Whitleyville, Tenn. (RNS) — On a sunny morning in mid-February, Josh Abbotoy, who describes himself as a “conservative Christian who does land offers,” drove a 20-year-old Lexus LX470 round a former farm, crossing a creek, squeezing by a run-down barn and driving alongside one of many farm’s roads in hopes of exhibiting off the view from one of many ridgetops.
However there had been an excessive amount of rain and the street was muddy, so he parked and hopped out for a 10-minute stroll as much as the ridgetop, admiring the pink cedars and Bois d’Arc bushes that line the hillsides.
On the high of the ridge, Abbotoy surveyed the view of the inexperienced fields and rolling hills whereas portray an image of a neighborhood stuffed with pretty houses and households, wanting down over large fields and a stately church.
A month earlier, RidgeRunner, an actual property firm Abbotoy runs, introduced it had purchased the 448-acre farm, with hopes of growing it into an “agrihood” — with about 30 estate-style houses dotting the farm’s hillsides.
“The fields shall be stuffed with livestock as God supposed and as Jackson County remembers,” the RidgeRunner web site learn in saying the acquisition. “Our aim shall be to protect the sweeping views for many who construct and stay on the farm’s ridgetops.”
Abbotoy stated it’s too early to inform how a lot heaps on the farm will price however stated there shall be a premium for ridgetop views. An identical RidgeRunner challenge in Kentucky, the place land costs are decrease, has heaps priced from $35,000 to $329,000. Whereas the Whitleyville farm has entry to metropolis water, high-speed web and electrical energy, there’s nonetheless a whole lot of work to do on the property’s infrastructure.
Josh Abbotoy, left, and Patrick Thomas on a farm they hope to develop in Whitleyville, Tenn. (RNS picture/Bob Smietana)
But when all goes to plan, inside just a few years the previous farm property shall be stuffed with conservative Christians who’ve moved from blue states to this rural nook of the Bible Belt.
It’s the Large Kind as a enterprise alternative.
A former company lawyer turned entrepreneur and Christian writer, Abbotoy is keen on quoting journalist Invoice Bishop’s influential 2009 guide about how Individuals more and more stay in like-minded clusters.
That development has accelerated lately, fueled by the work-from-anywhere revolution set off by the COVID-19 pandemic and the nation’s political polarization.
“It’s occurring on all sides,” Abbotoy informed Faith Information Service throughout a latest go to to the farm in Whitleyville. “Individuals wish to stay in communities the place they’ve a greater shot of getting alignment on some actually primary political points.”
Rural Tennessee communities like Jackson County have begun to draw newcomers lately, in keeping with knowledge from the Boyd Heart for Enterprise & Financial Analysis on the College of Tennessee in Knoxville, a part of an total sample of inhabitants progress.
A former farm in Jackson County, Tenn., on Feb. 14, 2025, that may doubtlessly be developed by the RidgeRunner actual property firm. (RNS picture/Bob Smietana)
“We’ve seen extra migration to rural counties up to now this decade than in all the earlier decade,” stated Matthew Harris, a professor of well being economics who does inhabitants projection for the state of Tennessee. For instance, in Jackson County, extra individuals left than moved in from 2010 to 2020. That development has begun to reverse.
“A pair hundred individuals have moved there this decade,” he stated.
Abbotoy, who grew up on a small farm in Hartsville about 40 miles west of Whitleyville, sees RidgeRunner as an opportunity to turn into a part of a conservative gentrification of central Appalachia, the place financial decline and mind drain have left communities simply ready to be revitalized.
“If you happen to’re contemplating a transfer out right here — perhaps you reside in Silicon Valley and also you wish to transfer out to the nation,” Ab0atoy stated, “we’ll be your Sherpa.”
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A graduate of Catholic College and Harvard Legislation College, Abb0toy lived for just a few years in Boston earlier than working towards company regulation in Houston and Dallas — then returning dwelling. He’s now managing director of New Founding, which invests in “American beliefs and a optimistic nationwide imaginative and prescient” — of which RidgeRunner is a challenge — and the chief director of American Reformer, a digital publication that seeks to “promote a vigorous Christian strategy to the cultural challenges of our day.”
As Forbes just lately put it, New Founding is a part of a rising motion of “anti-woke” enterprise capitalists hoping “to remake society with a largely MAGA, tech-driven, Christian worldview.”
Standing on one of many farm’s ridgetops, Abbotoy stated he’s not a Christian nationalist, including, “that’s not my challenge.” He additionally stated he’s not going to let anybody inform him who his buddies or his clients should be.
“I’ve bought clients which can be extra right-wing than me. I’m not going to speak dangerous about them,” he stated. “I like them. They’re my buddies. And I don’t display their non secular or political opinions any greater than I’d anyone else.”
Federal honest housing regulation prohibits that anyway, Abbotoy famous, however the presence of a church on the property shall be a sign as to the form of close-knit neighborhood he hopes to construct right here. Of us are additionally drawn to Jackson County, he stated, due to its Bible Belt tradition.
“Even when they’re not Christians, they like being in a neighborhood that feels prefer it’s culturally Christian,” he stated.
The proposed church — or at the least its pastor, Andrew Isker — has been a supply of controversy amongst locals. Isker, a podcaster and writer, relocated from Minnesota to Tennessee to begin Whitleyville Reformation Church, which at the moment is assembly on an invite-only foundation throughout its start-up section. The congregation plans to construct on the RidgeRunner property.
Isker, co-author of “Christian Nationalism: A Biblical Information For Taking Dominion and Discipling Nations,” with Gab founder Andrew Torba, in addition to the writer of “The Boniface Choice: A Technique For Christian Counteroffensive in a Submit-Christian Nation,” is thought for selling the concept that Christians ought to dominate American tradition and for his criticism of Jews and different non-Christians.
In a podcast earlier this 12 months with Texas pastor Joel Webbon, Isker rejected the thought of “Judeo-Christian faith” and blamed Jews for the rise of secularism.
“Now we have to be cautious of them,” he stated. “Now we have to not permit them to have energy in our tradition and destroy Christian tradition.”
Isker, who didn’t reply to repeated requests for an interview, has described his transfer to Tennessee as an opportunity to stay close to buddies and “snort at one another’s jokes on our entrance porch.” However he has additionally characterised the transfer in political phrases.
“If you happen to have been in a position to take even just a few hundred individuals that every one suppose the identical manner and have all the identical concepts about widespread good and politics and so forth, and you may consolidate them in the identical place, you may train much more political energy, even with just a few hundred or just a few thousand individuals, than you may by yourself, extensively dispersed throughout all the nation,” he stated in a video posted on social media by RidgeRunner.
Andrew Isker, left, and C. Jay Engel co-host an episiode of the “Contra Mundum” podcast, which aired on Oct 13, 2023. (Video display seize)
C. Jay Engel, who co-hosts the “Contra Mundum” podcast with Isker, is a latest transplant to Tennessee from California who hopes to purchase property from RidgeRunner.
“We love their understanding of how younger American conservative households are discovering new alternatives to stay peaceably and productively amongst themselves, and I wish to contain my household on this meta-trend,” stated Engel, who has described the Civil Rights Act as authorities overreach.
Engel, who calls himself a “Heritage American” — which he has outlined as affirming “the domination and pre-eminence of the European derived peoples, their establishments, and their lifestyle” — declined a request to debate his political or social views with RNS.
When Nashville’s Information Channel 5 reporter Phil Williams reported on Isker’s and Engel’s political opinions and their ties to the RidgeRunner challenge, some residents have been outraged — rejecting the prospect of those outsiders taking on their neighborhood.
Sean Zearfoss is amongst these involved in regards to the RidgeRunner challenge. Zearfoss, a touring musician, lives in a home he renovated simply off the city sq. in close by Gainesboro.
“I like the agricultural neighborhood,” stated Zearfoss, who additionally has a spot outdoors Atlanta. “It’s tight-knit. It’s a pleasant quiet city, proper on the Cumberland River in a very lovely space.”
Buildings alongside Most important Road on the City Sq. in Gainesboro, Tenn. (Picture by Brian Stansberry/Wikimedia/Inventive Commons)
Zearfoss, who grew up in a conservative evangelical dwelling, stated he’s advantageous with the neighborhood’s Bible Belt tradition, although his politics lean extra progressive.
However the kind of Christian nationalism he sees Isker and Engel selling is a distinct factor, stated Zearfoss.
“I see it like a steamroller making an attempt to roll into city and roll over these individuals who wish to stay quiet conservative lives,” he stated.
After the backlash to the Channel 5 report, Travis Thomas, an area Church of Christ preacher, determined to host Engel on his call-in YouTube present, “Reality with Proof.” There Engel bought an earful from residents who have been upset by what they’d heard.
One caller particularly cited Engel’s name to repeal the Civil Rights Act, which introduced an finish to Jim Crow legal guidelines within the South, and requested if he needed to return to segregation. Engel stated issues of race ought to have been resolved by the states.
“However I’m not for segregation, and I feel it’s very dangerous to the soul of a nation to take part in these issues,” Engel stated.
A river flows close to Gainesboro, Tenn., on Feb. 16, 2025. (RNS picture/Bob Smietana)
Thomas, a bi-vocational pastor, stated Jackson County remains to be formed by the Bible Belt, although people don’t go to church as a lot as they used to.
“I feel it’s a very good factor when individuals transfer in, particularly if they’ll maintain to extra biblical ideas and morals,” he stated. “And from what I’ve seen of the people which can be shopping for the land, at the least they do maintain to some form of ethical ideas.”
That’s totally different, he stated, than if a gaggle of extremists have been constructing a compound within the space. It’s not like David Koresh is transferring to the neighborhood, he stated.
Thomas stated he has additionally invited Isker to look on his YouTube channel to speak about faith — and he had some recommendation for the newcomer.
“He says a few of the craziest stuff on his podcast,” Thomas stated. “I’ve even informed him, you may’t simply get on right here and say something on a podcast, as a result of persons are watching you. It sounds ridiculous.”
Whereas he appreciates Christian values, Thomas stated you may’t power faith on individuals. And so far as politics goes, Thomas stated it’s good to vote, however the church isn’t going to realize energy by politics.
“Even in native politics, you may solely accomplish that a lot,” he stated. “It’s not like they will are available and take away your freedom of faith.”
Abbotoy, for his half, worries in regards to the decline of American civil faith. What is going to bind Individuals collectively, he wonders, in the best way that Protestant faith did?
“I feel each society, if it’s going to remain collectively, must have one,” he stated.
That has led a few of his buddies — and potential clients — to surprise if America was higher off when Christianity was extra outstanding. There are trade-offs and disadvantages to that form of association, he stated. However these trade-offs are higher than what we’ve now, he added.
“I feel you’re seeing lots of people who usually are not personally Christian,” he stated, “saying, the association we had the place Christianity was dominant public orthodoxy was higher than what we’ve now.”
Abbotoy appears to let many of the criticism roll off his again. RidgeRunner, he stated, hopes to promote property to individuals who wish to be good neighbors and never attempt to impose outdoors views on the native tradition. On the identical time, new individuals shall be coming, and that may convey change.
“Change is coming,” he stated. “The query is, how do you wish to direct that?”
RELATED: Decline in American Christian observance has slowed, Pew research finds
(This story was reported with help from the Stiefel Freethought Basis.
