Christian Nationalists are building their own towns in Appalachia. It should scare you.
Far-right pastors who believe the civil rights movement “ruined everything” want to spread Christian Nationalism in Appalachia. VC bros are making that possible.
I’m going to call this part 1 in what will likely be a multipart series on what I’ll call Christian Nationalism colonizing of Appalachia.
Christian Nationalism has gained a significant foothold in U.S. politics and culture in recent years, and there are some who are trying to make rural Appalachia a breeding ground for it.
What is Christian Nationalism?
Christian Nationalism is a right wing ideology that believes, in simplistic terms, that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and should be that way — meaning the laws, symbols, values, and governmental policies should “Christian.”1
Why is it bad?
This goes against the fundamentals that the United States was founded upon…you know, that pesky “separation of church and state” thing. It also seeks to undermine, dismiss, or outright ban other religions, beliefs, or practices that are deemed to be in conflict with their interpretation of Christianity. In practice, it is also incredibly misogynistic and demeaning toward women. I won’t spend a ton of space here going into further detail (I imagine most of y’all are smart enough to fill in the blanks or draw inferences as to the negative consequences of this), but here are a few links worth checking out.
Rich venture capitalists are buying land and imposing their “values” on Appalachia
Can you imagine a scenario where rich people exploit natural resources in Appalachia for their own personal gain?
<insert crickets chirping>
<crickets continue chirping>
<crickets continue chirping until they expire from natural causes>
Yeah…a totally novel idea that has definitely never happened before in the history of this historically not exploited region /s.
New Founding: a 21st century spin on a time-honored grift
Anyway….so there is this company called “New Founding.” The website’s description is extremely vague, and contains broad platitudes like defining an “alternate vision for America”, and “opposing DEI/ESG and the bureaucratization of American business culture.”
They present themselves as a venture capital fund, complete with the flashy veneer of any Silicon Valley VC group. The important part, though, is their real estate ventures.
RidgeRunner and The Highland Rim Project
RidgeRunner is an “affiliate” of New Founding, and — by their own words — is building “town & country charter communities in Appalachia” in order to “pioneer a new model for local life in the digital age.”
With collapsing social and institutional trust in America and the rise of digital age conditions, we see rising demand and capacity for new types of communities built around a shared vision for local life in America.
Our communities from the upper Cumberland River in Kentucky, near Wolf Creek Dam, down to the pristine Caney Fork River of Tennessee.
We are headquartered in Gainesboro, Tennessee, which we chose for its regional significance, history and stunning natural beauty2.
RidgeRunner was founded by a guy named Josh Abbotoy, who has explained his purpose for RidgeRunner in a “conservative man scared of big cities” way, but dressed up in vestments. He gave this answer in an interview question about localism:
As mainstream institutions and large cities become increasingly inhospitable to American Christians, localist strategies are necessary but not sufficient strategy. Our focus on the Highland Rim is what you might call a regionalist strategy – engaging an area selected for affordability, beauty, compatibility with existing residents, and friendly state governments. It is correspondingly more broadly pitched – we are not aiming to build a community centered around one particular Christian institution, so much as inviting many particular families and institutions – who share a general alignment – to build within the region.”
The intent is clear: they want to create a community where they’re in charge, they get to make the rules, they have as little government intrusion as humanly possible.
Brewington Farms — a snapshot
One of the communities they are creating that you can buy land in is called “Brewington Farms” — an area of land in Whitleyville, TN.
The description is cringey to say the least
Inspired by British farming villages and an Appalachian vernacular flair,3 the Brewington Farms lifestyle will center around an organic working farm - owned and controlled by the neighborhood's HOA - celebrating dramatic views of the pastoral landscapes, walkable community, and uplifting architectural beauty and cohesion.
I find it funny that they are striving to create these communities of self-governance away from the prying eyes of city folk, yet still will have a neighborhood HOA.4 The description continues:
Phase 1 of Brewington Farms will consist of a cottage court along with several large "holler" lots5 of 7-15 acres each. The cottages will be architected and built to maximize charm and authentic local materials and style, while buyers of the holler lots will be free to select their own architects, builders and building sites.
Again, they’ve wrapped the description in a veneer of “we’re just your ordinary neighborhood developers creating quaint little communities in rural Tennessee.”
But as you dig deeper into the people running these organizations, it becomes clear their intent is to create their own Christian nationalist communities that are as sovereign as one can possibly be in this country, and in the very very very Republican-controlled Volunteer State.
I’ll pivot away from these folks for a bit and come back to them in a future post.
News Channel 5’s Phil Williams has been reporting on this for a while.
The phenomenal Phil Williams of News Channel 5 (Nashville) has been doing some excellent reporting on this terrifying thing taking place: rich VC bros buying up land in rural Appalachia and turning them into Christian nationalist tech utopias from hell.
Phil is one of the true gumshoe investigative journalists in this country that, once he sniffs out a story, will doggedly stay on top of it until he unearths the truth. That is not an exaggeration. He has been the proverbial thorn in the ass of many public officials in Tennessee over the years — Republicans AND Democrats.6
This is an excerpt from one of his more recent stories:
Christian nationalists have set their sights on a remote Middle Tennessee county, hoping to attract hundreds, even thousands, of like-minded people from across the country as part of efforts, in the words of one activist, to “radicalize Main Street.”
That effort — with Christian nationalist podcasters Andrew Isker and C. Jay Engel leading the way — is targeting tiny Jackson County and the county seat of Gainesboro, located about 90 minutes northeast of Nashville in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Census data shows Jackson County is home to an estimated 12,711 people.
"We're building a town, right? We're building a community there,” Isker said during a July podcast when he and Engel first announced their move to Tennessee.
(Source: News Channel 5)
Phil has reported on the two far-right Christian nationalist pastors mentioned above for a bit now, and unearthed some of their viewpoints that they have professed over time. They’re genuinely disturbing.
They want to go back to an America before the civil rights movement "ruined everything." They want to kick out legal immigrants even if they became U.S. citizens decades ago. And they want to put women back where they think they belong.
As Andrew Isker and C.Jay Engel see it, the only people who have a legitimate right to a homeland here in the United States are so-called Heritage Americans, like the white people depicted in Norman Rockwell art from the past.
They celebrate images of whites-only diners in the 1950s, with Engel proclaiming that "the 1960s ruined everything."
The pair have given a platform for antisemitic figures of the far right, with Isker arguing that Jews should be treated as second-class citizens in a country that “belongs to Jesus.”
(Sources: News Channel 5 — Source 1, Source 2)
These are the people attempting to colonize Appalachia because they don’t see the current existing communities as consistent with their values. As you can tell from Phil’s reporting, those “values” are alarming.
I’ll leave it there for today, and will continue sharing some more about these people and their disturbing activities in the near future.
No Elegy Needed is an opinion column substack. All views expressed are solely the opinions of the author and in no way are to be interpreted as anything other than that. I am not a journalist, I am not a reporter, nor do I portend to be one.
Often, it manifests itself in the form of white Christian nationalism, because the ideology has a tendency to merge with white supremacy
Let’s read between the lines: they also chose it because it’s in rural Tennessee, a state that they feel will treat them favorably when it comes to establishing white Christian nationalist fiefdoms.
What in the absolute fuck is “Appalachian vernacular flair”???
Freedom for me, big brother for thee!
Ah, this must be the “Appalachian vernacular flair” they are talking about
Despite what the conservative media transplants have tried to claim, Phil has spent ample time investigating Democrats — particularly ones in Nashville involved in public corruption.
Having been raised in the fundie Christian homeschool community of Appalachia, I can confirm that these people are destroying our region. They've been at it for decades, and they're very good at making it seem like they're just normal wholesome people who only want the best for kids. They've suckered so many Appalachian parents into depriving their kids of a real education, and in the most educationally neglected area of the country, no less. It's shameful.
Something like this was tried in Vermont, but I think it was stymied by a large scale development review law.