Conference website.
During her remarks, Trone Garriott showed a photo of a woman holding a sign that read “One nation, under God, indivisible” with a cross and American flag on it. The Democrat said “So we have seen some pretty uncomfortable ways that faith and political power have collided. You know, seeing the flag and the cross conflated.
“We have seen religious actors supporting specific political candidates even when those candidates might not seem to match the values of that professed religious faith, there is this very strong allegiance to specific candidates. That confuses us and makes us wonder what on earth is going on.”
“And we have seen religion and political violence showing up more and more in our public spaces. It’s something that is just very in our faces and something that we’re very concerned about and something that feels very threatening right now at this time,” she added.
In contrast to her remarks, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) in October pointed out that radical Islamic extremism was still posing a grave danger to the United States, Breitbart News reported:
“Twenty-four years ago, September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 innocent Americans were murdered in a coordinated terrorist attack carried out by radical Islamic extremism,” Tuberville remarked. “Those of us who lived through that day remember exactly where we were when those planes hit the buildings. That day changed this country forever.”
The Alabama senator listed several attacks he observed reflecting the ongoing presence of extremist ideology in America, including the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2015 San Bernardino attack, the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, the 2019 Pensacola Naval Air Station attack, and a 2025 truck attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. “These attacks, they weren’t just against people,” he declared. “They were an all-out assault on Western culture, freedom, and the values that we hold dear.”
Meanwhile, RNC Research shared video footage of Trone Garriott complaining that her state’s government leaders are “not very diverse” and were “mostly white, mostly Christian, and mostly older men.”
In its 2023 post about Trone Garriott’s speech, the Iowa Conference said she claimed “Christian nationalism” was on the rise around the world and bringing with it the ideas of “white patriarchy — masculine power, violence, and dominance over and against others.”
She then claimed it began with Rev. Billy Graham.
“Billy Graham really modeled this—an attractive, strong, macho guy persona. It was a big part of his preaching style, his overall appearance, and the way he presented himself throughout his ministry. He [physically] worked out…to cultivate this appearance and presentation and to be attractive and show a kind of ideal white, Christian masculinity that some folks had felt had been missing. There were a lot of folks in the American world feeling that Christianity had become too weak or too soft, too feminine. And they wanted to embrace this kind of macho man persona,” she said.
According to Breitbart News, the term “Christian nationalism” is a leftist buzzword used to “distract and scare its voter base into submission.”
