Alex had seen it before anyone else. Long before the rallies, before the churches draped themselves in the Circle’s insignia, before the faithful swapped their crucifixes for unity pins and their sermons for propaganda. Long before the Chairman stood before them, grinning as they declared him their savior.
He had always pointed it out, casually at first, but with growing bitterness. The megachurch pastors standing in front of thousands, gold watches glinting under stage lights, wiping fake tears as they begged their flock for just a little more money. “God told me I need a new private jet,” one had said, smiling wide as the donations poured in. “God told me he would bless you—if you bless me first.”
“Very Christ-like,” Alex would mutter, flipping the channel whenever one of them appeared. “Did Jesus need a Gulfstream too?”
It had been a joke. Then it wasn’t.
It wasn’t just the preachers. It was the whole damn machine—the televangelists, the religious radio hosts, the far-right ministries that had built their empires on the promise of fear. For years, they had been selling the same message: the end was near, the wicked would perish, and the righteous would rise. They had long since stopped preaching kindness, humility, compassion. Those weren’t profitable anymore.
Instead, they preached victory. Conquest. War.
And when the Chairman arrived, when he stepped onto the political stage and sneered at the weak, when he spoke about power, about taking back what was stolen—they knew their moment had come.
The religious leaders saw the opportunity immediately.
For years, they had primed their flocks for this exact moment. The Chairman wasn’t just a man to them—he was prophecy fulfilled.
He told them what they had already been waiting to hear. That the wicked were taking over. That outsiders were corrupting the nation. That traitors had infiltrated their government, their schools, their very homes. That the world was collapsing—but that he would save them.
It wasn’t hard for the pastors to adjust their sermons.
It wasn’t hard to change the meaning of the Word.
They didn’t even have to lie.
They just shifted the message.
The rapture? It was coming.
The faithful? They would inherit the land.
The Chairman? He was chosen.
Not perfect, no, only God was perfect. But didn’t God choose imperfect men to carry out His will? Wasn’t David a sinner? Wasn’t Paul once Saul? The Chairman was their flawed instrument, their holy warrior, their means to an end.
At first, they had defended him out of convenience. Now, they defended him out of faith. When he mocked the disabled on stage, they said, “He speaks bluntly, but his heart is good.” When he attacked his enemies with cruelty, they said, “God used strong leaders to protect His people.” When he promised retribution, they said, “Jesus overturned the tables in the temple too.” He was exactly what they had been waiting for—a man who hated the same people they did.
The sermons changed overnight. They stopped talking about helping the poor—because the poor were lazy. They stopped talking about loving thy neighbor—because the neighbor was an enemy. They stopped talking about forgiveness—because forgiveness was weakness.
Now, they preached dominance.
They preached victory.
They preached war.
The meek would not inherit the Earth.
The strong would.
Faith wasn’t about sacrifice anymore. It wasn’t about compassion.
It was about winning.
It was about taking.
“God is not finished with this nation,” the pastors declared. “But He is purging it.”
The enemy was everywhere. Immigrants. Liberals. Intellectuals. The media. “Globalists.” The ones who wanted open borders and weak men, sin in the streets and filth in the schools. They would all be cast out.
The pastors saw it coming long before the rest of the country did. And they wanted it. They didn’t care about salvation. They wanted control.
Cora had seen it creep in like poison. She had watched her neighbors change. She had watched her own parents change. They had never been religious before.
They had prided themselves on being open-minded, progressive, tolerant. They had friends who were Jewish, Muslim, gay. They had rolled their eyes at the megachurch grifters, at the people screaming about moral decay.
Then they retired.
Then they moved somewhere quieter, somewhere where everyone looked like them, thought like them, voted like them. Then they started watching.
The sermons. The broadcasts. The men in expensive suits and gleaming teeth who told them the world was turning against them. And they believed.
Her mother posted scripture now, twisted verses, justifications for hatred wrapped in holy words. Her father talked about righteousness, about how the country had lost its way, about how the Chairman was bringing it back.
When Cora argued, when she begged them to see what was happening, they just smiled.
“You don’t understand.”
“You’ve been brainwashed by the world.”
“Alex is not good for you.”
“You’ll come around.”
But she wouldn’t. She had seen what faith had become. This wasn’t religion. This wasn’t God. This was power, wrapped in a false cross, draped in the flag of the Circle, wielded like a weapon against anyone who dared to resist.
And the worst part?
They didn’t even see it.
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