I grew up in a conservative household. I grew up calling myself conservative. This has changed. For about a year now, I've been calling myself a moderate. Sometimes I skew right of center, other times I feel like I’m tipping a bit to the left. It is hard to say. This was largely because I became fairly disgusted with the conservative movement.

No, this is not a simple result of witnessing the grotesqueness that is the Trump campaign. It also isn’t caused by the “left-wing propaganda” that apparently takes over the vulnerable brains of innocent, young college students; I still have plenty of gripes with the left. And I certainly haven’t been taken in by the weak-minded nihilism known as libertarianism. The issues I have with the conservative movement are entirely its own fault.

Today, my passions have come to a head. A few hours ago I got off the return flight from Springfield, Missouri, where I attended the Pensmore National Symposium on Religious Liberty. I knew coming to the conference that I would be a bit of a black sheep in such a crowd, but as a moderate I’m pretty used to that. I am rarely in a crowd that agrees with me. I’ve developed a pretty thick skin. Thing is, that skin is usually only important when I have to defend my beliefs. So it was fairly useless when I was taken aback by some of the speakers at this conference.

It wasn’t just that I disagreed with what was said; I had prepared for some conflict of political ideologies. What I didn’t expect, and couldn’t have anticipated, was that many of the conservative speakers actually offended my Christian faith (ironically at a religious liberty conference).

Some of my complaints are fairly minor: their rhetoric was often distinctly unchristian, and their words were often aggressive and even warlike towards their political opponents. Sorry guys, Christians are supposed to be nice to everyone, particularly to their enemies. Also, the ever-present vein of anti-intellectualism chafed at me a bit. Christians are called to worship with the mind. This means we can’t just cite “common sense” and expect to be taken seriously. Believe it or not, claiming transgenderism is bad because it's “weird” is not exactly a cogent argument. But I digress.

The reason this conference has me in such a fury is because a handful of speakers, including big names such as Jerry Boykin and Ben Carson, came up to the podium, professed Christianity, and then proceeded to worship America alongside their god. I won't lie, it was straight up idolatry.

I learned a lot at this conference: that the American constitution came from the Bible, that Americans are apparently a divinely chosen people, that conservatism is synonymous with Christianity, etc.

As a college student studying the liberal arts, I usually don't run into these sorts of conservatives. Before this conference, I had started to get used to interacting with conservatives who, generally speaking, don't frame right-wing beliefs as the logical conclusion of a sincere Christian faith.

Now I once again remember how I became disenchanted with the movement, and my resolve to stay apart from it is renewed. In order to be a conservative, you have to exist in at least some degree of solidarity with a people who has replaced their god with their nation. This is something I cannot do and will never do again.