On Friday and Saturday, a small group of right-wing activists, led by radical religious-right bigot Dave Daubenmire, carried out a series of protests outside the home of Joe Biden in Delaware, as well as the home of former president Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., demanding that the Democratic presidential nominee and the president for whom he worked as vice president be arrested, tried, and executed for treason.
On Saturday afternoon, Daubenmire and crew took their protest to the home of Attorney General Bill Barr, who personally came out to meet the group, pray with them, and take photos with them. (...)
âThe greatest example of love is discipline,â he added later in the program. âThe greatest example of love is to kill those traitors, so others learn never to do it.â
Daubenmire is a deeply bigoted, anti-Semitic, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ, right-wingconspiracy theoristâthe sort who proudly declares that women become lesbians because they are so ugly that no man could ever love them, asserts that Barack Obama was âa quasi-Muslim freakâ and âan emissary from Hell,â warns that Oprah Winfrey was planning to run for president in order to carry out a white genocide, complains that he is not allowed to say the âN-word,â gripes that the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was a âpsy-opâ intended to promote âthe blending of the races,â and calls interracial marriage âspiritual AIDS.â
Standing in a circle, the dozen or so men and women, young and old, lay their hands on their pastor, Ken Peters, as he raises their requests to God.
He prays that âcommunism and socialism and transgenderism and homosexuality and abortion will not have their way in this land.â
The 50 or so people in attendance may identify as born-again or just as generic âBible-lovingâ Christians. Petersâs flock is not affiliated with a specific denomination, but it does have a distinct identity. The Patriot Churches belong to what religion experts describe as a loosely organized Christian nationalist movement that has flourished under President Trump. In just four years, he has helped reshape the landscape of American Christianity by elevating Christians once considered fringe, including Messianic Jews, preachers of the prosperity gospel and self-styled prophets. At times, this made for some strange bedfellows, but the common thread among them is a sense of being under siege and a belief that America has been and should remain a Christian nation.
âBlack Lives Matter isnât being powered by the Holy Spirit. Antifa isnât being powered by the Holy Spirit. They canât save this land,â Peters says. âThereâs only one organization that has a shot at saving America, and thatâs the church of Jesus Christ.â
How Mormons Fed Up With Trump Could Help Lift Biden in Arizona Loyalty to the Republican Party is ingrained in the Latter-day Saints religion. But in Arizona, some find the presidentâs behavior at odds with their values and are shifting to Joe Biden.
âFor almost four years, weâve lived through nothing but drama,â Mr. Worsley said. âIâm ready for a no-drama president again, and I really donât care which party he comes from.â
âFather, in the name of Jesus, we believe that youâre going to have mercy on America,â Wallnau declared. âI believe Donald Trump has unfinished business in the nations. And I believe you will not let someone who has stood with Israel and stood with Christians, you will not let them be ingloriously beaten and embarrassed by your enemies. Because your name is part of this, Lord. What would the heathens say? What would the radicals say? What would the communists say when someone who stands with you so conspicuously does not have a friend in high places watching over them? But I believe you are going to watch over this president.â
And incredibly frustrating trying to articulate this position if you look a certain way. It's almost as if everyone is judging everyone by the color of their skin or something.
the bigger problem is that it seems people have shielded certain issues from their own rational decision making framework
it's certainly possible to engage someone and get good answers and then changing subjects you'll get another answer that is irrational
in a hyper-connected world there's always some instantaneous ignorance and stupidity to see
when put into perspective and viewed through a rational lens it tends to lose its bombastic aura
however, the marketing on anything race related has gone into full mega-super-duper-turbo-charged mode
the kicker is that dredging up crazy from the past to recreate new and refreshed victims is dynamite for news ratings
we're literally witnessing the birth pangs of a new religion and it's a homerun for bias confirmation
zealots to the far left, zealots to the far right, stuck in the middle with who/you
And incredibly frustrating trying to articulate this position if you look a certain way. It's almost as if everyone is judging everyone by the color of their skin or something.
I think Americans on the left are striving, theyâre fighting with their maker. Fighting with Trump is fighting with God. This will really get them all torqued. Theyâre fighting God because theyâre fighting Trump. Not because Trump is Mr. Perfect, itâs because the Lord anointed him to be a wrecking ball. And heâs doing what heâs supposed to doâto pull down, to tear downâ so that he can build and plant. âAnd all of the animosity, hatred, venom, and vitriol that is stirred up is nothing more than the unsanctified flesh in the resident hidden demons that are inside of journalists, looking for a way to express themselves.â
For Catholic charismatics, the central experience is âthe baptism of the Holy Spirit.â The baptism of the Holy Spirit differs from the traditional Catholic infant baptism with water. Adults baptized in the Holy Spirit have their faith reborn and strengthened by members of the congregation laying their hands on them.
Often a sign of baptism of the Holy Spirit is âglossolalia,â or âspeaking in tongues.â Speaking in tongues refers to using an unintelligible language, which is often interpreted by someone else in the congregation. Usually glossolalia is considered a form of prayer. But other times, glossolalia is believed to contain prophecies about present or future events.
Participants in the Catholic charismatic movement also claim spiritual and physical healing associated with the power of the Holy Spirit working through believers.
Catholic charismatic prayer services are enthusiastic and involve energetic singing, hand clapping and praying with arms outstretched.
A sociology prof showed my class a film of a group in West Africa speaking in tongues after being possessed by spirits of the High British Officials
For Catholic charismatics, the central experience is âthe baptism of the Holy Spirit.â The baptism of the Holy Spirit differs from the traditional Catholic infant baptism with water. Adults baptized in the Holy Spirit have their faith reborn and strengthened by members of the congregation laying their hands on them.
Often a sign of baptism of the Holy Spirit is âglossolalia,â or âspeaking in tongues.â Speaking in tongues refers to using an unintelligible language, which is often interpreted by someone else in the congregation. Usually glossolalia is considered a form of prayer. But other times, glossolalia is believed to contain prophecies about present or future events.
Participants in the Catholic charismatic movement also claim spiritual and physical healing associated with the power of the Holy Spirit working through believers.
Catholic charismatic prayer services are enthusiastic and involve energetic singing, hand clapping and praying with arms outstretched.
Liberty Universityâs Falkirk Center held âGet Louder,âa day-long âfaith summitâ Thursday that included Christian Reconstructionist Gary DeMar among its speakers. DeMarâs presence at âGet Louderâ reflects the widespread influence of Christian Reconstructionism and âcontemporary religious-right leadersâ embrace of Christian nationalism.
The Falkirk Center was co-founded last year by âJerry Falwell Jr.â, who until recently led Liberty University, and Turning Point USAâs Charlie Kirk with the stated purpose of âmobilizing, educating, inspiring, and mobilizing Christians in the battle to preserve American liberty and rally citizens in an effort to shape government policies, national institutions, and American society through a Biblical worldview.â (Falwell recently suffered a spectacular fall from grace and left his position at Liberty due to public revelations of a sexual relationship between a young man and Falwellâs wife, reportedly with Falwellâs involvement.) Since Falkirkâs founding, Kirk has openly allied himself with dominionists and Christian nationalists in a âspiritual warâ for the future of America. (...)
In an interview, Ingersoll told Right Wing Watch that she was not surprised by DeMarâs appearance at the Liberty University event. She has been making the argument that Reconstructionist ideas have infused the Christian âright, Tea Partyâ movement, and âpatriotâ right as well as the conservative Christian home-schooling movement. She said that during the current COVID-19 pandemic, more families have been thrown into homeschooling, and many may end up unwittingly using curricula that is shaped by Reconstructionist ideology.
Many of Rushdoonyâs concepts, like his teaching that the Bible puts some activities, like care for the poor, outside the jurisdiction of government, are embraced widely across the religious rightâeven by leaders who would not call themselves Reconstructionists, or who might distance themselves from some of Rushdoonyâs more extreme positions, âwhich include, for example, the application of Old Testament punishments for gay people or rebellious teens.
"The devil wants those 100,000 students turned away from the Word of God," he asserts. "If you look at the history of our universities, they were all started by Bible-believing evangelical Christians — even Harvard and Yale and Princeton — but they end up going liberal and preaching socialism and turning their backs on the Word of God. That's what's at stake here."
This Christian supremacism, however, which is very much white Protestant inflected, overlaps heavily with white supremacism. Inasmuch as the two are intertwined, itâs impossible to dismantle the one without tackling the other. It may seem like an innocent reaction on the part of progressive Christians to denounce their authoritarian coreligionists as âfake Christiansâ or ânot following the teachings of Jesus,â but itâs neither innocent nor accurate, as I have previously discussed on my blog and at Playboy.
The Jesus portrayed in the Bible is a complex and contradictory figure, and thereâs nothing resembling a universal consensus among Christians about how to interpret the teachings attributed to him. Christianity has, since the fourth century, frequently gone hand in hand with imperial power, and the existence of liberationist strains of the faith does not negate the existence of these punitive, power-grabbing strains.
Finally, when Christians deflect from addressing the bad behavior of other Christian individuals and groups by writing them out of âtrueâ Christianity, theyâre essentially equating Christianity with goodness at the direct expense of nonbelievers and religious minorities who are afforded no equivalent deference. Christians are as capable of atrocities as members of any group and adherents of any ideology, and so long as polite American society proceeds as if this isnât the case, polite American society is complicit in the normalization of Christian extremism.
Early on in âNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,â the first of three autobiographies Douglass wrote over his lifetime, he recounts what happenedâor, perhaps more accurately, what didnât happenâafter his master, Thomas Auld, became a Christian believer at a Methodist camp meeting. Douglass had harbored the hope that Auldâs conversion, in August, 1832, might lead him to emancipate his slaves, or at least âmake him more kind and humane.â Instead, Douglass writes, âIf it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways.â Auld was ostentatious about his pietyâpraying âmorning, noon, and night,â participating in revivals, and opening his home to travelling preachersâbut he used his faith as license to inflict pain and suffering upon his slaves. âI have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of ScriptureââHe that knoweth his masterâs will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes,â â Douglass writes. Douglass is so scornful about Christianity in his memoir that he felt a need to append an explanation clarifying that he was not an opponent of all religion. In fact, he argued that what he had written about was not âChristianity proper,â and labelling it as such would be âthe boldest of all frauds.â Douglass believed that âthe widest possible differenceâ existed between the âslaveholding religion of this landâ and âthe pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ.â