It is very difficult to find much space between the coming Christian caliphate, which reveres the Second Amendment as a holy text, and the one set up by Daesh in Syria and Iraq—except the location of the final battle. Daesh says it will occur in a village named Dabiq, which is north of Aleppo in Syria. But both groups want to implement the laws of their gods and look forward to the end times when their gods will beat up everyone else’s gods.

As hard as the Christians have been working toward their kingdom, Daesh is way ahead of them as far as theocracies go. But perhaps there is hope for the home team in the form of a Canadian-born, Houston-raised, Princeton and Harvard-educated Southern Baptist senator from Texas.

Last year, the rhetoric of Ted Cruz was apparently enough to make the heart of David Brody beat just a little bit faster, to judge by his review on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

As Cruz was speaking, he was in his element because what he has is not a political skill. Nor is it an intellectual one. When it comes to his relationship with evangelicals, he has a spiritual connection. He is one of them. He gets them and they get him. And one thing’s for certain: He’s not ashamed of the Gospel. Far from it. Cruz wears his faith on his sleeve and is proud of it. ... This Houston Pastors story will fan the flames of the religious liberty issue in America. Ted Cruz is well positioned to lead on this issue because he lives it and breathes it. It’s at the core of his being. Other possible presidential candidates believe just as much in the religious liberty issue and in 2016, they’ll discuss it with fervor. But Cruz comes from a different place. Not only has he defended religious liberty cases in court, he defends it in public with the word of God. He has the “street cred” to make this a signature issue in his bid to strongly woo the evangelical vote.

Born in Canada to an American mother and Cuban refugee father, Cruz was raised in Houston. His father, Rafael Cruz, came to the U.S. on a student visa from Cuba, where he supported Castro before he opposed him (although his wartime exploits, which are a large part of his story, have been questioned by others who knew him when). He applied for, and was granted, political asylum when his visa expired.

Rafael Cruz

He is now a favored surrogate speaker for his son, as well as a political adviser for his presidential campaign. Ted Cruz has called his father and Ronald Reagan his only two heroes.

In June, the National Journal took an in-depth look at the man credited with influencing his son in everything from immigration reform to religion.

Today, wherever he goes, Rafael is in­tro­duced as a pas­tor or a rev­er­end, either with Puri­fy­ing Fire Min­is­tries, an out­dated affiliation, or with a more recently formed or­gan­iz­a­tion named Grace for Amer­ica. (Though he is nondenom­in­a­tion­al, he has been iden­ti­fied over the years with a movement known as Christian Domin­ion­ism. In a 2012 ser­mon pos­ted on­line, Ra­fael preached that Chris­ti­ans are “anoin­ted” to “take domin­ion” of every as­pect of life on Earth—”so­ci­ety, edu­ca­tion, gov­ern­ment, and eco­nom­ics”—and to one day take con­trol of the gov­ern­ment and cre­ate a theo­cracy. He has also spoken about an end-time wealth trans­fer, in which God will re­dis­trib­ute the wealth of the world from non­be­liev­ers to be­liev­ers in the lead-up to Christ’s second com­ing.) ... He launches into his “Re­claim­ing Amer­ica” present­a­tion to an audi­ence of 40 at Cal­vary Chapel, rip­ping in­to pas­tors who “hide be­hind their pul­pits” and ex­hort­ing Chris­ti­ans to rise up and vote the Demo­crats out of office.

Another reason to get rid of the pesky IRS: So pastors can actually come out from behind their pulpits and elect Ted Cruz as the next caliph. Oh, and get that redistribution of wealth thing going in the right direction.

Just like Ted telling states that they don’t have to implement a federal law they disagree with, when his father ...

meets with preachers, Rafael encourages them to endorse conservative candidates from the pulpit — in defiance of federal bans on nonprofits engaging in political campaigning.

Neither man seems to have a whole lot of respect for the rule of law, even though Ted Cruz did graduate from Harvard Law School and clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. Nor does either man seem to appreciate any separation between the church and the state. Both men seem to have a terrible fear of the LGBT community, both here and abroad.

Ted hates education but loves guns, is afraid of refugees (unless they are Christian), hates health care for women (what war on women? there is no “rubber shortage in America”), loves capital punishment, just knows that the "simple and undeniable fact is the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats,” hates clean air and water and science, and was so frightened by Jade Helm 15 that he demanded that the Pentagon hold his hand during the entire invasion of Texas. He has accused Chuck Hagel of accepting money from North Korea and called Mitch McConnell a liar from the floor of the Senate (which may have been true, but one does not speak that way of a colleague in the Senate).

He doesn’t appear to be looked upon favorably by his fellow Republicans. As Frank Bruni put it, “They loathe him.”

Nor do his college classmates have warm and fuzzies for him, describing him ...

with words like “abrasive,” "intense," “strident,” “crank,” and “arrogant." Four independently offered the word “creepy,” with some pointing to Cruz’s habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm’s hallway where the female students lived.

But he is surging in Iowa, if only because of the large share of very conservative voters found there. Trump will implode—physics does not allow for that much hot air to be stuffed into a single sack of earthbound flesh. Carson is already dropping like a stone. With them out of the way, it is possible that a one-term Senator with a law degree from Harvard and dreams of becoming a transformational president like Ronald Reagan may be in the Republican primary race for a while to come.

Especially if he and his father can convince the evangelical/fundamentalist branch of the party that he stands ready to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to the United States.