evang5 bak txt

1021 4 FIELD ERROR

bad code box 2 23 from rww

this is a general node, but harder to distinguish from dominion, xian nat'list , paleo-cath etc

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initially elite pastors not fans, bent to base?

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Spiritual Warfare

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1021 4 FIELD ERROR

bad code box 2 23 from rww twt

BAK 7 25

prolly some neglect

merri ok

see GOTV ~ Johnson amend C&S kitk 4 ziklag

SEE EMPATHY COMPASSION ~ // STRICT FR? PUNISH SMITE EVIL?

cruel

this is a general node, but harder to distinguish from dominion, xian nat'list , paleo-cath etc}:

see xian nat’lism, theocracy // white nat’l = racism //GRT xeno caravan border BS // big lie

see wedge culture war

anti-commie?

see satan spiritual battle ( drag)

SEE VIOLENCE 5 POLITICAL ANTI-COMMIE PENDING

see war on xian

1021 4 FIELD ERROR

bad code box 2 23 from rww twt

BAK IS 2023?

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aha ali alex and jones retreat into xian?!

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RWW

07/24/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Mario Murillo claims that the Trump administration's bogus Obama/Russia conspiracy theory is God's judgment: "God is judging Barack Obama and he's judging Hillary Clinton and I believe it fits a biblical narrative."
Eric Metaxas asserts that the conspiracy theory is "the most significant political scandal in our history."
Ryan Helfenbein lays out the biblical "case for mass deportations": "When you import people from certain parts of the Third World, you're bringing in paganism."
Joshua Haymes thinks that "at our Nation’s founding, it would’ve been unthinkable to elect someone to public office who was openly non-Christian": "Our founders were right."
Finally, Jon Miller says that if you still support President Donald Trump, "you might be gay, and you might be Jewish with AIDS."

===

07/23/2025 rww

Kyle Mantyla

William Wolfe says that anyone with "communist sympathies" should be fired from their job and that "we are going to need a new Red Scare."

Jackson Lahmeyer claims that the Epstein files are not reliable because "they've been doctored by the Dems."

C. Jay Engel complains that "the United States of America has been subverted and hollowed out by immigrants."

Lance Wallnau speculates that President Donald Trump's diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency was caused by "that dang Covid vaccine."

Nick Fuentes proclaims that "feminism must be eradicated from our society."
Finally, Rob McCoy declares that any pastor that didn't instruct their congregation to vote for Trump will "stand before God and account for that": "It's criminal."

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AN 7 25

'Irreparably tainted': Prosecutor shocks following resignation from high-profile church abuse trial

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rww

07/18/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Rick Green says that "the most likely explanation" for why President Donald Trump won't release the Epstein files is that the Democrats planted false information in them to frame Trump.
Travis Johnson responds to MAGA outrage over Trump's refusal to release the Epstein files by telling them to "grow up": "Show some appreciation for the greatest president of our time."
Rick Joyner declares that Trump has "an uncanny discernment of the Holy Spirit."
Braeden Sorbo asserts that the right to vote should be granted to "married Christian men only": "Nobody else."
Finally, Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith proclaims that "Jesus is the political arm of the Holy Trinity."

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AN 7 25

Delegates at the United Church of Christ’s (UCC) 35th General Synod overwhelmingly passed an emergency resolution this week, condemning the ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids as “domestic terrorism” and accusing President Donald Trump's administration of “weaponizing the Constitution.”

Religious News Service reported Tuesday that the resolution targets immigration enforcement operations “carried out by ICE agents working without uniforms, wearing masks or refusing to identify themselves,” condemning these tactics as threatening and abusive.

Titled “Responding to the federal government’s attack on immigrants, migrants, and refugees,” the resolution urges the church to divest from for-profit private detention firms, specifically naming CoreCivic, GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp.— while allowing congregations to go further if they choose, according to the report.

Presented as an emergency motion by the Rev. Clara Sims of First Congregational UCC in Albuquerque on behalf of the Southwest Conference, the move reflects the church’s urgent response to escalated immigration enforcement under the Trump administration.

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Meanwhile, First Congregational UCC has opened housing and provided food and aid to immigrants arriving from the border, actions its minister says stem from the denomination’s theological commitment to protect the vulnerable.

“Our faith has always called us into spaces of risk on behalf of the vulnerable,” said Sims, “especially when people are being made vulnerable by really corrupt systems of power.”

The Southwest Conference fast-tracked the resolution after national church leaders and regional partners voiced deep concerns about human rights violations in detention facilities, per the report.

Last month, Bishop Alberto Rojas of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California, released a letter addressing recent reports that ICE agents had entered Catholic churches.

As head of the sixth-largest Catholic diocese in the U.S., Bishop Rojas strongly criticized the escalation of ICE operations.

In his communication to Catholics, he highlighted that “authorities are now seizing brothers and sisters indiscriminately, without respect for their right to due process and their dignity as children of God.”

He conveyed his solidarity with immigrants “who are bearing the trauma and injustice of these tactics,” and assured them that “we join you in carrying this very difficult cross.”

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AN 7 25

Slate writer David Mack cheered what he considers the uncommon bravery of a Christian power couple making a stand against intolerance.

Chip and Joanna Gaines, a mainstay of the HGTV universe, are more prone to beat down kitchen walls than bigotry. But Mack said “the couple have suddenly found themselves embroiled in a good ol’ Christian backlash because they broke their traditional mold” by acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ+ people in a show episode.

The Gaineses built an empire on home renovation, running five seasons complete with three spinoffs. Mack credits the married couple for popularizing “farmhouse chic” in the 2010s, which inspired a boom in giant white house construction across the U.S.

But then, more recently, the couple cast a same-sex couple, Jason Hanna and Joe Riggs, and their twin sons on a new Magnolia Network show, ‘Back to the Frontier’. The Hanna-Riggs family was one of three to spend the summer living as if they were back in the 1880s, without technology or the conveniences of modern life.

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That, said Mack, was “something that far-right religious bigots apparently cannot tolerate.”

“Rather than shy away from the controversy, or speak in vague platitudes as in the past, Chip spent much of the weekend on X defending the Hanna-Riggs family and criticizing the hatred they are facing from his fellow Christians,” said Mack.

“Talk, ask questions, listen … maybe even learn. Too much to ask of modern American Christian culture. Judge 1st, understand later/never,” Gaines posted on Sunday, in response to finger wagging from Evangelistic Association President Franklin Graham. “It’s a sad Sunday when ‘non believers’ have never been confronted with hate or vitriol until they are introduced to a modern American Christian.”

Gaines followed his post up in the comments section with further demands that Christians heed the Bible’s principles of loving one another and not judging others.

One critic on X demanded: “Why are you promoting homosexuality as a Christian? … Why support homosexuals buying kids?” to which Gaines responded by re-posting scripture from the critic’s own X bio: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 1 Peter 3:15.”

Gaines also denied that he was being prompted by the Magnolia board of directors or PR to adopt this stance or because one of his children is LGBTQ.

Mack said he found Gaines' position inspirational, but also noted the extent to which many on the right with “established online reputations as firebrands” rely on stoking outrage, even "at people with whom they may actually have many things in common.”

“In Donald Trump’s America, it’s not enough to be hating privately; you have to be seenhating,” Mack said.

See the full Slate Magazine report at this link.

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an 7 25

Evangelical group apologizes for anti-Trump ads pitting him against the Rev. Billy Graham

Trump official attends launch of Christian nationalist church displaying upside-down flag

Trump uses expletive in front of faith leaders in unscripted rant about 'evil' Democrats

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RWW

07/14/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Michael Flynn's QAnon organization "America's Future" is calling on the Trump administration to "RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES NOW."

Intercessors for America is urging its supporters to pray about the issue: "The truth about the Epstein files, the DOJ, and the Trump administration remain a mystery. Rather than point fingers, however, let’s pray. With so much deception going on in Washington, we need a mighty move of God!"

Joel Webbon says that his primary complaint about Attorney General Pam Bondi is not that "she is hiding the Epstein files": "I don't like Pam Bondi because she's a woman and she shouldn't be in public [or] in politics."

Glenn Beck claims that he went from being one of the most admired people in America to widely hated because the press was dishonest.

Finally, Rob Burns, who became mayor of Monroe, North Carolina, literally because he won a coin toss, insists that it was "God's ordination": "I knew it immediately, that was a mandate from Him."

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RWW

07/11/2025

Kyle Mantyla

William Wolfe declares that "every conceivable metric measuring 'the good life' will improve with mass deportations": "You really have no idea how much better it could be to live in America."
Shane Vaughn claims that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have fallen out because Trump thwarted Musk's desire to be "king of Mars."
The wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed for divorce, accusing Paxton of adultery. In response, Eric Metaxas proclaimed that "we need Ken Paxton as US Senator from the State of Texas!"
Is Jackson Lahmeyer plotting another run for office with the speaking tour he's launching around Oklahoma?
Finally, Hank Kunneman says that under Trump, "the prophets and the president are speaking the same thing," which will lead to a "golden age" in America where the economy will boom and sickness will be eliminated: "It's going to be greater than anything we've ever seen."

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RWW

07/09/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Faith Wins celebrates the IRS decision to allow churches to endorse political candidates, declaring it to be "an opportunity to reawaken the Church’s role in shaping the future of our communities and our country."

Lance Wallnau can't believe how "the powers of darkness" are blaming "Donald Trump for killing people in Texas" in the wake of the devastating floods.

Johnny Enlow doesn't call himself a "prophet" but, he says, that "doesn't mean I don't think I have functioned in that role as the Lord has wanted me to."

Nick Fuentes is fed up with President Donald Trump over his handling of the Epstein files: "Fuck you, man. Fuck you. They were right about you. You are a con. You are a joke."

Finally, it's rather ironic to hear an episode of "The WallBuilders Show" in which they decry lying to advance an agenda since that is pretty much what WallBuilders does professionally.

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an 7 25

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rww

06/27/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Intercessors for America did an entire program about "the demonic roots of our monetary systems."
Lance Wallnau warns that the ceasefire between Israel and Iran is fragile because right-wing Christians are not praying hard enough.
Kandiss Taylor calls for deporting pedophiles, Satanists, and liberal white women.
Pastor Lorenzo Sewell told the audience at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Road To Majority" conference that Jesus knows that when it comes to the midterm and next presidential election, "the church is the only entity that can stop the steal."
Finally, HUD Secretary Scott Turner spoke at the "Road To Majority" conference today and his remarks sounded more like a sermon than a political address.

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===

6 25 AN

MINNE ASSASSIN ADF SUPPORTER EVANGE PREACHER?

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rww 6 25 NO KINGS MARCH

06/14/2025

Peter Montgomery

Christian-right media outlets, which function as an unofficial public relations operation for President Donald Trump, set out this week to smear in advance the ‘No Kings’ protests being held across the country on Sat. June 14 to protest Trump’s authoritarianism and defiance of the law and Constitution.

“As America prepares to honor the birthday of President Donald J. Trump on June 14,” began a screed that ran on the right-wing “America Faith” platform and was republished by the Pentecostal-oriented Charisma News—not even bothering to sustain the official fiction that Trump’s military parade is more about honoring the armed forces than a presidential exercise in self-glorification.

The diatribe was written by right-wing southern California pastor Phil Hotsenpiller, who founded American Faith after Trump was defeated in the 2020 election.

In this week’s column, Hotsenpiller warned of the “disturbing agenda” of the No Kings rallies: “to crush Donald Trump’s influence, undermine constitutional authority, and destabilize American sovereignty.”

“Let’s be clear,” wrote Hotsenpiller, “this is not about preserving democracy—it’s about preventing Trump from returning to power.”

Huh? Trump has already returned to power and is flagrantly abusing that power. That’s why Americans are rallying to defend the rule of law and the constitutional checks and balances Trump’s team is working so hard to dismantle.

Hotsenpiller spun a conspiracy theory about the “Walton-Weingarten Nexus”—WalMart heiress and philanthropist Christy Walton and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, two “dangerous” women “merging to push a vision of America that looks more like socialist Europe—or communist China—than a constitutional republic.”

“June 14 is not just a protest,” Hotsenpiller ranted. “It’s a declaration of war—against populism, against Trump and ultimately against the America our Founders envisioned.”

While MAGA religious leaders portray themselves as the voice of American Christians, many Christians and other faith leaders are urging Americans to participate in peaceful No Kings protests—and have been on the front lines this week protesting the brutality of the administration’s militarized anti-immigrant operations.

Trump has threatened “very heavy force” against anyone who protests his parade. No Kings organizers have not planned an event in D.C., encouraging locals to join a flagship rally in Philadelphia, participate in Virginia or Maryland events, or take part in DC Joy Day.

American Faith hosted the ReAwaken America Tour, a traveling cavalcade of far-right conspiracies, Christian nationalism, and pro-Trump propaganda. Last year, Hostenpiller’s Influence Church hosted Christian nationalist MAGA activist Charlie Kirk, who used the occasion to rail against seminaries “infiltrated with wokeism, social justice nonsense” and “overly feminine ‘pastor-men.’” Hotsenpiller has also teamed up with MAGA musician Sean Feucht.

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an sn 6 25

Law enforcement officers on Sunday night arrested Vance Boelter, who is accused of assassinating Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband at their home in Brooklyn Park as part of a larger plot to kill Democratic elected officials and other advocates of abortion rights.

Boelter is also accused of shooting Democratic-Farmer-Labor state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin. Both Hoffmans survived the shooting, but received surgeries for their injuries and remain hospitalized.

The arrest comes after a 43-hour manhunt — the largest in state history, according to Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley. Law enforcement officers had been searching all day after locating Boelter’s abandoned vehicle near Green Isle, where Boelter has a home.

At the time of his arrest, Boelter was armed, but ultimately surrendered. Officers did not use any force, said Lt. Col. Jeremy Geiger of the Minnesota State Patrol.

In the state’s new Emergency Operations Center in Blaine — which was paid for by legislation passed by Hortman’s DFL-controlled House in 2020 — Gov. Tim Walz thanked law enforcement and decried political violence and hateful rhetoric.

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“This cannot be the norm. It cannot be the way that we deal with our political differences,” Walz said. “Now is the time for us to recommit to the core values of this country, and each and every one of us can do it. Talk to a neighbor rather than argue, debate an issue, shake hands, find common ground.”

Boelter is a Christian who voted for President Donald Trump and opposes abortion and LGBTQ rights, according to interviews with his childhood friend and videos of his sermons posted online. A list of potential targets — including Hoffman and Hortman — included abortion providers and other Democratic elected officials from Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The attack, which has shocked Minnesotans and the nation, comes amid rising political violence since the emergence of President Donald Trump, who has made repeated threats of violence against his political enemies and praised his supporterswho, for instance, attacked officers while storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He later pardoned all of them. He survived two assassination attempts in 2024.

Authorities say Boelter attacked the Hoffmans at their home in Champlin at approximately 2 a.m. on Saturday morning. An unsealed criminal complaint indicates that the Hoffmans’ daughter called the police to report the shooting of her parents, theAssociated Press reports.

At around 3:30 a.m., Brooklyn Park police headed to the Hortmans’ home to proactively check on them following the attack on the Hoffmans, said Drew Evans, superintendent at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension at a press conference Saturday morning.

When they arrived, the officers saw the attacker in a fake law enforcement uniform shoot Mark Hortman through the open front door, according to the complaint. Out front, emergency vehicle lights flashed from a Ford Explorer outfitted to look like a cop car. When the officers confronted the shooter, a gunfight ensued, and the killer escaped, abandoning the vehicle.

Inside, Hortman and her husband, Mark, were dead from gunshot wounds.

In the SUV, police found a document with a list of lawmakers and other officials on it. Hortman and Hoffman were on the list.

Evans said Sunday that the document is not a “traditional manifesto that’s a treatise on all kinds of ideology and writings.” Instead, it contains a list of names and “other thoughts” throughout.

On Saturday afternoon, police raided a home in north Minneapolis where Boelter lived part time. In an interview with the *Star Tribune* and other media outlets, Boelter’s roommate and childhood friend David Carlson shared a text message Boelter sent him at 6:03 a.m. saying that he would be “gone for a while” and “may be dead shortly.”

Federal and state warrants were out for Boelter’s arrest, and the FBI was offering a $50,000 award for information that led to Boelter’s capture.

On Sunday morning, law enforcement officers detained and questioned Boelter’s wife as she was driving through Mille Lacs County with other family members. Evans said Sunday none of Boelter’s family members are in custody.

Sunday afternoon, law enforcement officers located a car linked to Boelter in Sibley County within a few miles of his home address in Green Isle. From there, teams from dozens of law enforcement agencies fanned out in search of Boelter.

Boelter was spotted in the area, and officers converged around him, Evans said. He declined to provide some details of the tactics used by law enforcement to capture Boelter.

Law enforcement officials continue to investigate Boelter’s motives, Evans said, and urged the public not to jump to conclusions.

“We often want easy answers for complex problems, and this is a complex situation…those answers will come as we complete the full picture of our investigation,” he said.

Fragments of Boelter’s life available online, and interviews with those who know him, shed light on his religious and political beliefs.

Boelter’s LinkedIn page indicates that he spent many years working in food production before becoming the general manager of a 7-Eleven. More recently, he worked at funeral homes, the *New York Times*reported.

Boelter was facing financial stress after quitting his job to embark on business ventures in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Carlson, the *Star Tribune* reported.

The website for a private security firm lists Boelter as the “director of security patrols,” and his wife as the CEO. He purchased some cars and uniforms but “it was never a real company,” Carlson told the Strib.

Carlson said Boelter is a Christian who strongly opposes abortion, the *New York Times* reported.

In recordings of sermons Boelter delivered in Matadi, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo,he railed against abortion and LGBTQ people.

The reporting on Boelter’s religious life suggests that his beliefs were rooted in fundamentalism, though he doesn’t appear to have been ordained in any particular denomination, said Rev. Angela Denker, a Minnesota-based Lutheran minister, journalist and author of books on Christianity, right-wing politics and masculinity.

“What this kind of theology says is that if you commit violence in the name of whatever movement you’re a part of, then you’re going to be rewarded,” Denker said.

The gunman shot John Hoffman nine times, and Yvette Hoffman eight times, according to a statement from Yvette.

The Hoffmans’ nephew, Mat Ollig, wrote on Facebook that Yvette used her body to shield her daughter. John Hoffman is “enduring many surgeries right now and is closer every hour to being out of the woods,” Yvette Hoffman said in a statement.

On Sunday night as leaders spoke to the press, Boelter was being questioned by law enforcement, but officials declined to say where he was detained and which agency was questioning him.

On the steps of the State Capitol Sunday, mourners created an extemporaneous memorial for Hortman, who will be known as one of the most consequential progressive leaders in recent state history.

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RWW

06/11/2025

Kyle Mantyla

In response to the anti-ICE protests in California, Shane Vaughn says the state is "a hemorrhoid on the nation."

Nick Fuentes is disappointed that the protests have not spun out of control, leading to chaos and a military crackdown: "I wanna see people waking up and saying, 'We need another Hitler.'"

Glenn Beck is preparing for the upcoming nationwide "No Kings" protests by selling "No Kings but Christ" merchandise.

Sean Feucht responded to the allegations of financial, moral, and spiritual misconduct against him by insisting that they are coming from "embittered, angry, upset former volunteers" who were dismissed "for moral issues."

Finally, David Barton declares that "all the good things that have happened in American history were led by Christians at some point."

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rww

06/09/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Rick Joyner says that the fight between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk is just a disagreement between "extreme alpha males": "Stallions fight."
Everett Piper tells Christians to "stop calling people gay": "Don’t you realize that by doing so, you are parroting the lie that our desires define us and that people can be pigeonholed into categories of appetites, proclivities, drives and desires?"
Wesley Todd of Right Response Ministries says the protests against ICE raids in California is a "trial period of Jewish nationalism."
C. Jay Engle declares that "America, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Scandinavia... the entire once European world and its derivatives should be acting in a spirit of civilizational solidarity. Reverse the Third World Revolution now. Purge the West."
Finally, Todd Starnes admits that is Trump's "big, beautiful [spending] bill" is "horrible" but says that since Trump "got elected with a mandate, let the man have what he wants." This is, of course, precisely the opposite of how the legislative process within our constitutional system of government is supposed to operate.

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AN 6 25

The ascendancy of Cardinal Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV – to become the global head of the Catholic Church is an inherent threat to the worldview of the American religious right, according to one Christian pastor.

In a recent essay for Religion News Service (RNS), the Rev. Jennifer Butler — who is the senior pastor at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Corvallis, Oregon — argued that the far right is railing against Leo XIV specifically because of the dilemma he presents to their belief system. Butler wrote that the MAGA faithful is not opposed to the new pontiff because he's a liberal like his predecessor Pope Francis, but because he's a traditional conservative Catholic who nonetheless holds radically different views than Christian nationalists.

"Leo has become a MAGA flashpoint not due to any dramatic break from Catholic doctrine, but because his worldview directly threatens the Christian nationalist engine behind the rising authoritarianism of our time," Butler wrote. "He threatens to become a transnational counterweight to a rapidly expanding authoritarian religious network."

Not long after Prevost was elected to the papacy, Vice President JD Vance traveled to the Holy See to meet the first American pope in history. But Butler pointed out that Leo XIV and Vance are in direct contradiction with one another when it comes to Christian nationalism. While Vance has argued that Americans should put their country first before the rest of the world, Leo XIV — who was a longtime priest in Peru — has said that "Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others."

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"This was no minor theological dustup over the proper 'order of love' Christians should obey," Butler observed. "It was a direct rebuttal to the ideological foundation of Christian nationalism: that faith should serve state nativist power and preserve national sovereignty at the expense of human rights."

The United Church of Christ pastor called the Christian right a "transnational" movement that has also found footing in authoritarian regimes like Vladimir Putin's Russia and Viktor Orbán's Hungary. And she characterized its goal as one in which its proponents impose a "rigid moral order" on the rest of the world that serves to "polarize the public and erode democratic institutions." However, she said Pope Leo XIV's tenure could be one in which the Christian right's use of religion "to justify authoritarian consolidation and frame dissent as sacrilege" is upended.

"The election of Leo XIV signals that not all global religious institutions are capitulating," she wrote. "... MAGA influencers understand that when Leo speaks, people listen — not just Catholics, but others looking for spiritual leadership grounded in clarity. His critics know how powerful that can be."

Click here to read Butler's full essay in RNS.

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cdv an 6 25

Ideological differences within Christianity can be enormous. Members of the Episcopal Church had a booth at Philadelphia's gay pride festival on Sunday, June 1, as did a Lutheran group — and both made it clear that they welcome LGBTQ Christians in their denominations. Many far-right Christian nationalists, in contrast, think that Pridefest events should be illegal.

The Religious Right gained a great deal of influence in the Republican Party during Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, much to the chagrin of the late Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona). Goldwater was a scathing critic of the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr.'s Moral Majority and the Rev. Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, and he believed the Religious Right was terrible for the GOP and terrible for the conservative movement. But far-right evangelicals maintained a stranglehold on Goldwater's party, and they became even more militant with the rise of Donald Trump's MAGA movement in 2016.

Robert P. Jones, president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and author of the book "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity," discussed the alliance between Christian nationalists and the second Trump Administration during an early June interview with Salon's Chauncey DeVega. And he warned that "evangelical" Christian nationalists and MAGA aren't growing any less "authoritarian."

Jones told DeVega, "I was prepared for Trump's return to the presidency to be ugly and disastrous. But seeing the reality of it — especially up close here in Washington, DC, where so many patriotic public servants' lives have been decimated by Trump's attacks on our government institutions — has been very upsetting. I love my country, and it is painful to watch it being dismantled and destroyed by Trump and his MAGA forces."

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Jones warned that Trump's second administration represents a mixture of religious fanaticism and "white supremacy."

"Now, it is more common to hear white Christians instead claiming that he is a tool of God and prophecy," Jones told DeVega. "Ultimately, white conservative Christians are trying to find a theological justification for what is really a political transaction that gives them the power they want in American society — and Trump is making it increasingly clear that much of that power is oriented around the preservation of white supremacy…. Now, their appeals are about how 'Trump is going to protect our way of life' and 'Trump is going to protect our religion.'"

Jones continued, "Only the thinnest veil of Christian morality is pulled over the MAGA movement today — it is transactional and about power. Even the cruelest policies, such as Trump's illegal renditions of immigrants to hellhole prisons in other countries without due process guaranteed to all by the Constitution, evoke little protest. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that, if we take this support seriously, such cruelty is in fact a reflection of the values of these voters."

*Chauncey DeVega's full interview with Robert P. Jones for Salon is available at this link.

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aha? trollery contagious? she is mocking the IDEA of APOLOGY?

she caved on principles with hegs rape? BBB is all that matters?

an 6 25

Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte derided U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) for adopting a “favorite lady MAGA trick” for dealing with uncomfortable situations: “pretending to be stupid.”

On Friday, Ernst infuriated constituents at a town hallin Butler County, Iowa, with her “bizarre defense of taking away people's medical care to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” according to Marcotte. The tactic appeared to involve steering into the realm of the philosophical: "Well, we’re all going to die," she told the crowd, which elicited a volley of boos.

But Ernst had “absorbed Donald Trump's philosophy of always doubling down,” says Marcotte.

“I made an incorrect assumption THAT IS THEY ARE STUPID CHILDISH that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth,’ she said while walking in a cemetery. “So, I apologize, and I’m really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.”

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“Ernst may play the mean bimbo for the camera, but she is aware that people aren't asking to live forever,” Marcotte confided. “They just don't want to die decades before their time, due to a lack of basic health care.”

But while the media focuses on her act, Marcotte says Ernst’s follow-up spin was, “if anything, even more callous. She invoked Jesus Christ as the reason it's okay to let people die from easily preventable causes.”

"But for those that would like to see eternal and everlasting life, I encourage you to embrace my lord and savior, Jesus Christ," Ernst declared in her video, with what Marcotte describes as smugness.

“To those whose understanding of Christianity is based on compassion and love, this comment was jarring. But Ernst understands the second rule of MAGA: their version of Christian ‘love’ is cruelty,” said Marcotte, adding that when a CBS News reporter asked Ernst for follow-up Ernst barked "I'm very compassionate," while running for an elevator.

The coldness is a “deliberate choice,” says Marcotte, which falls in line with a larger trend in white evangelical circles to redefine empathy as a “sin" according to a recent slate of books. These include ‘Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion,’ published last year by right-wing podcaster, Allie Beth Stuckey, as well as right-wing theologian Joe Rigney’s best-selling ‘The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and Its Counterfeits.’

“This is how the conservative Christian convinces himself it's ‘love’ to deny LGBTQ people their freedom, because compelling heterosexuality will get them into heaven,” Marcotte says. “… These are the rationalizations of people who want to hate while denying they are hateful.”

The good news to this, according to Marcotte, is Ernst's “shut-up-and-die ideology is not popular, even with a lot of people who consider themselves conservative Christians,” as suggested by Democratic state Rep. J.D. Scholten recent announcement that he's running against Ernst in the 2026 election.

See the full Salon report at this link.

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RWW

05/23/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Religious-right activist and Seven Mountains dominionist Floyd Brown is now serving as a vice president of the Kennedy Center.

Joshua Feuerstein was recently at Mar-a-Lago and the U.S. Capitol.

Mario Murillo proclaims that America will soon see so many supernatural events that atheism will be rendered obsolete.

Rick Joyner declares that Hamas is the "ultimate manifestation of evil" and even worse than the Nazis and that "THOSE WHO SIDE WITH THE ANTISEMITISM THAT IS RISING IN OUR COUNTRY ARE LIKEWISE JOINING WITH, AND PROMOTING SOME OF THE WORST EVIL CIVILIZATION IS NOW FACING."

Finally, just days after going full QAnon, Benny Johnson was on Capitol Hill using Rep. Tim Burchett's office as a studio to interview multiple GOP members of Congress.

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an 5 25

Anti-Trump pastor forced out by church for frequently promoting social justice: report

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RWW

05/20/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Michele Bachmann reveals that she gave current White House adviser Stephen Miller his first job in Congress, based on a recommendation from David Horowitz.

Jackson Lahmeyer says that Alexander Soros and Huma Abedin are "like Ahab and Jezebel in a modern-day equivalency."

Reacting to the news that former President Joe Biden has cancer, Cheryl Chumley declares that "the Democrat Party itself has become a cancer to American society."

After losing his job for throwing a Sieg Heil-like salute earlier this year, far-right priest Calvin Robinson was still invited to the White House in April.

Finally, Joel Webbon is urging right-wing Christian business owners to "crush their enemies" by refusing to hire non-Christians.

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rww

05/09/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Religious-right lawyer Brad Dacus reveals that he has been involved in drafting executive orders for President Donald Trump that he hopes will be signed in coming weeks.

Eric Trump claims that "we are going to bankrupt our country if we keep running it the way Joe Biden did and I think DOGE might go down in history as maybe the most meaningful effort in the savior of this nation."

Rick Green has a simple formula for determining whether the federal government should undertake any particular task: "If it's in the Yellow Pages, government shouldn't do it."

A Fox News analyst fainted during a segment and Ali Alexander had an odd response: "Zionist commentator fainted on Fox News Live TV! Be very careful. God will not be mocked! Jews need to ask for forgiveness from the Father!"

Finally, it's fortunate that Russel Brand was granted bail in his sexual assault case so he'll be free to participate in Christian nationalist worship leader Sean Feucht's upcoming mass baptism event.

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05/06/2025 rww

Kyle Mantyla

Shane Vaughn is excited about President Donald Trump's plan to spend millions of dollars on a military parade to celebrate flag day, which just so happens to fall on his birthday: "I don’t believe in coincidence — I believe in providence. The stars have aligned. The calendar has spoken. And on June 14th — Flag Day, no less — the world will once again look upon America. But not with confusion, not with contempt, not with weakness. They will see strength. And that strength has a name: Commander in Chief Donald J. Trump."
Struggling to know what to get for Mother's Day? Stew Peters thinks a subscription to his virulently antisemitic network would be the "perfect gift."
Joel Webbon does not think much of Vice President J.D. Vance's choice of a wife: "It's hard to be America First when you marry an immigrant."
C. Jay Engel says that "America’s continuation is predicated on the removal of foreigners. That’s what it all boils down to."
Rep. Mary Miller cheers on Trump's plan to reopen Alcatraz: "The first person to be sent to Alcatraz should be Anthony Fauci."
Finally, Sen. Tommy Tuberville doesn't seem to understand how tariffs work: "How about we tax people all around the world who've come to our party but never brought anything? Now it's time to bring something to the party to help the United States of America and the taxpayers."

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rww

05/05/2025

Kyle Mantyla

David Lane comes to the defense of embattled Trump nominee Ed Martin: "Please pray that the U.S. Senate will confirm him as U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia. Better yet, lead your congregation to call their two U.S. Senators’ state offices, imploring them to confirm Ed for this strategic position."

Tony Perkins, Jason Rapert, Michele Bachmann, and other Christian nationalists were in Israel last week, praying over U.S. ambassador Mike Huckabee.

Joshua Haymes says that "no one has to be gay" and that it's a "perversion almost always catalyzed by horrific abuse in childhood."
Virginia state Del. Nick Freitas asserts that "the Bible [was] one of the most frequently quoted books when it comes to the discussions about the Constitution." No, it wasn't.

Finally, Sean Feucht claims that multiple people have been "radically healed" simply by listening to his new album.

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an 525

'Dangerous': Priest says Trump has 'co-opted' Christianity to 'secure his own power'

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AN 4 25

In hisEaster morning post earlier this month, President Donald Trump’s wished a happy holiday to “the Radical Left Lunatics … fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners." The president's post was criticized by many as being too divisive, but evangelicals supported the president's controversial message.

In an article published Monday, Guardian quoted Jackson Lahmeyer, the founder of the Pastors for Trump organization who supported the president's Easter message, as saying: “You cannot unify with evil.”

Several white evangelical leaders continue to back Trump vigorously, even in light of what many consider to be violent and extremist rhetoric. Many people view this narrative as inappropriate for any religious event, especially one closely associated with themes of renewal, forgiveness, and peace.

ALSO READ:'It’s time': Conservative calls for 'comprehensive national civic uprising' against Trump BROOKS

"To evangelical leaders, that emphasis on Christian values stands in contrast to how they perceive the Biden administration’s actions, including in 2024 declaring 31 March Transgender Day of Visibility, the date when it had been celebrated since its creation in 2009, but last year fell – entirely coincidentally – on Easter Sunday," the Guardian article noted.

IFrame Content

Brad Sherman, an Iowa pastor and Republican now running for governor, told Guardian: "Easter was barely mentioned."

That is not true.

The tradition of the annual White House Easter egg roll continued under Biden's presidency. In a statement made last Easter, the former president said: “As we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus’s sacrifice … with wars and conflict taking a toll on innocent lives around the world, we renew our commitment to work for peace, security, and dignity for all people.”

This means that some of the evangelical support for Trump may be based on misinformation that Biden did not celebrate Christian traditions in the White House.

This year, Trump hosted an Easter prayer service and dinner attended by Lahmeyer, well-known pastors like Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress, as well as his personal pastor, Paula White-Cain, who currently heads the White House faith office, among others.

ALSO READ:These Christians have big problems with Trump’s 'spiritual adviser' — here's why

“[Trump] preached the gospel to us pastors, and I thought that was amazing,” Lahmeyer told Guardian.

ALSO READ: 'Trump has eclipsed Jesus himself': Here’s what really drives evangelicals’ MAGA rage

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an 4 25

On Friday, April 4, British comedian/actor Russell Brand was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault by the UK Metropolitan Police. Brand, despite these charges, continues to proclaim his devotion to Christianity. And he is still bonding with the MAGA movement in the United States.

In a biting article published on April 5, Salon's Amanda Marcotte argues that the MAGA movement and far-right evangelicals are oblivious to the "disturbing" allegations Brand is facing.

"A collaboration between The Times, The Sunday Times, and Channel 4, conducted over years, produced exhaustively documented allegations of rape and other sexual abuses," Marcotte explains. "They spoke with hundreds of sources, including four accusers. They collected medical records, texts, e-mails, and internal documents from employers, all showing a pattern of alleged sexual abuse that is often frightening in its violence. The report came out in September 2023."

Marcotte continues, "Shortly thereafter, Brand was kicked off YouTube. He then swiftly joined the MAGA-affiliated Rumble network. In the next few months, he moved to the U.S. and got baptized, fully rebranding himself as a right-wing Christian influencer. This timeline doesn't seem to have given Brand's new MAGA audience a single moment's doubt that he might have ulterior motives. On the contrary, his fans encouraged the conspiracy theory that paints him as a political prisoner and the charges as 'a political prosecution,' as Charlie Kirk complained."

Brand, according to Marcotte, underscores the dangers of "MAGA Christianity" and shows "the willingness, in the era of Donald Trump, of right-wing Christians to scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel."

"Christianity emphasizes redemption, making it an attractive framework for a celebrity needing to rehab a bad image," Marcotte observes. "In theory, however, there is supposed to be repentance before redemption. But this is the era of Trumpian Christianity, so skipping the part where you say you're sorry is optional."

Marcotte adds, "After all, Trump is treated not just as a fellow Christian, but something closer to a savior figure by the Religious Right…. Being a bully is admired in the MAGA movement. In MAGA Christianity, actual repentance would be dismissed as 'woke.' No wonder it was the perfect landing spot for Russell Brand."

*Read Politico's full article at this link.

SNIPZ0

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AN 4 25

Conservative social media influencers Angela Reitsma and Arielle Halili, who jointly host a podcast called "Girls Gone Bible," are encouraging their fans to embrace President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) agenda, Salon noted in a piece Friday.

The article says that Reitsma and Halili, who are referred to as "Jesus freaks," go on national tours and deliver what they call a "ministry" at ticket prices, receiving thousands of fans at packed venues.

The ticket prices begin around $40 but can be $100 or more. "They market 'GGB+' subscriptions to their young female fanbase for $7 a month," the article says.

At a Trump "victory" rally in January, they opened the event with a prayer that equated Trump with divinity and included foreboding phrases. They wished a "holy fire" to descend on Trump’s adversaries and affirmed that any threats against him would fail.

Salon notes that Halili and Reitsma do not fit the typical image of traditional church women; instead, they resemble attractive young actresses from the edges of Hollywood.

According to IMDB, their film credits include roles such as a horror movie victim in "Spin the Bottle" and a promiscuous character in "Rock of Ages." This striking contrast between their glamorous appearance and their extreme religious beliefs is key to their appeal, per Salon.

Tia Levings, author of "A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy," told Salon this podcast and similar content from young conservative influencers was "definitely a pipeline to MAGA, a funnel to Christian nationalism."

She added "Girls Gone Bible" appeals to "a bevy of Kardashian and Sephora-addicted Gen Z young women who want to be rich, famous and in love."

A recent article published in the New York Times noted that data from the Cooperative Election Study, a national survey encompassing over 50,000 participants during election years, indicates that between 2006 and 2023, approximately 23 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 identified as either "conservative" or "very conservative."

This proportion has seen only slight variations from year to year. The figures for 2024, which the study's researchers revealed no significant deviation from this trend, per the author.

Despite concerns regarding the impact of a misogynistic online "manosphere," the survey showed that the ratio of young men to young women identifying as conservative has remained relatively unchanged.

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an 3 25

The Holy Bible's New Testament, from the Book of Matthew to the Book of Luke, is full of references to corruption among the ultra-rich. Jesus Christ, in Matthew 19:24, is quoted as saying, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."

Yet among far-right evangelicals, a doctrine known as "the prosperity gospel" claims that the ultra-rich became rich because of their morality — and that the poor are in poverty became their decisions are immoral. President Donald Trump's White House faith adviser, Paula White, is a majority proponent of the prosperity gospel (also known as "prosperity theology"). And Trump appointed her to head the White House Faith Office.

Salon's Amanda Marcotte, in a biting article published on March 14, details the connection between the Prosperity Gospel and Trump's steep new tariffs.

The Prosperity Gospel, which equates wealth with morality and poverty with sin, is controversial among Christians. Many Catholics and Mainline Protestants consider it nonsense, and some evangelicals disagree with it as well.

"Even some far-right Christian conservatives, who otherwise back Trump wholeheartedly, are angry about his relationship to White, calling her views 'heresy,' and balking at treating their religion like a get-rich-quick scheme," Marcotte explains. "But what's striking about the prosperity gospel and its empty promises of future wealth in exchange for current privation is how much it sounds exactly like the excuses Trump and his allies are making for the economic wreckage he's inflicting on the U.S. through unnecessary and unjustifiable tariffs."

Marcotte continues, "During the campaign, Trump promised, 'When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on Day 1.' Instead, he's doing the opposite: imposing tariffs on most major trading partners, which function like a sales tax that will almost certainly cause inflation — which had been dwindling in the last year of President Joe Biden's term, to skyrocket again."

Trump and his allies, Marcotte notes, are trying to convince MAGA voters that economic pain caused by tariffs now will lead to prosperity in the future — which, she writes, is very much the type of argument that prosperity gospel preachers make when they're begging for donations.

"In truth," Marcotte writes, "the argument that financial suffering now will lead to wealth later is magical thinking, of the same sort that fuels prosperity gospel claims that donating to a preacher's private jet fund will inspire God to fill your coffers. There's significant overlap between prosperity gospel adherents and Trump's fan base. He's likely counting on that fact to sell his tariff lies, assuming — for good reason — that his base voters are accustomed to calls to ignore reality and to have blind faith in their leaders instead."

Marcotte adds, "For his most loyal voters, he's not wrong to believe they have endless patience for being ripped off — which is why so many of them are still writing checks to televangelists when they can barely pay their own bills."

READ MORE:['A stupid fight': Conservative blasts Trump for action 'too absurd to believe'

*Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

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rww

02/26/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Jackson Lahmeyer says the criticism over Paula White being tapped to head the White House Faith Office is coming primarily from "men in ministry that don't like women in ministry."
Tony Perkins declares that "justice cannot exist without God's moral law. A society that rejects the transcendent truth of the Bible will have no foundation for lasting justice."
Andew Isker asserts that "if you ever say 'as a [x]-American, we should…' you are not a heritage American" and therefore are not loyal to what is best for America: "You are an economic zone American."
Joshua Haymes proclaims it "indefensible" for any Christian to believe that "gay couples should have the right to adopt children": "We should be looking to BOTH legislate and stigmatize this wickedness into oblivion."
Finally, Shane Vaughn cheers on the chaos being sown by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk because "we voted for chaos."

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random

RWW

02/18/2025

Kyle Mantyla

OMFG

Eric Metaxas declares that "the evil and corruption being uncovered in our govt is too horrible for most of us to process. It's like the world in 1945 for the first time seeing that the Nazis systematically murdered millions. It's simply unfathomable in its evil."

Tim Barton has a question: "Why do we think it's okay to arrest students that break the Ten Commandments, but not okay to show them the Ten Commandments to teach them it's wrong?"

Joel Webbon says "we need to repeal not just the 19th Amendment, we need to repeal the entire 20th Century."

Stew Peters really loves Adolf Hitler.

Joshua Haymes says that feminism is "evil" and "cringe" and biblical patriarchy is the only solution.

Finally, Richard Harris wants to return to an America where there are no casinos or tattoo parlors, kids are praying in schools, abortion is outlawed, and businesses closed on Sunday.

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rww 2 25

John Fea @ Current](https://currentpub.com/2025/02/07/trump-evangelicals-are-going-after-christian-institutions-that-take-federal-funds/ "(opens in a new window)"): Trump evangelicals are going after Christian institutions that take federal funds.

Thousands and thousands of Christian organizations, including Trump acolyte Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse, have taken federal money to help advance their missions. Christian charities have lost funds as a result of Trump’s cuts to US AID. They include World Vision, World Relief, International Justice Mission, Samaritan’s Purse, and Catholic Relief Services.

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rww

02/04/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Dan Friedman @ Mother Jones: It Sure Looks Like Kash Patel Lied to Congress

Patel appeared to mislead senators about the “J6 Prison Choir.” Republicans don’t care.

Diana Falzone @ Mediaite: RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vaxx Group Paid Nearly $1 Million to Woman Who Accused Him of Sexual Misconduct

A woman who worked with the anti-vaccine nonprofit run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused him of sexual misconduct and was paid a nearly $1 million settlement as part of a nondisclosure agreement in late 2020, multiple sources told Mediaite.

William Vaillancourt @ The Daily Beast: Pete Hegseth’s New Press Sec Has His Own Alarming Backstory

A Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, [Sean] Parnell dropped out of that race in late 2021 after it became known that his estranged wife, Laurie Snell, had accused him of spousal and child abuse.

Mikael Thalen @ Daily Dot: ‘Proud Boys’ no longer allowed to be ‘Proud Boys’ after name rights given to Black church

The Proud Boys lost the rights to their name on Monday after a judge ruled that it now belongs to a Black church in Washington, D.C.

Rebecca Hopkins @ The Roys Report: IHOPKC Founder Mike Bickle Sexually Abused 17 Women, Investigation Finds

Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC) groomed and sexually abused 17 women, some of whom were minors, according to an independent investigation released tonight. In some cases, the abuse constituted rape, the investigation found.

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an 1 25

// budde?

During a late January appearance on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance tried to make a Christian argument in favor of President Donald Trump's MAGA/America First ideology. But his comments are getting some pushback from theologian Joash Thomas.

Vance is popular among Christian nationalists and far-right white evangelicals because of his extreme social conservatism, including his attacks on women who don't have biological children. The vice president, however, is not an evangelical Protestant, but a convert to Catholicism. And on Fox News, he claimed that MAGA Republicans have a better understanding of Christianity than the left.

Vance told Fox News' Sean Hannity, "I think it's a very Christian concept that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor — and then, you love your community. And then you love your fellow citizens and your own country. And then, after that, focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that."

READ MORE:[Inside Trump's scheme to concentrate power

The vice president continued, "They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to ruin a society. And I think the profound difference that Donald Trump brings to the leadership of this country is a simple concept: America first."

But Thomas argued that Vance's thinking is flawed.

In a Thursday, January 30 thread on X, formerly Twitter, Thomas wrote, "I am a theologian trained at one of America's top conservative evangelical theological seminaries. This is *not* a Christian concept; it's a western individualistic one."

Thomas continued, "I've studied Augustine. He was right on some stuff and way off on others. According to your logic, executing our theological enemies for heresy is 'Christian' too. If it doesn't look like Christ, it shouldn't be called 'Christian.' The Jesus I worship taught us to love enemy…. And he showed us how to love our enemies by laying down his life for his enemies. Don't like my definition of Christian? Your beef isn't with me. It's with Jesus. So take it up with him."

READ MORE:['Heinous personality': Internet unleashes on 'psychopath' Trump after he jokes about crash

*Watch the JD Vance interview below or at this link.

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god grifters really hate it when an actual xian calls out the fake one

1 25

01/22/2025

Peter Montgomery

Donald Trump and his Christian nationalist supporters are demonstrating once again that much of the harshest anti-Christian rhetoric in our political life doesn’t come from secular leftists, it comes from right-wing Christian leaders and activists who bitterly trash the faith of Christians who don’t share their religious and political worldviews.

Their most recent target is Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, who spoke at the National Prayer Service held at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday. Budde talked for about 15 minutes on the topic of unity, using her last few minutes to directly and respectfully address Trump and ask for mercy on behalf of gay, lesbian, and transgender people, immigrants, and refugees.

The same religious-right leaders and activists who have embraced or explained away Trump’s relentless lying, cruelty, corruption, and criminality, were outraged by Budde’s willingness to challenge him over the harmful impact his actions as president will have on many people.

Sean Feucht, a dominionist musician, political activist, and ardent Trump supporter, was contemptuous, referring to Bishop Budde as “the priestess” and saying, “They should let Christians preach next time.”

In a video posted from within the Cathedral, Feucht literally sneered at the interfaith service’s inclusion of “all these random religions and faiths,” concluding, “this was not a church service.” He continued:

We’re gonna go have a real church service with a bunch of folks that were in here. We’re gonna go lift up the name of Jesus because we are one nation under God, not all these other random religions. We don’t all worship the same God. And we definitely don’t worship the God of the LGTBQ mafia.

Feucht’s comments are a reminder that religious-right activists leaders are be quick to claim anti-Christian persecution when they are criticized for their harmful agendas or dishonest rhetoric, but they are themselves quick to attack other Christians. (Marjorie Taylor Greene recently provided another example, attacking the Catholic faith of Martin O’Malley because of his pro-choice position on abortion.)

“The Washington National Cathedral has become the Sanctuary of Satan,” ranted pundit Todd Starnes. He went on to denounce the Episcopal Church as “barely a religion.” He charged that “the blasphemous bishop at National Cathedral preached hate from her pagan pulpit.”

MAGA “prophet” Shave Vaughn declared Budde “a Bishop of Babylon.” Anti-LGBTQ activist John Amanchukwu denounced Budde as “a wolf in Bishop garments,” calling her “heretical” and “diabolical.” Dominionist Jim Garlow complained that it was “torture” to listen to Budde.

The kind of religious-right figures who constantly complain that conservative pastors aren’t preaching enough about politics complained that Bishop Budde would “lecture us about contemporary political positions,” in the words of Choral Ridge Ministries’ Rob Pacienza.

Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins denounced Budde’s comments as “rather pathetic,” tweeting that “The cause of America’s decline was not what was sitting in the pew but what was standing behind the pulpit.” Wallbuilders’ Tim Barton had the gall to complain about Budde “making a political speech from the pulpit” and griped about the service including people of other faiths.

Pastor and Trump apologist Robert Jeffress complained that Budde had “insulted rather than encouraged our great president.” Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia declared on X, “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.” Alex Jones denounced Budde as a “wokist cult leader.”

Trump himself demeaned Budde on his Truth social feed, calling her a “so-called Bishop.”

Meanwhile, Feucht also posted a celebratory video sharing his excitement that Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth has invited him to hold one of his Christians-only religious revivals in the Pentagon.

It’s worth noting that other Christians have praised and welcomed Budde’s remarks as an example of the kind of moral courage and leadership that is required in an era when Trump’s MAGA movement has been fully embraced by dominionists and white Christian nationalists. rww

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AN 1 25

J. Dylan Sandifer is now a sociology professor at the University of the District of Columbia, but Sandifer didn't grow up in the U.S. capitol. Sandier was raised in East Texas and had a strict evangelical fundamentalist upbringing — and now rejects that ideology.

In a biting think piece published by The New Republic on January 13, Sandifer emphasizes that one of most troubling characteristics of far-right evangelical Christian fundamentalists is their disdain for "critical thinking." And that disdain, Sandifer warns, poses a threat to democracy itself.

"Growing up in the evangelical church in the piney woods of East Texas, the world felt circumscribed by an ever-present fear — not just of sin but of ideas that might challenge the worldview handed down to those of us in the pews," Sandifer explains. "Everything outside the Christian framework — including secular music, television, and books — was discouraged. Just as I signed multiple purity pledges throughout my preteen and teen years, promising to avoid not just sex, but even impure thoughts, we were taught to practice absolute abstinence from dangerous ideas."

READ MORE:['Utterly inadequate': Conservative warns Trump 'major war' is looming — and he’s not ready

The "evangelical distrust of intellectual inquiry," Sandifer observes, "has found a powerful ally in American right-wing politics" — going back to the late Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr.'s alliance with President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s.

"The rise of Jerry Falwell Sr.'s Moral Majority and its embrace by the Reagan campaign provided organizational structure to these fears, helping translate religious anxieties about intellectual corruption into political action," the sociology professor observes. "Building on the foundation laid during the Reagan Administration, figures like Pat Robertson continued to leverage this partnership in the 1990s through organizations like the Christian Coalition of America."

Sandifer adds, "They capitalized on fears of moral decline to mobilize voters and influence policy, solidifying evangelical influence within the Republican Party."

With President-elect Donald Trump's encouragement, Sandifer warns, the "alliance between evangelical Christianity and conservative politics" has "fostered a cultural paranoia that seeks to limit the range of acceptable ideas."

READ MORE:[Revealed: Allies are grilling career intel staff to ensure total loyalty to Trump

"In an era of rising authoritarianism and deepening social division," the sociology profess writes, "our capacity to think critically about ideas rather than fear them may well determine whether democracy survives. The question isn't whether we can protect ourselves from ideas, but whether we can develop the intellectual resources to evaluate ideas thoughtfully."

READ MORE:['It is tremendous': Kremlin insiders explain how Trump is already helping advance Putin’s goals

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AN 12 24

'Pay-to-pray': Trump reportedly charging supporters $100,000 to attend church service with him

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an 12 24

The Family Research Council is a conservative advocacy group with a “biblical worldview.” While it has a church ministries department that works with churches from several evangelical Christian denominations that share its perspectives, it does not represent a single denomination. Although its activities are primarily focused on policy, advocacy, government lobbying and public communication, the Internal Revenue Service granted the council’s application to be treated as “an association of churches” in 2020.

Concerned that the IRS had erred in allowing the council and similar groups to be designated churches or associations of churches, Democratic members of the House of Representatives sent the Treasury secretary and the IRS commissioner letters in 2022 and 2024 expressing alarm. The House Democrats pointed to what appeared to be “abuse” of the tax code and asked the IRS to “determine whether existing guidance is sufficient to prevent abuse and what resources or Congressional actions are needed.”

As a professor of nonprofit law, I believe some groups that aren’t churches or associations of churches want to be designated that way to avoid the scrutiny being a charitable organization otherwise requires. At the same time, some other groups that should qualify as churches may have difficulty doing so because of the IRS’ outdated test for that status.

Together with my colleague Ellen P. Aprill, I recently published a paper outlining two main arguments in favor of revising the federal government’s definitions of churches as they pertain to tax law.

No 990s means less scrutiny

All charitable nonprofits, including churches, get the same basic benefits under federal tax law. This means they don’t have to pay taxes on their revenue and that donors can deduct the value of their gifts from their taxable income – as long as they itemize deductions on their tax return.

Unlike other tax-exempt charities, churches don’t have to file 990 forms. That means the public does not have access to churches’ staff pay, board membership and funding details, which are in this publicly available tax form that all other charities must complete every year. The availability of 990 forms enhances the transparency and accountability of the nonprofit sector.

And churches and associations of churches are unlikely to get audited by the IRS. Federal law requires that a senior IRS official “reasonably believes” the church or association has violated federal tax rules before beginning an investigation. This means that an official must have reason to believe the organization has violated federal tax law before obtaining any information from the organization.

This standard is higher than what’s needed before an audit can begin for all other tax-exempt organizations and indeed all taxpayers. For everyone else, the IRS is free to begin an examination based only on a suspicion of a violation or even based on random selection.

Also, unlike other tax-exempt charities, churches and church associations are automatically eligible for their tax-exempt status. They don’t have to apply for it.

Why churches get special treatment

Congress has passed laws granting churches and what it calls “integrated auxiliaries” and “conventions or associations of churches” special protections because the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects religious freedom.

Churches include houses of worship ranging in size from a handful of parishioners to megachurches with 10,000 or more people attending weekly services. Houses of worship of all faiths, including synagogues, mosques and temples, count as churches, according to the IRS.

Integrated auxiliaries are church schools and other organizations affiliated with churches or conventions and primarily supported by internal church sources, as opposed to by the public or government.

Conventions or associations of churches are organizations that have houses of worship from either a single denomination or from multiple denominations as their members. Most denominational bodies, such as the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are likely conventions or associations of churches, although the IRS does not publish a list of such entities.

Not every religious nonprofit belongs in one of these categories.

For example, the University of Notre Dame, where I teach law students and conduct legal research, and World Vision, a global humanitarian group, are both religious organizations that do not fall into any of these categories. This makes sense, because Notre Dame and World Vision are primarily engaged in activities other than fostering a religious congregation or coordinating the activities of churches within a single denomination.

The IRS has long relied on a 14-factor test to distinguish churches from the other religious nonprofits. Examples of those factors include having ordained ministers, a formal doctrine, a distinct membership and a regular congregation attending religious services.

It’s not necessary for all the factors to apply to pass this test.

IFrame Content

Yet for almost as long, courts have been uncomfortable with this test because it draws heavily on the traditional characteristics of Protestant Christian churches, as the U.S. Court of Federal Claims explained in a 2009 ruling. This system therefore may be a poor fit for houses of worship of other faiths, especially given the increasing diversity of faith communities.

These courts have instead adopted an “associational test.” It focuses on whether the organization’s congregants hold religious services on a regular basis and gather in person on other occasions.

With the growth of virtual and televised religious services, an update of this test is overdue.

Proposed solutions

Aprill and I recommend that the IRS change its definition for churches to the associational one adopted by some courts in rulings as early as 1980. As the U.S. Court of Federal Claims explained in that 2009 ruling, this test focuses on whether a body of believers assembles regularly to worship. Given technological advances, the IRS should also make it clear that this test can be satisfied through remote participation in religious services using interactive, teleconferencing apps such as Zoom.

This definition would be also better suited for congregations of all faiths because some faiths do not prioritize many of the factors included in the IRS test, such as having a formal code of doctrine or requiring members to not be associated with other houses of worship or faiths. And it would better reflect how some Americans participate in religious services today.

We recommend that the IRS revisit its test for being a church and that Congress pass a law that would change the definition of church associations. The new law could limit associations of churches to organizations that represent a single denomination, as Congress likely initially intended.

This latter change would make it harder for religious organizations that are primarily involved in bringing churches from multiple faiths together to engage in advocacy or other activities to obtain this status and the lack of transparency and accountability that come with it. We believe Congress, not the IRS, should make this change because of the potential political tensions that narrowing the definition could create.

We don’t think the changes would impinge upon the special role that churches have in our society. Indeed, the revised test for qualifying as a church would better fit with both the increasing variety of faiths in our country and technological advancements.

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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an 12 24

Public opinion research conducted in October shows a shift in one political party that might make Donald Trump’s election on Nov. 5 less of a surprise. A majority of the party now agrees with a sentiment about immigration that has previously been associated with organized hate — that they are “poisoning the blood of the country.”

While October marked the first time respondents were asked that question, responses to others indicated a hard shift against immigrants by Republicans and white evangelical protestants — especially after Trump became president.

The Public Religion Research Institute is a nonpartisan group that studies political issues alongside religious values. Since its founding in 2013, it’s conducted its American Values Survey and done more than 200,000 interviews in the process.

Among its most recent findings was a 50-point gap between Republicans and Democrats over how pressing an issue immigration is for the country. And there now is a huge difference between the parties about whether undocumented immigrants who meet certain criteria should be offered a path to citizenship.

In 2013, 71% of Democrats and 64% of independents believed a path to citizenship should be offered. The percentage for Democrats rose to 77% by October, while it fell to 55% for independents.

But for Republicans, the change was far more dramatic.

In 2013, most Republicans — 53% — believed that qualifying people should be offered a path to citizenship. As of October, just 36% did.

At a recent conference in Washington, D.C., Public Religion Research Institute Founder and CEO Robert P. Jones said that support for a path mostly held steady for Republicans between 2013 and 2019, “then it begins to drop, then it just fell off a cliff beginning last year.”

Jones said the partisan disparity indicates that we’ve entered a new era when it comes to the politics of immigration.

“This is a very, very different world than we were living in even 10 years ago,” he said.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a religious element to the disparity.

White evangelical protestants make up the only major religious group that does not have a majority supporting a path to citizenship. That support has fallen from 53% in 2013 to 40% now.

The Public Religion Research Institute survey seemed to find an element of hatred in some of the opposition to allowing more undocumented immigrants to become citizens.

“There were a number of questions that, as a social scientist, I found myself having to ask that I never thought I’d have to ask,” Jones said of the most recent survey.

One was prompted by Trump’s statement a year ago that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” The statement has ominous implications because Adolph Hitler, who murdered 6 million Jews along with millions of other targeted groups, made several versions of the statement, including that a male Jew “poisons the blood of others…”

In the survey, Jones asked, “Do you agree or disagree that immigrants who are entering the country today are poisoning the blood of our country?”

A full 34% of Americans agree.

“There is a gigantic partisan gap on this question,” Jones said.

Almost two-thirds of Republicans — 61% — 33% of independents, and just 13% of Democrats agreed that immigrants are poisoning the blood of a nation of immigrants.

Jones, who holds a Ph.D. in religion, said that so many Americans agree with such a statement should concern everyone.

“A racist and hate-filled conception of immigrants has really taken hold with a significant minority of the population,” he said.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and X.

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an 11 24

Far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been a highly divisive figure in Lone Star State politics, often drawing vehement criticism not only from Democrats, but also from fellow Republicans. Nonetheless, Paxton survived an impeachment trial in the Texas State Senate, where he was acquitted on 16 articles. And the Donald Trump ally hasn't become any less combative.

Paxton, a Baptist who embraces a severe brand of Christian fundamentalism, is known for picking fights with churches he considers impure. And his latest religious target, according to Chron.com reporter Eric Killelea, is a church in Austin that helps the homeless.

Killelea reports that on Tuesday, November 26, Paxton announced a lawsuit against Austin's Sunrise Community Church in response to their activities on behalf of the city's homeless.

READ MORE:['Encouraging decision': Here are the Trump Cabinet picks Russia is most excited about

The Texas attorney general declared, "By operating a taxpayer-funded drug paraphernalia giveaway next to an elementary school, this organization is threatening students' health and safety and unjustly worsening daily life for every single resident of the neighborhood. We will shut this unlawful nuisance behavior down."

In Austin, Sunrise operates a nonprofit called the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center.

Paxton, in the lawsuit, describes the church as a "magnet" for people with drug problems and alleges that the Navigation Center encourages them to commit crimes.

The lawsuit alleges, "Sunrise homeless clients break into residents' homes. They menace residents with machetes. They routinely urinate and defecate in the streets. They masturbate in public, while trying to grab passing women. They wake up residents with high-pitched screams in the middle of the night."

READ MORE:['Do we advise the president to look elsewhere?' GOP senators uneasy about Tulsi Gabbard

According to the Sunrise Community Church, however, the Navigation Center has helped many homeless Texans overcome homelessness.

Killelea reports, "Sunrise Community Church, which is part of the Reformed Church in America — a generally liberal denomination within the Protestant faith — has described the Sunrise Homeless Navigation Center as the largest provider of homelessness services in Travis County. The Center, founded in 2015, provides meals, showers and computer access to people experiencing homelessness, per reporting by the Austin American-Statesman's Skye Seipp. The church claims to have helped more than 4275 people move into housing through the ministry.

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an 11 24 beware select bias

President-elect Donald Trump has plenty of detractors and critics within Christianity, from devout Catholics like outgoing President Joe Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) to the Rev. Al Sharpton and Sen. Raphael Warnock (R-Georgia).

Yet among far-right white evangelicals, Trump has enjoyed considerable support. And they were among his most ardent supporters during the 2024 presidential race.

According to Religion News Service (RSN) reporter Bob Smietana, some evangelicals in Tennessee are stressing that that United States, post-election, is still facing major challenges.

READ MORE:[Republican says 'colored people' wouldn't have basketball if not for Abraham Lincoln

Smietana, in an article published on November 15, reports, "While Donald Trump's faith advisers were elated that voters returned him to the White House, some evangelical pastors in Tennessee were more muted in the days after the election. Like their congregants and voters around the nation, who said in exit polls that the economy determined their vote more than any other issue, the pastors RNS interviewed were focused more on the cost of day-to-day items like gas and food than a revival of Christian power."

Bob Cowell, pastor of the Brownsville Baptist Church in Tennessee, is troubled by how politically divided the United States continues to be. And he believes that social media is a big part of the problem.

Cowell told RSN, "I would joyfully welcome a mass crash of multiple servers, where X is brought down and Facebook is brought down, and all of these social networking sites. I think people have now grown full jobs out of making people angry at and mistrusting people who hold different ideas…. People wondered why we're more divided than we've ever been. Well, we did it to ourselves."

Cowell added that, for economic reasons, he is glad Trump won — saying, "I’d like to see milk not be $6 a gallon, or gas, $4 a gallon”

Mike Waddy, pastor of First Baptist Church in tiny Maury City, Tennessee, sees the economy as a key factor in Trump's victory over Harris.

Waddy told RSN, "Our people watched some of their friends fall under their ability to make it. Food pantries like ours wound up heavily supplementing some people's ability to eat."

READ MORE:[Trump's bamboozle — and the real reason behind his controversial cabinet picks

*Read Religion News Service's full report at this link.

SNIPZZ1

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rww 11/04/2024

Kyle Mantyla

David Gilbert and Vittoria Elliott @ Wired: In Pews Across America, Evangelicals Are Told That God Wants Donald Trump

The weekend before the election, one Pennsylvania pastor told congregants that hosting Elon Musk weeks earlier was “phenomenal.” In Nevada, another dressed as a garbageman while urging his flock to vote Trump.

Stephanie McCrummen @ The Atlantic: This Just in From Heaven

What a growing pro-Trump Christian movement tells viewers of its premier news show.

Kathryn Post @ Religion News Service: Charlie Kirk's TPUSA opens a new front in 'spiritual warfare' on Christian campuses

Since 2020, TPUSA chapters have appeared at more than 45 Christian colleges or universities, at least 35 of them affiliated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the largest association of Christian schools.

Angry White Men: ‘There’s Gonna Be Some Crying Little Babies’: Andrew Isker Defends Trump’s Deportation Plan

On their Contra Mundum podcast, white, Christian nationalists Andrew Isker and C. Jay Engel defended Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of immigrants, even at the cost of separating immigrant families. Isker remarked that in order to ensure U.S. citizens aren’t killed by immigrants “there’s gonna be some crying little babies.”

Kat Abughazaleh @ Mother Jones: Watch Fox News Melt Down Over Wives Voting Independently

Mother Jones creator Kat Abughazaleh argues that Watters’ reaction reveals the fierce undercurrent of sexist resentment coursing through this year’s campaign, typified by Donald Trump, who just this week ominously vowed to protect women, “whether the women like it or not.”

Maurício Alencar @ The Daily Beast: Neo-Nazi Influencer Nick Fuentes Now Says ‘Trumpism Is a Cult’

Neo-Nazi personality Nick Fuentes has ridiculed Donald Trump for dressing up as a garbage man, despite once being one of his most outspoken supporters and former dinner guests. In a rant on his channel, the white nationalist streamer said MAGA was indeed a cult.

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aha

SPIN ON DEATH THREAT god WILL GET YOU

violence precursors threat and prop damage, DIRTY TRICK notE no left equiv

an 11 24

In Kenosha, the local Democratic Party office has received calls about residents who put up yard signs supporting Vice President Kamala Harris receiving letters, warning of reprisal and biblical hell fire if they don’t vote for former President Donald Trump.

Lori Hawkins, chair of the Kenosha County Democratic Party, said that people have been reporting the letters to the Kenosha Police Department. “There’s a couple different versions of it, but most people I know have gotten both of them,” Hawkins told Wisconsin Examiner.

One of the letters, images of which were shared with Wisconsin Examiner, opens with the line, “We see that you have Democrat signs on your property.” The letter asks, “are you not aware that when you die that you will be held accountablebefore almighty God for voting for an open border that allows millions of illegal immigrants to freely enter, many of which are felons and evil people that have been doing deadly harm and will continue to do so [?]” The letter goes on to warn that voters will be held accountable by God “for voting for communism to take over America,” ending that “we don’t want anyone going to horrible hell, but you are on a fast path to it.”

After receiving multiple reports about the letters, Hawkins said that the Kenosha County Democratic Party decided to make a social media post, to ensure that people knew that they weren’t alone. The letters are typed and unsigned. “We know that the people who are putting these letters in mailboxes really believe the topics or the issues that are in the letters, and they’re probably doing it because they are fearful,” said Hawkins. “We know that it’s a bigger organization that’s fomenting this kind of fear, and playing to people’s anxieties and worries.”

Hawkins feels that the letters are “twisting the platform of Democrats who are on the ballot in a way that is, you know, pretty vile and false.” Hawkins has also received reports of Democratic yard and barn signs being slashed, defaced, driven over, or stolen. “And let’s be clear, I have heard and seen none of that happening with the large political signs belonging to Republican Party candidates,” said Hawkins. “So this is just an attempt to silence people, and make people fearful.”

Still, hundreds of people turned out for recent canvassing days held by the Kenosha County Democratic Party. Nancy Locante, a volunteer with the Kenosha County Democratic Party, received one of the letters, mailed to her with no return address. “America is at a crossroads,” one of the letters she received stated. The letter described “transgender ideology infecting our children’s schools,” high grocery bills, immigration, and persecution of “Christian values.” The letter urged Locante to vote for “biblical truths.” Locante said, “that’s quite a bit of intimidation, but of course they don’t have the guts to put their names on it. It can be a little unsettling knowing that they are watching you. But it’s unfortunate that these people’s beliefs are so misguided.” Locante hasn’t been deterred. “I’m walking around with all my buttons and merch on,” she said.

Locante plans to continue helping the Kenosha County Democratic Party canvass neighborhoods ahead of Nov. 5.

In Milwaukee, Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT)have knocked on over 600,000 doors urging people to get out and vote. LIT’s organizers said they have received reports of identical letters in communities between Milwaukee and Kenosha.

In early October, the Milwaukee suburban city of Wauwatosa experienced a string of sign vandalism, which targeted Democratic-endorsed yard signs. From Wauwatosa’s southeastern corner near 55th street and Wisconsin, all the way up to the northwestern corner of 81st street and Meinecke avenue, signs were defaced with red spray paint. The Republican Party of Milwaukee County denounced the vandalism in Wauwatosa, and said those responsible should be held accountable. In September, red spray paint was used to deface Democratic signs in Madison.

Both presidential campaigns continue to focus heavily on Wisconsin. Harris and Trump held competing rallies in Milwaukee Friday night ahead of Election Day on Tuesday.

Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on Facebook and X.

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an 10 24

During his appearances on MSNBC, Stuart Stevens — a veteran conservative strategist/consultant and outspoken Never Trumper — has been arguing that when independent voters get a really good look at presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, incumbent President Joe Biden will enjoy a major surge. Stevens predicts that the election will swing in Biden's direction around October.

Polls released in June, however, are showing a close nailbiter of a race, with Trump slightly ahead in some national polls and Biden slightly ahead in others. Whatever independents ultimately decide, Trump continues to be extremely popular with his hardcore MAGA base.

In an article published by The Atlantic on June 16, Never Trump conservative Peter Wehner describes "motivated ignorance" as a key factor in the support that Trump still enjoys. According to Wehner, Trump's diehard supporters are oblivious to reality.

READ MORE: [Black Senate candidate's signs defaced with 'KKK' and crosshairs on her forehead: report

"Motivated ignorance refers to willfully blinding oneself to facts," Wehner explains. "It's choosing not to know. In many cases, for many people, knowing the truth is simply too costly, too psychologically painful, too threatening to their core identity."

Wehner argues that MAGA diehards who refuse to pay attention to facts are "blind to the cultlike world to which they belong."

"Still others have convinced themselves that Trump, although flawed, is the best of bad options," Wehner explains. "It's a 'binary choice,' they say, and so, they have talked themselves into supporting arguably the most comprehensively corrupt man in the history of American politics, certainly in presidential politics."

Wehner adds, "Whichever justification applies, they are giving not just their vote, but their allegiance to a man and movement that have done great harm to our country and its ideals, and which seek to inflict even deeper wounds in the years ahead. Many of them are self-proclaimed evangelicals and fundamentalists, and they are also doing inestimable damage to the Christian faith they claim is central to their lives."

READ MORE:[How a '90s 'right-wing populist revolt' paved the way for Trumpism

*Peter Wehner's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

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an alternet-lno lnx

Not all former 'Trump pastors' appear to support his 2024 campaign

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump and Franklin Graham, President of Samaritan's Purse, shake hands at an event about the damage caused by Hurricane Helene, in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S., September 30, 2024. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

Alexandria JacobsonOctober 30, 2024

With Election Day one week away, the campaign for Republican nominee former President Donald Trump organized a self-titled “11th hour” meeting for faith leaders last Monday in Concord, N.C.

The event, featuring Trump, his son Eric Trump, retired neurosurgeon and former Trump administration Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, and other religious leaders, aimed to “mobilize the Christian vote, which is the largest vote in America,” Jackson Lahmeyer, founder of Pastors for Trump, told Raw Story.

“Our aim is to send all of these pastors back to their churches encouraged and willing to say to their congregation, now you gotta get out and vote in this election,” Lahmeyer said.

The Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University predicts that Christians, who make up two-thirds of Americans, may have an outsized influence in next month’s election. Of voters who frequently attend religious services, 59 percent of them cast their ballot for Trump in 2020, according to Pew Research Center.

ALSO READ: 'Chosen by God': A new kind of convert is making the pilgrimage to see Trump

During the event, Trump said his presidential run was the result of “God leading me to where I am today,” and he emphasized that “Americans of faith are not a threat to our country. Americans of faith are the soul of our country.”

As the election nears its final days, both Trump and his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, have increased their campaign stops targeted at religious voters — with Trump’s campaign even painting the election as "spiritual warfare."

Harris attended church services and spoke at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta a week ago. Trump criticized Harris as “very disrespectful to our Catholic community,” for not attending the Al Smith dinner in New York City, a high-profile fundraiser for Catholic charities, last week, NBC reported.

Trump has enlisted the support of pastors across the country—as many as 10,000, according to Lahmeyer—naming some to roles such as spiritual advisers and others to his various coalitions, boards and groups.

Raw Story compiled a list of Trump-affiliated faith leaders who’ve advised or supported his campaign over the years — some showing varying levels of public support, others stepping away.

Paula White

White is a televangelist and former senior pastor of City of Destiny church in Apopka, Fla., a historically Black congregation that transitioned to a mostly elderly white congregation under her leadership.

White has been a spiritual adviser to Trump for years. She delivered an invocation for Trump’s 2017 inauguration and advised his administration’s Faith and Opportunity initiative. White delivered prayers on Jan. 6, 2021 at a “Save America” rally in Washington, D.C., and she led his national faith advisory board starting in September 2021.

“As a friend, pastor, and faith adviser to President Trump for over 20 years, I've been able to witness President Trump's deep commitment to faith. And never more than after surviving the violent attack on his very life on July 13th,” White said in a press release in July announcing the campaign’s “Believers for Trump” coalition. “As president, he championed people of faith of every denomination and defended our religious freedoms with the belief that we worship God, not government."

White has appeared less in the public eye this election cycle, especially since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden stepping away in July, Religion News Service reported in September.

Yet, Trump shouted her out at last Monday’s event, looking for her in the audience but said she was likely in the back “making phone calls, getting more people lined up for the vote.”

White also spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in June, sharing that Trump asked her about what God thought of his presidential candidacy.

“I said, ‘Sir … you’re going to be president one day,’” White allegedly said, but added, “I hate the price that you’re going to pay.

Mark Walker

A former U.S. representative, Walker, was facing a Republican primary runoff election in March against Trump-backed Addison McDowell in a race to represent North Carolina's 6th District.

Then Trump offered Walker a job directing the campaign’s outreach to faith groups and minority communities, prompting him to drop out of the race.

Walker, a former Baptist pastor, has made barely any public appearances since taking the job in March. He did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Jackson Lahmeyer

Lahmeyer, the founder of Pastors for Trump, said the group was supporting the campaign with last Monday’s event by inviting pastors to attend. While not officially affiliated with the Trump campaign, the group does outreach to pastors in all 50 states.

“Every pastor, whether they pastor a church of 70 people, 700 people or 7,000 people, they have influence,”Lahmayer told Raw Story. “If a pastor tells their congregation you should vote, odds are those members are going to listen to their pastor. That's the simple strategy, but it's very effective.”

Lahmeyer is the pastor of Sheridan Church in Tulsa, Okla, and lost his Republican Senate primary race to now-Sen. James Lankford (R-OK). He has participated in the ReAwaken America tour, founded by entrepreneur Clay Clark and former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn, which has been known to push conspiracy theories, misinformation and election denialism.

Lahmeyer has been a vocal advocate of Christian nationalism, and his social media posts have supported conspiracy theorists and demonized Democrats, according to Rolling Stone.

“I will embrace Christian Nationalism because… we are at war in this country; it is a spiritual war between good and evil,” Laymeyer told Rolling Stone.

His posts have ranged from “Alex Jones did nothing wrong” to “Speaker Pelosi is a DEMON.”

Laymeyer also called members of the LGBTQ+ community demonic in June, LGBTQ Nation reported.

“The LGBTQXYZ+3 movement is a demonic-inspired movement. It’s totally demonic," Lahmeyere said.

Lahmeyer spoke out in July after the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pa.

"What is our response?" Laymeyer told Fox 23 in Tulsa. "This is key. What's our response? Do we lash back? Try to get vengeance?"

Franklin Graham

Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, spoke at last Monday’s event, leading the group in praying for Trump to win the election.

Graham said “dark forces” were at work against Trump and “encouraged President Trump that when he wakes up in the morning, that the first thing he does is to ask God for help, and if he does, God will hear and God will answer his prayer.”

Graham, president and CEO of Christian humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, spoke with Axios in 2018 about why he supported Trump , despite the former president's alleged sexual misconduct and extramarital affairs.

"Trump has admitted his faults and has apologized to his wife and his daughter for things he has done and said. And he has to stand before God for those things,” Graham said.

Graham has recently taken issue with an ad from Evangelicals for Harris that used a clip of his late father, Newsweek reported.

“They are trying to mislead people. Maybe they don't know that my father appreciated the conservative values and policies of President @realDonaldTrump in 2016, and if he were alive today, my father's views and opinions would not have changed." Graham died in 2018 at the age of 99,” Graham posted.

Robert Morris

Morris, founding pastor of Texas megachurch Gateway Church, stepped down from the church in June after admitting to The Christian Post that he repeatedly sexually abused a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.

Morris was a member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board for the 2016 election.

“When I was in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying. It was kissing and petting and not intercourse, but it was wrong. This behavior happened on several occasions over the next few years,” Morris said in a statement to The Christian Post.

Morris continued, “In March of 1987, this situation was brought to light, and it was confessed and repented of. I submitted myself to the Elders of Shady Grove Church and the young lady’s father. They asked me to step out of ministry and receive counseling and freedom ministry, which I did. Since that time, I have walked in purity and accountability in this area.”

Morris’ accuser Cindy Clemishire, told The Christian Post she was “appalled” that Morris said she was a “young lady” when he abused her.

“I was 12 years old. I was a little girl. A very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home. He and his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh, and trusted and preached at the church that my dad helped start and then began grooming all of us to do this, which took me decades to wrap my brain around as an adult,” Clemishire said.

Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to Raw Story's request for comment.

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an 10 24

Churches helping a far-right group get predominantly Republican voters to the polls may be in violation of federal tax laws, according to several experts.

NBC News reported that Turning Point USA (TPUSA) — an Arizona-based group founded by MAGA activist Charlie Kirk — is primarily depending on churches to get out the vote for former President Donald Trump in Tuesday's election. And while churches have traditionally been an important tool for both major parties to spread awareness about upcoming elections, Kirk's clergy partners are engaging in explicitly partisan activity. This risks those churches losing their tax-exempt status with the IRS.

At Restoration Hope Church in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, Pastor David Rose recently allowed TPUSA to host one of its "Super Chase" events. These events involve training members of congregations on "ballot-chasing" apps that pinpoint likely Republican voters for them to target in phone-banking and door-knocking efforts. Likewise, the training sessions train participants to avoid reaching out to members of the "wrong party," meaning Democrats.

Rose insisted that the "Super Chase" session was "not an event hosted by our church nor was it a church related event," though NBC reported that it still "most likely violated tax law." The network reported that Rose was seen posing next to signs that read "Commie Kamala" and Trump's catchphrase, "Make America Great Again."

"It is common for churches to allow other organizations to use their facilities outside of church related events," Rose said.

But some tax law experts told NBC that Rose and other churches that have hosted "Super Chase" events — including in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin — are likely in violation of the Johnson Amendment. That's the 1954 federal law prohibiting tax-exempt organizations from participating in partisan politics.

University of Pittsburgh law professor Philip Hackney, who is also a former IRS employee, told the network that TPUSA's partisan political activity at churches "is at a different level than anything I’ve seen before," particularly given the group's documented ties to both the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.

“The Republican Party, in effect,” Hackney said, “is explicitly using churches through this system in order to get out the vote.”

Notre Dame law professor Lloyd Mayer agreed that Kirk and TPUSA's congregational partners were risking losing their tax-exempt status given their blatantly pro-Republican electioneering. This is despite TPUSA insisting that the "Super Chase" events are perfectly legal.

“They can’t favor a particular candidate or, by implication, a group of candidates, like Republicans versus Democrats,” Mayer said. “This effort is obviously favoring getting out voters who will favor the Republican candidates.”

Click here to read NBC's report in its entirety.

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rww 10/30/2024

Kyle Mantyla

Self-proclaimed "prophet" Amanda Grace hosted a " that was six hours long!
Jackson Lahmeyer that God will remove "every single elected official who refuses to listen to your voice and do your will" from office.
Gene Bailey thinks that Steve Bannon might be a "modern-day [Apostle] Paul."
Dalton Clodfelter asserts that "rape isn't real."
Finally, Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon preached that physical abuse is not "a justifiable case for divorce because it's not in the Bible."

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random

10/25/2024 rww

Kyle Mantyla

Jack Hibbs that former President Donald Trump will win the upcoming election and warns that "unless there's a miracle, I don't see the U.S. surviving this election."

David Barton says that this election is poised to have "the lowest presidential election turnout in American history": "All the way back to George Washington, we've never had an election turnout as low as this one is showing to be." That doesn't even make sense, given that Washington and the first several presidents were all chosen directly by the Electoral College with next to no input from voters whatsoever.

Lance Wallnau is now, for some reason, selling coffee cake.

Pastor Larry Huck declares "politics and spirituality are synonymous."

Finally, Eric Metaxas mocks progressives as lunatics who live in fear that people like him will incite violence. Here is a video of Metaxas sucker punching an anti-Trump protester in 2020.

===

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random rww

10/10/2024 rww

Kyle Mantyla

Mark Meckler says that "FEMA shouldn't exist in the first place" because the federal government should have no role in responding to natural disasters.
Rob McCoy claims that the United States is currently facing the "third most critical junction in American history," after the American Revolution and the Civil War.
Rick Green asserts that Christians must be politically engaged because "Jesus spent a lot of time talking about politics."
Vincent James declares that "denying Christ should be worse than denying the Holocaust."
Finally, Joel Webbon calls for "millions of deportations" followed by a ban on all immigration for decades.

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===

10 24 badash

A massive new study finds a large number of Republicans, Trump supporters, and conservatives support violence under the guise of saving the country or ensuring the “rightful” leader is put in the White House.

Three in ten Republicans (29%) believe “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” according to the nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization PPRI’s “2024 American Values Survey.”

Nearly one in four MAGA Republicans (23%) “say that if Trump loses the election, he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume office.” That view is also held by nearly one on five (19%) Republicans overall, including those who do not support Trump.

MAGA Republicans, or “Republicans who view Trump favorably are three times as likely as those who hold unfavorable views [of Trump] to support political violence (32% vs. 11%).

More than one in five Republicans (22%) agree that “if the 2024 presidential election is compromised by voter fraud, everyday Americans will need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even if it requires taking violent actions.”

The study also looked at the politico-religious component of support for political violence, and found one-third (33%) of “Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers” agree that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”

Additionally, one-third of Latter-day Saints (33%) and nearly one in three white evangelical Protestants (28%) “agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”

Where Americans get their news appears to be a factor in their views on issues including violence and immigration.

“Americans who trust conservative news outlets are the most likely to support political violence (41%), followed by 30% of those who most trust Fox News, 18% of those who do not watch any TV news, and 13% of those who most trust mainstream TV news.”

Six in ten Republicans (61%) agree that “immigrants entering the country illegally today are poisoning the blood of our country,” PRRI’s survey finds, along with a “majority of Americans who most trust far-right news (70%) or Fox News (65%).”

Similarly, nearly two-thirds of Republicans (65%) support the “Great Replacement Theory,” and agree that “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.” PRRI also finds that the “vast majority of far-right news (83%) and Fox News viewers (66%) agree with this theory,” as do the majority of Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers (63%) and white evangelical Protestants (62%), as well as half (50%) of Latter-day Saints.

“Nearly eight in ten Republicans (79%) favor putting undocumented immigrants in encampments,” PRRI also found. “The vast majority of Americans who most trust far-right news (91%) or Fox News (82%) favor militarized encampments for undocumented immigrants.”

“White evangelical Protestants (75%) are most likely to favor militarized encampments for undocumented immigrants, followed by the majority of white Catholics (61%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (58%), and Latter-day Saints (56%).”

“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and these answers … are keeping me up at night,” PRRI president and founder Robert P. Jones told Axios. “It’s all pretty dark and worrisome.”

Axios had reported: “The growing number of Republicans willing to shun democratic norms — and possibly embrace violence — comes as Trump continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from him and is saying the 2024 election is already rigged.”

“Jones said those supporting the loser of the election doing whatever it takes to assume office are essentially endorsing a coup against the United States.”

Last week, Jones told MSNBC’s Joy Reid (video below), “there are [survey] questions that we have had to write during the Trump era as social scientists that I never thought we would have to write.”

“So to write that question and put it on a public opinion survey and say, we actually need to know what the American people think about this statement, that whether immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country, right, is just, I think we just pause for a minute, to say how astonishing that is.”

He added, “we’re all taught to kind of not be knee-jerk and kind of use the Nazi analogy…but like, ‘poisoning the blood’ — Mein Kampf uses the word blood 150 times,” referring to Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto.

“That’s Hitler’s word, right? And it’s often, it’s almost always used in this way, this kind of idea of purity and defilement, contamination, and it’s a politics of disgust that we’re really seeing here.”

Watch Jones on MSNBC below or at this link.

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===

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September 18, 2024 rww

Ben Zeisloft says that Amber Nicole Thurman, a Georgia woman who died after failing to receive timely medical treatment for complications arising from taking abortion pills, is “burning in Hell”: “Praise God for his glorious justice. Praise God for causing the wicked to stumble and fall into the very nets that they set for the innocent.”

* Scott Lively claims that “the term ‘homophobia’ and its derivatives are no less offensive and demeaning to defenders of the natural family and traditional sexual morality than the term ‘faggot’ is to men afflicted with SSADness [same-sex attraction disorder]”: “A slur is a slur, and none of them has a legitimate place in civil discourse.”

Virulently misogynistic far-right activist Jon Miller defends domestic violence, saying that while “a woman every once in awhile needs a backhand” and that “errant wives” need to be “physically chastised,” what Diddy did went too far.

Nick Fuentes’ white supremacy is becoming increasingly open and aggressive, with him telling Jews and minorities that they “need to recognize your place” because “this is a white country.”

Finally, Lance Wallnau alleges that Vice President Kamala Harris demonstrated “15 microaggression expressions” during the presidential debate, akin to those displayed by Hitler: “Kamala is a dangerous woman.”

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an 8 24

In a report for The Associated Press last week, Peter Smith reported that Donald Trump's "support is as strong as ever among evangelicals and other conservative Christians."

Smith noted, "Many of the T-shirts and hats that were worn and sold at the rally in March proclaimed religious slogans such as 'Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president' and 'God, Guns & Trump.' One man’s shirt declared, 'Make America Godly Again,' with the image of a luminous Jesus putting his supportive hands on Trump’s shoulders."

The Atlantic's Peter Wehner highlights the hold Trump has on evangelicals in a Thursday, May 23 op-ed, noting, "In my years in politics, I’ve never found a group as easily seduced by political power as evangelicals." Wehner also wonders why that is.

Others, according to Wehner, have a similar question, wondering "how people who claim to be followers of Jesus can offer such dependable, even enthusiastic, support to a man of undisguised moral degeneracy."

He writes:

*How did we end up in a situation that led the late Timothy J. Keller, who was one of the most trusted Christian ministers in the world, to say that the word evangelical used to denote people who staked out the moral high ground—but now, in popular usage, is nearly synonymous with hypocrite?

*The answer is complicated. Part of the explanation is that many white evangelicals have convinced themselves that if Democrats win public office, especially the presidency, abortion and crime rates will skyrocket, there will be a 'war on Christianity,' and America will become a hellscape.

Furthermore, Wehner asserts, "Another reason things are playing out the way they are in the white evangelical world is that its leaders are giving in to the ancient temptation of proximity to political power, choosing to be court pastors in order to win the favor of the king. They are thrilled to be taken seriously, thrilled to be offered invitations to the halls of power, thrilled to be seen having influence in this world."

The Trinity Forum senior fellow also notes:

*In Walker Percy’s The Second Coming, Will Barrett, the novel’s main character, says of Christians, 'I cannot be sure they don’t have the truth. But if they have the truth, why is it the case that they are repellent precisely to the degree that they embrace and advertise that truth? One might even become a Christian if there were few if any Christians around. Have you ever lived in the midst of fifteen million Southern Baptists?' Barrett then puts forward a mystery: 'If the good news is true, why is not one pleased to hear it? And if the good news is true; why are its public proclaimers such assholes and the proclamation itself such a weary used-up thing?'

Wehner's friend, Steve Hayner — the former president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Columbia Theological Seminary — said something before his death in 2015 that Wehner will never forget: "The central character of God, Steve said, is love and grace, and the central mission of Christians is to extend God’s hand of grace to others."

Contrary to Hayner's assertion, Wehner notes that Malcolm Gladwell wrote in a 1986 essay: "For some on the religious right, advancing a political agenda has come to take precedence over even the most basic ethical considerations."

Pointing out that prominent evangelical, Franklin Graham, recently "conceded that Trump—twice impeached, thrice married, and four times indicted—at times uses 'locker room' talk." Wehner writes, "The narrative that’s being pushed by Graham is that Trump’s 'locker room' talk and 'mean tweets' are his worst transgressions."

However, The Atlantic writer emphasizes:

*This assertion is a lie, ignoble but in some respects understandable. After all, Trump supporters can’t defend who Trump really is, the awful things he does and says. They can’t defend his lawlessness and cruelty and crudity, the attempted coups and encouragement to his supporters to violently storm the Capitol and hang his vice president. They can’t defend his fraud and promiscuity, his love of conspiracy theories and affinity for dictators, his pathological lying and deranged rants, his misogyny and racism, his mockingof prisoners of war and those with disabilities. So they take his least problematic actions and pretend they’re his most problematic offenses. It’s the opposite of damning someone with faint praise; in this case, it’s praising Trump with faint damnation.

*Wehner's full op-ed is available here.

SNIPZZ

BAK 2025 PT 1

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an aug 27

Donald Trump — the former president responsible for the end of Roe v. Wade — last week claimed in a post published to Truth Social that if he wins the White House in November, he will turn into a reproductive rights advocate.

"My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights," he wrote, worrying staunch pro-life Republicans, like Trump's former Vice President Mike Pence.

NPR noted that the ex-MAGA official "called Trump’s comments 'concerning,'" and, "In a statement to the National Review, Pence said, 'The former President’s use of the language of the Left, pledging that his administration would be ‘great for women and their reproductive rights’ should be concerning for millions of pro-life Americans.'"

In an op-ed published by The Atlantic Tuesday, columnist Peter Wehner submits that "the pro-life justification for supporting Trump has just collapsed," and that evangelical Christians — who have long supported Trump, particularly for his pro-life views — have been betrayed by the former president.

Wehner now wonders whether staunch anti-abortion Republicans will condemn Trump's flip-flopping ways or if they plan to usher him into the presidency no matter what.

Aside from switching up his stance on the issue of reproductive rights, the columnist points out that "ending Roe is not the same thing as reducing the number of abortions in America." He adds, "In fact, the number of abortions has increased since the 2022 *Dobbs* decision, which overturned Roe. As Philip Klein wrote in National Review, 'overturning Roe was only the necessary first step of a much longer battle to protect the lives of the unborn. And on that battle, it increasingly looks like Trump is joining the other side.'"

Wehner writes:

Who in the pro-life movement—Al Mohler, Mike Huckabee, Franklin Graham, Eric Metaxas, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins, Robert Jeffress, and countless others—will speak out, publicly and forcefully and relentlessly, against Trump’s about-face? Will they tell the full truth, which is that abortions increased during the Trump presidency, that the pro-life movement is weaker than at almost any time in its history, and that, when it comes to making the Republican Party the home of the pro-life cause, Trump is doing unprecedented damage?*

Although The Atlantic columnist emphasizes, "This is not a hard call," Wehner recognizes that this level of boldness is unlikely.

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jason Rapert Says Members of the Arkansas State Library Board ‘Probably Should Be Tarred and Feathered’

[ | August 26, 2024 rww

In 2023, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed Christian nationalist activist and a zealously anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice former state senator Jason Rapert to the state library board. Predictably, his tenure on the board has been anything but smooth, with Rapert regularly lashing out at his fellow board members for refusing to support his far-right agenda and complaining that he’s been experiencing a “hostile work environment” because he is “a Christian white male.”

During a recent episode of his “Save The Nation” program, Rapert’s frustrations boiled over as he called on the state legislature to abolish the library board entirely, declaring that his fellow board members “probably should be tarred and feathered.”

“The Bible says, ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,'” Rapert said. “Well, when you have leaders that are not allowing the nation to be blessed of God, they’re not doing godly things, you need to replace them, get rid of them, get them out of office, put people back in there that will. You’ve got schools where they’re fighting over allowing homosexual, LGBTQ material to be utilized to groom children. … There needs to be people that will take up and sue anybody that is allowing that sort of thing to go on in our school districts and in our libraries.”

“I serve on the Arkansas Library Board,” Rapert continued. “I cannot get those other board members to take a stand to stop some of the smut that is in those libraries. It’s ridiculous. I’ve made motions trying to do it, and I am at a point now where it’s going to take so long to get new board members on there, if I were the legislature, I would run a bill just to abolishing the Arkansas State Library Board and let it be reconstituted. Put new people in there, or maybe they just need to call on people to resign if you’re not going to do your job.”

“When you don’t protect children in America, you have no business serving in a public official’s role,” Rapert griped. “You have no business serving on a board, you have no business serving in a state legislature, you have no business being an elected official at any level if you’re not going to protect children. When you get to a point that you’re so confused and you’re so completely jaded that you cannot make a decision to keep smut or pornographic stuff [away from] children, you’ve lost your ever-loving mind and you need to be replaced. You need to be taken out. Some people say, ‘Oh, he’s talking about violence.’ No, I’m not talking about violence. You need to be run out on a rail. You probably should be tarred and feathered. That’s what they used to do in America is they would tar and feather those kind of folks. Get rid of them. Teach them a lesson. Get them out of office.”

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Jason Rapert Says Members of the Arkansas State Library Board 'Probably Should Be Tarred and Feathered' from Right Wing Watch on Vimeo.

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| June 5, 2024 rww

Ben Johnson of The Washington Stand exposes “The Spiritual Warfare Behind the Trump Conviction.”
In a shocking development, Christian nationalist Jerry Newcombe did not like “Bad Faith,” the documentary about the dangers of Christian nationalism.
Randall Terry’s quixotic presidential campaign has scored the endorsement of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
Gene Bailey, host of the “FlashPoint” program, says that “nobody is going to give it to you 100 percent straight, besides us.”
Finally, religious-right activists insist that former President Donald Trump has a deep Christian faith, yet whenever he is asked about it, he inevitably responds by talking about how much evangelicals love him and rambling on incessantly.

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May 20, 2024 RWW

Emerald Robinson proclaims that “America is a Christian nation” and “if this offends you, then you should find another nation.”

Robert Knight declares that “by redefining marriage to dispense with the universally recognized male-female union, the [progressive] movement has engineered a legal juggernaut that criminalizes common sense and Judeo-Christian morality.”

* Elijah Schaffer attempts to explain “why racism is actually good.”

Dave Daubenmire is boldly “supporting heterosexuality while it’s still legal.”

Does Ben Zeisloft actually believe that this is a logical argument? “Men can be pastors. Men cannot be mothers. Women can be mothers. Women cannot be pastors.”

Finally, during a religious-right forum last week, candidates running for chair of the Republican Party of Texas were asked to list their top three priorities. Mike Garcia said his main priority is putting God and prayer into public schools.

===

premature?

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Evangelical pastor lays out his 2 'biggest regrets' — including pushing 'prosperity ideology' - Alternet.org

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gingrich memo origin

aha variants mind virus and mob contagion sick // dirty/ insane defective gullible?

an 2 24

Middletown Township, Pennsylvania man was arrested after claiming to have beheaded his father, a longtime federal government employee, and posting gruesome video of what he said is the severed head to social media. The suspect, 32 or 33 year-old Justin Mohn, is facing first degree murder charges. He also decried “far left woke mobs,” BLM and LGBTQ people, President Joe Biden, the federal government, and spewed other right-wing conspiracy theories.

“Some of the talking points made by Mohn echoed those of prominent online conspiracy theorists and far-right political commentators,” local news outlet LevittownNow.com reports.

“Mohn made inflammatory statements advocating for attacks on federal employees and properties. He expressed hostility towards illegal immigrants, President Joe Biden, senior federal officials, communists, ‘far-left woke mobs,’ Black Lives Matter supporters, and members of the LGBTQ community,” LevittownNow.com added. “In his rant, Mohn discussed Christian scriptures, called for debt cancellation, called for more adherence to Judeo-Christian values, spoke about human trafficking, and accused a major tech company of tax evasion. Additionally, he claimed that militias should protect him and mentioned previous FBI threats of arrest.”

:{:{WPVI, a local ABC affiliate, adds that “Mohn referred to himself as a militia leader and called his father a traitor to the co}:

untry for being a federal employee for 20 years.}:

“In the video, which YouTube has since removed, the son called his father a ‘traitor’ and said he’s happy that he is dead,” The Philadelphia Inquirer adds. ”’He is now in hell for eternity,’ he said, according to the complaint.”

The New York Post notes that in the since-removed YouTube video, “the man, who identifies himself as Justin Mohn, says to the camera before going on an unhinged rant against the government in line with QAnon conspiracy theories, calling for ‘militias’ across the US to unite and kill federal officials ‘on site.'”

“Mohn faces charges of first-degree murder, abuse of corpse and possessing instruments of crime, according to a Middletown Township Police Department criminal docket viewed by The Post,” the paper adds

--=

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5 24

stormy daniels trial ref other woamn plus

'Deeply troubling': Trump campaign accused of concealing settlement payouts to multiple women - Alternet.org

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April 29, 2024 RWW

David Lane gripes that “America was not settled by lily-livered Christians,” but “over the last 200 years, however, radical change has overtaken the nation, resulting in benumbing paganism now being America’s official religion.”

Mark Meckler calls for former President Donald Trump, if he’s reelected, to use a “weaponized DOJ” to raid the homes and offices of left-wing organizations: “We need to engage in full lawfare against the radical left.”

Christian nationalists Steve Cruz and Ben Zeisloft agree that any woman who gets an abortion “should be killed”: “She should be tried and convicted; dig a hole and put her down.”

Jason Rapert fumes over the U.S. providing humanitarian aid to Gaza: “You are lying devils and you’re evil.”

Shane Vaughn claims that Federalist 43 lays out “why Donald Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution.” Vaughn clearly never actually read that essay, since it says nothing of the sort.
Finally, MAGA pastor/self-proclaimed “prophet” Hank Kunneman used his Sunday sermon to declare that “God is far right” while ranting that Democrats are “dark black evil.”

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an 3 24

“I will not feed a demon,” Ruby Franke told her son. The former YouTube influencer starved, kicked and bound the 12-year-old, and twisted him into stress positions. When the boy’s restraints lacerated his flesh, Franke rubbed honey and cayenne pepper into the wounds and let them suppurate until the whole house stank.

Franke pled guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse. This week prosecutors released the underlying evidence in her case, including a diary in which she records the degradation of her children in meticulous detail and justifies it in the name of exorcism.

Franke believed that her children were possessed by demons that could only be cast out by horrific abuse and neglect. There are many similarities between Franke’s case and that of Lori Vallow, a cult leader who orchestrated the murder of her two children, her lover’s wife, (and probably her ex-husband,) and justified the slaughter by claiming her victims were possessed.

There’s no indication that Franke or Vallow had a partisan political agenda, but demonization is becoming a partisan political problem in its own right.

As Donald Trump seeks a second term, more and more high-profile Republicans are literally demonizing their political opponents. The candidate kicked off his reelection campaign in apocalyptic terms promising to be his voters retribution in the “final battle,” implicitly likening himself to a returned Christ in the final battle against the Antichrist.

Trump confidante Roger Stone claims to have seen a swirling demonic portal over Joe Biden’s White House. Trump strategist Steve Bannon has been railing about spiritual warfare and Democratic demons since at least 2021, according to an analysis by Media Matters.

Earlier this month, Republican senatorial hopeful and supreme Trump toady Kari Lake blamed demons for stealing the 2020 election. “We have to continue fighting. The devil is working. Evil is working. Those stolen [2020 and 2022] elections were meant to make us feel like we have been beat down and there's no hope,” Lake told a podcaster.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba tried to deflect criticism of her dismal courtroom performance by blaming Trump’s legal woes on demons.

You might think this is just the usual overheated sulfurous political rhetoric. After all, demons can be a potent metaphor for everything from the psychological problems of rock stars to the laws of thermodynamics. It’s hard for secular folks (or even worldly Christians) to relate to those who explain mundane events in terms of demons, but just because we can’t relate doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

Last week, Republican operative Charlie Kirk was babbling about Haiti being demonically possessed. “Haiti is legitimately infested with demonic voodoo” that allows practitioners to do “quasi-levitation stuff,” Kirk proclaimed. And furthermore, Kirk continued, he knows a guy who knows some guys who say Haitians turn into cats at night. Kirk also claims that witches made him sick in Albuquerque. When Fox News host Jesse Watters accused a Trump grand jury foreperson of witchcraft, Kirk amplified his charges.

Since the 1980s, growing numbers of Americans have embraced the idea of “spiritual warfare” against demons, which they believe to play active roles in politics and everyday life.

The fastest growing and most influential contingent of demon-believers is found in independent charismatic Christianity, including the radical movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). In NAR theology, demons command physical locations and worldly institutions such as journalism, academia and the government.

Anything a believer doesn’t like can be framed as demonic. Biden getting more votes than Trump is a "stolen" election in Lake's mind because it was the result of demonic influence. Anything that doesn't go their way is demons. Car breaks down? Demons. Depressed? Demons. Kid gay? Demons.

Thousands of protesters were enticed to Washington on January 6 by NAR leaders who promised to lead them in spiritual warfare against the demons that supposedly possessed the Capitol. The shofars honking around DC were NAR battle calls. For some, spiritual warfare spilled over into literal combat. This can easily happen when followers are steeped in violent rhetoric and their opposition is portrayed not as misguided or even malicious, but as demonic

An estimated 10 million Americans identify as independent charismatic Christians. However, a preoccupation with demons is not unique to the NAR. A Catholic priest from Nebraska told a videographer on January 6 that he had exorcized a tattooed demon named Baphomet from the Capitol. Trump’s circle of demon-pushers includes Baptists like Greg Locke and Robert Jeffress and Roman Catholics like Mike Flynn. Franke and Vallow identify as Mormon.

In the nineteen eighties, millions of Americans became convinced that satanists had infiltrated key sectors of society, including the C-suites of Fortune 500 companies, the recording industry, and the nation’s daycare centers. We laugh about the Satanic Panic, but we're living through something much worse.

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March 14, 2024 rww

* Alex McFarland says that “gay nationalists are the real threat to America”: “With contempt for God and His followers, traditional Americans are slammed as ‘Christian nationalists.’ But let’s call the woke zealots what they are: Gay Nationalists.”

Dave Hayes, one of the leading promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, now claims that whenever Q specifically predicted the arrest or indictment of someone, it was “intentionally disinformation.”
David Barton is a source of much of the false history peddled by Christian nationalists. For instance, he originated the claim that the Founders quoted the Bible more than any other source. That was debunked over a decade ago, but Barton keeps repeating it.
Speaking of Bartons, Tim Barton that the “history” he and his father produce is different because “we know there is a God, and therefore we don’t try to disconnect the God aspect from the story of history.”
Ben Zeisloft declares that “we need criminal penalties for adultery.”
Finally, while preaching to a Christian men’s conference, Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers the audience that they do not “serve a wimp, limp-wristed gay king.”

rww random

February 9, 2024 rww

North Carolina’s Christian nationalist Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson participated in Charlie Kirk’s “Freedom Night In America” event held Thursday night in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Oklahoma’s Christian nationalist state Sen. Dusty Deevers proclaims that “because the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, the chief end of civil government is to honor and uphold the purpose of man by protecting the innocent, punishing the evildoer, and promoting that which is good.”

Michigan’s Christian nationalist state Rep. Josh Schriver defends his promotion of the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.

Christian nationalist Mark Gonzales falsely claims that it was pastors in the “Black Robe Regiment,” not the military, that won the American Revolution: “It wasn’t the American army, it was the church that did that.” None of that is true.

Finally, hundreds of Christian nationalists gathered for a “FlashPoint” event in Colorado on Thursday where they collectively decreed and declared that the U.S. government will honor God, pass only laws that are righteous, and issue only rulings that are biblical: “The blood of Jesus protects and covers our nation.”

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an 2 24

although former President Donald Trump has plenty of critics within Christianity — from President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic, to Rev. Raphael Warnock (a Democratic U.S. senator in Georgia) and MSNBC's Rev. Al Sharpton — he continues to enjoy considerable popularity among far-right white evangelicals, including a group of Pentecostal Christian nationalists who are touring in support of his 2024 reelection campaign.

The Pentecostals, according to Religion News' Steve Rabey, are calling their pro-Trump activities the FlashPoint LIVE Rescue America Tour.

Rabey reports, "The personalities and themes of the tour are borrowed from FlashPoint, a Christian current-events program that appears on the VICTORY television channel, owned by controversial Texas televangelist Kenneth Copeland. Hosted by Gene Bailey, a pastor at Copeland's Eagle Mountain International Church, the show, which debuted in 2022, has become a waypoint for established and rising conservative stars. Trump has appeared on the show six times, and viewers can expect to see former Trump White House (Chief) Strategist Steve Bannon, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, as well as Senators Josh Hawley and Rand Paul and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert."

According to Rabey, FlashPoint accepts certain claims as "bedrock truths"— including "Donald Trump is the U.S. president, and those who persecute him face death. Joe Biden, the Antichrist, should be in prison for treason. Christians should rule over unbelievers."

Journalist Elle Hardy, author of the 2022 book, "Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over the World," notes that Pentecostals have become increasingly influential among evangelicals.

Hardy told Religion News, "Pentecostals and charismatics have become the center of gravity in the wider evangelical movement. It's not that they were especially late to evangelical politics, it's that they've become so influential in these circles that they can now speak with a much louder voice."

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Highlights From The National Gathering For Prayer And Repentance

Kyle Mantyla | February 2, 2024 RWW

Dozens of members of Congress joined with multitudes of religious-right activists for a “National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance” at the Museum of the Bible on Wednesday. Hosted by Jim Garlow of Well Versed ministry and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the hours-long event featured wave after wave of politicians and activists taking the stage to deliver various prayers, many anodyne but some more targeted and political.

The event’s main feature was the prayers delivered by the myriad members of Congress who took to the stage in small groups and delivered their short prayers in turn. Among the participants was Rep. Greg Steube of Florida, who proclaimed that everyone in the nation must repent of immorality and their rejection of God. He was followed by Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, who delivered a prayer entirely dedicated to railing against abortion, and Rep. Randy Weber of Texas who wept as he begged God’s forgiveness because this nation has “trampled on holy marriage and called it an alternative lifestyle.”

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Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida used her time on stage to proclaim that “each person, regardless of their race, nationality, language will serve you and praise you as Lord, and we will preserve this country the way you formed it and the way you envisioned it.”

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The congressional segment of the event was closed out by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who joined all the participants on stage to deliver a prayer, after which they were collectively prayed over by Perkins.

The next few hours featured an array of religious-right activists, many of them connected to the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation, delivering prayers, generally targeting their respective pet issues. For example, Jon Hamill of Lamplighter Ministries who warned that this nation has been “making deals with our enemies through idolatry, witchcraft, false religions, and secret orders, secret societies” and prayed that God will “annul all covenants with Baal, Moloch, Ashtoreth which have bound us.”

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Prophetic intercessor Lou Engle later took to the stage to pray fervently for “a hundred thousand LGBT to be saved and transformed.”

“Loose a new revolution that the LGBT will be saved,” Engle thundered.

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Among the other congressional participants were Reps. Josh Brecheen, Mark Alford, Michael Cloud, Diana Harshbarger, Kevin Hern, Gary Palmer, Rick Allen, Brandon Williams, Bob Good, Tracey Mann, Glenn Grothman, Warren Davidson, Mary Miller, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, and Sens. Katie Britt and James Lankford.

Religious-right activists who participated included Jonathan Cahn, Che Ahn, Paul Blair, Gary Hamrick, Lucas Miles, Janet Porter, Mario Bramnick, Dave Kubal, and Dutch Sheets.

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random rww

February 1, 2024

-vid?: Creeds and Candidates: Unraveling 2024.

Today, we’re having a special Action Fund edition of FFRF’s “Ask an Atheist.” FFRF Action Fund Director of Governmental Affairs Mark Dann and FFRF Action Fund Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor will talk with Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow and research director at the People for the American Way, who helps to run Right Wing Watch. They will discuss with him the role Christian nationalism will play in the 2024 election, and the Heritage’s Foundation’s Project 2025, which sets forth a blueprint for restructuring the U.S. government along extremist lines and clears the way to vastly increase presidential control of American life.

Paul Blumenthal @ HuffPost: Marjorie Taylor Greene Wants To Censure Ilhan Omar Over Comments She Didn’t Make.

The censure resolution stems from a mistranslation of Omar’s speech circulated by conservative social media accounts.

Media Matters: “I really do believe in IQ science”: Laura Loomer, Trump ally floated for a potential White House position, goes on wildly racist rant against Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Loomer says that it’s “inappropriate for Islamists to hold elected office in this country,” calling it “a national security risk.”

R.G. Cravens @ Hatewatch: Mike Johnson Appears at Hate Group Summit With Pastor Who Suggests Demons Responsible for LGBTQ+ Pride .

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared Wednesday with pastor Jonathan Cahn – whose sermon highlighted three ancient deities which Cahn equated to demonic spirits that have now “come to America” – at the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Family Research Council’s National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance.

Jonathan Larsen @ Salon: Mark Pocan launches inquiry into secretive Christian group linked to Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” law.

Democrat launches the most aggressive official inquiry ever into The Family and the National Prayer breakfast.

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gingrich memo origin

aha variants mind virus and mob contagion sick // dirty/ insane defective gullible?

an 2 24

“Some of the talking points made by Mohn echoed those of prominent online conspiracy theorists and far-right political commentators,” local news outlet LevittownNow.com reports.

“Mohn made inflammatory statements advocating for attacks on federal employees and properties. He expressed hostility towards illegal immigrants, President Joe Biden, senior federal officials, communists, ‘far-left woke mobs,’ Black Lives Matter supporters, and members of the LGBTQ community,” LevittownNow.com added. “In his rant, Mohn discussed Christian scriptures, called for debt cancellation, called for more adherence to Judeo-Christian values, spoke about human trafficking, and accused a major tech company of tax evasion. Additionally, he claimed that militias should protect him and mentioned previous FBI threats of arrest.”

WPVI, a local ABC affiliate, adds that “Mohn referred to himself as a militia leader and called his father a traitor to the country for being a federal employee for 20 years.

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rww random grab

January 31, 2024 5:00 pm

Far-right anti-LGBTQ pastor Jack Hibbs says he was invited to deliver a prayer in the House of Representatives yesterday “at the request of our House Speaker, Mike Johnson.”
Christian nationalist Michael Cassidy is facing hates crimes charges after destroying a Satanic display erected in the Iowa state capitol in December.
Tony Perkins is about Rep. Ilhan Omar delivering a “speech to Somalis in Minnesota in her native language”: “We have a member of Congress that we have to try to translate her speech into English to know what she was saying.” Nobody tell Perkins about the GOP’s annual to the nation!
Clay Clark promised Steve Shultz of the “Elijah Steams” program that he would work to get Eric Trump and Trump attorney Alina Habba to appear on his show.
Finally, Rick Joyner claims that “God likes republican forms of government,” which is why “the first republic in history was with the children of Israel in the wilderness.” This is, of course, some nonsense that Joyner picked up from Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton.

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rww January 29, 2024

Trump campaign troll Brenden Dilley is not happy with the Family Research Council’s David Closson for criticizing the cultish “So God Made Trump” video produced by Dilley’s “meme team.”: “You’re just bloviating about how you’re an expert on God and the Bible, but what you really are is a gigantic cunt.”
Paula White, former President Donald Trump’s faith adviser, on the other hand, seems to be a big fan of the video.
Ben Zeisloft claims that “the Second Amendment is a Christian proposition”: “The right to protect your life from evildoers flows directly from the inalienable right to life you have from your Creator.”
Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers that the radical legislation he has introduced to abolish abortion, pornography, and no-fault divorce is unlikely even to get a hearing in the legislature.
Finally, self-proclaimed “prophet” Hank Kunneman says that “Jesus wasn’t some little limp-wristed, weak-kneed little guy that walked around.” How does Kunneman know this? “I’ve seen Jesus. He’s a man’s man!”

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random grab rww

:{:{January 23, 2024}:

Kandiss Taylor declares that “there’s no such thing as Separation of Church and State”: “We are the church, and we run this state!”
Joshua Feuerstein has secured the coveted endorsement of his own family.
Christian nationalist Jarrin Jackson says that parents of transgender children are spitting in the face of God because trans children are “a plague on our society”: “Trans children are an abomination to the Lord.”
Ella Maulding proclaims that “the production and distribution of pornography should be met with the death penalty.”
Finally, Tim Barton asserts that “only Christians can have a really proper understanding of history because we’re the only ones who have the proper understanding of the world and have the right worldview.”

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trump did not do that well with evan in 2016? but very well 2020, determinative in 2024 primary? SC?

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10-most-religious-states-in-america?onepage

2017

while about seven in 10 Americans identify with some branch of Christianity, the share of U.S. adults who describe themselves as Christians dropped by nearly 8 percent between 2007 and 2014, according to a survey by Pew Research Center.

But while Americans as a whole have become somewhat less religious in recent years – largely due to an increase in the share of people who do not belong to any organized faith – those who are religious are even more devout than they were a few years ago, according to the Pew report. (The sum of the percentages of the population that practices each religion may not equal 100 because of rounding.)

These are the most religious states in America, according to the Pew survey.

North Carolina

In North Carolina, 65 percent of adults are highly religious, according to Pew’s index. While 39 percent attend worship services at least weekly, nearly three-quarters say they believe in God with absolute certainty. Of North Carolina adults, 77 percent are Christian, 20 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths, the largest share being Jewish.

8 (tied). Oklahoma

Pew categorizes 66 percent of Oklahoma adults as highly religious because 65 percent pray daily and 71 percent say they believe in God with absolute certainty. Of Oklahoma adults, 79 percent are Christian, 18 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 2 percent practice non-Christian religions, with those of Jewish, Islamic and other faiths each making up less than 1 percent of Oklahoma adults.

8 (tied). Georgia

Two-thirds of Georgia adults are highly religious, according to Pew, because 74 percent of adults say they believe in God with absolute certainty and 64 percent say religion is very important in their lives. Of Georgia adults, 79 percent are Christian, 18 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths.

West Virginia

About 69 percent of West Virginia adults are considered highly religious because while 46 percent attend worship services at least weekly, 77 percent of adults say they believe in God with absolute certainty and 68 percent pray daily. Of West Virginia adults, 78 percent are Christian, 18 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths.

South Carolina

Pew considers 70 percent of South Carolina adults highly religious because 69 percent say religion is very important in their lives and two-thirds say they pray daily. Of South Carolina adults, 78 percent are Christian, 19 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths.

Arkansas

In Arkansas, 70 percent of adults are categorized as highly religious by Pew’s index because 77 percent of adults say they believe in God with absolute certainty and 70 percent say religion is very important in their lives. Of Arkansas adults, 79 percent are Christian, 12 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 1 percent are non-Christian faiths.

Louisiana

About 71 percent of Louisiana adults are considered highly religious by Pew because 75 percent say they believe in God with absolute certainty, while 68 percent pray daily. Of Louisiana adults, 84 percent are Christian, 13 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 2 percent are non-Christian faiths, the largest share being Buddhist at about 1 percent.

Tennessee

Pew considers 73 percent of Tennessee adults highly religious – 78 percent say they believe in God with absolute certainty, while 51 percent attend weekly worship services. Of Tennessee adults, 81 percent are Christian, 14 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 3 percent are non-Christian faiths.

1 (tied). Mississippi

In Mississippi, 77 percent of adults are classified as highly religious because 74 percent say religion is very important in their lives and 75 percent pray daily. Of Mississippi adults, 83 percent are Christian, 14 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 2 percent are non-Christian faiths.

1 (tied). Alabama

Pew categorizes 77 percent of Alabama adults as highly religious because 82 percent of adults say they believe in God with absolute certainty, while 73 percent pray daily. Of Alabama adults, 86 percent are Christian, 12 percent are unaffiliated with any religion and about 1 percent are non-Christian faiths.

10 Most Religious States

Alabama (tie)
Mississippi (tie)
Tennessee
Louisiana
Arkansas
South Carolina
West Virginia
Georgia (tie)
Oklahoma (tie)
North Carolina

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RWW 1 24

The night before the Iowa caucus, self-proclaimed “prophet” Amanda Grace hosted a ” livestream event that featured several members of former President Donald Trump’s family and inner circle, among them Trump’s son Eric and his wife Lara, and his attorney Alina Habba.

The Trumps and Habba were joined by the likes of Trump confidante Roger Stone, conspiracy theorist Clay Clark, MAGA pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, and “prophet” Robin Bullock, who collectively made the case for Trump heading into the caucus.

The program began with Grace interviewing Eric and Lara Trump, and Eric declaring that his father is being guided by God.

“I think he’s created the greatest political movement in history,” Eric Trump said. “And I really do believe that someone, something is looking down and guiding him every single day because there’s no way in the world he could have been where he is today without the intervention of God.”

“I feel it. I know it,” Trump added. “I really do believe that there’s divine intervention there. I think somebody was guiding him. He’s a remarkable father. He did a remarkable job for the United States of America, and I truly pray to the Lord that he wins again [and] he sorts out this country because we are in dangerous times, and it’s scary.”

IFrame Content

The Trumps were followed by Habba, who proclaimed that Trump’s myriad legal problems are all of “demonic plan.”

“I think that there is a plan,” Habba said. “There’s God’s plan, and then there’s a demonic plan. And the demonic plan is very easily confused with real life. There’s an orchestrated thing going on here. Don’t get it twisted. We have cases lined up intentionally during election time, intentionally trying to get negative attention right before an election.”

“He’s being pulled from the campaign time and time again to be deposed, to be subpoenaed, to go to trial, to fight the fight to clear his name,” she continued. “But the people that know him and the people that have faith and are reading—the people that are educating themselves, the people that are not listening to the fake news—they will understand and they do understand and they stand with him. And honestly, we’re flipping the ones that don’t know, because their demonic plan is so obvious.”

IFrame Content

“Pray for people to open their eyes,” Habba concluded. “They like to call MAGA Republicans a cult mentality. We’re not a cult mentality; we love America. If that’s a cult, I’m happy to love America. I’m happy to be part of that.”

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Pastors threaten 'retribution' under second Trump term in their prayers — although it does get 'awkward' - Alternet.org

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booktv 12 23END BAK PT 1 2025

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AN 12 23

When the religious right became a prominent part of the Republican Party in the early 1980s, both liberals and conservatives sounded the alarm.

Television producer Norman Lear, who died on December 5 away at the age of 101, founded People for the American Way to combat the religious right. Conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) was a scathing critic of Jerry Falwell Sr., the Moral Majority and Pat Robertson and warned that no good could come of the GOP's alliance with far-right white evangelicals.

But the GOP's alliance with white Christian fundamentalists continues after more than 40 years — an alliance that journalist Tim Alberta is vehemently critical of in his new book

"The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism."

Alberta discussed the book during an interview with Religion News' Karen Swallow Prior published in Q&A form on December 11.

"In the vast majority of cases — whether it's Ralph Reed or Robert Jeffress or even Greg Locke — I have walked away from long, searching interviews convinced they've made a decision, a business decision, to indulge a lot of foolishness," Alberta told Religion News. "Why? Because in their view, the ends justify the means: Trafficking in deception and hatred is a small price to pay for a seat at the table, for a culture war victory, for a reclamation of our nation's Christian heritage."

Alberta continued, "The problem is: scripture describes those ends as unimportant — while telling us, repeatedly, that the means are crucially important. In other words: How we play the game matters more than whether we win or lose. That's a message that rank-and-file evangelicals need to hear, but many of the people they look to for influence have real incentive to tell them otherwise."

Alberta, known for his work for The Atlantic, laments that right-wing media have "conditioned many evangelicals to be angry, fearful, antagonistic" and embrace "political extremism."

Alberta told Religion News, "The church's great weakness at an institutional level — and to be clear, this is common among all institutions — is an unwillingness, and perhaps more commonly an inability, to police itself. We have seen this time and again."

*Read Religion News' full interview with Tim Albertaat this link.

tags

AbleLightActon Institute for the Study of Religious LibertyAlliance Defending FreedomAmerican Center for Law and JusticeAmerican Family AssociationAtlas FreeBecket Fund for Religious LibertyBread for the World InstituteBridges for PeaceCare NetChristian Medical & Dental AssociationsConcerned Women for AmericaFaith and Freedom CoalitionFamily Research CouncilFirst Liberty InstituteGiving Children HopeHome School Legal Defense AssociationHuman CoalitionInternational Fellowship of Christians and JewsKingdom AdvisorsLive ActionMinistryWatch monthly listRapha InternationalSafe Families for ChildrenSave The StorksShared Hope InternationalStudents for Life of AmericaThe A21 CampaignThe National Center on Sexual ExploitationTHE VOICE OF THE MARTYRSZOE International

Warren Cole Smith

Warren previously served as Vice President of WORLD News Group, publisher of WORLD Magazine, and Vice President of The Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He has more than 30 years of experience as a writer, editor, marketing professional, and entrepreneur. Before launching a career in Christian journalism 25 years ago, Smith spent more than seven years as the Marketing Director at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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rww 4 23

no twt

Levin appeared on Fox & Friends March 31, 2023 to denounce the indictment of Donald Trump (and plug his book).

When news broke Thursday that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict former President Donald Trump, Trump and his supporters were quick to portray him as an innocent victim and to suggest that his prosecution spelled the end of democracy in America.

The charges follow an investigation into a hush money payment made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. With the indictment under seal, the exact charges have not yet been made public, though some news reports suggest Trump faces about 30 charges and that he is expected to be charged with falsifying business records to cover up the payment.

Trump himself displayed his trademark narcissism Thursday, writing in one of many urgent emails, “We are living through the darkest chapter of American history.”

The always-blustery right-wing pundit Mark Levin ranted on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning, “We have crossed the Rubicon. This is atyrannynow.”

Right-wing youth leader Charlie Kirk, who heads Turning Point USA, claimed that the indictment of Trump is a “designed campaign” by the left to provoke right-wing violence “to justify the next phase of their takeover of the country.”

Ali Alexander, a leader of the “Stop the Steal” effort to keep Trump in power after his 2020 loss, wrote on his Telegram account, “TRUMP INDICTMENT refocuses some things. We’re approaching Luciferian-triggered civil war. We must fight Them.May God bless and forgive us where we fall short.”

Far-right broadcaster Pete Santilli—who last week said that if Trump were arrested, the military and law enforcement should round up and execute former President Barack Obama and other members of the “criminal cabal”—reacted to the news by telling his viewers that “these leftist, gun-grabbing Maoists, you will never have a peaceful resolution with. They’re going to come and kill you.:

amid reports that New York law enforcement officials are preparing for possible violence, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “I’m going to New York on Tuesday. We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!”

Although details of the indictment haven’t been made public,Sen. Ted Cruzused his “Verdict” podcast to denounce the indictment as “utter and complete garbage,” describing himself as angry and “heartbroken” over what he called a “devastating” blow to the rule of law. Cruz claimed that the Manhattan investigation was an effort by “radical Democrats” to “steal” the 2024 presidential election.

Cruz said the indictment would boost Trump’s election campaign, a sentiment echoed by other far-right followers of the twice-impeached former president. The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody said the indictment had made Trump a “political martyr.”

On “FlashPoint,” a show that appears on evangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel that was a steady source of misinformation about the 2020 election and Jan. 6 insurrection, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake denounced what she called “false, phony charges.” Trump’s supporters, she said, are “tried and true” and will stay with him “all the way.”

Trump’s religious-right backers also rallied around him, with Franklin Graham calling it a “shameful day for America.”

As noted by religion scholar Diana Butler Bass in her latest newsletter, Trump has been using increasingly messianic and apocalyptic languagein reference to his legal troubles in an effort to maintain religious-right support.Trump followers who believe he is anointed by God and is being persecuted like Jesus by the legions of Satan is “a theo-political wild card we’ve got to pay attention to,”Bass writes. She points to the biblical story of Jesus’ arrest in which one of his disciples attacked one of the soldiers. While Jesus insisted, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword,” Bass warns, “Do not expect the same from Trump.”

Tags: Charlie Kirk David Brody Donald Trump Franklin Graham Kari Lake Marjorie Taylor Greene Mark Levin Pete Santilli Donald Trump Election 2024 Rule of Law Trump Indictment

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an ah? 3 23

in the United States, Christianity isn't necessarily synonymous with right-wing politics. The Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson are ordained Baptist ministers. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and centrist Democratic President Joe Biden consider themselves devout Catholics, as does Sister Mary Scullion — a Catholic nun and Philadelphia-based activist known for supporting liberal and progressive causes.

But the Republican Party, since the early 1980s, has closely allied itself with far-right white evangelicals and the Religious Right movement. And author/UC Berkeley history professor David Hollinger, in an interview with The Nation's Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins published on March 29, stresses that white evangelicals are moving more and more to the right at a time when the United States on the whole is becoming increasingly secular.

Hollinger, author of the 2022 book, "Christianity's American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular," told The Nation, "The Republican Party has cultivated white evangelicals as a key voting bloc, and it has worked wonderfully. The epistemic closures in which many evangelicals lived in the 1970s or 1950s or 1930s were formidable, but they were not encouraged and relied upon by a major political party, or kept enclosed by the availability of Fox News and other mass media freed of the 'Fairness Doctrine' that regulated news media until the Reagan Administration."

The author/UC Berkeley professor notes that within Christianity, there is a major divide between fundamentalist evangelicals and non-evangelical Mainline Protestants — who he also refers to as "ecumenical Protestants." In the United States, Mainline denominations include Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church.

Hollinger told The Nation, "If the ecumenicals could reclaim the franchise, so to speak, the country would be a lot better off. Non-Christians may think they don't have a dog in that fight, but they do. Even at this time, when Christians are a smaller proportion of the American population than ever before, lots of power is in the hands of anyone who convincingly claims to speak for Christianity…. Lots of post-Protestants and post-Catholics — people who were culturally formed by Protestantism or Catholicism but no longer affirm their ancestral faith — are splendid allies for liberal Protestants. They can work together."

Hollinger argues that the United States' 2022 midterms were largely a rejection of authoritarian "Christian nationalism."

The author observes, "About 80 percent of evangelical voters supported Republican candidates in the midterm elections, which is the same level of support they gave to Trump as a presidential candidate…. Yet here's the big thing about the midterms: In the electorate as a whole, the strong support for abortion rights indicates a willingness of many voters to resist the theocratic trend of recent American politics. Since my book calls for exactly such resistance, I am heartened by this result. Yet the struggle to save democracy is far from over, and evangelically inspired Christian nationalism remains a formidable threat to it.”

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Dozens of members of Congress joined an audience of religious-right activists and Christian nationalists at the Museum of the Bible this morning for a “National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance.”

Sponsored by various anti-LGBTQ religious-right groups such as the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Pacific Justice Institute, the prayer gathering was emceed by right-wing activists Jim Garlow of Well Versed, who is associated with the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation, and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Both Garlow and Perkins were active promoters of former President Donald Trump’s stolen election lies, with Perkins and FRC actively working to overturn the election results via pressure on state legislators, members of Congress, and former Vice President Mike Pence.

The two-and-a-half-hour event consisted of a steady stream of penitents offering prayers on behalf of this nation covering everything from reproductive choice and marriage equality to foreign policy and the media.

The tenor of the prayer service was well encapsulated by Pastor Andrew Brunson, who became a right-wing celebrity after he was freed from detention in Turkey during the Trump administration. Brunson used his prayer to warn that the United States will soon face the judgment of God for having become “the primary corrupter of the world” by supporting LGBTQ rights.

“The Bible draws a picture of Babylon as the wealthiest, most powerful city-empire of its time; a nation that sets itself against God and uses its power and wealth to lead other peoples into immorality,” Brunson said. “This is us. We are Babylon. The United States is the Babylon of this generation. Right-wing pastor Andrew Brunson blasted the United States as “the primary corrupter of the world” during today’s National Gathering for Prayer & Repentance, griping that “our government and corporations increasingly march under the rainbow flag.... zzz Brunson was followed by a panel featuring “ex-gay” activists who begged God to cleanse the nation of “the sins of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, and sex confusion.” They were then followed by multiple members of Congress, including...House Speaker Kevin McCarthy... zzz House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and dozens of members of Congress joined hundreds of Christian nationalists and religious-right activists at the Museum of the Bible this morning for a “National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance” this morning. Rep. Diana Harshbarger was among the members of Congress who participated in the event,...praying that God will “put godly people in places of authority” and “remove people that are ungodly from places of authority. Put them out to pasture.”

“We are the remnant, the people who stand in the place at such a time as this, God, to do your will,” Harshbarger declared. “We’re the only thing that stands between prosperity and destruction.”

Rep. Diana Harshbarger prayed during this morning’s “National Gathering for Prayer & Repentance” that God will “put godly people in places of authority” and “remove people that are ungodly from places of authority. Put them out to pasture.” pic.twitter.com/WVTK50axRU

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 1, 2023

Rep. Randy Weber wept over marriage equality and reproductive choice during his prayer.

“Father, we think we’re so smart, but please forgive us,” he lamented. “Please, please put America back on the right path to worshiping you.”

Rep. Randy Weber wept over marriage equality and reproductive choice during today’s National Gathering for Prayer & Repentance: “Father, we think we’re so smart, but please forgive us. Please, please put America back on the right path to worshiping you.” pic.twitter.com/22CSE3pjSA

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 1, 2023

Rep. Mary Miller asserted that this nation has “lost our way because we have rejected you as Creator, Lord, and Savior.”

“We are adrift and foolish, calling evil good and good evil,” she proclaimed. “And we are bankrupt, morally and financially.”

Rep. Mary Miller lamented during today’s National Gathering for Prayer & Repentance that “we have lost our way because we have rejected you as Creator, Lord, and Savior. Now we are adrift and foolish, calling evil good and good evil. And we are bankrupt, morally and financially.” pic.twitter.com/E8ODdOrojx

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 1, 2023

In all, more than a dozen members of Congress prayed during the event, including Reps. Steve Scalise, Rick Allen, Brian Babin, Michael Cloud, Robert Aderholt, Tracey Mann, Burgess Owens, Gary Palmer, Michelle Steel, Warren Davidson, Brandon Williams, Dan Bishop, Nathaniel Moran, and Mike Johnson.

Following their prayers, the members of Congress gathered around the stage where they were collectively prayed over by Tony Perkins and the audience.

“I speak a blessing upon these, your leaders, and I ask you to strengthen them and encourage them and to increase their number,” Perkins said. “And Father, I pray that we might be at a turning point in this nation of once again embracing you.”

Several members of Congress gathered during today’s National Gathering for Prayer & Repentance so that they could be prayed over by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. pic.twitter.com/CRUYsZv5nz

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 1, 2023

The Family Research Council, American Family Association, Liberty Counsel, and Alliance Defending Freedom have long attacked LGBTQ and abortion rights in the name of religious freedom. Alliance Defending Freedom was central to the overturning of Roe and represented Mississippi in the Supreme Court case; its lawyers have previously bragged that they helped write the Mississippi law as part of their strategy to ban all abortions in the country. More recently, these groups have focused their efforts in attacking trans people.

In spite of their claims, the participants in this prayer gathering do not speak for all American Christians, as majorities of Christian groups other than white evangelicals support marriage equality, and believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases, and many Christians oppose the claims and goals of Christian nationalists.

Tags: Andrew Brunson Brandon Williams Brian Babin Burgess Owens Dan Bishop Diana Harshbarger Gary Palmer Jim Garlow Kevin McCarthy Mary Miller Michael Cloud Michelle Steel Mike Johnson Nathaniel Moran Randy Weber Rick Allen Robert Aderholt Steve Scalise Tony Perkins Tracey Mann Warren Davidson National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance Family Research Council Well Versed Ministry

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threat pol

https://www.alternet.org/kansas-man-wizards-and-sorcery/

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demands loyalty, get back on side

https://www.alternet.org/donald-trump-griping-evangelical-disloyalty/

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an me 1 23

The conclusion of the 2022 primary elections appears to have ushered in a new era of politics and religion, based on the findings of a new analysis.

According to Religious News, "the religious makeup of the new Congress bucks the trends seen in American religious life." The analysis, written by Adelle M. Banks, highlights findings from Pew Research Center.

"The Pew Research Center says the Senate and House members are 'largely untouched' by the continuing decrease in the portion of Americans who identify as Christian and the comparable increase in the share of those who say they do not have a religious affiliation," Banks wrote in her analysis.

READ MORE: More than 60 percent of Republicans want the United States of America declared a Christian nation: report

She shared details about the shift in the timeline over the last several decades.

"The number of Christians — 469 — within the new Congress does mark the lowest number since Pew began its analysis of religious affiliation of the 111th Congress at the beginning of the 2009-10 session," she wrote, also emphasizing that the shift is "just by a hair." Banks added, "The number of Christians in Congress was above 470 in the eight most recent sessions and exceeded 500 as of 1970."

Banks continued:

"Of the 534 total congressional members, 303 Protestants are being sworn in for the 2023-24 session, compared to 297 in the one that just ended. The number of Baptists remained the same — at 67 — while the number of Methodists and Episcopalians dropped by four each; Presbyterians had one fewer member. Catholics saw a drop of 10, with a new total of 148, but still comprise a greater share of Congress (28%) than they do the overall U.S. population (21%)."

In another section of her analysis, Banks also highlighted a staggering statistic about the newly elected politicians that will be sworn in this week in comparison to the religious demographic of American voters.

READ MORE: 'Done turning the other cheek': Antisemitic 'Christian' Jack Posobiec sets faith aside to rile up right-wing kids

"Christians comprise 88% of the voting members of the 118th Congress who are expected to be sworn in this week (week of Jan. 3), a number that has not changed much since the 1970s, when 91% of members said they were affiliated with that faith," she wrote.

The report concludes with a number of other notable findings including the fact that "both chambers are dominated by Christians numerically" and "almost all Republicans — 268 out of 271 — and three-quarters of Democrats — 201 of 263 — identify themselves as Christians."

READ MORE: America's conservatives adore Vladimir Putin’s far-right Christian Nationalism – more than freedom

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cdv

https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/decoding-the-christian-paradox-evangelical-historian-explains-how-right-wingers-ignore-jesus-to-support-a-corrupt-and-greedy-president

To quote the bumper sticker: "What would Jesus do?"

Assuming that he existed and held the views imputed to him, Jesus Christ would not support Donald Trump.

Donald Trump's behavior, values, policies and their consequences are the opposite of what Jesus Christ represented. Trump has put migrants and refugees in cages and delighted in their suffering. He feels contempt for the poor, the sick, the vulnerable and the needy. He has lied at least 16,000 times. He is corrupt and wildly greedy.

Donald Trump is violent, a militarist, a nativist and a white supremacist. He has given aid and comfort to anti-Semites, neo-Nazis and other hate-mongers.

We are told that Jesus Christ lived a life of love, humility and sacrifice. Donald Trump has lived a life of selfishness, greed and wanton cruelty.

Why are white evangelical Christians so overwhelmingly supportive of Donald Trump? While some have tried to present it as a riddle with no evident solution, the answer is quite simple: Donald Trump does the bidding of the Christian right. He has advanced its policies in a war against secular society, women's freedom, LGBTQ rights, multiracial democracy and the U.S. Constitution.

But it's important to note that the Christian evangelical community is not a monolith. There are many people within it who oppose Donald Trump and his movement, because they see it as antithetical to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

One such voice is historian John Fea, a professor at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. His new book is "Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump." Fea recently published an op-ed in USA Today entitled "'Evangelicals for Trump' was an awful display by supposed citizens of the Kingdom of God," in which he explained that he had spent his "entire adult life in the evangelical community" following a "born-again experience" at age 16:

But I have never seen anything like what I witnessed as I watched President Donald Trump speak to a few thousand of his evangelical supporters at King Jesus International Ministry, a largely Hispanic megachurch in Miami, during the kickoff to his "Evangelicals for Trump" campaign…Trump painted himself as a president who is protecting American evangelicals from those on the political left who want to "punish" people of faith and destroy religion in America. ...

I am used to this kind of thing from Trump, but I was stunned when I witnessed evangelical Christians — those who identify with the "good news" of Jesus Christ —raising their hands in a posture of worship as Trump talked about socialism and gun rights.

I watched my fellow evangelicals rising to their feet and pumping their fists when Trump said he would win reelection in 2020.

Trump spent the evening mocking his enemies, trafficking in half-truths in order to instill fear in people whom God commands to "fear not," and proving that he is incapable of expressing anything close to Christian humility.

His evangelical supporters loved every minute of it. That night, Christians who claim to be citizens of the Kingdom of God went to church, cheered the depraved words of a president and warmly embraced his offer of political power. Such a display by evangelicals is unprecedented in American history.

I usually get angry when members of my tribe worship at the feet of Trump. This time, I just felt sad.

I recently spoke to John Fea about the rise of Trump and his power over Christian evangelicals and the Christian right. Fea explained that the Age of Trump is a continuation of a long history in America where too many white Christians have supported racism, nativism and other regressive social causes. Fea also argued that while the "dark side" of Christian evangelicalism is flourishing under Donald Trump, the groundwork for this moment was laid down decades ago by the likes of Jerry Falwell Sr. and Pat Robertson.

Fea also told me that evangelicals have begun to use religious language about "demons" and Satanic power as a way of publicly targeting the Democrats and others who oppose Donald Trump's assault on American democracy.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

You recently wrote a USA Today op-ed about Donald Trump's corruption of evangelical Christianity and his power over its adherents. How are you feeling?

I've had my ups and downs. It's been an emotional roller coaster since Donald Trump got elected. It started out with anger. I can honestly say that I've gotten rid of that anger. It's not anger towards Trump per se. Trump is Trump. He's a fool, he's absurd, he's a narcissist. What bothers me are the Christians, the evangelical community, who are so supportive of Trump, who are so willing to look the other way when he does these blatantly and grossly immoral things.

I'm an academic by nature, so I want to try to step back at times and try to understand what gave rise to Trumpism and his power over Christian evangelicals. Sometimes I'm numb. Sometimes I've debated whether or not I still belong in that faith community. I am still an evangelical. That is how I identify. But this has all been a roller coaster ride.

What's really affected me the most is being on the road with my new book, "Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump." It came out in 2018, and talking to people who are hurting and emotionally scarred from how they've been treated in evangelical churches, simply because they don't support Trump and what he represents, has really impacted me.

What are some of those personal stories?

At first, I believed that I would have all these Trump supporters criticizing me, yelling at me at my book talks. But what actually happened was that I encountered people who were looking for some kind of community, as they sought out like-minded evangelicals, or former evangelicals, who were looking for other Christians who do support Donald Trump. We would talk for hours after my events. People were sharing with each other how they were more free having a conversation here at this book talk than talking to people about politics in their own churches. That was a huge eye-opener for me.

There were a lot of tears. I prayed with people. Many of these people were women who were struggling not only with the fact of evangelicals supporting Trump, but the misogyny that went along with it. They were also struggling with how the misogynistic attitudes within American evangelicalism were foregrounded by the Trump election. There were also people at my talks sharing how they were ostracized from their church in 2008 or 2012 because they voted for Barack Obama. There were also people who had spoken out about sexual harassment in the evangelical community and were then told to remain quiet by their pastors and other church leaders.

Most of the people I talked to were just saying, "How could I have worshiped with these people all these years and not have realized that they would have supported everything that Donald Trump stands for, both in terms of his character and his policies?"

Some of them would tell me that they are "pro-life" but that there are other more important issues. They would explain how they are willing to put that issue to the side right now because there are issues which are much more important with the Trump presidency, such as immigration, his personal character, religious liberty for non-Christians or just Trump's blatant lying to the American people.

In the United States white Christianity, especially in the South, was a tool for enforcing and legitimating white supremacy against nonwhites. Why is there any surprise about Donald Trump — who is an evident white supremacist — being a natural partner and champion of right-wing Christians?

I know the history of evangelicalism. I still had hope in 2016 that evangelicals were going to do the right thing and not vote for Trump. They're my tribe. I was optimistic that Christian evangelicals were going to do the right thing and make the right decision and oppose what Trump stands for.

It took me a few days, not long, to take off my scorned evangelical hat and replace it with my historian's hat. So yes, you are exactly correct. There is a dark dimension of evangelicalism. One sees that wherever there were moments of demographic change within United States history. There is always a backlash to those changes in American history and it is usually evangelical Christians who are not only part of the backlash but are largely leading that backlash.

I would also argue that there are many things that evangelicals do and have done throughout American history that have brought about some moral improvement in our country. That would include anti-slavery causes, international relief in poverty-stricken countries, actions in support of social justice and other forward-looking issues and concerns. That is not the dimension of the evangelical tradition tapped into by the 81% of white evangelical voters who voted for Donald Trump. Donald Trump appealed to all the darkest sides of American evangelicalism in 2016.

Part of what my work since 2016 has been trying to get evangelicals, a group who are largely an anti-intellectual bunch, to think about the fact that they should not have been surprised by the rise of Donald Trump and the evangelical community's relationship to it. My book is dedicated to the 19% of evangelicals who did not support him. My book's message is, "Let's not pretend that Trump is new. Let's come to grips with the fact that Trump is just the latest manifestation of a long string of dark moments within our faith's history in America."

Did Trump just give right-wing evangelicals permission to be who and what they really are?

The dark side of Christian evangelicalism flourishes under Trump. Did Trump create these racist evangelicals or is he just a manifestation of racism in that faith community? I would probably say it's the latter.

Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, conservative evangelicals in the Moral Majority, such as prominent figures like Jerry Falwell Sr., Pat Robertson and others, began engaging with politics with the goal of trying to reclaim and renew and restore America's "Christian" roots. They were very disappointed with Jimmy Carter for a variety of reasons and they began to turn towards Reagan and the GOP. We began to see a political playbook develop. A generation of white evangelicals embraced a strategy of "elect the right people, elect the right president, appoint Supreme Court justices, change the world, and bring about Christian witness in the world through the pursuit of political power." In many ways that political power is normally associated with fear.

Much of this is driven by a fear-mongering narrative about white Christian America: We're going to lose our "Christian nation" that we believe the country was founded upon. We need to make America great again, as if it was great in the 1950s or the 1920s with Jim Crow and other forms of oppression. We need to revisit the past, as if it was a much more moral Christian era — which it wasn't. The right-wing Christian leaders were and are essentially longing for an era that never really existed in the first place.

Now, what's fascinating about Trump is for many white evangelicals that political playbook was always associated with a Republican candidate. In the minds of most white evangelicals, they believed that person would be of moral character. A Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney were, in the eyes of white evangelicals, people of moral character. As compared to Donald Trump, they would not be tweeting out lies every day. Yes, they were liars, but they weren't doing it to the extent of Trump. Most evangelicals would admit Donald Trump does not have the same kind of character as a Reagan or a Bush. Would the evangelical political playbook survive with a person that most evangelicals believed was not a person of moral character? As we discovered, the answer is yes.

When the Christian right talks about "religious freedom" and says that America is a "Christian nation," what do they really mean?

No one was debating whether the United States was a "Christian nation" until the 1970s. It was manifested through a culture war debate and trying to superimpose that assumption about a "Christian nation" onto the founding fathers who were never asking the question to begin with.

There are two ways of considering that claim. One is the historical argument. The Christian right will make this case that the Constitution is somehow a "Christian" document even though it never mentions God or Jesus. They also try to make a claim about the Declaration of Independence. That document contains four references to God. Most of them are these vague references to a kind of deist God. There's nothing in the Declaration of Independence about a God who sacrificed his son for the sins of the world or anything of that manner.

There is also an argument that the larger ethos of the culture was Christian and somehow it seeped into to the mindset and the framework of the founders. There is no empirical evidence to suggest such a thing.

So how do you connect that with religious liberty? I think within the Christian right's mindset, you saw a real transition in the rhetorical approach of the Christian right after Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. But once they lost that battle, unlike Roe v. Wade — which the Christian Right still fights — they were like, "Hey, we lost this and we're never going to get it back."

Then the Christian right begin to switch their rhetorical strategy to "religious liberty," which is something they rarely spoke about before a period of 2000 to 2010. Now the narrative is, "We have a traditional view of marriage and we have all of these traditional values that we uphold, and we want the liberty to be able to continue to practice these values without the government interfering." For them, "religious liberty" is always the right of white conservative evangelicals to uphold their position.

What moved you to write the USA Today op-ed? Who was your specific audience?

There was a time when I could have written that essay in a place like Christianity Today or in some other periodical that most evangelicals read. But evangelicalism is so diverse at present. Evangelicals are fractured. There is no longer any kind of mass publication for that community. My thinking was, given that there is no flagship evangelical publication, let me try to pitch this to USA Today. I wanted to speak to my fellow evangelicals — but not the ones who were at the Trump rally I wrote about in the USA Today op-ed. They're not going to listen to me. There is a group of evangelicals that do not want to listen to reasoned arguments. They are politically calcified.

I was trying to write to the evangelicals who voted for Trump in 2016 because they couldn't stand Hillary Clinton. I wanted to get those evangelicals to see how our people are sitting in a house of worship and raising their hands singing praises to this morally corrupt individual. I also wanted to show that not all evangelicals support Donald Trump. We are not homogeneous.

How do right-wing evangelicals reconcile Trump's obvious wicked behavior with their claims to be Christian?

I think it's mixed. I believe that there are people from within certain sectors of evangelicalism, these are mostly charismatic Pentecostals, who really do believe that Donald Trump is the chosen one. They really believe that Donald Trump is anointed by God for "such a time as this." He is a new King Cyrus and they know this because they have received prophecies telling them that this is the case. God has told them.

We can laugh at that or say such a belief is foolish, but there's a world of charismatic Pentecostal evangelicalism that is deeply committed to their leaders, who argue that Donald Trump is the chosen one. They have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of followers. These are large communities. They are led by very strong and powerful personalities. Paula White, counselor to Trump, is one of these leaders. Lance Wall is another one. He actually made the prediction about Donald Trump and King Cyrus. He had a vision of Trump as King Cyrus. As to these prophetic visions, I really do believe that some of these evangelicals, especially charismatic Pentecostals, think their visions are true. And yes, there are some who use it for political gain.

Many of the evangelicals and other people who I wrote about in my USA Today op-ed probably do believe that Donald Trump is an anointed figure from God who will deliver us out of the clutches of secularism and socialism, the latter being largely understood by most of these anti-intellectual evangelicals as some kind of a Soviet-style socialism. In the uneducated evangelical mind, there is no ability to separate a democratic kind of socialism from Joseph Stalin.

When right-wing Christians, especially evangelicals, start talking about "demons" and "the devil" attacking Donald Trump and that they need to use "spiritual warfare" against Trump's "enemies," what do they mean?

Evangelicals have always talked about demonic forces in the world and spiritual warfare. In their minds, God and Satan are still battling with each other, and then one day at the great battle of Armageddon or something akin to it, Satan will be defeated and we'll move into a new heaven. For evangelicals, the world is always enchanted. There are always angels and forces of evil and devils and demons and so forth. That's how they see the world around them. What's fascinating about these discussions of spiritual warfare, though, is that they normally take place behind the closed doors of churches. Now evangelicals are bringing this type of talk and logic to American public life in defense of Donald Trump.

Evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham and others have recently been saying, "There are forces out there that are trying to undermine this president." If someone who is not a Christian evangelical were to hear the word "forces," they would think that means the Democrats or the deep state. But any evangelical who hears someone like Franklin Graham say that knows exactly what those forces are. These are demonic forces.

After the impeachment, evangelicals upped their game. "Demonic" and "spiritual battle" and "the devil" did not come into the public discourse in the way they are at present until Donald Trump was impeached. When the impeachment inquiry started, you had all these people saying that this is the devil at work trying to undermine God's anointed. Devils are trying to undermine a nation and its president who is trying to bring that nation back to its godly roots.

If right-wing Christian leaders are saying that the Democrats are demonic forces, is that an encouragement to violence?

Perhaps I am naïve, but I guess I have enough faith in my fellow evangelicals to prevent this from moving towards violence. But to affirm what you're saying, I think you're right. The logical implications of this certainly could be, at this point, very harsh, un-Christian like attacks on people who do not support Trump.

What do right-wing evangelicals and other Christians want? What is the Christian right's dream for America?

There's a theological concept in the New Testament known as the "Kingdom of God." Many non-evangelicals and non-Christians become very concerned when they hear Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos or someone else with power saying, "We want to bring about the Kingdom of God." Outsiders see that as a kind of dominionist, reconstructionist, theocratic kind of statement. But when evangelicals theologically talk about the Kingdom of God, they're normally talking about what the world would be like if Jesus was King and if you put Jesus on the throne of the so-called Kingdom of God. We're all citizens of this kingdom as believers. I think they've confused this idea of a Kingdom of God" with some form of American exceptionalism or the idea that America is a "City on a Hill" and that God has specially blessed us.

When they talk about the nation becoming more Christian, again, it's all filtered through this recent history of the last 40 years. So how do we create a Christian nation? Well, we fight against abortion. We fight for religious liberty for our views only. We try to privilege Christianity, our version of Christianity, above everything else. If you push many of these Christian right leaders, it is hard to find an answer as far as what they actually want this vision to look like in practice.

For example, they are against abortion. What does that look like in practice? Do you want to take every woman who had an abortion and put her in prison? Put abortion doctors in prison? What is the logical outcome of these kinds of policies? And they would immediately back off and say, "Oh, no, no, no. We don't want to create a theocratic state, or a state governed by the teachings of the Bible." But in some ways, they do.

Most evangelicals, because they've committed to this notion of reclaiming America as a "Christian nation," have no model for pluralism. They cannot grasp any idea of a pluralistic society in which there are people who differ from them and question what American evangelicals believe. How do white evangelicals live together in a society with people who have deep differences on a variety of issues?

How do right-wing Christians reconcile the public policies they support with the actual teachings of Jesus Christ? The contradictions are obvious and stark. Jesus would not be a Republican or a conservative.

They ignore it. They don't try to make sense of it. They completely ignore the contradictions between Trump's behavior and the Bible. Or they might talk about what their church is doing locally. They would say, "We have a food pantry in our church, or we help the homeless in our community through our church," and so forth. But when it comes to public life and national life, that is not what they are focusing on. Culture is the national state of the nation. These evangelicals do not possess an integrated view of the way their faith and practices are related to American culture as a whole.

To me, this is a great advertisement for why religion really should not be included in government. This is exactly why we have separation of church and state. Faith is a belief in that which cannot be proven by empirical means. Faith is not part of empirical reality. How does one litigate matters of faith, and other types of magical thinking, relative to a proper government?

I believe that politics is generally a corrupt sphere. Politics is the best example, the best kind of microcosm of that brokenness. What are we as a church doing mixing ourselves up in politics? Our religious convictions can lead us toward certain policy issues. But when we're arguing in the public square in a pluralistic society and using demons and the Bible and these kinds of things as evidence, there is a problem. Evangelicals are awful at not understanding those distinctions and the problems that result.

Evangelicals think their private internal language is somehow going to convince secular humanists that a given policy should be enacted because the Bible says it's true. That is just one example where evangelicals have not thought through political engagement in a serious way.

Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

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A “silent majority” that supported Donald Trump in his 2016 and 2020 presidential runs is now quietly bowing out, Vanity Fair reports.

The University of Chicago Divinity School’s magazine reported that nearly 81 percent of “self-identifying white evangelical voters” voted for Trump in 2016.

However, despite Trump keeping several promises to evangelical voters during his term — including nominating conservative judges to the Supreme Court and successfully overturning Roe v. Wade as a result — it may not be enough to win the voting bloc over again.

READ MORE: These evangelicals are doing something Trump claimed they’d 'never' do — 'considering other' options: report

Bob Vander Plaats, a noted evangelical pastor said, “There’s a lot of people who share a lot of our similar thoughts but don’t want to go on record.”

Last month, Washington Times Columnist Everett Piper penned an article in which she expressed that Trump is “hurting…not helping” evangelicals. She said, “the take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go.”

“If he’s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed," Piper added.

Recently James Robinson, a prominent televangelist compared Trump to a “little elementary schoolchild.”

Although many evangelical leaders are not thrilled about another Trump run, some are indeed intrigued by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' potential run, as he was recently a featured speaker at the conservative Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference and endorsed by evangelical pastor Tom Ascol.

READ MORE: 'He used us': Evangelicals enraged over Trump betrayal as GOP heads 'toward a civil war'

Other candidates Vander Plaats mentioned he's willing to support, if they ran, include Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley.

Even with drastically shifted views, and their newfound support of other possible candidates, Vanity Fair reports that it is still too early to confirm whether Trump has completely lost their support as some leaders continue to stand by him.

Texas pastor and former faith adviser to the Trump White House Robert Jeffress told Vanity Fair he was "one of the only and first megachurch pastors supporting President Trump during the primary." He said, "Most were divided among a plethora of other candidates. But as soon as they saw Trump beginning to gain momentum they coalesced around him, and I think the difference in 2024 is that people will coalesce around him much sooner than last time.”

On the contrary, an evangelical leader who chose not to be named said he has “no doubt” that if Trump is the GOP 2024 candidates, they will “get crushed in the general.”

READ MORE: 'Mean-spirited, vulgar grab for power': This evangelical pastor is fighting back against Christian nationalism

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an raw 12 22 Zel is jewish, accuaed of ~ xiaN tho 70% russ ortho

After months of pro-Kremlin state media prediction that the U.S. support for Ukraine would die out, Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov became enraged when he saw an image of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris as they accepted and proudly held up the Ukrainian flag, The Daily Beast reports.

As a guest was speaking, Solovyov reportedly was texting with producers, demanding that they remove the clip of Zelensky in the U.S. When the producers didn't react to his demands fast enough, he said, "Guys, get rid of this video, if you can’t read what is being written to you!”

“Zelensky is already on his way to Washington. It’s perhaps a natural path for any traitor... He betrayed his entire Soviet past,” he said. “Our weapon-makers are more talented anyway. Our men are more ingenious because we’re Russians—of many different nationalities. God is with us! Either we will win, or humanity will cease to exist, because the Lord won’t stand for the triumph of warriors of the Antichrist. We are the Lord’s weapon, we are his avenging right hand.”

Watch the video below:

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Ever since the rise of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr. and the Moral Majority in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Republican Party and Christian Right have been joined at the hip. President Donald Trump was a major ally of the far-right white evangelical movement during his four years in the White House, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, in July, claimed that she was “being attacked by the godless left” because she is “a proud Christian nationalist.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado recently complained that she is fed up with the separation of church and state. And former National Security Director Michael Flynn has called for the U.S. to “embrace one religion” and abandon all religions other than Christianity.

But in an article published by The New Republic on December 12, journalist Charlotte Kilpatrick stresses that not everyone on the “anti-woke right” is religious. Some opponents of “wokeness,” she writes, are fighting a “culture war” in a more “secular” way.

READ MORE: Texas pastor openly calls on 'Christian nationalists' to 'impose their values on society'

“When Trump announced his candidacy, the multiply-divorced, p*ssy-grabbing New York businessman didn’t inspire his followers by preaching about attacks on Christianity or ‘traditional values,’ as so many of his forebears had,” Kilpatrick notes. “Instead, he stirred fear of racial displacement and the need to preserve an ‘American’ identity. MAGA wasn’t fighting a crusade against the godless; it was fighting wokeness. Instead of a culture war rooted in Bible verses, this new revival of right-wing ideology is now grounded in a secular struggle that no longer requires Jesus to play a role in the fight against progressive values.”

Kilpatrick continues, “One reason for this ideological shift is that Americans of both political parties are becoming less religious. A Gallup poll from March of last year revealed that 47 percent all Americans belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, which was down from 50 percent in 2018 and 70 percent in 1999. The decline is mostly due to an increasing number of Americans who claim no religious preference at all.”

Kilpatrick emphasizes that although Trump loudly courted white evangelicals, he was merely paying lip service to Christian fundamentalists and didn’t actually embrace their practices.

“During the 1970s, when Republicans were busy fighting affirmative action and public school busing, they also rode a wave of born-again Christianity that propelled evangelical preachers like Jerry Falwell into the national spotlight,” Kilpatrick notes. “Sunday sermons in newly built megachurches sounded very similar the rants heard on right-wing talk radio.”

READ MORE: 'Without the Bible, there is no America': Josh Hawley goes full Christian nationalist

Kilpatrick continues, “What has emerged over the last decade is what sociologist Donald Warren described in the 1970s as the rise of Middle American Radicals, or MARs. These voters are not necessarily the same who still attend church services. Their most distinguishing feature is that most of them are white middle to low-income earners without a four-year college degree who share a suspicion of big government and a fear that the middle class is under attack. They are the voters most likely to tune into Tucker Carlson ranting about immigrant Spanish speakers taking over small towns and liberals attempting to take guns from responsible owners. They are also the ones most likely to self-identify as ‘anti-woke.’”

Conservatives who openly identify as “atheist” are not impossible to find. CNN’s S.E. Cupp, for example, is a conservative atheist. But while Cupp is very much in the Never Trump camp and is a scathing critic of the MAGA movement, the secular parts of the “anti-woke right” that Kilpatrick describes are passionately MAGA.

“What this decoupling of religion and ideology reveals is that for many Republicans, a professed love for the teachings of Jesus were never about love and charity, but about the maintenance of antisocial ideals: dominion over the rights of others and the preservation of a social hierarchy pitting the preferred in-group against all disfavored out-groups,” Kilpatrick writes. “The United States of America may have been founded on puritanical values, but it now appears that those same values can persist and evolve even without the Puritans.”

READ MORE: How Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, Sr. helped pave the way for Trumpism and the white nationalist horrors of the Trump era

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EMILY GRACE RAINEY (GUEST): Let me lay the scene out for you. You have a very quaint downtown of a southern conservative Christian area, and a drag show event coming from Raleigh, called the House of Coxx with the chief performer, Naomi Dix, decides they're going to do an all-ages drag show in our historic downtown theater. So, like you mentioned, we countered – we mobilized the community, got enough pressure to the point where they finally relented and changed the age from all ages to 18 and up, so our first objective was achieved and we are very happy about that, but we still wanted to protest and pray, because it was inappropriate that such a red light district show was right in a family friendly downtown, and it was within a thousand feet of a church and school, so these were breaking basic ordinances.

So, we gathered, and for two hours, from 5-7 PM, a group of Christians and myself, we prayed over – out front of the theater and read scriptures, Holy Scripture, and prayed, while no less than what was equivalent to an exorcism was happening on the other side of the police tape and the, you know, relentless Christophobic, anti-Christian hate speech being spewed from a group of LGBTQ aggressive activists was, you know, incredibly disturbing, the blasphemies were really just unspeakable, and we were, we – as much as these aggressive leftists want there to be an attack on a drag show, they just can't seem to get the Christians to attack. Well, maybe it's just because that's not what Christian conservatives do. And so, if they can't have us attack them, they will invent an attack. And that's what happened next.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/12/lyft-and-uber-are-letting-christian-drivers-missionize-riders-against-their-will-complaint-2658826834/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/12/right-wing-pastor-religious-students/

Right-wing pastor claims religious students are joining the clergy to turn Christians into atheists

Brandon Gage

Right-wing pastor and Oasis Granger founder Lucas Miles appeared on the propaganda network Real America's Voice on Wednesday and proclaimed that students are infiltrating...

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evangelicals who supported former President Donald Trump's campaign and presidency are expressing apprehension about him as he embarks on his third presidential run.

According to HuffPost, many public evangelical figures have weighed in with their reactions to the former president's announcement — and it doesn't appear that many are buying into him making America great again.

Mike Evans, a religious figure who was among those who visited the White House to meet with Trump, recently shared his opinion during an interview with The Washington Post.

READ MORE: 'Donald Trump is beatable': Ex-ambassador authors a GOP game plan for defeating the 'would-be autocrat'

Evans made it clear that he is done with the former president.

“He used us to win the White House. We had to close our mouths and eyes when he said things that horrified us,” Evans told the newspaper. “I cannot do that anymore.”

Speaking to Newsweek, Robert Jeffress, who advised Trump during his 2016 presidential run, also admitted that he's distancing from the former president. “The Republican Party is headed toward a civil war that I have no desire or need to be part of,” Jeffress said.

However, Jeffress also insists that he still sees Trump as “a great friend and our greatest president since Reagan.”

READ MORE: Donald Trump mocked over video showing his 'captive' audience blocked from exiting 2024 speech

On Wednesday, November 16, James Robison, the president of the Christian group Life Outreach International, attended a meeting for the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) where he expressed similar concerns.

“If Mr. Trump can’t stop his little petty issues, how does he expect people to stop major issues?” Robison said.

He also said he told the former president, “Sir, you act like a little elementary schoolchild and you shoot yourself in the foot every morning you get up and open your mouth! The more you keep your mouth closed, the more successful you’re gonna be!”

Washington Times columnist Everett Piper also offered a critical assessment of the Republican Party's latest entanglement with Trump. “The take-home of this past week is simple: Donald Trump has to go,” Piper wrote. “If he‘s our nominee in 2024, we will get destroyed.”

READ MORE: This House Democrat is leading the charge to bar Donald Trump from ever being president again

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/20-churches-supported-political-candidates/

The endorsement of political candidates by religious leaders from the pulpit has grown increasingly brazen, aggressive and sophisticated in recent years.

ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have found 20 apparent violations in the past two years of the Johnson Amendment, a law that prohibits church leaders from intervening in political campaigns. Two occurred in the last two weeks as candidates crisscross Texas vying for votes. The number of potential violations found by the news outlets is greater than the total number of churches the IRS has investigated for intervening in political campaigns in the past decade, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Under the law, pastors can endorse candidates in their personal capacities outside of church and weigh in on political issues from the pulpit as long as they don’t veer into support or condemnation of a particular candidate. But the law prohibits pastors from endorsing candidates during official church functions such as sermons.

Violations can lead to the revocation of a church’s tax-exempt status.

Descriptions of the 20 videos we identified are below. ProPublica and the Tribune had three experts review each of them. They agreed that the cases below violate the law. The experts were Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a tax and election law expert at the University of Notre Dame; Ellen Aprill, an emerita tax law professor at Loyola Marymount University’s law school; and Sam Brunson, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago.

We’re Not Endorsing a Candidate, but…

In these cases, pastors said they were not endorsing candidates, but their actions equated to an endorsement, according to the experts. Some acknowledged that the law did not allow them to endorse before making their statements.

Mercy Culture

Location: Fort Worth, Texas

Pastors: Landon Schott, Heather Schott and Steve Penate

Context: Pastors at Mercy Culture expressed support for political candidates in at least three sermons this year. All three instances violated the Johnson Amendment, according to the experts. During one such instance on Feb. 6, the Schotts and Penate spoke in favor of Nate Schatzline, who is running for a seat in the state House. “Now, obviously, churches don’t endorse candidates, but my name is Landon and I’m a person before I’m a pastor. And as an individual, I endorse Nate Schatzline,” Landon Schott said. Schatzline’s appearance ended with Schott stating: “We declare Mercy Culture Church is behind you. We declare Mercy Culture Church is praying for you. We declare Mercy Culture Church is supporting you.” Early voting for the March 1 primary began eight days after the church service. Schatzline qualified for a runoff, which he won on May 24. He will face Democratic nominee KC Chowdhury, a Democrat, in Tuesday’s general election.

Expert assessment:

Brunson: “If it’s part of the religious services, his disclaimer doesn’t work and it’s a clear violation of the Johnson Amendment (albeit an almost clever, and definitely self-aware, attempt to avoid that). Penate saying ‘do something with us’ is absolutely an endorsement. If they’re doing it in their capacity as pastors, this violates the Johnson Amendment.”

Church and candidate response: Mercy Culture, Landon Schott and Heather Schott did not respond to questions or requests for comment. Both Penate, a church elder who said he was not speaking on behalf of the church, and Schatzline stated in separate interviews that they did not believe any laws were broken. “Mercy Culture has never endorsed anyone,” Penate said. “Mercy Culture has never told anyone to vote a certain way. Never.”

Unite Church

Location: Anchorage, Alaska

Pastor: Josh Tanner

Context: On Jan. 16, Tanner introduced his congregation to Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, and let her speak about how she expressed her faith during her career in government. “OK, so I want you to know that we’re not just gonna be doing an endorsement for Kelly today, even though I am endorsing Kelly for U.S. Senate. And you can vote for whoever you want. I’m just letting you know who I’m voting for. It’s gonna be her.”

Tshibaka was among the top candidates to advance to the November general election. She will face incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Patricia Chesbro on Tuesday.

Expert assessment:

Aprill: “That the pastor says he personally endorses the candidate at an official function of the church makes the statement campaign intervention.”

Church and candidate response: Unite Church, Tanner and Tshibaka did not respond to requests for comment.

“Uncle Bill”: A New “Family”-Based Strategy

Some churches coordinated with one another to provide their congregations with a list that singled out specific candidates and omitted others.

Gateway Church

...Dem gov woman wicked witch of the north b/c pro abortion lujan.

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Gertz @ Media Matters: The right-wing ecosystem that created the Paul Pelosi conspiracy theory.

Sarah Rumpf @ Mediaite: San Francisco Police Chief Smacks Down Pelosi Attack Theories: ‘Absolutely No Evidence That Mr. Pelosi Knew This Man’.

Tess Owen @ Vice News: Paul Pelosi Attacker Wanted to Break Nancy’s Kneecaps, Police Say.

Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley @ Rolling Stone: Trump Plans to Challenge the 2022 Elections — Starting in Philly.

David Corn @ Mother Jones: GOP Secretary of State Candidates Scheduled to Appear with a White Nationalist and Conspiracy Theorists.

Jeremy Schwartz and Jessica Priest @ ProPublica: Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. The IRS Looks the Other Way.

Ellen Ioanes @ Vox: “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theories are coming for swing state ballot boxes.

John Fea @ Current: Evangelical leaders, including Mark Driscoll, anoint Kari Lake with oil.

Tags: Donald TrumpKari LakeRound-Up

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yet again

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/scientists-establish-link-between-religious-fundamentalism-and-brain-damage/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/republicans-united-states-christian-nation/

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Using an essay he wrote explaining that Christian political ethics have become extremely muddied during the Donald Trump years as a springboard, conservative writer David French appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" where he dropped the hammer on evangelicals who have excused the former president's transgressions for their own pursuit of political power.

Speaking with host Willie Geist, French expanded on his essay where he wrote, "American political culture is a toxic, hyperpartisan, corrupt, and increasingly violent mess," before adding, "The longer I live the more convinced I am that our Christian political ethic is upside down. On a bipartisan basis, the church has formed its members to be adamant about policies that are difficult and contingent and flexible about virtues that are clear and mandatory. "

"In 2016 and '17, David," host Geist prompted. "I know you heard this, when you'd ask about Donald Trump, 'How can you support a man who is so cruel, profane, and pays off porn stars after having affairs while his wife is pregnant?' The laundry list is long and they say, 'we are electing a president, not a saint, he is going to stand up for us and our way of life.' Boy, has that been exposed in the last few years."

"Yeah. I always hated that saying because no one was arguing that we are electing saints. But there's a world of difference between holding the standard of a saint and no standard at all," the author replied.

"This is what has happened, there is now no standard at all," he continued. "One of the things that I do in the piece is I contrast the movement that is dominating, for example, the MAGA right with the civil rights movement, which was Christian to its core. It was thoroughly Christian and confronting an injustice as grotesque as Jim Crow, and confronted it with an ethic of non-violence, with love and grace. I quote John Lewis in the piece to that effect."

"Here, we have a MAGA movement that is proclaiming some sort of national emergency," he elaborated. "It is nothing on the scale of Jim Crow it's not within shouting distance of that. Yet, they have utterly abandoned, in many ways, even the most basic requirements of human decency. Again, in their interactions with each other, interactions with political opponents, in their interactions with truth. This is turning that Christian political ethic utterly upside down."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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retaliation ain't very xian?

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/charlie-kirk-and-eric-metaxas-call-for-retaliatory-raids-on-liberal-groups/

rww 8 22

right-wing commentator and youth organizer Charlie Kirk appeared Thursday on “The Eric Metaxas Show,” where he called on Republican state attorneys general to launch raids on hundreds of liberal organizations without legal justification in retaliation for the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week.

Kirk, the Christian nationalist founder of Turning Point USA, declared that GOP attorneys general don’t even need to bother providing a legal pretext or worry about actually arresting people because the raids are simply political payback to show Democrats that “there’s a price” for daring to investigate Trump.

“Raids must be met with raids,” Kirk declared. “State attorney generals that are Republican have to authorize raids against Soros groups, BLM, Planned Parenthood, the alphabet mafia, groomers, the chemical castration of children now! Here’s why—a hundred facilities should be raided by next week. Find them. You try to tell me there’s not 100 criminal organizations that are aiding and abetting people across the southern border? La Raza; we know them, they publicized it. I’m not saying you have to arrest them. Just raid them. Find out what you find. Why? That will all of a sudden make [liberal groups] and their internal chatters—’Guys, you were so stupid. You raided Trump, now they’re coming after us.’ Good! Now you know there’s a price to this.”

Metaxas, a Trump sycophant and adamant election conspiracy theorist, loved the idea, declaring that “true leadership” means doing radical things like carrying raids without any legal pretext, adding that such leaders will be judged favorably by history and by God.

“True leadership means doing things that some people will say, ‘Oh, you can’t do that.’ A leader makes that calculation and says, ‘I think I need to do this now, and history will judge me, God will judge me,'” Metaxas said. “Do what is needed, and let God judge you, and let history judge you. We need those kinds of leaders now. Because we are in a war, we need a wartime consigliere.”

Metaxas and Kirk then asserted that their Christian faith requires that such action be taken.

“Both of us are Christians, and we take our orders from Jesus,” Metaxas continued. “God gave us this nation. He gave us liberty, and he gave us the obligation to keep the Republic. We have an obligation. … If you don’t understand that there is a time to fight, there is a time to take dramatic action, and it is not only not a violation of our Christian faith; on the contrary, it is a manifestation of our faith.”

“It’s a matter of justice, which is God’s idea,” Kirk replied. “Our entire system is inspired by the Bible. It is based on God’s will and providence breathing into our life. And if we’re just going to kind of sit idly by and do nothing; this is what drives me nuts, though, Eric, is that only a pampered, comfortable, self-righteous, arrogant, weak, theologically questionable Christian generation could believe such a thing. Our grandfathers and our ancestors were Christian, and they knew if they had to fight evil, they did.”

Metaxas, who emceed a “prayer rally” on the National Mall at which Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes threatened bloody civil war if Trump did not use his role as commander in chief to hang onto power after losing the 2020 election, warned that anyone who opposes such measures will be judged by God.

“If you are not angry about this, if you don’t want to do something about this, you’re part of the problem, folks,” Metaxas declared. “You are in bed with evil if you are not outraged at these things happening in the United States of America. If you just want business as usual to continue, you lack courage, and God will judge you, and history will judge you for this. There were many good Germans [in Nazi Germany] who did exactly this. They looked the other way when God would have said, ‘Please now look at what is happening. Please do a small thing now.’ They said, ‘I’m going to look the other way.’ You will regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t do something right now."[vid

as right-wing media and Republican politicians paint the raid as a deep state attack on the former president, threats against federal agents and the Justice Department have proliferated on pro-Trump social media, with one man taking his threat offline and attacking on an FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio, Thursday.

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an 8 22

House Republicans, including Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), the chair of far-right Republican Study Committee, traveled to Donald Trump‘s Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort one day after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home to urge him to announce his 2024 run for president.

Congressman Banks is a far-right Republican who spread Trump’s “Big Lie,” the false claims about the 2020 election, objected to the certification of the election results, and falsely claimed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the January 6 insurrection.

Tuesday night Rep. Banks posted a photo of himself and other members of the House Republican Study Committee at Bedminster, “House conservatives are united in standing with President Trump. We will Make America Great Again!”[twt pix rsc]

CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa&...">writes, “Conservative House Republicans have publicly and privately rallied behind Trump in the past 24 hours, including the visit below to Bedminster, where several GOP lawmakers encouraged him to jump into the 2024 race.”

[READ MORE: Experts Call on Trump to Release Search Warrant and Inventory List as His Supporters Talk of ‘Civil War’

Trump “told the group he ‘has made up his mind’ about his long-teased run, and ‘enjoyed encouragement’ from them to ‘get the decision out sooner rather than later,'” the New York Post adds Wednesday morning. Banks also told Fox News that Trump “said we are going to like his decision and it is only a matter of time before he will make that decision known.”

READ MORE: ‘He Was Going to Sacrifice You’: Pence Mocked for Rushing to Support Trump After FBI Mar-a-Lago Raid

Rep. Banks has falsely claimed he is the ranking member of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in a letter to the U.S. Dept. of the Interior in an effort to obtain information about the investigation.

Far right Republicans and Trump supporters have been passionately defending Trump after the FBI executed its search warrant and confiscated reportedly ten cartons believed to include classified documents from Mar-a-Lago that were required to be sent to the National Archives.

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an 822

Veteran journalist Sarah Posner, who has spent years writing about religion and the Christian right, has an explanation for the outraged response from some Trump supporters over the FBI executing a legal search warrant on Mar-a-Lago.

Hours after the news broke, Florida Republican state representative Anthony Sabatini called for “an emergency legislative session” to “Sever all ties with DOJ immediately” over the FBI executing a legal search warrant of Trump’s home. “Any FBI agent conducting law enforcement functions outside the purview of our State should be arrested upon sight,” he wrote, apparently unaware of the U.S. Constitution.

Tuesday night Trump supporters formed a small convoy driving outside Mar-a-Lago, some with Trump banners, Trump flags, or the American flag, – even one vehicle painted with the American flag – to show their support for the former president who might be facing legal consequences, as video from NBC 6 reporter Cristian Benavides shows.

[READ MORE: ‘This Is a National Security Issue’: Former FBI Agents Note Key Details About ‘Raid’ on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

[twt]

"the GOP position is that Trump is above the law,” writes The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent. “That’s what the GOP position on Trump was throughout his presidency, and that’s what it is now. Say it that way. Don’t let Republicans get away with using fake outrage to obscure this fundamental reality.”

Posner has written two books on the Christian Right including “UNHOLY: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, And the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind.”

In response to Sargent’s remarks she advises: “Remember too that much of Trump’s base believes that God anointed him, that it’s God’s will that he be back in the White House. And that they need to engage in ‘spiritual warfare’ with ‘demonic’ enemies of Trump — keep this in mind as right-wing influencers call for civil war.”

[READ MORE: IRS Under Trump Allowed a Decades-Old Influential Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group to Change Its Tax Status and Become a Church

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Monday night tweeted, “The FBI is raiding President Trump’s home in Maralago! This is the rogue behavior of communist countries, NOT the United States of America!!! These are the type of things that happen in countries during civil war. The political persecution MUST STOP!!!”

Tuesday morning CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan posted a graph and noted the “big spike in tweets referencing ‘civil war’ right after the news of the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago broke last night.”

Dr. Caroline Orr Bueno posted an image of a large number of tweets that mention civil war and other related calls, including: “I already bought my ammo,” “Civil war! Pick up arms, people!” “Civil War 2.0 just kicked off,” “Let’s do the war,” and “One step closer to a kinetic civil war.”

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an 7 22

A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.

Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge. On the other hand, religious beliefs are not usually updated in response to new evidence or scientific explanations, and are therefore strongly associated with conservatism. They are fixed and rigid, which helps promote predictability and coherence to the rules of society among individuals within the group.

Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview.

[NEW: How the 'unprecedented' Supreme Court leak made efforts to lobby conservatives on Roe 'all but impossible': report

Since religious beliefs play a massive role in driving and influencing human behavior throughout the world, it is important to understand the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism from a psychological and neurological perspective.

To investigate the cognitive and neural systems involved in religious fundamentalism, a team of researchers—led by Jordan Grafman of Northwestern University—conducted a study that utilized data from Vietnam War veterans that had been gathered previously. The vets were specifically chosen because a large number of them had damage to brain areas suspected of playing a critical role in functions related to religious fundamentalism. CT scans were analyzed comparing 119 vets with brain trauma to 30 healthy vets with no damage, and a survey that assessed religious fundamentalism was administered. While the majority of participants were Christians of some kind, 32.5% did not specify a particular religion.

Based on previous research, the experimenters predicted that the prefrontal cortex would play a role in religious fundamentalism, since this region is known to be associated with something called ‘cognitive flexibility’. This term refers to the brain’s ability to easily switch from thinking about one concept to another, and to think about multiple things simultaneously. Cognitive flexibility allows organisms to update beliefs in light of new evidence, and this trait likely emerged because of the obvious survival advantage such a skill provides. It is a crucial mental characteristic for adapting to new environments because it allows individuals to make more accurate predictions about the world under new and changing conditions.

Brain imaging research has shown that a major neural region associated with cognitive flexibility is the prefrontal cortex—specifically two areas known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Additionally, the vmPFC was of interest to the researchers because past studies have revealed its connection to fundamentalist-type beliefs. For example, one study showed individuals with vmPFC lesions rated radical political statements as more moderate than people with normal brains, while another showed a direct connection between vmPFC damage and religious fundamentalism. For these reasons, in the present study, researchers looked at patients with lesions in both the vmPFC and the dlPFC, and searched for correlations between damage in these areas and responses to religious fundamentalism questionnaires.

According to Dr. Grafman and his team, since religious fundamentalism involves a strict adherence to a rigid set of beliefs, cognitive flexibility and open-mindedness present a challenge for fundamentalists. As such, they predicted that participants with lesions to either the vmPFC or the dlPFC would score low on measures of cognitive flexibility and trait openness and high on measures of religious fundamentalism.

The results showed that, as expected, damage to the vmPFC and dlPFC was associated with religious fundamentalism. Further tests revealed that this increase in religious fundamentalism was caused by a reduction in cognitive flexibility and openness resulting from the prefrontal cortex impairment. Cognitive flexibility was assessed using a standard psychological card sorting test that involved categorizing cards with words and images according to rules. Openness was measured using a widely-used personality survey known as the NEO Personality Inventory. The data suggests that damage to the vmPFC indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by suppressing both cognitive flexibility and openness.

These findings are important because they suggest that impaired functioning in the prefrontal cortex—whether from brain trauma, a psychological disorder, a drug or alcohol addiction, or simply a particular genetic profile—can make an individual susceptible to religious fundamentalism. And perhaps in other cases, extreme religious indoctrination harms the development or proper functioning of the prefrontal regions in a way that hinders cognitive flexibility and openness.

The authors emphasize that cognitive flexibility and openness aren’t the only things that make brains vulnerable to religious fundamentalism. In fact, their analyses showed that these factors only accounted for a fifth of the variation in fundamentalism scores. Uncovering those additional causes, which could be anything from genetic predispositions to social influences, is a future research project that the researchers believe will occupy investigators for many decades to come, given how complex and widespread religious fundamentalism is and will likely continue to be for some time.

By investigating the cognitive and neural underpinnings of religious fundamentalism, we can better understand how the phenomenon is represented in the connectivity of the brain, which could allow us to someday inoculate against rigid or radical belief systems through various kinds of mental and cognitive exercises.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/christianity/

an 7 22 want xian nat?

...A Christian nation would hold that the entire society has responsibility for the elderly, the sick, the disabled and the poor. It would grant amnesty to all those who have come to this country in hope of a better life. It would demand peace, and extend mercy to all this country's enemies. It would demand equality in the education and justice systems, and extend special care to those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are persecuted and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, as Jesus put it in his most famous sermon.

But a Christian nation is not what these evangelical Republicans want. They, and especially their leaders, seek power, money and vengeance against anyone that stands in their way. If America's current health care system is killing people, then fine. If the justice system condemns the poor to prison and lets the rich walk free, then fine. If poor neighborhoods are plagued with violence and become traps nearly impossible to escape, then fine. These so-called Christians have no interest in equality of opportunity, in healing the sick, in welcoming the foreigner or in serving the poor. In other words, while conservative evangelicals may claim to want a Christian nation, they will do nothing to make that a reality. It's the last thing they want.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/these-christians-are-pushing-back-against-roger-stone-and-michael-flynns-toxic-maga-fundamentalism/

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A 27-year-old right-wing youth pastor from Arlington, Washington has been charged with two counts of third-degree child rape for allegedly sexually abusing a girl who at the time was just 15 years old.

The Everett Herald reports that prosecutors are alleging that Kendal Kippen met a 15-year-old girl at a youth group in 2017, when Kippen was at the time 22 years old.

The two became friends and exchanged contact information, which the girl told prosecutors flattered her at the time. The girl also said that she felt comfortable exchanging her information with Kippen because he was a church leader, which she figured meant he would not take advantage of his position.

The pair's relationship eventually grew to be sexual in nature, however, and prosecutors allege that Kippen repeatedly urged her to not tell anyone about their relationship until she turned 16 years old, which is the legal age of consent in Washington.

Additionally, it appears that the 15-year-old girl wasn't the only member of the church who drew Kippen's attentions, as an anonymous tipster called police in 2020 to report that he had been having "inappropriate relations" with multiple young congregants.

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jan 6 grift

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/john-eastman/

on fox beg $

GiveSendGo, the Christian right’s version of GoFundMe, is a top platform for Jan. 6 defendants seeking help with legal bills related to the insurrection at the Capitol. “QAnon Shaman” Jake Chansley raised $13,000; Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes has collected (a surprisingly modest) $12,000; Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio has raked in $113,000.

... ROLLING STONE

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/john-eastman-maga-fundraising-jan-6-committee-1349384/

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aha-let: note we have empir evidence that more guns does not work, but xian BS gives false humility and get out of jail free card from having to deal with empir facts:

gohmert plays old televangist BS that bad events are punishment for our sins, making god mad

an 6 22

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said recently that he would tell parents of young children killed in the Uvalde school shooting that "God has a plan."

Paxton, who took the leading role in a failed Supreme Court case aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election, went on a media blitz to fight calls for gun restrictions shortly after an 18-year-old shooter killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in the West Texas town of Uvalde.

In an interview with right-wing radio host Trey Graham, Paxton acknowledged that it is "difficult to give comfort" to families who lost their kids. "If I lost one of my children I'd be pretty devastated, especially in a way that is so senseless and seemingly has no purpose," he continued. "I think ... I would just have to say, if I had the opportunity to talk to the people I'd have to say, look, there's always a plan. I believe God always has a plan. Life is short no matter what it is. And certainly, we're not going to make sense of, you know, a young child being shot and killed way before their life expectancy."

Paxton's comments last week came ahead of emotional testimony by parents of Uvalde victims in the House last week. Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the attack, pleaded for Congress to take action on gun safety in response to the massacre.

"We understand that for some reason, to some people — to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns — that guns are more important than children," Rubio said while testifying with her husband, Felix. "Somewhere out there, there is a mom listening to our testimony thinking, 'I can't even imagine their pain,' not knowing that our reality will someday be hers. Unless we act now."

Dr. Roy Guerrero, a Uvalde pediatrician who treated some of the victims, made a similar plea as he described how children's bodies were "pulverized" and "decapitated" by the bullets from the AR-15-style rifle used by the gunman, to the point that "the only clue as to their identities were the blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them."

"Making sure our children are safe from guns, that's the job of our politicians and leaders," Guerrero said. "In this case, you are the doctors and our country is the patient. We are lying on the operating table, riddled with bullets like the children of Robb Elementary and so many other schools. We are bleeding out, and you are not there. My oath as a doctor means that I signed up to save lives. I do my job, and I guess it turns out that I am here to plead, to beg, to please, please do yours."

But after the heart-wrenching testimony, all but five Republicans in the House voted against a package that would raise the age to buy an AR-15 from 18 to 21 and toughen existing gun laws. Senate Republicans have already ruled out any new gun restrictions, as have Republican state leaders in Texas.

Paxton's immediate response to the shooting was to call for arming teachers, which some schools in Texas already do despite strong pushback from teachers.

"We can't stop bad people from doing bad things. We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer," Paxton said following the shooting.

Other Texas Republicans have also tried to blame anything but widespread easy access to guns. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called for "door control" in schools and Gov. Greg Abbott pushed an emphasis on mental health — despite slashing funds for mental health treatment.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, after Wednesday's hearing suggested that the answer is more "prayer."

"Look, maybe if we heard more prayers from leaders of this country instead of taking God's name in vain, we wouldn't have the mass killings like we didn't have before prayer was eliminated from school," he said.

Paxton in particular has a long history of opposing gun restrictions in response to mass shootings in Uvalde, El Paso and Sutherland Springs, arguing that mass shooters are "not going to follow a single gun law" even though gun laws prevented the shooter from getting a gun until he turned 18 — the legal age to purchase an AR-15, but not a handgun — just days before the attack.

Paxton has a close relationship with the gun lobby. The NRA, the Texas State Rifle Association and the Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund have all contributed heavily to his campaigns. Paxton also signed an amicus brief backing the NRA's petition asking the Supreme Court to strike down California's ban on high-capacity magazines. He even "welcomed" the NRA to Texas after the group tried and failed to file for bankruptcy to dodge a corruption investigation by New York's attorney general.

After a gunman killed 26 people in the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, Paxton argued that the only answer to gun violence was more guns.

"In Texas at least we have the opportunity to have concealed carry," he told Fox News. "And so if it's a place where somebody has the ability to carry, there's always the opportunity that gunman will be taken out before he has the opportunity to kill very many."

After another gunman killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart, Paxton again argued that more guns were the answer rather than fewer guns.

"The best way is to be prepared to defend yourself," he told CBS News.

Ironically, Paxton himself cannot buy a gun under federal law, because he has been under indictment since 2015 for breaking state securities law.

Researchers have found no evidence that arming teachers or other school personnel has any effect on school shootings. A review of 89 journal publications and media reports by researchers at the University of Toledo and Ball State University similarly found that armed school resource officers, restrictions on the number of school exits and active-shooter drills do not help either.

The "ideal method for eliminating school firearm violence by youths is to prevent them from ever gaining access to firearms," the researchers concluded, adding that "unfortunately, studies have found an alarming rate of firearms accessible to youths."

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/school-board/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/end-times/

now? HNN

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/trump-evangelicals/

backlash against pro-Trump evangelicals is completely reshaping religion: sociologist

Matthew Chapman Raw Story

For years, experts have noted the rise of the "Exvangelical" movement, in which young Christians are fleeing evangelical churches as the denominations take a hard right turn ...

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/far-right-christian-nationalists-still-consider-their-strongest-ally-report/

accelerant

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an 1 22 https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/white-christian-nationalism/

...Confronting White Christian Nationalism

“There are very good Christians who are compassionate and caring. And there are very bad Christians. You can say that about Islam, about Hinduism, about any faith. That is why I was saying that it was not the faith per se but the adherent. People will use their religion to justify virtually anything.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Christian nationalism has influenced the course of American politics and policy since the founding of this country, while, in every era, moral movements have had to fight for the Bible and the terrain that goes with it. The January 6th assault on the Capitol, while only the latest expression of such old battlelines, demonstrated the threat of a modern form of Christian nationalism that has carefully built political power in government, the media, the academy, and the military over the past half-century. Today, the social forces committed to it are growing bolder and increasingly able to win mainstream support.

When I refer to “Christian nationalism,” I mean a social force that coalesces around a matrix of interlocking and interrelated values and beliefs. These include at least six key features, though the list that follows is anything but exhaustive:

* First, a highly exclusionary and regressive form of Christianity is the only true and valid religion.

* Second, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity are “the natural order” of the world and must be upheld by public policy (even as Latino Protestants swell the ranks of American evangelicalism and women become important gate-keepers in communities gripped by Christian nationalism).

* Third, militarism and violence, rather than diplomacy and debate, are the correct ways for this country to exert power over other countries (as it is our God-given right to do).

* Fourth, scarcity is an economic reality of life and so we (Americans vs. the world, white people vs. people of color, natural-born citizens vs. immigrants) must compete fiercely and without pity for the greater portion of the resources available.

* Fifth, people already oppressed by systemic violence are actually to blame for the deep social and economic problems of the world — the poor for their poverty, LGBTQIA people for disease and social rupture, documented and undocumented immigrants for being “rapists and murderers” stealing “American” jobs, and so on.

* Sixth, the Bible is the source of moral authority on these (and other) social issues and should be used to justify an extremist agenda, no matter what may actually be contained in the Good Book.

Such ideas, by the way, didn’t just spring up overnight. This false narrative has been playing a significant, if not dominant, role in our politics and economics for decades. Since childhood — for an example from my own life — I’ve regularly heard people use the Bible to justify poverty and inequality. They quote passages like “the poor you will always have with you” to argue that poverty is inevitable and can never be ended. Never mind the irony that the Bible has been one of the only forms of the mass media — if you don’t mind my calling it that — which has had anything good to say about the poor (something those in power have tried to cover up since the days of slavery).

In many poor communities — rural, small town, and urban — churches are among the only lasting social institutions and so one of the most significant battlegrounds for deciding which moral values will shape our society, especially the lives of the needy. Indeed, churches are the first stop for many people struggling with poverty. The vast majority of food pantries and other emergency assistance programs are run out of them and much of the civic work going on in churches is motivated by varying interpretations of the Bible when it comes to poverty. These range from outright disdain and pity to charity to more proactive advocacy and activism for the poor.

Geographically, the battle for the Bible manifests itself most intensely in the Deep South, although hardly confined to that region, perhaps as a direct inheritance of theological fights dating back to slavery. For example, although there are more churches per capita than in any other state and high rates of attendance, Mississippi also has the highest child poverty rate, the least funding for education and social services for the needy, and ranks lowest in the country when it comes to overall health and wellness. It’s noteworthy that this area is known as both the “Bible Belt” and the “Poverty Belt.”

This is possible, in part, because the Bible has long been used as a tool of domination and division, while Christian theology has generally been politicized to identify poverty as a consequence of sin and individual failure. Thanks to the highly militarized rhetoric that goes with such a version of Christianity, adherents are also called upon to defend the “homeland,” even as their religious doctrine is used to justify violence against the most marginalized in society. These are the currents of white Christian nationalism that have been swelling and spreading for years across the country.

A moral movement from below

“We live in a moral universe. You know this. All of us know this instinctively. The perpetrators of injustice know this. This is a moral universe. Right and wrong do matter. Truth will out in the end. No matter what happens. No matter how many guns you use. No matter how many people get killed. It is an inexorable truth that freedom will prevail in the end, that injustice and repression and violence will not have the last word.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu

In the Poor People’s Campaign (which I co-chair with Reverend William Barber II), we identify Christian nationalism as a key pillar of injustice in America that provides cover for a host of other ills, including systemic racism, poverty, climate change, and militarism. To combat it, we believe it’s necessary to build a multiracial moral movement that can speak directly to the needs and aspirations of poor and dispossessed Americans and fuse their many struggles into one.

This theory of change is drawn from our study of history. The most transformative American movements have always relied on generations of poor people, deeply affected by injustice, coming together across dividing lines of all kinds to articulate a new moral vision for the nation. This has also meant waging a concerted battle for the moral values of society, whether you’re talking about the pre-Civil War abolition movement, the Populist Movement of the late nineteenth century, labor upsurges of the 1930s and 1940s, or the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Today, to grasp the particular history and reality of America means recognizing the need for a new version of just such a movement to contend directly with the ideology and theology of Christian nationalism and offer an alternative that meets the material and spiritual needs of everyday people....

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bannon/putin disinfo to destabilize, erode civil society to the pt --> authoritarian fascism // orban

no lnx

'To defy Trump's wishes is to defy God's plan': The scary truth about modern right-wing misinformation

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/right-wing-misinformation/

John Stoehr January 13, 2022

Death threats will change a person. During previous testimony before a Senate panel, the nation’s top infectious disease expert was calm and deferential. This week marked a break from the past. Enough is enough, apparently. Dr. Anthony Fauci was no longer in the mood.

Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas kept pressing the question of financial disclosures, implying that Fauci was benefiting from the effort to vaccinate the country against the covid pandemic.

Fauci, as head of the White House pandemic response, is a public servant. By law, he must disclose financial information. So of course he didn’t understand Marshall’s question, because his “financial disclosure is public knowledge” and has been for more than three decades.

Two things. Marshall knew this and was pretending not to or he didn’t know this, which should be embarrassing for a sitting senator. Either way, Marshall said his staff could not find the document. Well, it’s here. Ultimately, he was pandering to believers of rightwing misinformation.

READ: One sentence from the Supreme Court's ruling against an OSHA vaccine rule reveals its upside-down logic]

After a heated exchange in which Marshall kept insisting Fauci was hiding something and Fauci kept insisting he’s not – “all you have to do is ask” for the disclosure – Fauci said, “What a moron! Jesus Christ!” (He said this to himself, obviously, not realizing his mic was still on.)

Is Fauci showing us how to handle rightwingers? That’s what I asked Sara Aniano on Wednesday. She’s a Monmouth University graduate student studying rightwing rhetoric and conspiracy theories on social media. She co-authored a new report for the Global Network on Extremism and Technology analyzing QAnon trends a year after J6.

She said Fauci’s pushback felt good, but in the end, it probably doesn’t help. “The reality is pretty dire,” she said. Propaganda, conspiracy theory and misinformation have “already infected the population.” It’s too late even for the Washington press corps to do much about it.

The way Anthony Fauci talked to the Republicans is how everyone should talk to rightwing extremists. Am I on to something?

READ: A right-wing talking point about Jan. 6 just completely collapsed after indictment of the Oath Keepers]

Absolutely. For a lot of people on the left, Fauci's pushback was refreshing. People are tired of the pandering, and of watching misinformation be lumped into the category of “free speech.”[ = wht priv?]

While Fauci’s “moron” comment was indeed a great moment of transparency, we should also consider his ability to humanize the situation with the anecdote about his own harassment.

The left is often considered "soft” in contrast with the alleged "hard truth" attitude of the GOP. While Fauci's position is not about partisanship, anti-vaxx movements have unfortunately aligned with the right and the far-right. So it feels like Fauci is speaking for us, even though he's really speaking on behalf of everyone.

It seems to me speaking for everyone is often interpreted as soft. In other words, acting for the benefit of the common good immediately marks you as an enemy by rightwingers.

READ: DOJ unveils explosive sedition charges against the Oath Keepers for the Jan. 6 attack]

For a party that increasingly demonizes collectivism, it's in their best interest to continue promoting "individual responsibility,” as it works for their messaging politically. But for the extreme far-right, it's more sinister. In their minds, there is a war going on between good and evil. And if you're not on their side, their black-and-white thinking places you into the "enemy" category.

The irony is that they are actually collectivists, too, no?

I hear that a lot. In comparison to other countries, America is not a collectivist culture. In my opinion, anyone who pushes extreme nationalism here is also pushing extreme individualism.

As a leftist researcher of far-right misinformation, I admit to a certain level of bias. But January 6 marked a clear turning point in how we view partisanship, I think, and we can't discard that.

READ: Michigan Republicans who circulated fake 'Electoral College' documents are being investigated by the Jan. 6 committee: report]

Why is it a turning point? We turned from what to what?

For a lot of us studying far-right extremism and misinformation, we couldn't help but feel this collective "we told you so" when January 6 happened. For the first time, we had a visual manifestation of far-right conspiracism that wasn't limited to social media or fringe news programs. In other words, everyone saw people act on the ideologies that misinformation researchers sift through every day.

Of course, how people interpret what they saw is what's shaping their opinion now.

Which is where misinformation comes back, right?

Here's something I tweeted on the anniversary of the insurrection: “By the end of January 6, 2021, Americans were left with the most damaging relic of all: Yet another unfathomable event, born of hate and delusion, for far-right conspiracy theorists to contort into a self-serving narrative that unfairly demonizes the innocent.”

I want to cry.

A lot of us can relate to that.

To what extent is anti-vaccination about purity of blood? To what extent is anti-vaccination cover for plain old white supremacy?

It's interesting, because even if anti-vaxxers don't realize it, the "pure blood" characterization of the unvaccinated has roots to eugenics, which of course has roots to white supremacy.

But to go back to the idea of "infiltration," I think vaccine skepticism ties into that too.

Please go on.

I've been thinking about what types of infiltration the far-right finds most threatening. So far I've come up with three categories: 1) member infiltration, 2) spiritual infiltration and 3) bodily infiltration.

Member infiltration seems to stem from a fear of the "other" hiding in plain sight, trying to live among them but with heinous intentions. We see that a lot with paranoia about Antifa, the feds, Jews or journalists "posing" as patriots.

Spiritual infiltration has a lot to do with "demonic forces" among us. Satanic panic stuff. With QAnon, we see allegations of Satanic rituals in Hollywood or even reptilians wearing skinsuits to pass as humans.

Physical infiltration is a lot about co-opting "my body my choice" messaging to push back against the vaccine, which many think is the mark of the beast or a 5G transmitter or radioactive or a microchip. A lot of crossover with pseudo-science.

There is so much overlap that it's hard to make exclusive categories, but you get the idea.

We haven't talked about religion. What does your research say?

Yes, religion or spirituality is inextricable from far-right narratives overall. My thesis, currently in progress, focuses on QAnon Instagram comments in the week leading up to J6.

Rhetoric that pushes a higher power is always mixed in with far-right narratives, and overwhelmingly, that's Christianity. A lot of people who believe election fraud theories in QAnon circles genuinely think that Donald Trump was anointed by God – he is the chosen leader to usher in "the storm" and defeat the evil Democrats, once and for all.

In their minds, to defy Trump's wishes is to defy God's plan. I wouldn't say that this is ubiquitous across the right, to be clear. That's a pretty extreme version. But religion presents itself across far-right rhetoric in general, even when it doesn't involve Donald Trump.

Trump abruptly hung up on Steve Inskeep after the host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” challenged him repeatedly on the big lie? Are such challenges what a democratic republic needs?

I think Inskeep did a great job, although many were upset with NPR for bringing Trump on in the first place. Your question is a hard one. People asked the same thing during and after the 2020 election when Trump alleged fraud on TV before the ballot counting was even complete. Some networks cut his speech off, while others aired it.

Any time we platform misinformation, especially when we can see it coming, we must provide context and a good reason for showcasing it. If we can shut it down in the meantime, then yes, we should.

But if I'm being honest, I think that ship has sailed.

I don't know if it matters anymore if we cut off conspiratorial rhetoric from Trump and others when it's already infected the population.

Are you suggesting the press can’t really mitigate the spread?

Once Trump normalized discourse that was hateful, xenophobic, conspiratorial and sexist, he made it more mainstream. People who previously self-censored those thoughts felt free to not only think them, but say them – particularly on social media, where anonymity removes accountability. That hasn't really changed.

I guess my point is – the press should do what it can to mitigate misinformation, of course, but the reality is pretty dire.

There's a serious epistemological crisis going on, and that's gonna require systemic change.[// heated pod occupy sunrise guy too late to stop authoritorian, congress paralyze so only prez can at, crisis will give opening]

Again, I want to cry.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/jan-6-christian-nationalism/

In the midst of the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Jacob Chansley, the bare-chested man in Viking horns who's come to be known as the QAnon Shaman, stopped his fellow marauders in the Senate chamber to pray. "Thank you Heavenly Father for gracing us with this opportunity … to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs," he said. "Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and that love Christ. Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be reborn."

The prayer, caught on video by New Yorker reporter Luke Mogelson, was just one moment among hundreds that day illustrating how deeply the insurrection was intertwined with Christian nationalism. Across the sea of protesters in and outside the building, t-shirt and ball-cap slogans proclaimed it: "Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president"; "God, Guns, Trump"; or, on the sweatshirt of a man helping construct the rough gallows erected on the Capitol lawn, "Faith, Family, Freedom." (The gallows itself was quickly covered in handwritten notes — "as if it were a yearbook," observed lawyer and author Andrew Seidel — reading "Hang them high" and "In God We Trust.")

Elsewhere, protesters carried gigantic portraits of Jesus and replica statues of the Infant of Prague, or chanted about the blood of Jesus washing Congress clean. A long-haired blond man sang praise songs into a microphone plugged into a stack of amplifiers he was wheeling on a hand-truck. A Nebraska priest performed an exorcism on the Capitol building to banish the demon Baphomet, who he claimed was "dissolving the country" in order to "bring it back as something different." One rioter later indicted for breaking into the Capitol was actually a cast member in a touring production of "Jesus Christ Superstar." Another, Leo Brent Bozell IV, came from a long line of Christian right activists: His father, L. Brent Bozell III, founded the right-wing Media Research Center and his grandfather, L. Brent Bozell Jr., wrote speeches for Joseph McCarthy and a manifesto for Barry Goldwater.

"It was evident to anyone watching that there was this religious character to what was going on, both in the Trump movement writ large but particularly in the leadership of the 'Stop the Steal' movement," said religious studies scholar Jerome Copulsky, co-director of a new website, Uncivil Religion, dedicated to collecting "digital artifacts" of Jan. 6 religiosity and exploring what it means for, say, violent protesters to dress up like Captain Moroni — a legendary warrior from the Book of Mormon — or sing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" alongside fellow protesters carrying Confederate flags. "It wasn't just the Stop the Steal rally, then the assault," Copulsky continued. "People really wanted to display their religious commitments, literally wearing them on their sleeves."

The Uncivil Religion project developed from a Twitter hashtag, #CapitolSiegeReligion, created by author and religious historian Peter Manseau and based on his sense that the religious subtext (and text, and blaring headline) were "*the* story of what happened" on Jan. 6. In Manseau's view, religion wasn't an incidental element, but had been the driving motivation that had brought many people to the Capitol. Much of that had begun much earlier, with Christian right leaders — both official and self-declared — framing the 2020 election, and the rest of America's polarized conflicts, as an all-or-nothing showdown between good and evil.

Some were national names, like Samaritan's Purse president Franklin Graham, who in August 2020 warned in a Christian Broadcasting Network interview that if Trump lost, churches would close down and Christians would be attacked. But that message was echoed so widely, in both religious and secular conservative media and across numerous niche religious right communities, that allegations about the "stolen" election became nearly inseparable from messages of apocalyptic faith.

Much of that was on display on Dec. 12, 2020, in Washington, when a large-scale interfaith prayer protest, the Jericho March — widely seen as a forerunner to Jan. 6 — brought together a number of religious right factions to pantomime the biblical Battle of Jericho in praying to "bring down the walls of the Deep State." The carnivalesque full-day rally — organized, as journalist Sarah Posner reported, by two then-current employees of the federal government — featured an odd fusion of charismatic evangelicalism, Christian Zionism and right-wing Catholicism. There was contemporary Christian praise music and Virgin of Guadalupe iconography; a rendition of "Ave Maria" that concluded with the singer whooping "Giddy up"; and the female pastor of a New England pro-cannabis church wearing Catholic vestments while blowing on a Jewish shofar.

Emceeing the event was evangelical radio host Eric Metaxas, author of a bestselling biography of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a key figure in building an alliance between conservative evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Metaxas had become increasingly extreme throughout the Trump era. The week of the Jericho March rally, he told TurningPoint USA founder Charlie Kirk that the 2020 election was like "somebody is being raped or murdered … times a thousand," and that conservatives would need "to fight to the death, to the last drop of blood" to keep Trump in office.

That December rally featured several notable names on the Catholic right, including a bishop from Texas who refused to acknowledge Biden as president-elect, a nun who had delivered a fiery pro-Trump address at the 2020 Republican National Convention and, most prominently, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a dissident Catholic figure who had once been the Vatican ambassador to the U.S. but fell into disgrace after calling for Pope Francis' resignation in 2018. Since then, Viganò has turned into a sort of alternative pope for disaffected Catholic traditionalists at odds with their more moderate pope, and in 2020, he published an open letter to Trump warning that a "deep church" was working with the "deep state" to use the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests to undermine his presidency. After Trump tweeted a link to the letter, Viganò attracted so much support on the broader right that when he appeared, via video, at the Jericho March — praying "for the conversion of public officials who have become accomplices in public fraud" — an audience largely composed of evangelical Protestants cheered alongside his Catholic fans.

Evangelical speaker Lance Wallnau, who in 2016 famously compared Trump to the biblical figure of Cyrus — a "heathen" king who nonetheless served as the instrument of God — also sounded the theme of intra-religious conflict. "This is the beginning of a Christian populist uprising. There is a backlash coming," he said. "And you're going to see this wrecking ball of a reformation hit the church as well … because it's going to divide between those who are awake and those that are asleep. … There is a great awakening coming, and this is the spark that is starting it right now."

Not all speakers at the Jericho March were religious leaders in the traditional sense. Stewart Rhodes, the devoutly Christian founder of the militia group the Oath Keepers, was on hand to urge police and military members to prepare to fight Chinese "proxies" in the U.S., who he claimed were working to install Joe Biden as their "puppet."

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, freshly pardoned by Trump for lying to federal investigators, appeared in a flag bandana to talk about spiritual war and lead the crowd in an "Our Father." And conspiracy-theory talk-show host Alex Jones delivered a barn-burning near-sermon, proclaiming, "This is the beginning of the great revival before the Antichrist comes. World government, implantable microchips, Satanism — it's out in the open. The Bible is fulfilled, Revelation is fulfilled."...And there was Ali Alexander, the bombastic founder of the Stop the Steal movement, who appeared frequently on stage alongside Metaxas, vowing that if Biden was installed as president, Alexander and his supporters would return to "occupy D.C. full of patriots," adding, "We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us."

In the following weeks, Alexander repeatedly underscored the religious dimensions of his mission. In late December, he...https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/stop-steal-organizer-ali-alexanders-pre-january-6-calls-violence-weve-got...told the Epoch Times-affiliated NTD television network, "We are in a fight of good versus evil, of light versus the darkness, and a global order over sovereign citizens. … I believe that this is a metaphysical fight and we are channeling all energy in heaven and on earth towards a favorable outcome."

On New Year's Eve in 2020, Alexander announced on Twitter that he was converting to Catholicism, in part, he explained, because he'd become convinced that the Catholic Church had been "infiltrated" by an "earthy [sic] order that works in concert with Satan himself against the Church," and that he had been personally called to join the battle. And when the Jericho March returned to Washington on Jan. 5, for a slate of protest events leading up to the following day's MAGA march, Alexander spoke again, whipping the crowd into a ...

"The Jericho March put a definite religious imprimatur on Jan. 6," said Posner. "After Jan. 6, the organization put a note on their website that they condemned violence. But they held multiple rallies in which they talked repeatedly about the election being stolen, that God told them they must have the church 'roar,' and that they were going to be like Joshua's army in the Bible and the walls of the Deep State would fall."

...But no matter how explicit — and violent — the religious rhetoric swirling around Stop the Steal was, it was little recognized before the Jan. 6 attack. "We have gotten so used to religious language used by evangelicals and other religiously-affiliated officials that the danger that was there — whether at the Jericho March or the Jan. 6 rally that led up to the attack on the Capitol — was really just noise to some people," said Anthea Butler, chair of the religious studies department at the University of Pennsylvania. "And then it happened, and everyone pretended to be shocked. But that's willful ignorance about the role religion has played in the last 40 or 50 years in the Republican Party. It hasn't just been this alliance of how to get people elected, but has had this element of things that have fed upon each other to create a monster that threatens democracy."...https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1351180665904111619...of" victory="Victory" or="or" death="death"

That has remained central to the legacy of Jan. 6, as religious leaders have used the rhetoric of faith to minimize and redirect responsibility for the violence of that day: whether it's people like... Wallnau or South Carolina televangelis...Mark Burns blaming "antifa soldiers" for perpetrating a false-flag operation to smear Trump supporters [huckabee ...suggesting, in email newsletters over the last six months, that Nancy Pelosi may have orchestrated the attack, and casting indicted Jan. 6 protesters as political prisoners; or former Vice President Mike Pence, in a December interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, downplaying the very attack in which an angry mob called for his execution.

The rest of its legacy is more diffuse, but no less troubling: Metaxas suggesting that the creation of COVID-19 vaccines is akin to experimenting "with the bodies of Jews we murdered in the concentration camps," or Viganò writing that COVID exists merely as a "psycho-pandemic"; Wallnau calling "wokeness" the religion of the Antichrist and, on the eve of the Jan. 6 anniversary...that if America is to be one nation under God, it must have only one religion. More systematically, there's the fact that much of the religious organizing energy that went into Stop the Steal has now transferred itself, as Posner... , into mobilizing the Christian right on behalf of voter suppression initiatives.

A year later, none of the religious fervor that helped drive Jan. 6 has vanished, says Copulsky. "It's built into the fabric of American life. There's a radicality to it, but this didn't come out of thin air. And it's not going to go away. It's incumbent on religious leaders and organizations to think about what that means....

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12 21 raw an

The Jan. 6 rioters’ composite profile reveals an insurrectionary base willing to resort to political violence to resist challenges to the dominant position of white Christendom and patriarchy in the United States. At about 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning in late June, FBI agents in tactical vests appeared at the front door of Casey Cusick, a 36-year-old Christian evangelical pastor, in Palm Bay, Fla.

Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, Cusick met the agents in his front yard, and they placed him in handcuffs. His 4-year-old child asked Cusick’s wife: “Mommy, why are they locking Daddy’s hands?”

Cusick, vice president of Global Outreach Ministries church, was charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and other violations in connection with the Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol. His father, Jim, the founder of the church, along with David Lesperance, a member of the church, have also been charged.

Months later, recording a podcast while awaiting trial, Casey Cusick reflected on how his father had noted before Donald Trump was elected that 1 Corinthians 15:52 says, “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: the trumpet shall sound.”

To Casey Cusick and his father, the word “trump” couldn’t be a fluke of translation.

“Now, you can’t tell me that it’s coincidence that the last president was Donald Trump,” Cusick insisted. “And here we go reading the scripture right here where it says, ‘The last trump for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.’”

The Cusicks had traveled with Lesperance to Washington DC on Jan. 6 to support Trump.

“We went up to DC to attend the rally because we believed what Trump said, and we believed that he won the election,” Casey Cusick told the far-right news outlet Newsmax. There, Trump told his supporters: “Our country has been under siege for a long time, far longer than this four-year period. You’re the real people that built this nation.” He added, “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Now, 10 months later, Casey Cusick was telling his podcast listeners: “We’re in a situation right now of combating this stuff in our country. We need to throw away all these love messages and faith messages, and start teaching our people and letting ’em know what is going on in our country. And if you don’t fight — fight back against this tyranny that’s happening — they’ll shut our churches down. We already saw what happened with COVID-19. We saw them literally shut our churches down.”

Since Jan. 6, the FBI has arrested more than 675 people in connection with the assault on the US Capitol; they are spread across 340 counties. Almost a third of them face charges of assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to Department of Justice. The rioters came to hear President Trump proclaim his false assertion that the election was stolen, and some, outfitted in tactical gear and weaponry, surged towards the Capitol before he had finished speaking, intent on preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the winner. They condemned the US government as “tyranny,” called members of Congress “traitors” and chanted, “Hang Mike Pence,” while casting themselves as the spiritual successors of the patriots of 1776. They falsely asserted that the incoming Biden administration was captured by the Communist Party of China.

“We won’t let you steal this country,” Oliver Sarko of Columbus, Ohio said on his Snapchat as he roamed the halls of the Capitol on Jan. 6. “Fight for Trump!” he yelled. And then, “Beijing Biden will never be president, we reject communism.”

Underneath the professions of patriotism and conspiracy-minded beliefs that the Biden administration and the Democratic Party are under the control of a sinister global cabal, the rioters’ composite profile reveals an insurrectionary base willing to resort to political violence to resist challenges to the dominant position of white Christendom and patriarchy in the United States.

“It’s not just being a Trump loyalist,” Amy Cooter, a sociologist at Vanderbilt University, told Raw Story. “A good majority of them feel like their version of America is under threat in a variety of ways. They’ve had those fears exacerbated by the pandemic. They were genuinely afraid of the protests after George Floyd’s killing. Whereas people of color, especially Black people, grow in size population-wise and grow in terms of political power, white people lash out through a variety of means, including gerrymandering. Some white people, to use a technical term, are freaked out. Trump becomes a symbol of resistance to all of these problems they perceive.”

The counties that sent insurrectionists to Washington DC on Jan. 6 defy easy categorization, from Los Angeles County, with 13 (roughly one defendant for every 1 million residents) to a handful or rural Kentucky counties with populations ranging from 15,000 to 45,000 that host one defendant apiece. Among the counties with the highest levels of participation, where at least one person for every 100,000 is facing charges related to the assault on the Capitol, some like Brevard and Marion in central Florida are booming, while others, like Putnam and Dutchess in New York’s Hudson Valley, lost population over the last decade. They include Democratic strongholds like Nashville, Tenn. and Columbus, Ohio and counties that Trump carried in the 2020 election like Macomb, in Michigan, and Brevard, in Florida.

Research by the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, or CPOST, has pinpointed one correlation between the insurrectionists and the demographic trends of the counties where they live. As reported by Barton Gellman in the Atlantic: “Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline. For every one-point drop in a county’s percentage of non-Hispanic whites from 2015 to 2019, the likelihood of an insurgent hailing from that county increased by 25 percent. This was a strong link, and it held up in every state.”

CPOST surveyed 1,070 Americans and found that 9 percent believed that use of force was justified to restore Trump to the presidency, and that a fourth of adults agreed, in varying degrees, that “the 2020 election was stolen, and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.” The survey found that 8 percent of Americans, equivalent to 21 million adults, held both of those radical beliefs.

“Today’s 21 million adamant supporters of insurrection also have the dangerous potential for violent mobilization,” wrote Robert Pape, CPOST’s director.

CPOST’s research also found that 63 percent of “adamant insurrectionists” believe in the Great Replacement theory based on their agreement with the statement: “African American people or Hispanic people in our country will eventually have more rights than whites.”

Rooted in white-power extremist thinking, Great Replacement is typically expressed in more apocalyptic terms as a false belief that white people are facing imminent genocide due to a combination of immigration and declining white birth rates. White power extremists like Brenton Tarrant and Patrick Crusius, respectively responsible for massacres of Muslim worshipers at two mosques in New Zealand and of Latinx shoppers at Walmart in El Paso, Texas, both in 2019, used Great Replacement theory as justification for their mass murders. White nationalists chanted, “Jews will not replace us” during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017, and Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson has recently embraced Great Replacement theory.

Amy Cooter, the sociologist at Vanderbilt University, told Raw Story she thinks the Great Replacement theory is not exactly the right framework for understanding the motivations of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

“I think Replacement theory is an overt neo-Nazi perspective where they are consciously concerned about being outnumbered by Black people,” Cooter said. “From folks I have observed for a long time, they don’t have that conscious belief. Many of them are genuinely oblivious to racism and oblivious to how much harder it is to obtain the American Dream if you’re a person of color."

Cooter conducted ethnographic research with Michigan militia activists about 10 years ago, and sees a strong crossover with the insurrectionists who mobilized on Jan. 6.

“Their ideology is shared across a broad swath of conservatism,” Cooter said of the militia activists. “The real power is trying to get at the cause of the insurrection. If you just think the insurrectionists are white supremacists, then we’ll miss some important insights about how to stop the next insurrection.”

Analysis by Raw Story suggests that racial anxiety over declining white population tells some but not all the story about the underlying motivation for the Jan. 6 insurrection. Raw Story identified a dozen “hotspot” counties where at least four people are facing federal charges related to the assault on the Capitol, excluding counties where all defendants were part of the same family or traveled to DC together. The counties were also selected based on a criterion that at least one of every 200,000 residents face charges in connection with the Jan. 6 assault.

All 12 counties saw some decline in their white non-Hispanic populations between 2015 and 2019. By far, the sharpest decline was seen in Collin County, in the suburbs north of Dallas (4.2 percent). Other counties that experienced a significant drop in the non-Hispanic white population were Franklin County (Columbus), Ohio (2.7 percent); Marion County, Fla. (2.3 percent); Macomb County, Mich. (2.1 percent); Camden County, NJ (1.8 percent); and Brevard County, Fla. (1.7 percent).

The remaining six counties saw their non-Hispanic white populations decline at rates equivalent or less than the national average of 1.5 percent: Bucks County, in the suburbs north of Philadelphia (1.5 percent); Dutchess County, NY (1.3 percent); Jefferson County (Birmingham), Ala. (1.0 percent); Allegheny (Pittsburgh), Pa. (1.0 percent); Erie (Buffalo), NY (0.8 percent); and Davidson (Nashville), Tenn. (0.5 percent).

Beyond the decline in white population across the United States, there’s a much more dramatic shift afoot. A 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found that the share of Americans who describe themselves as Christians dropped by 12 percentage points over the past decade. And a Gallup poll released in March 2021 found that the share of Americans who attend a church, synagogue or mosque dropped below 50 percent in 2020, down from 70 percent around the turn of the 21st century. The share of Americans of Americans who call themselves Christian has declined among all racial and ethnic groups, but none more so than white non-Hispanics.

While the religious right is celebrating dramatic victories in its march to outlaw abortion, the declining demographic clout of churchgoing Christians signals a potential loss of political power.

“I love this country; I love America,” said Casey Cusick, the pastor in Palm Bay — part of Brevard County — who has a pending charge of felony violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. “And I’m saddened to see where things have gone with our nation.” Cusick, explained in another part of his October podcast that he believes the United States “was founded on Judeo-Christian principles.”

Cusick lamented that a lot of Christians “say politics doesn’t belong in church, and the reason is no one wants to believe the truth — no one wants to understand what’s going on in our nation. They just want to fly by the seat of their pants, not get involved politically because, you know, you can’t do that. To be honest, that’s the reason our country’s in the situation that it’s in right now.”

Joshua Black, a rioter from Leeds, a suburb of Birmingham, Ala., explained in more vivid terms how his feeling that the Christian nation was being ripped away from him motivated him to invade the citadel of American democracy.

In a YouTube video, Black explained that he decided to go inside the Capitol after being shot in the face with a projectile because he “wanted to get inside the building so I could plead the blood of Jesus over it.” Once inside, he found a door marked “US Senate” and went into the chamber.

“I just felt like the spirit of God wanted me to go in the Senate room, you know,” Black said. “So, I was about to break the glass and I thought, no, this is our house, we don’t act like that. I was tempted to, I’m not gonna lie. Cause I’m pretty upset. You know? They stole my country.”

Eventually, he concluded that he had achieved his purpose, and left the Capitol building.

“I pled the blood of Jesus on the Senate floor,” Black said. “You know. I praised the name of Jesus on the Senate floor. That was my goal. I think that was God’s goal.”

Kevin Tuck, a pastor at the Lighthouse Church of Central Florida who stormed the Capitol while employed by the Windermere Police Department, posted a defiant YouTube video a month after being charged with obstruction of an official proceeding and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. In his comments explaining the motivation behind the assault on the Capitol, Tuck decried both the rising acceptance of homosexuality and what he perceives as a loss of nationhood.

“You look at Jan. 6, that was a day that patriots were fed up — fed up,” Tuck reportedly said. “Patriots are being arrested left and right for trespassing. You’ve got to be kidding me.

“We need to rise up and be conservative again,” he continued. “Do you remember what conservative means, Republicans? Hear me out: We are embracing the homosexual lifestyle as if this is normal.

“We need to go back to becoming a conservative nation again,” Tuck concluded. “Back to nationalism. Being proud of this country.”

Pat Stedman, a 32-year-old self-described “dating and relationship strategist” from Haddonfield, in Camden County, NJ, posted on Twitter to his 29,000-some followers on Dec. 30, 2020: “Highly, HIGHLY recommend all patriots come to DC on the 6th. This will be a turning point in our nation.” He added, “If you are coming DM me. Assembling a TEAM.”

In a video posted on his Twitter account at 3:52 p.m. on Jan. 6, Stedman reported: “I was pretty much in the first wave, and we broke down the doors and climbed up the back part of the Capitol building and got all the way into the chambers.”

While Cusick’s podcast commentary expresses frustration that fewer Christians are declaring dominion over political governance, Stedman is preaching to young men who have difficulty maintain relationships with women that their problems are rooted in the decline of patriarchy.

“In the modern era, a husband does not have a ‘right’ to his wife’s body; he has no authority over her whatsoever,” Stedman complained in a blog post earlier this month. “Divorce is easy — you don’t even need an explanation — and in the aftermath, it’s usually the woman who ends up with the house and kids.”

Deriding gender progress in gender equality, Stedman lamented that traditional male authority has been supplanted by “an amorphous corporate state syndicate.”

Among defendants who hail from the regions with the highest levels of participation in the insurrection — central Florida, New York’s Hudson Valley, and the northern Philadelphia suburbs — some hold criminal records that reflect involvement in hate activity, or domestic violence.

Michael Curzio, a Marion County resident who was cited by US Capitol Police on Jan. 6 after refusing to leave the upper level of the Capitol Visitors Center, had previously joined a white supremacist gang known as the Unforgiven while serving a prison sentence for attempted murder.

Anthony Vuksanaj of Putnam County, NY — where three out of every 100,000 residents faces charges related to the assault on the Capitol — was charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Vuksanaj was previously charged in 2019, along with his wife, with second-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime, unlawful imprisonment and other offenses, according to a local news report. The news outlet reported that New York State Police were called to a Chili’s parking lot on a report of a domestic dispute and that the Vuksanajes violated a protection order by preventing the victim from leaving the parking lot, according to the report, which also said the Vuksanajes attempted to pull the victim from a vehicle and damaged the vehicle with a tire iron, and that the crimes appeared to be biased due to the victim’s sexual orientation.

Ryan Samsel of Bucks County, in Pennsylvania, was the first rioter to approach the police line at the entrance to the Pennsylvania Avenue Walkway, as a mob that included a large number of Proud Boys approached the Capitol. According to his charging document, Samsel pushed and pulled the barricade until the crowd pushed the barricade down on top of the officers, causing one officer to hit her head on the stairs and lose consciousness. Federal prosecutors told the court that prior to Jan. 6 Samsel had a long history of assaulting women. In one incident, in 2008, Samsel reportedly poured beer on his pregnant girlfriend, shoved her into a canal and repeatedly held her underwater.

Casey Cusick also has a reported history of domestic violence. Cusick was arrested at his home in 2018 for disorderly conduct, according to Florida Today. The newspaper cited an arrest report that indicated that Cusick struck his wife on the nose with his right elbow, causing her to bleed, although the charge was not adjudicated.

Central Florida and the New York’s Hudson Valley, as two regions of the country with a disproportionate share of the Jan. 6 defendants, are also well represented among the two extremist groups — the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys — that played an outsized role in the insurrection.

Members of the Oath Keepers who face charges related to the assault on the Capitol are prominently represented among the defendants from Brevard and Marion counties. Kenneth Harrelson, who was assigned to serve as the “ground team lead in Florida,” hails from Titusville, in Brevard County. Kelly Meggs, named the “state lead of Florida,” and his wife, Connie, live in Marion County. The three Oath Keepers members conducted paramilitary training together at a firing range in Florida prior to Jan. 6, according to federal prosecutors.

Jeremy Brown, an Oath Keeper who told an InfoWars interviewer that he started reaching out to other US Army Special Operations veterans in April 2020 “when we started having the lockdowns,” lives in Tampa, Fla., as does fellow Oath Keeper Caleb Berry. Another Oath Keeper, James Delisco Beeks, lives in Orlando.

Roberto Minuta, an Oath Keeper who was assigned to Roger Stone’s personal security detail before he took part in the assault on the Capitol, operated a tattoo parlor in Newburgh, NY, although he reportedly moved to Prosper, Texas, north of Dallas, in 2020.

William Pepe, a former New York Metropolitan Transit Authority employee who lived in Beacon, NY at the time of the Jan. 6 attack, is charged with conspiracy to stop, delay or hinder Congress’ certification of the electoral vote by force, along with fellow Proud Boys Dominic Pezzola and Matthew Greene. The three men are accused of charging towards the Capitol behind Samsel, and Pepe is specifically accused of removing a police barrier at the entrance of the west plaza so that other rioters could infiltrate the plaza and prevent officers from controlling access to the Capitol.

Joe Biggs, who led the Proud Boys mob alongside Ethan Nordean that marched on the Capitol, is from Ormond Beach, on Florida’s east-central coast. Arthur Jackman, who is married to an Orange County sheriff’s deputy, is from Orlando. Jackman was indicted alongside Kevin Tuck, the former Windermere police officer, and his son, Nathaniel Tuck, who had previously been employed as an officer with the Apopka Police Department. The three men posed together, along with Proud Boys Biggs, Nordean, Edward George and Paul Rae, on the Capitol lawn after storming the building.

The rhetoric of the Hudson Valley and central Florida insurrectionists, like their counterparts from across the country, included an unmistakable call to war.

After fulfilling his obligation to provide security for Stone, the indictment says Roberto Minuta “donned battle apparel and gear, including hard-knuckle tactical gloves, ballistic goggles, a tactical vest, a radio with an earpiece and bear spray. Minuta and give other Oath Keepers reportedly sped towards the Capitol, swerving around law enforcement.

“Patriots are storming the Capitol building; there’s violence against patriots by the DC police; so, we’re en route in a grand theft auto golf cart to the Capitol building right now,” Minuta reportedly said. “It’s going down, guys; it’s literally going down right now. Patriots storming the Capitol building… f*cking war in the streets right now… word is they got the building… let’s go.”

Minuta, like his fellow Oath Keeper Jeremy Brown in Florida, had been radicalized by the government response to the pandemic.

Minuta had refused to shut down his tattoo shop in Newburgh in defiance of executive orders by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in May 2020. At the direction of founder Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers turned out for a rally to support Minuta that month.

“I’m going to designate him as a lifetime Oath Keeper,” Rhodes reportedly said. “And I’m not going to say we’re going to comp him a lifetime membership, because he’s earned it. He’s earning it right now. So, we’re honored to have him as a member of the Oath Keepers.”

Casey Cusick, the pastor from Florida, and Pat Stedman, the “dating and relationship strategist” from southern New Jersey, share some things in common. Both are men in their thirties who are facing charges related to the Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol. They live in different regions of the country, and seemingly speak to different audiences, but in many ways they represent the religious and secular sides of the same coin.

“I believe we’re in a time of restoration,” Cusick said in the Nov. 21 episode of his podcast “The Watchmen,” which is billed as “a Biblical outlook at what’s going on politically in the world today.”

Stedman told his listeners in a Sept. 25 episode of his “COVID/Cabal” podcast: “The planet is transitioning to a different age. It’s transitioning to a different age, and it’s transitioning to a different consciousness. And you either get on board with the consciousness — there’s not a lot of time left for that — you literally get on board with that, or you literally are not gonna make it.”

Both men share a fixation on elites, echoing Trump’s demonization of a global elite during the 2016 election and his efforts to undermine scientific expertise through antagonism towards Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Cusick said in one of his podcasts that through researching COVID-19 on the internet he learned about “Satanic ritual abuse and things like that.”

“We’re worried about a virus when in reality, there’s stuff in our food that would blow your mind,” Cusick said, building to a crescendo of alarm. “There’s stuff in movies that they put in there for our children. There’s stuff they’re doing to children; it’s just terrible. And I’m telling you right now, this whole thing that is going on is a thousand percent about the kids. It’s about sex trafficking that’s been going on worldwide…. And it’s at the highest level. Elites. At the highest level.”

Both Cusick and Stedman also insist in remarkably similar language that the results of the 2020 election must be reversed.

Sipping a glass of Riesling on his deck this past fall with the air of a successful man living the good life, Stedman gazed into the camera and said, “All this talk about, ‘Just wait for 2022, just wait for 2024’ — which is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. You fix 2020, or it’s done. Or the United States is done.” He added, “They’re just going to steal it. And the only way out is noncompliance. You can’t look to the voting booth.” (He qualified his statement by saying he’s not calling for violence: “It’s just noncompliance. You accept the system is not legitimate, doesn’t work, it’s corrupt, it’s captured, and you let what else happens, happen.”)

Cusick made the same point in the Nov. 21 episode of “The Watchmen,” with its televised wrestling-style show intro (“It’s time. So, get your popcorn ready. It will be… political. It will be… Biblical.”): “We have to do something about 2020. If we don’t deal with 2020 — I’ve said this a thousand times — how do we have a 2022?”

Both men overtly invoke the apocalypse, and self-consciously make QAnon references in their respective podcasts.

“What is going on here in America?” Cusick said in the Oct. 19 episode of his podcast. “They have us — we’re enslaved…. When the pilgrims came to America in 1620 — four hundred years from then goes to 2020 — when did this awakening start in the United States? Everyone started realizing what was going on with our elections, with Hollywood, with all these elites. It started in 2020, thanks to our president, Donald Trump.”

Cusick offered an allegory, comparing Americans from the settling of the colonies in the 1600s to the Israelites who, according to the Old Testament, were enslaved in Egypt under the pharaoh. By way of explaining how the United States, which after all, was supposedly “founded on Judeo-Christian principles,” had been “enslaved” since before its founding, Cusick claimed that “it was infiltrated and it became Satanic.”

For Cusick, Trump is to be credited for awakening a sense of nationalism in Americans and helping them define an enemy, which happens to be their fellow citizens.

“Trump’s the one who made people all of a sudden realize we have a country, and we have an opposition, whether you were on the left side or the right side,” Cusick said.

While concerned with something entirely different — helping men have more sex, as opposed to saving souls for Jesus — Stedman offered a similar chronology in his Dec. 9 blog post entitled “Why Your Woman Stops Wanting Sex.”

“We have been experiencing a gradual dark night of soul these past 100 years; as I write this in December 2021 we are near the culmination of it,” he wrote. Then, he went straight to the apocalypse: “In this collapse all that has been hidden is becoming seen. We are living through the apocalypse — the great revealing. The great awakening.”

After invoking apocalypse as a force for a transformation in gender relations, Stedman advised young men that they should strive for “consensual polarity” while making it clear that he was not advocating for equality: In his view, the men are protagonists; women are material to be “forged.”

“Such a relationship is well within your grasp,” Stedman advised. “In spite of all the programming, suitable women are all around; though many do need guidance — you will need to help forge them. But the limiting factor is you. Because you can only take a woman as far as you yourself have gone.”

Both Cusick and Stedman appeal to an authoritarian impulse by setting up a struggle between a populist base and an elite, with Trump still embodying the avenging strongman. For, Cusick, who views Trump is “a type and shadow of the Messiah” just “as Obama was a type and shadow of the Antichrist,” the former president will returned to power through God’s will. For Stedman, it will be with the assistance of a shadowy cadre he described as “an upper strata of the military… good people who are in this deep, deep apparatus… it’s beyond top secret.”

Cusick said he believes the reason Americans are experiencing tribulations is that “God’s allowing us to see Satan’s plan so that we can wake up.”

Stedman asked his listeners: “Why is Trump so confident? Why is Trump safe? Why is he protected? Why did he pull back before?” And he similarly concluded: “Well, he pulled back because he’s allowing the consciousness of the public to grow.”

In contrast, the elites and other enemies of Trump’s base, recognize that their days are numbered, Stedman claimed. It will be only a matter of time before Trump’s ultra-secret military backers would come to the aid of the yearning masses to vanquish the elites, he predicted.

“They will not be able to walk down the street,” Stedman claimed. “Do you think for a second that these people are confident in their position? Why don’t you think they’re confident? Well, they’re not confident because there’s a group above them that’s sandwiching them. You’re here at the bottom — the masses that are waking up, putting pressure on the bottom. And they’re on the top and they’re putting pressure on the top. And these people are getting squeezed. They’re like a nice little fruit. They’re getting squeezed of all their juice.”

Cusick, meanwhile, confidently predicted that Trump will return to power in a manner similar to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“I will say he’s stepped out of his wealth, just like Jesus stepped down out of heaven into this dark world to help us, to redeem us,” Cusick said. “Donald Trump did something very similar. He’s gone. Jesus was gone for three days and three nights, but he came back.

“I believe it’s going to be the same,” he predicted. “He’s a conquering king.”

10 states with largest number of arrests on federal charges in connection with Jan. 6 insurrection

Florida — 78

Texas — 61

Pennsylvania — 60

New York — 55

California — 43

Ohio — 33

Virginia — 3

New Jersey — 22

Missouri — 18

North Carolina — 18

12 counties with largest number of arrests on federal charges in connection with Jan. 6 insurrection

Los Angeles, Calif. — 13 (0.13 per 100,000 population)

Orange, Calif. — 10 (0.31 per 100,000 population)

Kings (Brooklyn), NY — 8 (0.29 per 100,000 population)

Brevard, Fla. — 7 (1.15 per 100,000 population)

Allegheny (Pittsburgh), Pa. — 7 (0.56 per 100,000 population)

Franklin (Columbus), Ohio — 7 (0.53 per 100,000 population)

Hillsborough (Tampa), Fla. — 7 (0.47 per 100,000 population)

Dutchess, NY — 6 (2.03 per 100,000 population)

Marion, Fla. — 6 (1.60 per 100,000 population)

Orange (Orlando), Fla. — 6 (0.42 per 100,000 population)

Broward, Fla. — 6 (0.31 per 100,000 population)

Riverside, Calif. — 6 (0.25 per 100,000 population)

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property is sub-human:

11 21 no lnx

AA] Pastor tells congregation 'the best person to rape is your wife'

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement November 23, 2021

A Seventh-day Adventist pastor told his Bronx, New York congregation that wives belong to their husbands, as property, and they must "submit" themselves to their husbands, even if that means being raped by them.

"Wives, you must submit to your husbands," Pastor Burnett Robinson said, as shown in the video below.

"I would say to you gentlemen, the best person to rape is your wife," he added in his November 13 sermon, as Religion News Service reports.

"In this matter of submission, I want you to know upfront ladies, that once you get married, you are no longer your own. You are your husband's. You understand what I'm saying? I emphasize that because I saw in court the other day on TV where a lady sued her husband for rape. And I would say to you gentlemen, the best person to rape is your wife. But then it has become legalized."

RNS notes that "Robinson was apparently preaching from a passage from the New Testament's Letter to the Ephesians, in which the Apostle Paul says, 'Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.'"

A Change.org petition with over 1100 signatures is calling for Robinson's resignation.

The Grand Concourse Seventh-day Adventist church has apologized and placed the pastor on leave, according to its website. Robinson has led that church as senior pastor since 2013.

This author will not post the video directly, but it can be seen here.

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Farris Wilks is one of the billionaire Wilks brothers. Dan and Farris Wilks made their fortune selling their hydraulic fracking business, Frac Tech, for $3.5 billion to the Singapore government in 2011. According to Forbes, Farris Wilks and his brother are each worth $1.4 billion as of December 2017. [1]

The Wilks brothers have been described as “the Koch brothers of the Christian right” for their funding of anti-abortion and anti-LGBT groups. In addition to a variety of groups on the Religious Right, the brothers have funded organizations associated with the Koch brothers’ political network such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the State Policy Network (SPN). Farris Wilks runs The Thirteen Foundation, which has been described as “one of the biggest and quietest anti-abortion donors in the United States.” [2], [3], [4]

“The Wilks brothers worry that America’s declining morals will especially hurt the younger generation, so they’re using the riches that the Lord has blessed them with to back specific goals,” the Christian Broadcasting Networks’ David Brody reported from an event run by “Christian-Nation extremist“ David Lane in 2013. Farris Wilks said they want to “bring the Bible back into the school and start teaching our kids at a younger age and focus on the younger generation.” [5], [6]

In 2011, Farris and wife Jo Ann each contributed $50 million to help found The Thirteen Foundation. According to The American Prospect, the foundation then gave gifts that “amount to a massive infusion of funds into some of the most aggressive right-wing organizations that are fighting legal equality for LGBT people, access to contraception and abortion services for women, and promoting the Tea Party’s vision of a federal government that is constitutionally forbidden from protecting American workers, consumers, and communities by regulating corporate behavior.” [7]

Some of those funded included American Majority, the Franklin Center, the Heritage Foundation, and the SPN, all part of the Koch brothers’ political network. [8]

Farris Wilks is a pastor for the Assembly of Yahveh 7th Day Church near Cisco, Texas. The church was founded by his parents, Voy and Myrtle, in 1947. The church holds that the Bible is “true and correct in every scientific and historical detail” and that “homosexuality is a serious crime.” Abortion is also a serious crime, “It is murder” including cases of pregnancy from rape or incest, Reuters reported. [9], [10], [11]

The Wilks family made headlines when they gave $15 million to back the 2016 presidential bid by Ted Cruz, and reportedly set up a private fundraising gathering for Cruz a Farris Wilks’ ranch. The brothers are also among the largest landowners in Montana, the Billings Gazette reported in 2014. [11], [19], [12]

The Wilks Brothers and PragerU

Dan and Farris Wilks are two of the largest funders of PragerU (AKA “Prager University”). Farris’ Thirteen Foundation gave $1 million to the foundation in 2015, while Wilks has given at least $120,000 through the Heavenly Fathers Foundation, according to publicly available 990 forms reviewed by DeSmog. [13]

PragerU, which is not an accredited academic institution, was created by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager who has “historically fought against what he describes as ‘liberal’ evils—marriage equality, feminism, and multiculturalism.” According to its 2014 annual report, PragerU was advancing with the specific goal of targeting middle school and high school children. [13]

The group’s “Environmental Science” course is dominated by climate change deniers such as Alex Epstein, Bjorn Lomborg, Patrick Moore, and Richard Lindzen. [14]

Dennis Prager has called campus rape a “gargantuan lie to get votes” and “nonsense” promoted by the “feminist left.” [15]

Stance on Climate Change

July 2013

“If [God] wants the polar caps to remain in place, then he will leave them there,” Wilks said, according to sermons reviewed by Reuters. [11]

Key Quotes

September 2015

“We support (Cruz) because he believes in the morality of the free market, in keeping our country safe, and in the right of the unborn not to be killed in their mother’s womb,” Farris Wilks said in an email to Reuters. [11]

February 2014....

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wow literally strict fr

an 11 21

after Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin won Virginia's gubernatorial race Tuesday, the GOP appears eager to take his bigotry-infused "education" strategy nationwide. "The Republican swings in Virginia and New Jersey show the efficacy of a new model of conservative politics: appealing to suburban voters by promising greater parental control of schools," the Washington Post reports Thursday morning. It's a clever strategy.

If the public knew what the GOP demands actually were — banning classic books like Toni Morrison's "Beloved" or "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood — most parents would not be on board. Few people want to be a Nazi book burner! But the GOP is repackaging this deeply fascist love of censorship in a friendlier frame of "parental rights." They got lucky that the Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, blundered in the campaign's closing weeks when he said, "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach," instead of mounting a robust defense of free speech and teaching the truth about slavery and segregation in history classes.

So what, exactly, are kids learning?

Republicans use scare terms like "critical race theory," and liberals try to draw attention to the lists of books Republicans are trying to ban, mainly for suggesting racism is bad or that LGBTQ people exist. It's extremely important for the left to focus on how this supposed fight over "education" is really a proxy fight over the right's rejection of equality for LGBTQ people and people of color.

But there's another aspect to this fight that has been less discussed: How the GOP war on schools is instigated, organized, and funded by right-wing religious groups whose true agenda is opposing the rights of children.

Conservatives, especially the Christian right, have long taken a dim view of raising kids who can think for themselves. Their view is children should be "trained" to be obedient and submissive. Under the guise of "parents' rights," the Christian right is mainstreaming their hostility to the very idea that children have a right to an education. In this case, the right of a child to have a proper education that teaches critical thinking and intellectual curiosity.

As journalist Talia Lavin writes in her recent deep dive into the history of corporal punishment in evangelical circles, the movement of "biblical parenting" started in 1970, when Christian right activist James Dobson published his book "Dare to Discipline," which advanced a belief in "the enforced submission of children to absolute authority." Soon there was a cottage industry of similar books, all of which promoted "the complete subjection of the child's will," usually through relentlessly beating kids (which is minimized through the cutesy word "spanking"). Children, in the Christian right view, are not to be educated — they are to be "trained." This philosophy of child-rearing was accompanied by a movement to impose their anti-child ideology on society and government. Unfortunately, this particular political goal of the Christian right gets far less coverage than their war on reproductive rights, their anti-LGBTQ activism, or their white supremacy. This lack of attention may, in fact, be a reason they've been wildly successful. As Lavin notes, hitting children "is outlawed completely in 63 countries," but "legal in all fifty states." Laws allowing parents to take kids out of school to be "home schooled" are notoriously lax, and there's been a great deal of headway in redirecting kids out of schools and into religious "charter schools" that embrace the training-not-education approach. Donald Trump's Education Secretary was Betsy DeVos, a far-right fundamentalist who has spent decades trying to destroy the public education system. It's why the U.S. is the only country in the world that hasn't ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It should be unsurprising, then, that the religious right groups who have long opposed children's rights are behind this newly sprung nationwide attack on public schools.

Religious right stalwarts like the Family Research Council and the Heritage Foundation have been central to planning and unhatching this scheme to use the scare term "critical race theory" to stir up outrage at schools for teaching the truth about racism in history and literature classes. Also central to the effort, as reported by NBC News, is the International Organization for the Family, which has, like the Family Research Council, been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Under its original name, the World Congress of Families, the International Organization for the Family promoted not just a deeply authoritarian and patriarchal view of the family, but also white nationalism. As explained at the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Through its ideology of the so-called "natural family," WCF promotes a strict view of family, one based exclusively on the marriage of one heterosexual man to one heterosexual woman and their biological children, to the exclusion of many different types of families. Closely tied to this ideology is an adherence to strict binary gender roles, in which men serve as the heads of households and women as their helpmates and the bearer of children. Only this type of family, they contend, can quell the "demographic winter," the idea that European populations, especially, are in decline because of homosexuality, abortion, feminism, women in the workplace, and a variety of other things that deviate from the "natural family."

There's no way to really untangle all these different far-right views from each other. Forcing children into submission and preventing them from developing critical thinking skills is seen as crucial for raising them to be compliant adults who will unquestioningly adopt this patriarchal and racist view of family formation and purpose. One can see why schools teaching the book "Beloved" was flagged by far-right activists as a threat. Not only does the book humanize the victims of white supremacy, it also raises important questions about the rights of children and the meaning of self-determination. Indeed, even the concept of "raising questions" alarms the Christian right. In their view, children are not to think for themselves but to passively accept the instructions of elders.

Unfortunately, one reason the Christian right has a lot of success smuggling their radical views into mainstream politics is they, as happened in Virginia, often reframe it as a matter of "parental rights."

Most parents reject the religious right's extremist views on extinguishing a child's autonomy, to be clear. But most parents believe that they should have some control over their child's life, including over their education, health care, and disciplinary matters. They aren't even really wrong about this. Children's rights are always in contention with the need to keep children safe and to socialize them properly. Knowing the exact right mix of autonomy and discipline is a nuanced and tough question. The problem, however, is the reframing this as a matter of "parents' rights" distracts from the real issue, which is the war being waged on children's rights.

Children have a right to learn the truth about American history and to learn critical thinking skills. Children have a right to be exposed to great works of literature and art, and to expand their horizons. Children have a right to a robust health education, which includes information about sexuality and sexual orientation so that they can grow into healthy adults, instead of being hobbled with shame for having normal human impulses. All this chitter-chatter about "parents' rights" — by design — is hiding the fact that many of these rights of children are under very real threat right now

Failure to understand the deeply radical nature of the Christian right ideology fueling this school board movement leaves Democrats unequipped to fight back. We saw this with the McAuliffe campaign, which fumbled early on with the "parents' rights" framing, and only too late in the campaign realized they could reframe the matter — correctly, mind you — as a deeply racist attempt to censor books. Democrats need to highlight how profoundly anti-child the GOP attack on school boards is and defend both the right of children to learn and the right of educators to teach.

Most people don't want kids to grow up without learning to think for themselves. Democrats can win this fight — but first, they must understand what they're truly up against.

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xian say good kia?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/anti-vaxxers-2655324736/

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/extremist-christians/

paul r salon

progressive policies and positions are supposed to be rooted in reality and hard evidence. But that's not always the case when it comes to the culture wars that have such an enormous impact on our politics — especially not since the unexpected evangelical embrace of Donald Trump in 2016, culminating in the "pro-life" death cult of anti-vaccine, COVID-denying religious leaders. If this development perplexed many on the left, it was less surprising to a small group of researchers who have been studying the hardcore anti-democratic theology known as dominionism that lies behind the contemporary Christian right, and its far-reaching influence over the last several decades.

One leading figure within that small group, Rachel Tabachnick, was featured in a recent webinar hosted by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (archived on YouTube here), as part of its Religion and Repro Learning Series program, overseen by the Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson. Tabachnick's writing on dominionism can be found at Talk2Action and Political Research Associates, and she's been interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

Her presentation sheds important light on at least three things: First of all, the vigilante element of the Texas anti-abortion law SB 8. Second, the larger pattern of disrupting or undermining governance, including the "constitutional sheriffs" movement, the installation of overtly partisan election officials and the red-state revolt against national COVID public health policies. While Donald Trump has exploited that pattern ruthlessly, he did not create it. And third, the seemingly baffling fact that an anti-democratic minority feels entitled to accuse its opponents — including democratically elected officials — of "tyranny."

Some dominionist ideas — such as the biblical penalty of death by stoning — are so extreme they can easily be dismissed as fringe, others have been foundational to the modern religious right, and still more have become increasingly influential in recent years. Those latter two categories are what we need to understand most, say both Tabachnick and Jackson.

"One of the things that struck me, as a relative newcomer," said Jackson, a former Congregationalist minister, "was that there was not sufficient understanding about the theological frames used by many individuals who are opposed to abortion." She continued, "I'm a strategist in a lot of ways, and one important strategy, I believe, must be to understand what the teachings and the theological frames are" on the other side. Which links directly to the question of what progressive activists need to do differently in this changed environment.

This failure to understand the nature of dominionism has hampered activists, not just in the realm of reproductive justice, but across an entire spectrum of political issues, both cultural and economic. Jackson discussed her own background, raised within a conservative Christian worldview.

"I was taught a very individualistic approach," she said, "taught that we shouldn't pay taxes, because doing so enabled people who were not working, and enables people whose lifestyle we don't agree with." There's nothing new about such views, but dominionism provides believers with an even stronger foundation for them.

Jackson describes her current understanding of religious faith as highly intersectional: "We believe that to understand the attacks on abortion also invites us — or even requires us — to look at attacks on voting, to look at attacks on immigrants, attacks on prison reform, attacks on equal pay and on and on," she said. "It's all of the same cloth: They are all attacks on humans flourishing. That's my language. The God of my understanding wants all of us to flourish in who we are."

the language of dominionism is strikingly different, to put it mildly. In her webinar, Tabachnick played a clip of one of the movement's leading figures, C. Peter Wagner, providing a definition:

Dominion has to do with control. Dominion has to do with rulership. Dominion has to do with authority and subduing. And it relates to society — in other words what is talked about, what the values are in heaven [that] need to be made manifest here on earth. Dominion means being the head and not the tail. Dominion means ruling as kings. It says in Revelation chapter 1:6 that "he has made us kings and priests," and check the rest of that verse, it says "for dominion." So we are kings for dominion.

Later she provided a definition from Frederick Clarkson, author of the 1997 book, "Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy":

Dominionism is the theocratic idea that regardless of theological view, means, or timetable, Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.

Wagner, who died in 2016, is known as the founding father of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), one of the two main branches of dominionism, which grew out of the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions within evangelical Christianity. Dominionists in the other branch, known as "Christian reconstructionism," come out of conservative Calvinism, with a focus on bringing government and society under biblical law. They tend to be more circumspect, often obfuscating their true intentions and avoiding the word "theocracy" in favor of "theonomy," for example. But not Wagner, as can be seen in the title of his 2011 book, "Dominion!: Your Role in Bringing Heaven to Earth." The NAR talks constantly about taking dominion over the "seven mountains" of society: education, religion, family, business, government, arts and the media.

But it's the other branch, the Christian reconstructionists, who have excelled at strategic organizing and providing blueprints across different right-wing constituencies for almost 50 years. They are the ones Tabachnick focused most of her presentation on, specifically two key figures: Rousas John Rushdoony, the movement's master theologian, and his son-in-law Gary North, a prolific strategist, propagandist and networker who was once a staffer for Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian hero.[ayn radical indiv ~ jesus charity]

Christian reconstructionism, Tabachnick explained, is "about bringing government in all areas of life under biblical law, a continuation of the Mosaic law in the Old Testament, with some exceptions." This dispensation would include, "according to Gary North, public execution of women who have abortions and those who advise them to have an abortion."

In a recent private presentation, Frederick Clarkson asked a rhetorical question: "People have long said that there should be Christian government, but if you had one, what would it look like? What would it do? Rushdoony was the first to create a systematic theology of what Christian governance should be like, based on the Ten Commandments, and all of the judicial applications he could find in the Old Testament — including about 35 capital offenses."

But the "Handmaid's Tale"-style extremism of dominionists' ultimate vision shouldn't really be our focus, Tabachnick told Salon. "Nobody cares about the theocratic, draconian future envisioned by reconstructionists because they don't believe it will happen," she said.

What's happening right now, however, is that this ideology has had tremendous impact on more immediate politics. "Christian reconstructionism is the merger of a distinct brand of Calvinism with Austrian School economics," Tabachnick said. "In other words, it's an interpretation of the Bible grounded in property rights." The results have been far-reaching:

For more than 40 years, its prolific writers have provided the foundations and strategic blueprints for the attacks on liberation theology and the social gospel, as well as many other streams of Christianity which do not share the Reconstructionists' belief in unfettered capitalism as ordained by God and its fierce anti-statism.

The larger religious right's attack on public education, the social safety net and most government functions are largely grounded in the writings, strategies and tactics formulated by reconstructionist writers. Reconstructionism is not the only (and certainly not the first) source of interposition and nullification in this country. However, much of what is currently being taught today about using interposition to undermine the legitimacy of government is sourced in reconstructionism.

This idea of "interposition" comes through what's known as the doctrine of the "lesser magistrate," which we'll return to below. But its significance — especially in the post-2020 Republican Party — has only recently become apparent. Reconstructionism's initial appeal was more immediately, as Tabachnick explained in the seminar:

What Rushdoony provided is a package that included attacking what these fundamentalists hated and feared most in society, often expressed in terms of "This is communist. This is socialist." But Rushdoony provided a way to sacralize these ideas, and at the same time not just tear down the old order, but provide a blueprint for the new order.

Everyone didn't have to agree on the blueprint, she said: "Rushdoony's ideas went out in bits and pieces. The Christian right leaders took what they wanted and discarded what they didn't."

"Christian reconstructionism, as articulated by Rushdoony, provided a standard by which everyone else had to measure themselves," Clarkson told Salon. "Not everyone on the Christian right agreed with Rushdoony and his fellow Reconstructionist thinkers on, for example, the contemporary application of capital crimes listed in the Old Testament. And followers were often at pains to distinguish themselves."

Clarkson cites the case of conservative Presbyterian theologian Francis Schaeffer, who disagreed with Rushdoony on the applicability of biblical law, but became a driving force behind the anti-abortion activist movement Operation Rescue. That "militant Schaefferism," Clarkson said, "led activists to think: What's next, beyond political protest and stopping abortion? This is where the conversation has been in the Christian right for decades."

The doctrine of the "lesser magistrate," mentioned above, first emerged into public discourse out of Operation Rescue. But it did so as part of a larger, more complicated story.

There's a long history of right-wing opposition to federal authority, particularly grounded in the 19th-century defense of slavery and continuing in the defense of Jim Crow segregation. In his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke specifically of the governor of Alabama "having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification."

As detailed by Randall Balmer in "Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right," the religious right wasn't initially fueled by opposition to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, but by opposition to a lesser-known decision in 1971, Green v. Connally, which threatened the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory institutions, most famously the evangelical stronghold Bob Jones University.

Anti-abortion activists have long sought not just to bury that past but to stand it on its head, somehow equating Roe v. Wade with the notorious Dred Scott decision of 1857 and claiming the moral heritage of abolitionism.

"Throughout these movements there is also an attempt to turn the tables on the claims of racism," Tabachnick said in her webinar. "This is one of the roles that anti-abortion activism as abolition plays. Also, there's a promotion of narratives that provide a different history and legal justifications for interposition, nullification and even secession. One of the things that Christian reconstructionism has added to this dialogue is the concept of the lower magistrate."

As Tabachnick explains it, the "lesser magistrate" is a heroic figure who "resists the tyranny of a higher authority" — defining "tyranny" in biblical terms, potentially including any number of popular or common-sense laws or policies. This notion first gained salience in the anti-abortion context in the 1980s and '90s, as Tabachnick went on to explain.

"Many violent anti-abortionists have justified their actions in reconstructionist teachings," she said. "One of these was Paul Hill, who studied under one of the major reconstructionist leaders and corresponded with others." Hill went on to murder Dr. John Britton, a physician who performed abortions, as well as Britton's personal bodyguard, in 1994. Hill was executed in 2003, but the reconstructionist movement sought to cast him out well before that.

"Gary North responded, after the murders had taken place, in a book called 'Lone Gunners for Jesus,'" Tabachnick said. His message to Hill was, "You're going to burn in hell, you've been excommunicated. This was because Paul Hill stepped outside the bounds of the guidelines set by the movement."

To explain this, she quoted a passage from another book by North that offered qualified support for Operation Rescue: "We need a statement that under no circumstances will Operation Rescue or any of its official representatives call for armed resistance to civil authority without public support from a lesser magistrate."

"On the basis of their belief of what the law or the word of God is, they are allowed — on the advice, on the interposition, of a lesser magistrate — to commit acts of violence," Tabachnick continued. North was seeking to control or curb anti-abortion terrorism, but without rejecting it in principle. Murdering abortion providers — or even murdering women seeking abortions — could be morally justified, with the blessing of a lesser magistrate.

This is relevant to SB 8 in Texas in at least two ways. That bill bans abortions after six weeks and is enforced not by state officials, but by deputizing private individuals to sue anyone who performs the procedure or "aids and abets" it. First of all, giving private individuals these vigilante-style rights seems a lot like making them into "lesser magistrates," however narrowly constrained.

Second, the Supreme Court's refusal to stay the law — which clearly violates the Constitution and existing precedent, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued in her dissent — can be seen as an example of the doctrine in action. In more normal circumstances, the court would have stayed the law pending consideration on the merits, even if a majority of justices intended to overturn precedent. That's how common law has worked for centuries.

But biblical law isn't common law, especially as reconstructionists understand it. Under the doctrine of the "lesser magistrate," Roe is not precedent but an instance of tyranny — and the justices have a duty to God to resist it. Of course, not even Amy Coney Barrett or Clarence Thomas has said anything like that, but it's entirely consistent with their behavior — as well as with their silence, since openly making such an argument would clarify just how radicalized they have become. But adherents of the doctrine of the lesser magistrate must surely appreciate the drift in direction.

Nor is the doctrine limited to abortion cases, as already noted. Matthew Trewhella is a pastor who was a prominent leader of violence-prone wing of the anti-abortion movement in 1990s, and author of the 2013 book, "The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates," which greatly heightened its visibility.

"Trewhella is now all over radio and the internet," Tabachnick said in her webinar, "claiming to meet with state legislators and attorney generals at the moment, with the cause of fighting the 'tyranny of mask mandates' and vaccination for COVID. So you can see how this is a concept that is not just limited to abortion. It is a concept that can be used in resistance of government authority all over the country in all different kinds of ways — FEMA, EPA, Bureau of Land Management and so forth."

Trewhella isn't breaking new ground here. Clarkson's 1997 book "Eternal Hostility" describes him making similar arguments in a speech to an anti-tax group in Wisconsin. He was just one figure among many spreading the seeds of reconstructionist resistance to federal authority among militia members, "freemen" and anti-abortion activists at the time.

"This movement believes that rights come from God and not from any government," Tabachnick told Salon. "Therefore, any 'rights' that conflict with their interpretation of God's law are not actually rights. They are 'humanist' or a product of man's laws and not God's laws. This theme of 'human rights' versus inalienable rights from God has been at the center of the Christian Reconstructionist movement since its beginnings."

She pointed to "What's Wrong With Human Rights," an excerpt from a book of the same name by the Rev. T. Robert Ingram published in "The Theology of Christian Resistance," a collection edited by North. Ingram sweeps aside the Bill of Rights as "a statement of sovereign powers of states withheld from the federal authority of the Union," and turns instead to the Virginia Declaration of Rights, authored by George Mason in 1776.

The first section of the Virginia Declaration, beginning "That all Men are by Nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent Rights," is dismissed by Ingram for omitting any mention of God, as an "error of unbelief which falsifies all the rest that is said about human life." The second, beginning "That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from the People; that Magistrates are their Trustees and Servants, and at all Times amenable to them," he dismisses as well: "The meaning could not be more clear, nor more opposite Biblical thought. The ruling proposition of Scripture and Christian doctrine is that 'power belongeth unto God.'" In short, there are no human rights.

The connection to the doctrine of the lesser magistrate is clear: Power comes from God, not the people. Whatever the people want is irrelevant. Whatever laws they may pass are irrelevant, too, if they go against God. "Tyranny" is whatever the Christian reconstructionist decides he doesn't like.

Elsewhere, Ingram denigrates freedom of speech and the press:

Freedom of speech and freedom of press are, in fact, applied seriously only to giving government protection to instigators of riot and rebellion, as well as those who would undermine human order by more subtle attacks on morals and customs.

As for the right to dissent, he calls it "not a lawful claim to own or to do something, which is the true right," but "a turning upside down of right and wrong, calling good evil and evil good." Similarly, there is no scriptural right to "resist authority," only that granted by the false doctrine of "human rights."

Ingram's interpretation of the Civil War is that "Yankee radicals inflamed the Northern peoples to mount the Civil War in the name of a 'human right' to be free ... if they did not destroy the whole Southern Order, they did at least dismantle its vast and efficient plantation economy." The civil rights movement, unsurprisingly, is understood as a defiance of "Tradition, law, and custom, which preserved public peace and order in the bi-racial state of the union, both North and South," and became "the target of the right to resist in the 60's, the supposed human rights justifying the violent means."

Tabachnick didn't dig into this text in her webinar, but it serves to illustrate her central principle: "This attack on the very concept of 'human rights' can be found throughout today's religious right."

Jackson told Salon that the most important part of Tabachnick's presentation came "when she talked about humanism and the humanistic frame, from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Those who are within the dominionist camp see that as contrary to God. I read those same documents and I say, this is pointing us toward the direction that God wants for us. They look at it and see that as counter to God, because humanism from their perspective is something very contrary to God."

If we take such arguments seriously, then we understand why for dominionists there is nothing wrong with breaking any law at all, so long as "God wills it" and you have the blessing of a so-called lesser magistrate. This is the reconstructionist argument supporting a whole range of chaotic right-wing activity today, including baseless claims that the 2020 election was a fraud. After all, the fundamental reconstructionist argument is that all such democratic government is illegitimate.

"The goal of reconstructionism is to tear down the existing order and reconstruct a new society based on biblical law," Tabachnick said. "Even if we assume that this vision of a theocratic America will never come to fruition, it's important to recognize the movement's impact on the ideas, strategies and tactics of the larger religious right and its role in sacralizing the actions of other anti-statist fellow travelers.

"As I wrote almost a decade ago, the theocratic libertarianism of Christian reconstructionism has been surprisingly seductive to Tea Partiers and young libertarians — many of whom may not realize what is supposed to happen after the government is stripped of its regulatory powers."

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