Storming of the US Capitol – January 2021

Hope is, fundamentally, the conviction that things can be different, that what is badly wrong with the world is not ultimately irreparable. Like the Christian calendar, which mirrors the rhythms of the year even as it points to something beyond, hope directs our vision to a better world just beyond the horizon.

This racism and mockery have certainly dented China’s image and drained its already meager soft power while the CCP tries to forge its soft power narrative of a “Community of Common Destiny for Humankind.” Such behavior will hurt its rise on the world stage.

Even now, months past, our nation remains in peril. While America banded together in unity after September 11, we are today in the throes of disunion.

I want to illuminate this conspiratorial approach, which I term “Christian Virtual Reality Politics,” by contrasting it with a more familiar approach, which I call “Christian Religious Politics.”

One flag waving over the rioters at the US Capitol, emblazoned with a tree and the slogan “An Appeal to Heaven,” garnered particular attention as a symbol of so-called “Christian nationalism’s” effort to “take America back for God.”

This review essay shall concern, in all seriousness, One Mind at a Time: A Deep State of Illusion (2020), the political testament of Jacob Anthony Chansley, nom de plume Angeli, the “QAnon Shaman,” who successfully defiled the United States Senate floor with his horns, spear, and vociferous war cries.

The Storming of the US Capitol reveals a shift from a primarily conservative and faith-driven religious right to an increasingly revolutionary and post-religious right.

As shocking as the January 6 lawlessness was, I was surprised how quickly people who should know better switched gears and called for some version of the Global War on Terror to be fought—not on some distant desert or foreign mountain top—but inside America against American citizens.

This perception in Latin America and elsewhere is very troubling and should worry American conservative Christians who care about international religious freedom.