Storming of the US Capitol – January 2021

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.

The term Christian Nationalism has become something of an epithet amongst enlightened evangelicals and Christians of various stripes, especially in light of the travesty at the Capitol.

January 6, 2021, would have been Elshtain’s eightieth birthday. I can only imagine how she would have responded to the events of the day. I do not think she would have been surprised, but nor would she have despaired. Neither should we.

The sad and lamentable truth is that indeed this is who we are, for it was members of our own body-politic who did this, and we cannot heal if we do not confront the uncomfortable facts as they are. It was sedition.

Perhaps the best description of the episode last comes from the Germans. It was a “putsch”: a disorganized, somewhat symbolic strike against legal authority, usually with a rightwing inflection.

A Republic-wide bipartisan crackdown on all forms of insurrectionary forces within is of paramount importance because historically, more than any foreign enemy, domestic propaganda and insurrectionary forces can result in state collapse.

January 6, 2021, shocked and sickened many of us. It was a terrible, shameful day for the American Republic—truly yet another day of infamy in America’s bruised and bloodied history.

To reject civility is to reject politics. The alternative to politics is not war, but barbarism.