Storming of the US Capitol – January 2021

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.

Mob violence cannot be tolerated, and when threatened should be met with overwhelming force—as a deterrent, and with proportional and discriminant force, or “reciprocal violence” if you prefer—without apology, with far less concern for “optics,” and without any concern for the ideology of the mob if deterrence fails.

Washington is a waystation; Jerusalem is the destination. Only the King of Israel will decide when his kingdom will come. Until then we must live righteously, we must preach his kingdom, we must seek the peace of the city—but we must wait.

We comfort ourselves, saying, “This is not who we are.” But without deeper reflection, such pat answers are lies, strengthening the “vulgarized knowledge” that allow us to ignore the chasms that threaten to consume us.