DALLAS (RNS) — Selling faith-based T-shirts came as a surprise to J.R. Fitch, who works as a wealth manager by day.
The bearded, burly Fitch is the founder of More Lord Kingdom, a startup T-shirt company from Chattanooga, whose shirts carry messages like “More Lord” — or “Mas Señor” in the Spanish edition — “Blood and Testimony” and “Make America Godly Again” — a red and white MAGA-inspired T-shirt for sale at the recent America’s Revival conference.
More Lord Kingdom’s booth was one of the more popular spots during America’s Revival, which mixed pro-Donald Trump, anti-vaccine messages with fiery sermons about spiritual revival and come-to-Jesus altar calls.
While several of the booths surrounding More Lord Kingdom featured explicitly pro-Trump items with messages like “Trump Won” or “God, Trump, and Guns,” More Lord Kingdom’s were on the subtler side.
Along with a “Make America Godly Again” shirt, there was a black shirt with the numbers 45 and 47 surrounding the head of a lion with three stars underneath it. The lion resembles a symbol used by the Trump campaign in 2020 and the shirt seems to predict that Trump, the 45th president, will return as the 47th president.
Still, Fitch drew a line between making America godly and a future return of Trump. While he supported the former president, he believes the nation needs the kind of fundamental spiritual renewal no politician can bring.
Trump’s return will not make America godly, said Fitch.
“I don’t believe that,” he said.
Christianity has always been part of Fitch’s life — he grew up as a Baptist and “never had a speeding ticket, never smoked a cigarette.” But his faith intensified after he attended a three-month-long revival at a charismatic church with his wife, who grew up in the Church of God, a Holiness Pentecostal denomination.
