America’s Own Ministry For The Propagation Of Virtue And The Prevention Of Vice

Whoa!  

Is he kidding?!?!?

‘Cause news outta a Texas roadhouse “church” is…

It’s wackadoodle Taliban-esque.

For perspective, let’s look at some of the restrictions on women (and men and the press and education and freedom to travel) imposed after the Taliban Leadership Council named Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada supreme leader on May 25, 2016 and he assumed full power following the skedaddling of the Afghan government in anticipation of American withdrawal in August 2021. 

In August 2024, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice issued a summary report of its clamp-down on “immoral acts” in the past year including dismissing more than 289 members of the Afghan security force for failure to grow a (proper) beard and destroying 21,328 musical instruments. 

The Taliban efforts to control women are infamous (We’ll look at some of their national and local rules in a few paragraphs.), but now men have become targets. Since August, men’s beards must be at least fist-long and their appearance cannot be “non-Muslim” – jeans and shorts or Western-style haircuts are taboo; men may no longer look at women other than their wives or relatives and male taxi drivers can no longer serve unaccompanied (usually by a male family member) women. (In September, The Washington Post cited an unnamed Kabul driver whose revenue had declined by 70 percent in one month.) Failure to pray can result in arrests, trials and jail or prison sentences.  Adultery merits public flogging or stoning to death. (Of course, it is usually the woman who suffers most severely.)

The United States Institute of Peace, a national, nonpartisan, independent institute, founded by Congress and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible, has published a list of more than 120 local, regional and national “Taliban’s Decrees and Directives Infringing on the Rights of Women and Men” from August 2021 through August 2024. 

The latest actions include banning women – at all times – from Kabul parks [Previous provisions allowed men and women to use parks on alternate days, but never on the same day.], encouraging local imams (religious leaders) to urge their communities to prohibit women from using smartphones, prohibitions on friendships with non-Muslims, and punishments to be meted-out on offenders and their families when women do not fully cover their bodies – including faces and eyes – with a specific style of hijab. In Herat, couples must present their “marriage certification” before they can eat together in restaurants. 

On October 30, 2024, The Associate Press reported: 

“Afghan women are forbidden from praying loudly or reciting the Quran in front of other women, according to a Taliban government minister [Vice and Virtue Minister in easter Logar province, Khalid Hanafi].

“It’s the latest restriction on women following morality laws that ban them from raising their voice and baring their faces outside the home. They are already excluded from education after sixth grade, many public spaces and most jobs…

“During an event in eastern Logar province on Sunday, Vice and Virtue Minister Khalid Hanafi said: ‘It is prohibited for a grown woman to recite Quranic verses or perform recitations in front of another grown woman. Even chants of takbir (Allahu Akbar) [‘God is most great’] are not permitted.”

“He said that uttering similar expressions like ‘subhanallah’ [‘God is glorious’], another word central to the Islamic faith, was also not allowed. A woman was not permitted to perform the call to prayer, he told the gathering. ‘So, there is certainly no permission for singing.’”

[EDITORS’ NOTE: Rather that give him the publicity he apparently craves, we will not name the Texas-based christian nationalist we cite in the following paragraphs. Consistent with our standing policy, we will not capitalize the words “christian nationalist.”]

One of the authors of more than a handful of declarations/creeds/explanations of christian nationalism, the “pastor” of a Texas roadhouse “church” often presents as a combination “ole South” racist and an American version of Afghanistan’s Leadership Council or the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice:

“When we moved to Texas, I needed to get a new cardiologist. And so my wife, she does a lot of this for me, because before we had kids she was an RN, and she knows a lot more than I do.

“She does the research, and she shows me two doctors, both within the same practice, same company, hospital. And one was a young white dude, and one was a young black dude. And I said I prefer the young white dude.

“The reason why is not because I'm white. We currently live in a historical moment in the West, and particularly in these United States, where I know that both of these guys could be perfectly qualified.

“But I also know that if there's a chance that one of them was not qualified and was given a free pass, it'd be the black guy. I know that that young white guy, there's no way he got a free pass.”

To possible – despite his doubtable denials – racist, we might add “control freak”:

“I have four people in my life that I dictate the hours in their day. I dictate what time they go to the bathroom. When we eat, what we eat, what we wear. They are my children. Those are the people that I have almost limitless authority with,” 

Whether standing in his roadhouse pulpit or seated – quasi-professorially - in a leather chair that seems designed to wrap around and give him an air of authority, the “pastor’s” view of the American people and their Constitution is (at best) demeaning. Addressing a guest/cohost in a May 2024 podcast, he opined:

“We’re degenerates. The Constitution is not suited for governing degenerates, for governing  degenerates (sic). [Addresses the cohost who does not respond] I think for our population that is degraded morally and culturally, religiously, as far as we have you need power. Men must be governed [laughter].  You need a caesar type. 

“Now if you are asking my preference, that would probably be my preference, would be a constitutional republic but I think the conditions for that is (sic) a moral people. So I think you can work toward that in the future, but I don’t think constitutioning (sic) even harder is going to get us out of our current mess. I don’t see things getting out of this apart from things getting worse and worse and then, eventually, like a caesar type rising through the ranks of the populist figure and the people, you know, are desperate and like ‘Yes, do it, so and so, and then so and so.’ The constitution be damned and just rule with an iron fist like a Cromwell type and then you, hopefully, do not get his son and maybe it is like a one generation one guy kind of thing and then you have to move back to an aristocracy or some other form….”

His response to this alleged American degeneracy: Change the Constitution and second-class [We just coined that new verb.] every American who does not embrace his ideal “pan-Protestantism.” 

"I love the Constitution. I absolutely love it. If there was anything that I would do to the Constitution at all — if revival swept through the land, or we got an American caesar and he was Christian ... One of the first things that I would advocate for is not even changing the Constitution, but simply adopting to the Constitution a preamble of the Apostles' Creed." 

On other occasions, he has argued that the Ten Commandments should become part of the Constitution and called for the elimination of the 19th Amendment: 

“I think the 19th Amendment [giving women the right to vote] should be repealed. I think that because, first and foremost, I am a Christian and that is the Christian position.

“Because of the 19th Amendment, the way I see it, half of my household vote was stolen from me. My loving, godly, wonderful wife, she, ahh, what we are practicing is not hypocrisy, what we are practicing is restitution. My loving wife said ‘Wicked people stole half of your vote, husband, and I would like to give it back to you.’”

The christian nationalist might make a few – just a few – other changes to the Constitution and American juris prudence:

“We are going to behave as a Christian people. And what does that mean? It means we're going to ban pornography. It means we're going to ban no-fault divorce. It means we are going to absolutely, utterly abolish abortion, including in vitro, including the hormonal birth control pill, every single one of its forms; not just the Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, but we're going to go down to the local CVS and we're going to start knocking those pills off the shelf. No more human sacrifice. So, a civil magistrate can do that. He can and should do that."

In a November 1, 2024 post, Right Wing Watch of People for the American Way gave further insight into the preacher’s distain for the 19th Amendment with an extensive series of quotes: 

"If we ever got to the point where it was on the docket and it was something, ironically, that America was voting for — voting to take away the vote of women — me and my wife would both vote on principle, with conviction to take away her vote. I believe in representative government at every single level all the way down to the household. It doesn't go down to the individual; it stops at the household.

"The smallest building block of a nation's civic covenant is a family and not an individual. On principle, it's wrong for there to be more than a household vote."

The “pastor” claims that if he votes and his wife doesn't, then his household is losing half its vote and so "in prudence" he allows his wife to vote to ensure that he gets his "full household vote.”

"We currently live in a wicked time with wicked rulers who are dominated by feminism and hate men. What we're doing is having to get creative with the wicked landscape and [my wife is] ensuring that I have my full authority as a citizen. What the wicked rulers wanted to do is they want to strip away half of a man's authority and what [she's] doing is [she's] conceding it back to me by voting in line with the decision that I make for our family."

But the “pastor” is not entirely misogynistic; he added that unmarried men, men without children, and men who do not own property should also be stripped of the right to vote.

“We should repeal the 19th Amendment because we love God and because we love women. But beyond that, it's really more than just that. Universal suffrage is not God's design, so there's a lot of men who shouldn't be voting either."

"You need to be a head of household. You need to have a stake in the country as it presently lies, but also a stake in the future. That's why marriage is important because it indicates child-bearing, these kinds of things, future generations. A stake in the country also in terms of ownership; land owning males."

"It's not just women can't vote because they're too dumb to vote. That's not the position. Leaders should vote and God has given it to men to be leaders, and certain men have abdicated that leadership and therefore they should not have the right to vote either."

Yup!

America just might have its own Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada. Its own Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, starting with a christian nationalist pastor working out of a roadhouse restaurant in Texas.