Christianity’s Role In the Capitol Riots—And Why I’ll Still Be Promoting My Book In Their Wake
Washington, D.C. | U.S.A. - Jan 6th, 2021: Trump Initiated Riots in at the Capitol | Photo by Johnny Silvercloud / Shutterstock.com
My first book is coming out in less than a month. And now feels like a really shitty time to be promoting it.
Like many authors, artists, filmmakers, musicians, and others who have been excited to share the hard-earned fruits of their labor over the last year, I find myself struggling to find the balance between being culturally sensitive and wanting to celebrate a personal milestone. More than a personal milestone, my art is also my job. It’s how I earn a living. It’s a part of my job to promote my work.
But yesterday my country experienced an attempted coup. Trump supporters, aided by the baffling yet not-so-mysterious support of certain police officers, invaded the Capitol Building in an insurrection that President-elect Joe Biden said, “...borders on sedition.” Is now the time to be sharing pictures of my book? Flattering quotes from people who have read it? Tweets about promotional giveaways?
I’ve come to the conclusion that there will likely never be a good time to promote one’s work, for there will likely never be a time the world is at peace. I especially don’t see the United States entering a phase of relative peace anytime soon. Biden may be sworn into presidency on the twentieth, but that doesn’t change that nearly half of my country voted for Trump. Many genuinely believe the election was stolen from them. The ones that stormed the Capitol yesterday have promised to come back, armed and less “peaceful.” Trump himself said this is only the beginning. So while it feels insensitive to share my book, which is self-promotion, through and through—I wrote a memoir, forgodsake—I’m going to do it anyway. Not only because there may never be a sensitive time to promote it, but because its content is actually not as insensitive to current events as I thought. (Yes, I’m justifying. Yes, my points are still valid.)
What we saw on Wednesday was, among other things, an act of Christian Right nationalism. My book is relevant because it addresses the spiritual warfare embedded in Christian Right nationalism. I can’t type that with a straight face any more than you can likely read it with one. As my friend Blake Chastain said today in his Twitter thread sharing resources for understanding this American movement, “I know there’s a lot to comment on after the coup, but these are my lanes.”
What is Christian nationalism? What is spiritual warfare? What do these have to do with Trump supporters attempting to overthrow our democracy and make an unprecedented invasion of the United States Capitol Building? (How am I even writing this?) Lastly, what do these have to do with my book? I’ll attempt to break these down.
Christian Nationalism
Christian nationalism is a political ideology that primarily focuses on “...internal politics, such as passing laws that reflect their view of Christianity and its role in political and social life,” as simply put by Wikipedia. Or, according to minister Jeremie Beller of the Wilshire Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, “Christian nationalism is the intertwining of the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of men.”
I was a Christian nationalist. I voted for George Bush in my first eligible voting year because I genuinely believed the conservative Christian candidate would help “bring America back to God,” as my high school youth group had prayed for when we marched with thousands of others across the National Mall of Washington, D.C. I prayed for—and eventually voted for candidates in favor of—the banning of gay marriage, the overturning of Roe v Wade, and the unleashing of God’s smite on sinners who supported these. It was my sincerest belief that these “liberal agendas” were being led by the dark forces of Satan and his army of demons, which leads me to…
Spiritual warfare
“Spiritual warfare is the Christian concept of fighting against the work of preternatural evil forces,” says Wikipedia, “...based on the biblical belief in evil spirits, or demons, that are said to intervene in human affairs in various ways.” Or, according to Christianity.com, “There is a spiritual war ongoing for the hearts of man, as the forces of evil want to turn us away from God and separate us from Him.”
As a teenager, I waged spiritual war when I prayed for a Republican president who would support policies that aligned with Biblical values. These values included homophobia, racism, colonialism, sexism, and interfaith intolerance, to name a few. Of course, I didn’t call them these. I called them love, for God was love and this was what God wanted for his children. I’ve stressed the following point before in my post addressing spiritual warfare and how it relates to the Christian Right stance on abortion: The intentions of those protesting, rioting, and terrorizing on behalf of President Trump are, in their eyes, likely based in love. For if God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son to be brutally crucified, how can some worldly violence on behalf of the Christian cause be considered anything less than godly?
Christianity’s Role In the Capitol Riots
Did you not see them? The Christian flags carried alongside Confederate flags among nooses, swastikas, and American flag capes? Did you not see the crosses or the stickers, banners, and posters saying, “Jesus Saves,” “Jesus 2020,” or “In God We Trust”? Liberal Christians did.
Prominent Christian leaders across denominations were quick to denounce the insurrectionists.
“To those who see this as a Christian endeavor, or something to be blessed in the name of Jesus, there is nothing Christian about what we are witnessing today,” said Washington, D.C., Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde in a video address shared on the Washington National Cathedral’s Facebook page. “Nothing.”
And yet Christianity is deeply interwoven with many of the ideologies that brought Trump supporters out to the National Mall and into the halls of Congress.
— “They Invaded the Capitol Saying, ‘Jesus is My Savior. Trump is My President’” by Gina Ciliberto and Staphanie Russell-Kraft
I can see the pushback now. #NotAllChristians! No one is saying all Christians. Not every Christian is a Trump supporter and not every Trump supporter is a Christian. I know some non-Christian Trump voters personally. But pretending Christianity plays no role in the events we saw unfold yesterday serves no one. The intertwining of Christianity, pro-Trumpism, and the Capitol riots is foolish to ignore. Maybe it’s because the left-wing media doesn’t understand radical Christianity that they don’t bring more attention to this correlation, or maybe it’s because they don’t wish to alienate their liberal Christian allies by focusing on it.
To ignore the relationship between Christianity and Trumpism is to ignore what may be the very fuel behind this insurrection, and any insurrections to come. [Click to Tweet]
The Goal of Christian Nationalism
What do these Christian Right insurrectionists hope to gain? A theocracy. They believe they have a God-given duty to ensure their nation reflects their spiritual worldview. Again, I know because I was one of them. Were I still a Christian, I would have voted for Donald Trump. I would have pulled the Saul-card to explain away his deviances as an example of how God can reform even the greatest of sinners and use them to accomplish his will. (Saul was a raging bad guy who converted to Christianity and became Paul the Apostle, allegedly, authoring half of the New Testament.) God’s will, the Bible tells us, is for all nations to adhere to his word. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” says Psalms 33:12, and Psalms 9:17 warns that all nations that forget God will be turned into hell.
As a Christian Right nationalist, I believed we needed national policies reflecting Christianity in order to save America from being turned into hell. I don’t think it’s far-fetched to assume yesterday’s Christian rioters think much differently. “Jesus is My Savior, Trump is My President,” read one banner. “Make America Godly Again,” read another. Perhaps the most memorable rioter photographed yesterday was the shirtless tattooed man wearing horns and face paint. He rocked what seems to be his signature style at another pro-Trump rally two months ago, that time holding a sign that said, “Hold the Line Patriots God Wins.”
Photo by Hope O’Brien/Cronkite News, November 6, 2020
But what about Biden? He’s Catholic and God-fearing, right? I don’t know the veracity of Biden’s proclaimed religious beliefs any more than I know the validity of Trump’s. Our nation has never had an openly non-theist president. Regardless, Biden won as a Democratic candidate and, to me and many, is representative of liberal Christianity, also called progressive Christianity. These Christians often endeavor to keep up with the times, if you will, and focus more on present-day social justice and compassion rather than End Times theology. Liberal Christians like Biden are more likely to believe that God is LGBTQ+ affirming and that abortion isn’t a Biblical matter. Christian Right nationalists, on the other hand, often take a more literal and fundamentalist approach to interpreting scripture. Selectively, of course—I’ve seen their women in pants and wearing makeup, both Biblical taboos.
Back to My Book...
It is with a continued feeling of inner conflict that I return to the subject that prompted this blog post today: my book. I’ll be the first to call myself out on using what might rightly be called a political tragedy to promote my own personal gain. I have no excuse other than the two I listed above: I don’t see our nation’s political unrest ending anytime soon, leaving no “sensitive” time to promote my work; and it so happens that I think my work is, in fact, relevant to what is happening in my country: a continued attempt to establish a Christian theocracy. How can this be happening? I see people posting on social media. They’re fucking idiots, they’re brainwashed by QAnon, #NotMyJesus. How can they do this in the name of God? WTF are they drinking?
Well, my book offers some answers. Wayward: A Memoir of Spiritual Warfare & Sexual Purity is one small contribution to the growing number of stories exposing the harmful indoctrination of evangelical Christianity. This includes political indoctrination. My book is a deeply personal account showing my indoctrination, how it influenced my life, and how I broke free from it only to want to die after. Christianity was my ethos, my very identity. Without it, I felt like no one. I didn’t want to exist. If you’re curious as to how a Christian Right evangelical’s mind might be changed; if you’re curious to know more about what they are being taught that allows them to riot and vote for what may rightfully be called hate-filled stances; if you’d like to better understand your political opponent, to know the values that shaped them, the education they received, and the implicit and explicit messages they were taught; if you hope to have productive interactions with them that might mitigate their hold on U.S. politics, read Wayward.
Yes, I know I sound super-sales-y right now. I care, but not more than I care about what I perceive to be a genuine threat to our democracy. If just one person reads my book and comes away with a better understanding of what is helping to motivate the Christian nationalist resurgence in America, and if it inspires them to persecute less and love more, which ironically may change more minds as mine was changed, Wayward will have done its job. So, at the risk of sounding self-excusing, I am going to promote my book just as I would have had the Capitol riots not happened.
I made the decision to publish my book because I know there are many who share my journey and may find healing in my openness. I know many more do not share my journey and I wrote Wayward for them, too, in hopes it might shed some perspective on the influence and strength of the Christian Right, which I still feel is underestimated. My book, as writer and political commentator Chrissy Stroop says in her generous endorsement of it, contains episodes that, “...may be shocking to readers unfamiliar with evangelical subculture. If so, I hope they will take what they learn and demand that the American public sphere at long last take the voices of ex-evangelicals and other former fundamentalists seriously.”
Wayward: A Memoir of Spiritual Warfare & Sexual Purity is being released by River Grove Books on February 2, 2021. You can sign up to read two free chapters here and be notified as soon as the book is available for online purchase.