The short clip went viral and prompted an entire news cycle about how Michael Flynn, the onetime national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, called for “one religion” in the United States.
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, was speaking at the ReAwaken America tour, which stopped in San Antonio, Texas, from Nov. 11-13. It was his second appearance onstage that day, and he spoke to the audience for several minutes about religion.
Yet it was a 26-second clip shared Saturday by Ron Filipkowski, a Republican attorney who made headlines last December for his resignation from the 12th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission over the treatment of Florida data analyst Rebekah Jones, that drove the news, along with a wave of condemnation and some scattered pockets of support.
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The full remarks, which can be found in a 10-hour video posted to Rumble around the 6:52:00 mark, show that Flynn introduced the idea of “one church under God” as a “powerful statement” he wanted to share that he had heard from someone else. He didn’t name the person, but Flynn’s first appearance onstage was followed by a speech from Leon Benjamin, a pastor who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in Virginia last year, in which he spoke about getting “rid of” other gods in this country, along with comments about vaccines and election fraud.
It was not until minutes later into his sometimes-rambling remarks, toward the end, that Flynn did indeed say the quote that got everyone’s attention: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God, right?”
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The widespread reporting on his comments only seems to focus on the short clip and does little to question whether Flynn was actually calling for “one religion” or was simply returning to the statement he had mentioned earlier, borrowed from someone else, that nevertheless was intended to make people entertain a certain view on religion.
Below are the transcribed remarks from Flynn on religion:
“I think I just heard one of the best phrases that I’ve ever heard — honestly. … What he said, because we were back there talking about religion and the religious community. I actually think we got an issue in the religious community. And because it’s not together, but, if we can have one nation under God, we should have one church under God. Right?
And I think that’s really, really a powerful, powerful statement.
And because the religious community and these pastors out there around this country they know, because I’ve spoken to many of them, we have to [talk] not just about religion — because religion … is the foundation of this country. It really is. If you really study the 1500s, the 1600s, the 1700s, and how we were created as a Judeo-Christian country with the beautiful, beautiful set of values and principles that we have, but now we’ve lost sight of that. We’ve lost sight of that.
And many of the churches — they’re split and they’re doing their own thing, and something’s not right. Something’s not working.
And so, you know, when we think about — when we think about our own faith, and this is what you’ve heard a lot about from different people today I think when we talk about faith, there is something shaking. OK? The ground underneath us is shaking. And it’s shaking because, there is a time — you have to believe this — that God almighty is … involved in this country because this is it. This is it. This is the last place on Earth.
This is the shining city on a hill. This is the city on the hill. The city on the hill … was mentioned in Matthew, OK? It was mentioned in Matthew. And then a guy by the name of Winthrop mentioned it again in 1630 … before the country was formed, and he also coined the term ‘New England.’ We’re going to go to this New England, this New World he was talking about. And he talked to the people there about this thing called the ‘city on the hill.’ And then Ronald Reagan, a couple hundred years later, again, talked about it as the shining city on the hill.
And they were talking about the United States of America … because when Matthew mentioned it in the Bible, he wasn’t talking about the physical ground that he was on. He was talking about something in the distance.
So if we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion — one nation under God and one religion under God, right?
All of us together, working together. I don’t care what your ecumenical service is or what you are, we have to believe that this is a moment in time where this is good vs. evil.”
