A Virginia Man’s Fight to Restore Faith, Freedom, and Hope to the Country

LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va.—Jon Tigges had looked forward to his summer vacation this year. He and his wife Christine (Chris) were going to canoe down the Missouri River, a trip they had initially planned for last year but had to cancel due to getting COVID-19 at the end of July 2021.

But a lot has happened since last summer.

That June, Jon, a resident of northern Virginia’s Loudoun County, unexpectedly became the face of a heated school board meeting that resulted in him being charged with trespass.

Dozens of parents had shown out in force to protest a pro-transgender policy at the Loudoun County school board meeting. The board ended the public comment session early, citing a disruptive crowd. During the recess afterward, the audience chanted “shame on you” to the empty dais and started singing the national anthem.

They then organized their own public comment by taking turns speaking. Soon after, the superintendent declared the meeting an “unlawful assembly.” Jon refused to leave the room and was arrested by deputies for trespassing.

He was found guilty and appealed his case to the Loudoun County Circuit Court in October 2021. The trial is scheduled on Jan. 3, 2023.

Many knew Jon after he appeared on national media after the arrest. However, his fight began way before June 2021.

The Patriot Pub

At the height of the pandemic in June 2020, the agritourism business owner sued then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam so that he could reopen his business.

For more than six months, he protested against the COVID-19 lockdown every Friday morning in front of the Loudoun County government building in Leesburg.

From this experience, Jon realized the importance of social gatherings and the traditional way of exchanging ideas: in-person. In April 2021, Jon founded the Patriot Pub—a weekly casual in-person meeting at his 24-acre farm in Hamilton, Virginia.

People in the lockdown protest group were the initial members, but attendance at the Pub quickly grew. He then began to invite different speakers. Attendance at events ranged from 50 to over 200. During the process, the Pub became the birthplace of many strategies Loudoun County residents used in their fight against the local school board for parental rights.

Folks in nearby counties joined; some brought the Pub format to their communities.

Meanwhile, Loudoun County earned the reputation of “ground zero” for parental rights battles across the country. The very issue propelled Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin to victory in November 2021, flipping the state red after eight years of blue.

But after that, a dispute within the group threatened to unwind all of Jon’s efforts.

Different factions had different views of Republican County Sheriff Michael Chapman. Jon, and others, didn’t approve of the way the sheriff enforced Superintendent Scott Ziegler’s declaration of “unlawful assembly” at the June 2021 school board meeting, a declaration that Ziegler later admitted he didn’t have the authority to make.

They were also not happy with the sheriff’s arrest at the event of another resident Scott Smith for disorderly conduct. It was later revealed that Smith had attended the meeting discussing a pro-transgender policy because his daughter was sexually assaulted a month earlier by a teenage boy in a skirt in the bathroom of a Loudoun public high school.

But the Republican members of the Loudoun community wanted to re-elect Chapman in 2023. To them, re-electing Chapman would prevent the replacement of the Sheriff’s Office by a county police department that would take orders from the Democrat-majority county supervisors. Hence, they insisted that Chapman did nothing wrong.

And others, including Jon, didn’t want to cut Chapman slack just because he was a Republican.

Eventually, the different opinions led to heated arguments at a March event hosted by the Pub. Some even walked out of the venue. As tension rose that evening, Jon stood his ground.

He said he got very angry and frustrated that some cared more about toeing the party line and couldn’t see the injustice in the Sheriff’s office’s mishandling during the so-called unlawful assembly.

In the following days, the gap between different Loudoun groups grew larger. They even hosted separate Republican congressional candidate debates at the same time on the same night. Those who endorsed Chapman stopped attending any Pub events.

“Why have I given up time and treasured up a bunch of arrogant, narcissistic politician people?” asked Jon. “Enough of this,” he told himself and felt disheartened.

Going on Tour 

When he told Patriot Pub members about a temporary closure for his summer vacation, some wondered where he was going and asked if he would consider visiting other parts of the country to share the Patriot Pub experience. Their friends in other states would be very interested in learning that, they told Jon.

Jon initially resisted the idea.

“That’s not what I consider a vacation,” he told them.

Yet, “Second Chronicles chapter 7 verse 14 [of the Bible] smacked me in the face,” he said.

“I hadn’t been addressing this [issue] humbly. I’d been addressing this out of anger, towards what I considered [an] injustice,” he told The Epoch Times. “I had to humble myself. And I needed to turn from my wicked ways. I needed to depend more on prayer than on my own action.”

Hence, he realized he should view members’ suggestions as God’s voice. He knew these members were not after political power or recognition—they meant good.

Together, they named the summer tour “Freedom Fire Tour.”

Jon Tigges visited 31 states (states in red) in addition to Virginia during his “Freedom Fire Tour” from Jul. 20 to Aug. 31, 2022. Jon and his companion were hosted by local groups in California, Texas, Illinois, Idaho, Arizona, and Oklahoma (states in dark red). In other states, he stayed with friends of his own or of Patriot Pub members. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

On July 20, he and his wife Chris took off. After she returned home from southern California on Aug. 13, Jon spent a week alone at the Zion National Park in Utah, then continued to Arizona, where Smith joined him on Aug. 19. The two traveled eastbound and arrived back in Virginia on Aug. 31.

During the journey, Jon traveled 10,000 miles and visited 31 states, in addition to Virginia. Jon and his companion were hosted by local groups in California, Texas, Illinois, Idaho, Arizona, and Oklahoma. In other states, he stayed with friends or friends of Patriot Pub members.

Through meeting with many groups and listening to others’ perspectives on the nation’s future direction, he became convinced that America is in the midst of a non-kinetic, spiritual war.

“We’re already in a revolution, called a civil war, if you will—a non-kinetic civil war where people are being taken out by doxxing and canceling, businesses being wiped out by COVID [lockdowns],” he said.

And thus, to him, faith is the fundamental solution, and political solutions are “at best temporary.”

Jon Tigges speaks to a local group in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Aug. 12, 2022. (Courtesy of Jon Tigges)

Humility

At a beach barbecue in Santa Barbara, one of the events on tour, Jon asked, “Does anyone know the secret strategy that was used in Loudoun to have the effect they did on the election?”

He didn’t expect anyone to have the answer. As he was about to go on with his talk, he heard someone in the back say “humidity.”

“That’s funny,” he responded. “It’s hot in Virginia. But no, it wasn’t humidity.”

“No, humility,” the voice persisted.

“Oh, my goodness,” Jon thought. “That’s the right answer.”

That was the answer he came up with after reflecting on Loudoun’s success following the Virginia gubernatorial election. He realized that the people who carried the momentum in Loudoun’s fight were humble, willing to fight if they were fighting alone, and didn’t seek anything other than being true to themselves.

There was Tanner Cross, the teacher who spoke out against preferred pronouns because it is against his Christian belief. He was suspended after protesting this issue during a school board meeting. He fought the suspension and got his job back.

Shawntel Cooper, an African American and mother of two, who broke out of her usual shy character at a school board meeting to criticize critical race theory (CRT)—a quasi-Marxist doctrine that views America as systematically racist—in Loudoun schools’ education system.

And Xi Van Fleet, a Chinese American who doesn’t want to see the United States fall into the upheaval like that she experienced during China’s Cultural Revolution, a communist campaign that almost wiped out the country’s traditional culture and beliefs. She also spoke at a school board meeting against CRT without knowing if anyone else would join her fight.

Jon saw the same spirit all the way in Santa Barbara, which he called “one of the most wokist towns in the country.” To his surprise, locals put out signs and flyers about his visit and even filmed his talk and broadcast it on the local TV station.

While he initially said, “I’m not going to California,” he ended up making three stops in the Golden State, thanks to a Pub member’s urging and connections.

“Believe it or not, of all places I went to, California has the strongest Christians that have been filtered and the remnant there is in it to win it,” he told guests at the Patriot Pub on Sep. 8.

Loneliness and Fear

During his travels, Jon also saw the loneliness and fear of people with conservative values.

In Chicago, Jon and Chris had dinner with four other people, each from a different school district. “In many cases, they were the only person going to the school board meeting,” he said.

One woman managed to file a class action lawsuit against her local school board even though she couldn’t get the local community to show up at school board meetings to support her. “But she was exhausted from it all,” said Jon.

In Austin, Texas, Jon met with a group of young conservatives in their late 20s and 30s. The fear they spoke of was emblematic of how many other conservatives felt, he said.

“All of them noted how their careers would probably end if they actually spoke truthfully about what they believe in their workplace or online,” he recalled.

As he listened to others’ concerns, Jon reflected on himself. He was “activated” when he was finally about to run a business in Virginia and could enjoy life comfortably. But Gov. Northam’s March 2020 lockdown order threatened to take it all away.

On tour, he saw many people who were activated. And they were activated politically, just like how he reacted initially. But to Jon, political actions, be it voting or a lawsuit, were not enough and wouldn’t help overcome the fear of political persecution.

Something more fundamental than politics was called for, he believed.

Jon Tigges at the Zion National Park in Utah on Aug. 16, 2022. (Courtesy of Jon Tigges)

A Need to Rebuild Community

At the end of the tour, Jon and Chris concluded that the answer was a community rebuilt based on faith.

“What I found consistent in each community, just like [what] one pastor in Southern California shared, is there are more … people who think like we do than we would ever realize,” Chris told The Epoch Times. “And people want to know how to share their hearts and what they know is truly right from wrong. But they want to know how to do it in a way to still remain safe.

“I can understand that as a wife and a mom, [who] literally voted once a year and raised six kids and thought that was enough. But it’s no longer enough. And I think America knows it.”

“People have forgotten to be in community with one another and that the starting point is joining together with people that think alike, and it can’t happen unless you have a face-to-face conversation,” she added. “Then, you don’t feel like you’re alone. And then God uses that little situation to grow something you would have never imagined. That’s what I think America needs to do: they need to rebuild the community.”

Jon said he witnessed on the tour that many dedicated Christians were “working together across denominational lines.” They saw the danger America was in, he said, and that “caused theological differences to go away” as they strived for a common goal.

“There arose a generation that turned their back on God, and this country doesn’t believe it can fail,” he added. “This country is following a path of decadence that every other great nation followed and ended on.” In his view, the only way to turn the tide is to tap into faith for strength.

A Message That Resonates

When Jon stopped by Texas, he met with Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). He said a question Roy asked him repeatedly was: what’s a message that resonates with people? And what’s the answer? It couldn’t be another hearing or another bill, could it?

Jon told Roy that the job of people in Washington was to provide protection. “They are supposed to preserve our rights,” he said. “If you can convince people that you’re going to do that. You are going to keep the FBI from busting people’s doors—it resonates.”

“I believe from looking around, and there are people in communities that are dying to actually activate and take control of their own communities,” he told Roy. “But they’re fearful of doing that and don’t know what to do. And they don’t feel someone has their back.”

Roy’s questions prompted Jon to think further. He said many people’s first reaction was to get involved politically. He was the same. Hence, he made many efforts with lawsuits, protests, and votes. Those were not done in vain and generated some results.

And many, including him, put their hopes in sending representatives to Washington to make all the changes. But is that the answer?

Sunset at the Fort Pickens National Seashore in Pensacola, Fla., on Aug. 29, 2022. (Courtesy of Jon Tigges)

A Self-Reliant Framework

When the couple traveled to Montana, Jon’s home state, they talked about leaving Virginia and moving back. Together, they imagined a happy life in Montana. And as they chatted, Jon examined his motivation.

“I began to realize that if we truly are fearless in Christ, we don’t have to worry about our location,” he said. “If the community stands firm, then the community can preserve itself. And if enough communities in an area stand firm, around the same principles together, then the state will be okay.”

During the tour, he identified four pillars: faith, family, friends, and freedom. He said he put freedom at the bottom because he considered freedom a downstream effect. And he no longer wanted to rely on politicians alone as the solution.

“If we have enough people claiming the righteousness of God in their life and their families and their communities, we’re going to have righteous politicians that will focus on doing what God called the government to do, which is to protect people from the evil outside the borders and the evil inside the borders, and to allow people to live freely,” he said.

And we don’t need politicians for faith, family, and friends, he said. “My conviction is there’s so much we can do ourselves that we don’t give ourselves credit for. So much that we can touch and control is right in front of us, but we don’t deal with it, starting with the man in the mirror.”

Along the Freedom Fire Tour, Jon encouraged all he met to start local social gatherings to share ideas. The Loudoun County Patriot Pub began that way. The tour has collected so much goodwill that he is working on setting up a core team to help replicate the Patriot Pub model across the nation. For this purpose, he set up a GiveSendGo campaign for donations and prayers.

Chris said Jon’s enthusiasm and hope resonated with Americans he spoke to across the country. “It gave all these communities such renewed hope,” she said.

She said she was worried about Jon’s safety now and then, “but more than anything, I’m just so proud of him.”

“And I want Americans to be encouraged to listen and act upon what he’s encouraging them with because we’re not giving up. We believe that it may be a while,” she added.

“But we’ve got to continue to have that the America we love and hold so near and dear to our hearts, period.”