From my vantage point here in Barcelona—where ancient cathedrals stand as monuments to humanity’s complex relationship with the divine rather than political weapons—I’ve been watching America’s latest theological circus with a mixture of fascination and horror. Americans have become increasingly bewitched by what I can only describe as a borrowed god who brings particularly bad news. 

But here’s the thing that strikes me as comically simplistic: they still insist there’s only one god. One. Singular. The irony is palpable, really, when you consider that their chosen Semitic deity was famously described as “jealous.” (Jealous of whom, exactly, if there are no other gods to be jealous of? Perhaps jealous like Trump watching Putin and Xi do whatever they want with impunity, or maybe jealous with the accuracy of someone using a Sharpie to redirect a hurricane’s path.)

What’s even more laughable—and infinitely more dangerous—is how this ancient Jewish god has somehow been rebranded to exclusively champion Americans who happen to be white, Gentile, heterosexual, male, and Trump worshippers. It’s theological gymnastics that would make Pentecostal dancers dizzy.

Ever curious about the mechanics of power, I’ve been studying this phenomenon from my Spanish home as a former American, where the ghosts of Franco’s nationalist Christianity still whisper warnings about mixing faith with fascism. What I see unfolding in America is a two-god hustle so brazen it’s almost artistic in its audacity.

Here’s how the game works: If you don’t serve both nasty fellows—the retrofitted Jewish god and the American Trump—the “Christian” faithful can mock you, jail you, or even murder you with divine blessing. But if you do bow down to this unholy duopoly, congratulations! You’re now a “true American Christian” with a license to mock, jail, or murder anyone who doesn’t believe exactly like you do-but only if you are white.

The list of forbidden pleasures for these American Christians reads like a puritanical fever dream. One cannot believe America was ever racist (despite mountains of evidence). You cannot be LGBTQ+. You cannot be a drag queen. You cannot be trans. You cannot be a non-white immigrant. You cannot have more than one wife at a time. You cannot read “forbidden” books that dare to teach actual history, diversity, equality, and inclusion.

But here’s where the hypocrisy becomes so thick you could cut it with a knife: it’s perfectly acceptable—even celebrated—to be a sexual predator, a philanderer, a cheat, an embezzler, a pathological liar, a bully, a name-caller, a murderer of people who aren’t white, and a convicted felon. You can do all those things if you’re white and wealthy. The cognitive dissonance is breathtaking.

These American Christians have become professional meddlers, and freedom dies under constant meddling. They’ve created a religion of control disguised as liberation, a faith of exclusion masquerading as love.

What strikes me most profoundly about this two-god system is how perfectly it mirrors the aggressive, hothead personalities of its chosen deities: one foreign and Jewish (borrowed and whitewashed beyond recognition), one nationalistic and American (manufactured from whole cloth and spray-painted gold).

From my Barcelona balcony, where I watch Spanish families stroll through parks without fear of mass shootings, where healthcare is a human right rather than a capitalist enterprise, where diversity is celebrated rather than legislated against, the American experiment in Christian nationalism looks increasingly like a cautionary tale.

The tragedy isn’t just theological—it’s existential. A borrowed god wielded as a weapon of oppression. A faith transformed into a political bludgeon. A country that once aspired to be a beacon of freedom now cowering under the rule of two angry, demanding gods who seem to hate most of humanity.

Oh my. The land of the free has become the home of the enslaved—enslaved to fear, to hatred, to a version of Christianity that would make Jesus himself weep.

Inconceivable? Perhaps. But from where I sit, watching the sun set over the Mediterranean while America burns with the fever of religious nationalism, it seems all too real.

Sensual | Curious | Communal | Free