Religion Dispatches
…nalist organization whose ultimate goal is a free and independent Southern republic,” when it became an embarrassment to the Maryland Republican Party as Peroutka vied for the council seat last year. Moore is a hero to Peroutka and his Constitution Party/IOTC followers, and is greeted there like a celebrity. When I saw Moore speak in Maryland at an IOTC gathering in 2011, it happened to be the birthday of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Conf…
Read More…is say: “Jesus Christ said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and in a republic, that is participation,” said [Retired Lt. Col. Courtney] Rodgers, who served 28 years in the Air Force and the Air National Guard. “So you have a Christian and a civic duty to make your Christian voice heard in the ballot box, by your legislators and in the public square where you would address freely any constitutional wrongs or moral wrongs by your representativ…
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…of the Republican Party. In the 1980s, the Christian leaders who dominated Republican Party politics called themselves a “moral majority” and brought an old version of evangelical Baptism to bear on the media. The power of men like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson was their ability to turn the TV into the greatest collection plate in history, thereby amassing enough financial and political capital to build new institutions, including mega-churches…
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…n after the election. With President Trump being seen as the savior of the republic in the White House, one who’s poised to usher in the collapse of the deep state, his defeat in the election could very well be seen as the ultimate failure of prophecy. As such, the theoretical framework presented above is important to keep in mind once the election is decided. If Trump loses the election, we foresee potentially three responses from QAnon followers…
Read More…d in the many thousands were traumatized by both the collapse of the godly Republic in Commonwealth England, and the almost apocalyptic violence of the King Phillip’s War with the Wampanoag Indians, necessitating the construction of a new identity separate from that of their mother country. It’s around this time that men like Cotton Mather began to refer to white settlers as “Americans,” a designation which other colonial powers such as the Spanis…
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…y. Christian nationalism will remain an existential threat to the American republic for decades to come. But for now, like Lincoln, we are celebrating a passing danger. A narcissist and would-be tyrant is out of power, and a man who, whatever you think of his politics, at least cares about other people has assumed the most powerful office in the history of the world. We are celebrating the triumph of empathy over cruelty. But while I believe that…
Read More…er-present threat to religious liberty. It might help the voters that gave Republicans both house of congress, but it wouldn’t help those Republicans to help those voters quite that much. Taking the cynical view, the Republicans would seem to be better off keeping the toothless law that offends a little bit without actually keeping churches out of politics. Especially since removing that offense would only give Walter Jones, Jr. a legislative vict…
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…nizing” nations, like the United States, China, Australia, Thailand, Czech Republic, and many more are becoming less religious by the day. Plus, the authors see good reasons to believe that this trend will continue for years to come. Beyond Doubt is written like a victory speech. It delivers a comforting message to nonbelievers and anyone else worried that Christianity—particularly its evangelical iterations—will continue to dominate American poli…
Read More…—one that holds up religious heterodoxy as the very engine driving the new Republic, freedom of conscience as the very pulse-beat of her new traditions of innovation. Several years ago, I was called before a local magistrate to give testimony. The Judge asked me to raise my right hand and said, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you?” I waited a moment for the next word. But it never came. It is onl…
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…ms more like it: As Thomas H. Naylor, the originator of the Second Vermont Republic, says, “Vermont provides a kinder, gentler, more communitarian alternative to a nation obsessed with money, power, size, speed, greed and fear of terrorism.” This is just warmed-over hippiespeak, of course. But then it was the hippies who moved “back to the land” and settled in communes, providing the most recent model for how the Benedict option might actually wor…
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