All posts tagged "religion"

Dark new poll reveals something deeply broken in America — and it predates Trump

A survey released last Thursday by the Pew Research Center finds that 53 percent of American adults describe the morality and ethics of our fellow citizens as “bad” (ranging from “somewhat bad” to “very bad”).

This puts Americans way out front of other nations on the we-hate-our-compatriots scale. In the 24 other countries polled by Pew, most people called their fellow citizens somewhat good or very good.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the United States is Canada, where 92 percent say their fellow Canadians are good, while just 7 percent say they’re bad.

Why are we so down on our fellow citizens? It may have something to do with our politics.

Some 30 years ago, my dear friend, the late Republican Senator Alan Simpson, told me Democrats viewed Republicans as stupid and Republicans viewed Democrats as evil.

“I’d rather be in the stupid party,” he chuckled.

I asked him why Republicans saw Democrats as evil.

He took a deep breath. “Religion.”

I said I didn’t understand.

“It’s the Christian right,” he said as if talking to a five-year-old. “Since Reagan, my party has been a magnet for religious conservatives and Christian fundamentalists, where it’s all about good and evil. Too bad, pal. You’re on the evil side.”

That was 30 years ago. Since then, the divide has only sharpened.

In 2012, Mitt Romney told supporters that “47 percent” of Americans would vote for Obama no matter what because they’re “dependent upon government ... believe that they are victims ... believe the government has a responsibility to care for them ... [and] pay no income tax.”

Insulting 47 percent of Americans was no way to win an election. It was also no way to unite the country.

Then in 2016, Hillary Clinton described half of Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables.” Also no way to win or to foster mutual trust.

Once Trump took office, dislike of our fellow citizens soared.

Before he entered the White House, 47 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats said people in the opposing party were “immoral.”

By 2022, after years of Trump’s venom, 72 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats called people in the opposing party “immoral.”

Since he’s been back in the Oval, it’s got even worse.

After Charlie Kirk was assassinated last September, Trump blamed a “radical left bunch of lunatics” for the killing. Vice President JD Vance, parroting Trump, vowed to “punish these radical leftist lunatics.”

As Democratic Senator Chris Murphy noted at the time, “Kirk’s assassination could have united Americans against political violence, but the Trump camp seems to be preparing a campaign to destroy opponents.”

When a federal judge ruled in March that Trump didn’t have authority to send National Guard troops into Los Angeles, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly — in language typical of what we hear from the Trump regime — called him a “rogue judge” and claimed Trump “saved Los Angeles” from “deranged leftist lunatics sowing mass chaos.”

After ICE agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Kristi Noem, Trump’s former secretary of Homeland Security, called the two of them “domestic terrorists.”

Since then, the Department of Homeland Security has sent out a steady stream of tweets — catching some 380 million views on X — claiming that its agents have been under attack by U.S. citizens whom it describes as “terrorists,” “rioters,” and “agitators,” and asserting, among other things, that “Americans are fed up with rampant criminality ruling this country.”

Meanwhile, Trump has been threatening to cut off funding for various programs that help poor Americans by vilifying them as “fraudsters” and withholding money from Democratic-led states.

A few days ago, Vance charged that Medicaid and food assistance programs were rife with fraud perpetrated by “bad actors in our society … who take the goodwill and trust of the American taxpayers and use it against us, [who] decide to make themselves rich.”

***

For almost a decade, Trump has told us that certain other Americans should be feared: among them, Democrats, liberals, Mexican Americans, Muslim Americans, Black Americans, transgender people, and LGBTQ+ people. All are presumed to be the “enemy within.”

As Barack Obama said at Jesse Jackson’s memorial on March 6, “Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all.”

Is it any surprise that a majority of Americans now describe the morality of other Americans as “bad?”

But I can’t help wonder: How much of our distrust and resentment is the byproduct of something more fundamental that’s been unfolding in America for over four decades — something Trump took exploited but that would have invited a hateful demagogue like Trump eventually: the increasing concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands?

Trump took advantage of anger and distrust that had been building for years — at a system increasingly seen as rigged against most of us.

What do you think?

Robert Reich is an emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/. His new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org

The 3 words a Trump commander just used that should keep you up at night

There is so much chaotic news coming out of this White House that it’s tough to focus on the urgency of any single story.

But nothing jolted me quite like this week’s Iran War revelation that a combat unit commander urged noncommissioned officers to motivate U.S. troops by telling them Donald Trump had been “anointed by Jesus,” and that the conflict was “all part of God’s divine plan” to bring about Armageddon and Biblical End Times.

I’d assumed the other guys were the fundamentalists here.

Thankfully, the above disclosure sparked hundreds of complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) — a group I hadn’t known existed.

Extremist Christian rhetoric is utterly incompatible with any sound judgment, much less strategic conduct of warfare. It is the precise opposite. It’s how you get kamikaze combatants eager to die for the cause and send body counts soaring. It’s how you generate fighters operating out of crazed zealotry rather than tactical reason.

It's also how you destroy any semblance of a chance for a diplomatic solution. To religion-driven radicals fighting a war framed as a defense of God’s will, negotiation itself can feel like a betrayal of the cause.

If you’re fighting for sacred dominance — for “My god is cooler than your god” belief — anything less than complete annihilation of the infidel enemy is unthinkable. You don’t attempt to converse with evil itself.

If you’re talking about Armageddon and the End Times, you’re referring to termination of the world, as cited in the Book of Revelation, and a renewed Creation while welcoming the return of Christ.

Let me add here that while I accept and appreciate everyone’s religious freedom and work hard to disparage none of it, even though it’s not my thing, I’m not terribly keen on this whole planet destruction deal. That kind of infringes on my right to continue living on earth. So, I have to push back.

Here is what I believe with all of my heart and soul: you can fight people and do battle with their beliefs and principles but you can’t effectively go to war against (or with) a spirit. It gets tricky when you start using dogma to inspire. That whole separation of church and state idea comes into play, and those who defend the division are branded as antagonists.

I’ve long believed that more monstrous behavior and immorality has been perpetrated in the name of religion than any other factor, since the dawn of time.

What’s undeniable is that a religious war is much tougher — if not outright impossible — to limit. You can use it to justify any and all atrocities, because if the war effort is framed as a holy mission, the opponent is reduced to being less than human.

How do you fight people who are attaching their virtue to the return of an immortal being, of God’s purported chosen son?

You don’t.

In this clash, the adversary isn’t merely on the other side of a theological divide but fully dehumanized. In that scenario, restraint and understanding collapse. Rivals become demonic. All bets are off.

The obvious issue here is that we have a Secretary of “War,” the execrable Pete Hegseth, who is a rabid evangelical Christian and raging alcoholic who has no understanding of limits. He proudly integrates faith into his identity, not to mention his government job. His relationship with Jesus Christ is personal. The man has a Jerusalem Cross tattooed on his chest.

Again, it wouldn’t matter what Hegseth’s beliefs were if they didn’t so profoundly impinge on the rest of us. He’s far more devoted to his concept of God than he is to the human population. He opens Pentagon events by giving “all glory to God,” which is so far over the line for a public servant that it leaves one speechless.

Hegseth appears to truly believe that any war he fights is about eternal destiny and maintains that God commands his actions. But of course, in this perception, “God” is simply what Hegseth calls his thoughts. He couldn’t go out and mow down 30 people with an AR-15 and justify it by saying, “God told me to do it” … though some have tried.

It’s simply a fact that when God enters into the military conversation, nothing anyone else insists upon can diverge from such pious certainty. Excessive brutality becomes almost inevitable because purported faith rationalizes your basest instincts and rages.

To bring it back to our soldiers being told they’re carrying out “God’s divine plan,” the biggest problem is that it plants the idea in their heads that rules of combat no longer exist, and the spiritual ends justify any means.

You can defend dishonorable conduct because you’re backed by a deeper calling that invites martyrdom, deepening conviction further. Volatility is guaranteed to ratchet up.

Referring to Armageddon with such lustful excitement is the kind of bombast that inspires thoughts of nuclear options. It has no business being used to motivate our fighting forces.

Once we cross that line of fanaticism, there’s really no turning back.

Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.

These Trump worshipers know he's really at war with their faith

In Washington last week, at the National Prayer Breakfast, the president actually took credit for the Bible being a bestseller.

“In 2025, more copies of the Holy Bible were sold in the United States than at any time in the last 100 years,” Donald Trump said.

In and of itself, this is not amazing. I remember as a child watching a commercial on Sunday afternoon TV about how “The Good Book” sold more copies than any book in human history.

What is amazing is Trump taking credit when that credit would traditionally be given to the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, especially by the traditional folk at the National Prayer Breakfast.

It’s also amazing that someone as religious as, for instance, House Speaker Mike Johnson can tolerate blasphemy when such tolerance would be inconceivable for a Democratic president.

You would think that Don the Evangelist would understand the power and the glory of the Word, given his suggestion that his presidency is why America is returning to God. (Sources told Publisher’s Weekly “the sales boom” is attributable to “people seeking spiritual footing amid today's tensions and troubles.”)

That would be a mistake.

“Mike Johnson is a very religious person,” the president went on to say. “He does not hide it. He'll say to me sometimes at lunch, 'Sir, may we pray?' I'll say, 'Excuse me? We're having lunch.'"

I’m sorry to point out the obvious. Trump claimed to be ignorant of the reason why “a very religious person” would call for the religious practice of praying before a meal at an event named after the religious practice of praying before a meal.

Even if Trump were only playing dumb, and I don’t know that he was, it’s again inconceivable that ignorance of a traditional religious practice, even in jest, would be tolerated if he were a Democrat. Yet Johnson lets it slide. The Republicans let it slide.

Indeed, if a Democratic president were to claim credit for God’s handiwork, there would be a nationwide outcry beginning with the rightwing media, spilling into the Washington press corps, before occupying highly visible pages in op-eds sections of elite papers with headlines echoing the GOP view of godless liberals not only looking down on Christians, but claiming to be God.

I think it’s worth asking why.

A typical explanation is bad faith — that the Republicans don’t mean what they say. It’s OK to blaspheme if a Republican does it. (Another explanation is power is religion to the GOP. As long as the blasphemer is powerful, his blasphemy is sanctioned by God.)

But I’m not satisfied with that answer. It fails to explain why there are so many good people of religious conviction in this country who are fighting tyranny on expressly religious grounds, but who are not getting credit for their religious expression. Pastors, ministers, rabbis, imams — there is a huge multifaith resistance taking shape, especially against Trump’s immigrant purge.

And you probably never heard of it.

That would not be the case if the roles were reversed — if, say, a “liberal” government were murdering or disappearing people and “conservatives” were protesting on expressly religious grounds. I have no doubt the narrative would be framed as good versus evil.

The entire anti-abortion movement can be described as such, with “the unborn” being those murdered or disappeared by the state, and “conservatives” being those crusading against God’s enemies. No one in America has any doubt about which side of the abortion debate claims to be on the right side of God.

While there is a smattering of news reports about Christians being divided over Trump, there is nothing like the tidal wave of coverage you would otherwise expect. Remember what it was like after Sept. 11, 2001? The framing was, more or less, God and America against the infidels. That’s what it would be like if the roles were reversed. That’s what it should be like now.

The best explanation is often the simplest. Some religions count. Some don’t. And, of course, the difference depends on who.

If you live in a rural community in a rural state, or if you live in an area associated with white conservative politics, yours is an authentic religion entitled to national attention and respect.

If, however, you live in a city (even a small one) or in a state associated with multiracial liberal politics, your religion isn’t authentic. It might be given lip-service now and then, as is happening now, but there’s something not quite real about it. Anyway, it’s not as real as the religion of good country folk.

For their protest of crimes against immigrants, a broad spectrum of faith leaders have been intimidated, manhandled, arrested, and denied religious expression, all at the hands of the state. Their sanctuaries have been profaned, congregants terrorized. One pastor was shot in the head with pepper balls while praying.

Yet all serve “blue” communities. That’s why you don’t know about their holy rebellion. Their religion doesn’t count.

Here’s how Mike O'Malley put it, in a different context.

The reason is the “iron journalist rule.”

“Some people are authentic and some people aren’t,” the George Mason University historian wrote. “Farmers? Authentic. College professors? Not. There are around 1.9 million farms in America, and 1.5 million college teachers. Farmers aren’t authentic because there’s more of them. It's because journalists love cliches.”

These clichés, myths and tropes – Thomas Jefferson famously declared that “those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God” – mean genuine acts of religious expression by nonwhite or urban-dwelling believers won’t be represented as such by the Washington press corps. Instead, their religious expression will be downplayed and represented as political.

This tradition of privileging “authentic” Americans over everyone else among professionals tasked with representing reality favors bad actors who are bent on distorting reality to their advantage.

Consider what happened last month in the aftermath of what has been called the Minnesota church protest. On Jan. 18, it was reported that a group of anti-ICE demonstrators “rushed” into a southern baptist congregation in St Paul during Sunday services to protest a church leader who is also a field director for ICE. Attorney General Pam Bondi swiftly vowed to prosecute those responsible for a “coordinated attack” on religious expression.

Missing, or minimized, in news reports of the protest was the religion and religious expression of those who protested. Virtually absent was the fact that one of the group’s leaders, Nekima Levy Armstrong, is herself an ordained minister.

Here’s what she told CNN.

We did not rush into that church. We actually went and sat down and participated in the service. And after the pastor prayed, that is when I stood up and asked him a question in response to his prayer. And then he responded to me. And then I proceeded to ask him about Pastor David Easterwood and how is it possible for him to serve as both a pastor and the director of ICE for Minnesota?

And instead of responding to me, as soon as I said the name David Easterwood, the pastor said, ‘Shame, shame.’ And that is when I led us in chants ‘Justice for Renee Good’ and ‘Hands up, don’t shoot.’ So I want to clarify that we didn‘t rush in. We didn’t bust in. We were a part of the service until I got up and posed that question to the pastor.

Knowing this, it’s clear the framing of that story — anti-ICE protesters versus devout Christians — is problematic at best. A more accurate framing would be devout Christians versus devout Christians, with one side objecting to David Easterwood preaching “love thy neighbor” and “snatch thy neighbor” in the same breath, while the other uses the Gospels to defend ICE.

Such a framing might have invited us to see the church protest as the reason why we have the First Amendment right to religious expression, as religions can and do disagree so fiercely over matters of faith that conflicts arise. When they do, each side has certain inalienable rights that shall not be infringed by the state.

But such framing does the regime no favors, as it contravenes its preferred narrative of godless liberals not only looking down on devout Christians, but claiming themselves to be God, and on the strength of that narrative, its plan to use the power of the state to persecute religious people who are challenging the regime.

The regime wants us to believe multiracial democracy threatens religious expression when, in fact, it’s the regime that’s using a phony defense of religion to threaten all faiths everywhere.

There is, quite literally, a rebellion bubbling up from below in the name of God. The regime knows its potential. It knows it can inspire even more resistance. And it’s taking steps to crush it.

That goal might be obvious if the press corps treated everyone’s faith as equally authentic, hence equally legitimate, but it doesn’t.

It distorts reality.

And in doing so, it enables the persecution of religion.

Trump just proved he's a ghoul — or a moron

On Thursday, Trump addressed the 2026 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., a tradition President Dwight Eisenhower began in 1953 to solemnify the confluence of faith, gratitude, and public service. At Eisenhower’s ceremony, after he swore the oath of office, he delivered an unscripted and spontaneous prayer of humility, calling on God to “make full and complete our dedication to the service of the people.”

Seventy-odd years later, at this year’s breakfast, Trump met Eisenhower’s prayer of humility and raised him one.

Instead of somber reflection or words to soothe an anxious nation, Trump delivered a blasphemous meditation on Trump: 77 minutes of self-indulgence, grievance and hatred of others.

Making it political

Trump opened by maligning the press, complaining that he never gets “a fair break from the fake news, which is (points dismissively) back there.” By the third sentence he was referring to himself reverentially as “Sir” while calling everyone else by their first name.

Claiming he’d “done more for religion than any other president,” Trump announced that Democrats were anti-religion, and said anyone who votes for Democrats must be Godless.

Treating prayer like a stump ad, Trump claimed Democrats oppose voter identification because “they cheat,” and fondly reminisced over his election win like it was a good game.

“Beating these lunatics was incredible, right, what a great feeling, winning every swing state, winning the popular vote...”

Prayer to promote violence

Forgetting the prayer theme of the breakfast, Trump bantered about murdering people in fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela like it was locker room talk.

“I was just talking to a great leader from El Salvador and he said, man, that was some attack, I've never seen anything like that one. Right? Right?” Going in for the brag, Trump joked to the murderous Nayib Bukele from across the room, laughing, “That was good even by your high standard, right? That was a hell of an attack.”

Only ghouls or morons would think that was funny. In a rule of law world, Trump would be hauled into the International Criminal Court on multiple charges of murder.

He also used his remarks to admire El Salvador’s torture prison, CECOT, saying President Bukele (“so incredible, such a great ally”) operates “prisons so large you can't see from one side to the other.”

Trump said he’d sent CECOT “a lot of the people that we capture, the murderers, the drug dealers, the people that came into our country illegally and have already committed massive crimes… We had 11,888 murderers and many of them are in (Bukele’s) prisons right now.”

Eleven thousand murderers? Drug dealers?? Massive crimes??? Reports from CBS News and the Cato Institute found that under 12 percent of the 250 men illegally sent to CECOT had any prior criminal convictions, even minor. Meanwhile, Trump skipping due process to have innocent people tortured will go down as one of the worst abuses of government power in American history.

Demonizing immigrants

After lying about who he is having deported, and why, Trump continued his un-Christlike tirade against immigrants as "monsters" and "vicious people" who "only gave us the worst."

Encouraging Christians to fear immigrants, Trump said, “You can’t have people going to church and coming out and have criminals taking advantage, and doing things that nobody even wants to describe.” In response to calls from Pope Leo XIV for Trump to deal with immigrants “humanely” and with “dignity,” Trump reverted to, "we have to get the bad ones out."

On brand, he then segued to his ICE crackdown in Washington, D.C., claiming it removed more than 2,000 “monsters” from the streets. Federal arrest data show that over 80 percent of the immigrants arrested in D.C. under Trump’s “crime emergency” campaign had no prior criminal records. None at all, not even unpaid traffic tickets.

Thou shalt not lie

During Trump’s first term, one analyst counted more than 30,000 specific falsehoods. At least his National Prayer Breakfast remarks offered continuity. When he wasn’t lusting after violence and cruelty, every sentence out of Trump’s mouth was an easily disproved lie. In his national push to target law-abiding immigrants, Trump is bearing false witness.

The Bible doesn’t mince words about lying liars who lie.

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.“
“He who breathes out lies will perish.”
“No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house.”

But Trump’s flock, lavishing him with praise at the prayer breakfast, willingly overlooks lies from their golden calf.

That Christo-nationalists continue to idolize Trump as “Chosen” while he governs by falsehood proves that Christianity in the time of Trump is not about Christ. It’s not about loving thy neighbor, helping the poor, or peace. It’s about power: God’s name appears in the Bible 4,000 times, while Trump’s name appears in the Epstein files more than 38,000 times. Trumpers don’t care. There could be videos of Trump raping children in those files, it wouldn’t matter to MAGA’s “Christians.”

After erecting golden statutes of himself, Trump is now planning to build a 250 foot arch that will dwarf the Lincoln Monument. Trump’s arch, by design, scale, and metaphor, will shrink American history. Next to Trump’s imposing arch (let’s name it “Sir”), sacred monuments to the world’s greatest experiment will be reduced to doll-like replicas.

Christianity under Trump has rotted into unadulterated power-cult worship. It won’t end well. Someone should remind MAGA that God executed the Israelites who worshipped a golden calf, then sent them a plague for good measure.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.

Trump just proved this powerful group is a bunch of dangerous hypocrites. They don't care

Yesterday I watched, horrified and spellbound — which is becoming a regular thing — as an event purportedly built on prayer, humility, and the teachings of Jesus Christ dissolved into a Trump rally, complete with guffaws, applause, and a bizarre reverence for every absurd turpitude that tumbled out of the President’s trashy mouth.

It was supposed to be the National Prayer Breakfast: a moment for spiritual reflection and interfaith unity, a morning convocation with a rich history of presidents offering words about the importance of faith.

In 2022, for example, an actual Christian, President Joe Biden, said: “Rather than driving us apart, faith can move us together.”

He urged Americans to see one another not as enemies, but as neighbors.

When the demonic Donald Trump takes the microphone and begins ghoulishly speaking in tongues, words dripping with his ever-present turpitude, such sentiments get crunched to bits.

This year’s gathering became a one-man show. Trump spent nearly an hour rambling, preening, lying, insulting allies and enemies, and praising himself as the savior of American religion.

He claimed he did more for religion than any president in history. He was right. He heaved heaven to hell in a handbasket.

I watched his senselessness unfold on CNN, and what still stuns me is why networks continue to broadcast these so-called speeches. Trump doesn’t care where he is or who he’s addressing. It’s always the same unhinged refuse. Prepared remarks are abandoned or never even exist — he just presents nasty, confused riffs. So why analyze what he’s saying? It surely serves no purpose.

But here we are. Trump’s audience lapped it up. That should tell us everything we need to know about the state of “Christian” political allegiance.

Right out of the gate, Trump called a fellow Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a “moron.” Remember, this was a prayer breakfast. He babbled about Speaker Mike Johnson calling him at 3 a.m. To what end, no one could decipher. The audience leaned in like it was gospel.

Johnson deserves special mention. This is the man who recently scoffed at Pope Leo XIV’s biblical critique of Trump’s immigration policies, delivering a smug theological rebuttal that insulted just about every religious tradition on earth.

The man who once lawyered for a Noah’s Ark amusement park attempted to explain scripture to the Pope, arguing that borders and assimilation — capitulation, really — are biblical, all while defending cruelty as policy. It was surreal, and it laid bare how in certain corners of American Christianity, politics has now devoured faith.

Back to Trump. He boasted about Republican victories, disparaged Democrats, and lashed out — again, and it is getting as old as he is — at Former President Biden. At a prayer breakfast, remember. The audience smiled as Trump rambled about Biden’s supposed inability to understand what Trump was saying, which would actually be proof of Biden’s solid cognitive state. He’s just like the rest of us.

Trump lied about the recent racist arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon, who was exercising basic journalistic freedom while livestreaming a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The protesters were confronting a pastor believed tied to ICE. Trump called Lemon’s actions “horrible” and labeled him the protesters “bad people.” The room applauded. Yes, because a gay Black journalist doing his job is “bad people,” to them. That’s three strikes against him. No doubt many in attendance consider Lemon the Antichrist, or at least his emissary.

Thankfully, Trump didn’t linger on his belief that Jesus saved him from assassination so he could turn America into a despotic nation. He did, however, joke about how grateful he was that his hair was unharmed. This from a man whose ludicrous combover tells a different story.

The point is that Trump’s diatribe was utterly unsuitable for the setting but perfectly suited for the audience, which appears to believe that atop his freaky follicles sits a halo.

Trump drew laughter and applause more appropriate for a comedy club or campaign rally than a gathering to contemplate humility and sacrifice. This wasn’t a prayer breakfast. It was an ego-worship service.

And they didn’t just laugh. These deplorable excuses for Christians hung on every word as if it were scripture. That is the truly unsettling part: a supposedly Christian audience choosing nonsense, vanity, and resentment.

Amid this spectacle of sanctified idolatry, one man briefly reminded the room what prayer is supposed to look like.

Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) rose not to flatter Trump, but to pray for his soul. With Trump standing behind him, Jackson asked God to forgive the president, to soften his heart, and to make him mindful of the poor, the suffering, and grieving families — including those mourning in Minneapolis.

The audience response was tepid. Compassion rarely plays well in rooms full of superiority, arrogance, and white power, especially when it comes from a Black Democrat.

Still, Jackson’s invocation was the lone moment that resembled Christianity.

He did not genuflect, as Trump expects Black people to do. He did not confuse nationalism with faith. He spoke truth to power and centered the vulnerable — precisely what Christians are called to do. That took courage.

How far political figures will go to weaponize religion in service of cruelty. In the hands of Speaker Johnson, the Pope’s basic appeal for compassion toward migrants was reduced to ideological idiocy, the gospel warped to match Trump’s inhumanity.

Johnson is publicly devout but his spiritual leader is Trump. That devotion guarantees him a one-way trip to hell.

It’s one thing for politicians to be cynical. It’s another for self-identified Christians to celebrate the subversion of Jesus’s teachings, turning sacred tradition into a platform for seething self-promotion.

If the core of Christianity is love of neighbor, mercy, and humility, what are we to make of a crowd that cheers a man for whom empathy is weakness, humility a disease?

If American Christianity hopes to reclaim its moral spine, it must confront a simple truth: kissing up to Donald the Demon is not the same as following the Prince of Peace.

John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”

Trump just exposed the religious right's 'devil's pact' at Prayer Breakfast: analysis

President Donald Trump just exposed the religious right's "devil's pact" with his performance at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday.

In an analysis from David Smith, The Guardian's Washington bureau chief, Smith pointed out how Trump, whose Christian faith and religious life has been questioned in the past, hurled insults at political enemies and took swipes at “transgender insanity” throughout his speech in Washington, D.C. And despite these moves, and previous acknowledgement that he might not be the most faithful follower among Republicans, the right-wing Evangelicals have continued to support him.

This week, Trump recalled how Baptist Robert Jeffress gave a frank reaction to him, Smith reported.

“He may not be as good with the Bible as some of them. He may not have read the Bible as much as some of them. In fact, he may not have ever read the Bible, but he will be a much stronger messenger for us and he will get things done that no other man has the ability to get done," Jeffress said.

And that's something Trump hadn't forgotten, all while he is "the religious right’s chosen instrument to turn the tide against liberal, godless America," Smith explained.

“You know, I didn’t want to admit anything, but that was very interesting and I think we’ve gotten more done than anybody could have ever gotten done," Trump said.

"There, in a nutshell, was the devil’s pact that Republicans and rightwing evangelicals have made," Smith wrote. "Trump is the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who might not embody Christian values yet is God’s chosen instrument to achieve a particular purpose – namely, turning the tide against liberal, godless America. No matter if some of the Ten Commandments get smashed up along the way."

Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast: "I don't know how a person of faith can vote for a Democrat. I really don't. *crowd groans* I know we have some here today. I don't know why they're here, because they certainly don't give us their vote ... they cheat." pic.twitter.com/lIQDisyjK1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 5, 2026

The right can howl all it wants — Muslims have always been part of the American story

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” — Frederick Douglass

America’s story has always been a story of struggle — for liberty, for justice, for recognition. On a cold January afternoon outside City Hall, Zohran Mamdani stepped into that struggle. Raising his right hand, he took the oath of office as mayor of New York City — the first Muslim ever to hold the city’s highest office — embodying Douglass’ truth: Progress demands courage, perseverance, and the relentless pursuit of inclusion.

The headlines captured the surface: a 25-minute inaugural address, roughly 4,000 spectators, a private swearing in just after midnight at the Old City Hall subway station, appearances by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). But the moment ran far deeper. Mamdani’s inauguration was not only a municipal milestone; it was the latest chapter in a debate as old as the republic itself: where Muslims belong in the American story — and whether they ever truly have.

That question stretches back to July 30, 1788, when North Carolina ratified the Constitution. Anti-federalist William Lancaster warned that by rejecting religious tests for office, the new nation might allow Muslims to govern.

“Papists may occupy that chair,” he cautioned, “and Mahometans may take it. I see nothing against it.”

A warning, then. A prophecy, now.

There were no Muslim candidates in 1788. But there were Muslims in America — thousands of enslaved Africans whose presence exposed the republic’s deepest contradiction. Between 5 percent and 20 percent of enslaved Africans were Muslim, many literate in Arabic, bearing names like Fatima, Ali, Hassan, and Said. Their faith was violently suppressed, yet fragments endured — in memory, language, and resistance.

Even the founding generation reflected this tension. Thomas Jefferson studied the Quran and treated Islam as a serious intellectual tradition, even as he owned enslaved Muslims. Islam existed in theory, in human reality, and yet was denied civic recognition.

That tension carried forward into the nation’s greatest moral reckoning: the Civil War.

Muslims fought for the Union. Mohammed Kahn enlisted in the 43rd New York Infantry. Nicholas Said — born Mohammed Ali ben Said in Nigeria, raised Muslim, later converted to Christianity — served as a sergeant in the 55th Massachusetts Colored Regiment and as a Union clerk. Captain Moses Osman held a high-ranking post in the 104th Illinois Infantry. Union rosters show names like Ali, Hassan, and Said, hinting at a wider Muslim presence than history often acknowledges.

Yet rifles were not the only weapons. Islam entered the moral imagination through words and witness. Sen. Charles Sumner, nearly beaten to death on the Senate floor, quoted the Quran to condemn slavery. Ayuba Suleiman Diallo — Job ben Solomon — had already unsettled transatlantic assumptions through literacy, eloquence, and dignity. His story endured into the Civil War, republished in 1864 to reinforce the war’s moral purpose. Overseas, Hussein Pasha of Tunisia urged the US to abolish slavery “in the name of humanity,” showing Muslim advocacy was part of a global ethical conversation.

Muslims remained largely invisible in America’s public self-understanding — until the 20th century produced a figure too large to ignore.

Muhammad Ali, still the most recognizable man on Earth decades after his gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics, transformed boxing and American consciousness alike. He was named “Athlete of the Century” by Sports Illustrated, GQ, and the BBC; “Kentuckian of the Century” by his home state; and became a global icon through speed, grace, and audacious charm.

Ali’s significance extended far beyond the ring. By insisting on the name Muhammad Ali instead of Cassius Clay, he forced America to confront the legacy of slavery embedded in naming itself. His embrace of Islam was unapologetic and public. His refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War cost him his title and livelihood, yet anticipated the anti-war movement. His fights in Kinshasa, Manila, and Kuala Lumpur shifted attention from superpower dominance toward global conscience.

Ali’s humanitarian work was relentless: delivering over 232 million meals, medical supplies to children in Jakarta, orphans in Liberia, street children in Morocco. At home, he visited soup kitchens, hospitals, advocated for children’s protections, and taught tolerance in schools through his book Healing. For this, he was honored as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, cited by Amnesty International, and recognized by President Jimmy Carter as “Mr. International Friendship.”

Ali showed the nation something fundamental: that Islam is American. That Muslims have always belonged to the moral and civic fabric of this country. That a nation built on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, on religious tolerance, on care for the poor, is naturally aligned with Islam. Mamdani is American not in spite of his faith, but because Islam is American.

It is against this long arc — from slavery to abolition, civil rights, global conscience, and the moral courage of Muhammad Ali — that Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration comes into focus.

Mamdani’s life traces modern routes of migration and belonging. Born in Kampala, Uganda to parents with roots in South Asia, he was raised in New York City. Yet his rise fulfills an older constitutional promise. In his inaugural address, he thanked his parents — “Mama and Baba” — acknowledged family “from Kampala to Delhi,” and recalled taking his oath of American citizenship on Pearl Street.

When Mamdani declared, “New York belongs to all who live in it,” he answered a question first posed in fear in 1788, tested in war, dramatized by Muhammad Ali, and deferred for generations. He named mosques alongside churches, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras, and mandirs, making visible what history had long rendered partial. When he spoke of halal cart vendors, Palestinian New Yorkers, Black homeowners, and immigrant families bound together by labor and hope, he articulated a civic vision rooted in lived American reality.

Notably, Mamdani did not frame his Muslim identity as something to defend. It simply existed.

“Where else,” he asked, “could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?”

Hybridity was not an exception. It was inheritance.

Yet it is equally important to recognize that Mamdani’s historic victory does not make him infallible, nor should it. The fact that he is the first Muslim mayor of New York City is not a personal achievement alone — it reflects the barriers that Muslims, like many others, have historically faced in participating fully in American democracy. Discrimination, racial and religious bias, and systemic obstacles made this moment possible only now, not because of any failing on his part. He will, like all mayors before him, make mistakes. He will face limits, criticism, and flaws — because he is human. To hold him to an impossible standard would be to misunderstand both history and democracy.

There is, too, something unmistakably American about Mamdani’s politics. By invoking La Guardia, Dinkins, and de Blasio; by embracing democratic socialism without apology; by grounding his agenda in labor, affordability, and collective responsibility, he situates himself firmly in an American tradition — one that echoes the abolitionists, the New Deal, and the moral courage of Ali.

And as Malcolm X reminds us, this is the guiding principle for American civic life: “I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in forcing anyone to accept it.”

This is what makes the moment historic. Not that a Muslim has finally entered American politics, but that an old constitutional anxiety — once voiced as a warning — has become an ordinary fact of civic life. Islam, Mamdani, and the ideals of this nation converge in a single, undeniable truth: America is not a Christian nation, nor a nation for whites, nor a nation for the rich alone. It is a nation built on principles shared by all who live in it, and Islam has always been part of that inheritance.

The work, as Mamdani said, has only just begun. But the story his inauguration tells — that Muslims were enslaved at the nation’s birth, debated at its founding, fought in its wars, shaped its abolitionist conscience, transformed its civil rights culture, and now govern its greatest city — is no longer hypothetical.

It stands, unmistakably, on the steps of City Hall.

Trump and MAGA's true driving force is now on full display — and it's chilling

As we look forward to seeing the effect of the “No Kings” protests, I think it’s important to bring forward the theological nature of what millions of Americans demonstrated against.

Donald Trump not only believes that his rule is absolute and that his word is law. He believes that he’s infallible — that he can do no wrong. To many in Magaworld, he’s less president than the right hand of God.

George Orwell once said that since no one is infallible, in practice, it’s frequently necessary for totalitarian rulers “to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened.”

In “The Prevention of Literature,” published in 1946, Orwell said, “this kind of thing happens everywhere, but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment.”

One such opinion is whether your faith is real and genuine. If it lines up with Trump’s views, it is. If it doesn’t, it isn’t. Religious Americans are protesting the treatment of immigrants by ICE. (A well-known example is Pastor David Black of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago being shot in the head with pepper balls and sprayed in the face with tear gas for leading a prayer outside an ICE facility.) But for Maga, you can’t be religious if you disagree with God’s right hand. (The Department of Homeland Security said Pastor Black was a “pastor.”)

The potential is for some religions to get protection while others get punishment. As Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons put it in a recent column for MSNBC: “That dynamic is antithetical to religious freedom.”

Then there’s Trump’s opinion of what counts in religion.

At last month’s memorial to demagogue Charlie Kirk, Trump said Kirk “was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose. He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them.”

In this, the president was giving voice to Christian tradition of loving thy enemy.

But then:

“That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don't want the best for them. … I can't stand my opponent.”

In his opinion of the infallible ruler, love doesn’t count in religion.

Hate, however, is the One True Faith.

According to historian Claire Bond Potter, Trump’s “unprecedented statement” is a command that fits “the definition of truthful hyperbole: it asks an audience inspired by Charlie Kirk’s slick combination of bigotry, reason, and xenophobic patriotism to think big.”

Claire concluded:

“And the big thought from Donald Trump is this: You may be Christian — but don’t be a sucker. Hate is more powerful than love. Look at me — why, hatred made me president. Think what it could do for you.”

Claire is the author of Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy. In this wide-ranging interview below, we discuss the role of an “angry God” in Christian nationalism, dangers to religious minorities, and what liberal and moderate Christians are doing to fight back against the infallible ruler’s belief that hate is more powerful than love.

JS: Hate is more powerful than love. That's what Donald Trump suggested at the Charlie Kirk memorial, where the audience was said to be filled with the followers of Jesus Christ. You noted the connection in one of your latest. Walk me through that please.

CBP: One of the things we know about social media is that negative emotions – anger, hatred, resentment – are animating for a mass audience. The Maga movement has energized a populist audience with negativity. It's what is behind not just the policies they choose, but the reasoning behind those choices.

Let's take immigration as an example. Historically — and you can go back to the 19th century anti-Chinese movements — immigration has been a vehicle for white people, who believe they already "own" the United States and are entitled to its benefits, to express their resentment of institutions: corporations and the government are prominent.

Where religion enters the picture is the claim on the sacred as a litmus test as to who is entitled to the benefits of the nation and who isn't. Chinese, for example, were characterized as "godless," and allowed anti-immigrant organizers to ascribe a range of other characteristics to them following from that godlessness: sexual perversion, disease, dishonesty. Those are also core animating features of antisemitism.

Similarly, Maga’s anti-trans logic ascribes disease (mental illness), perversion (wanting to harm women) and dishonesty (pretending to be something you are not) to rejecting God's plan for your body and gender.

So religion, in this case, could point a political leader in two directions — the Christ/God of love, in which we embrace those who are different and even frightening; and the God of righteous retribution, who punishes those that reject His will and rewards the faithful.

It is that second God that animated the Conquest, the earliest stages of European colonialism, slavery and American Manifest Destiny — and it is no accident that it is these histories, with the exception of slavery, that MAGA embraces. And this God requires darkness and violence to animate followers to seek a world that is purged of their enemies.

It seems to me that religious minorities who are aligned with the Maga movement are putting themselves in danger, as the view of God's plan that you describe here will eventually come for them. I'm thinking specifically of the recent Mormon church massacre. I believe the shooter was a Christian nationalist in all but name. We know he saw Mormons as "the antichrist." Thoughts on that?

I would be careful with the thought that the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) is Maga-aligned. Some Mormons are and some aren't. Fundamentalist Mormons (who have been excommunicated from the mainstream church) don't participate in politics at all. According to the Deseret News, about 64 percent of Mormons voted for Trump and 32 percent for Harris. But character has always been an issue for Mormons. Younger Mormons are less likely to even be Republican.

But back to violence: The LDS Church has always been a target for violence and conspiracy-mongers since it was founded in 1830 during the Second Great Awakening as a charismatic religion. One piece of this is that it essentially reinterpreted the scripture on the basis of revelation — but unlike Baptists, for example, those revelations keep arriving. One of them, quite recently, overturned the church's founding belief that people of color were less favored by God.

But the second reason that Mormons were targeted for violence was the principle of plural marriage, or polygamy, the practice of which coincided with the increasing moral authority of mainstream Protestant women over questions that were specifically sexually: Black women abused by southern white men who "owned" them, and anti-prostitution campaigns in urban areas, and polygamy was framed as a way of enslaving with women, specifically.

Which leads us to the third reason: secrecy. The LDS Church is governed by a concentric series of male leaders, and as you move to the center of that — the Temple in Salt Lake City — there is almost absolute secrecy about the rituals, practices and decisions that occur within. I mean, this is part of what powers anti-Catholic animus too, except that you can walk into any Catholic Church in the United States and see what is going on. That is less true of the LDS Church.

So anti-Mormon violence is as American as apple pie — and Christian nationalists who are animated by conspiracy theories, paranoia and a belief in opaque power systems are going to be drawn to it.

It's probably also worth saying the LDS Church has its own history of violence, as it established itself in the Utah territory. Church fathers punished dissent in their ranks, and were also murderous towards Native American inhabitants. Some of that survives in the illegal fundamentalist communities. But I actually think that the increasing Maga turn towards the use of state violence in particular is likely to be making Mormons more and more uncomfortable with Trump.

The Mormons may be unique in that they provide critics and enemies many ways to demonize them, but all religious minorities and sects can be demonized if the means and motive are there. Which brings me to suggest that moderate and liberal Christians are allowing Christian nationalists to speak for them. They need to speak out before the president prevents them from speaking out. Are there moments in history in which such Christians did that?

Moderate and liberal Christians are speaking out. A group of pastors who were shot with pepper balls outside an ICE facility near Chicago filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the Trump administration.

You could go back to the 15th century and Bartolomé de las Casas's critique of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, a project driven in large part by religion — the conversion of indigenous people and the acquisition of gold to defend the faith against Protestantism in Europe.

But in the United States, religious people of all faiths animated the fight against Black slavery, resistance to war in the 20th century, and the fight for Black civil rights - -and in each case, there were religious voices that supported the projects.

One good example are Quakers, a religious minority that was persecuted in the early colonial period in New England; then, tied itself to slavery; then became the leading voice opposing slavery; and in each war, Quakers have courageously stood up against violence.

But I would disagree that Christian nationalists are, in any sense, speaking for Christians. We have seen a number of prominent Southern Baptist women, most recently Jen Hatmaker, breaking with the Southern Baptist Convention over its alliance with Maga. What Christian nationalists have is the political megaphone.

How Christianity's 'kook' fringe went mainstream in Trump's MAGA world

The far-right National Conservatism Conference used to be an event that many traditional Goldwater and McCain conservatives made a point of avoiding. But with President Donald Trump's MAGA movement now dominating the GOP, NatCon is drawing a lot more attention in Republican circles.

In an article published on September 13, Salon's Heather Digby Parton points to growing interest in NatCon as a troubling example of how much Christianity's lunatic fringe is influencing the GOP and the MAGA movement.

Describing the most recent NatCon gathering — which was held in Washington, D.C. in early September — Parton explains, "'Overturn Obergefell' was one featured panel, the AP's Joey Cappelletti reported. 'The Bible and American Renewal' was another. The conference, he wrote, 'underscored the movement's vision of an America rooted in limited immigration, Christian identity and the preservation of what speakers called the nation's traditional culture' — which is putting it very mildly. It certainly doesn’t seem there was much talk of individual freedom, free markets or liberty of any kind, and that is a big change from the conservative movement that has dominated Republican politics since the Reagan Administration."

The far-right NatCon gathering should not be confused with National Council for Mental Wellbeing event that is also abbreviated NatCon. The health event was held in Philadelphia in May, not in Washington, D.C. in early September, and has zero connection to the political event.

This year's political NatCon, Parton observes, featured some prominent figures in the Trump Administration — including National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard; Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and a key architect of Project 2025; and border czar Tom Homan.

"But perhaps the most revealing moment was a viral speech by Missouri GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt titled 'What is an American?' in which he made the claim that the country belongs to the descendants of white Europeans who took the land from the violent Native Americans fair and square because they were just plain superior," Parton observes. "He said straight out: 'America doesn't belong to them — it belongs to us.… We can no longer apologize for who we are. Our people tamed the continent, built a civilization from the wilderness. We Americans are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims who poured out onto the ocean's shores.'"

Schmitt, Parton adds, even promoted the Great Replacement Theory during his speech.

A recurring theme of NatCon, Parton warns, is that the U.S. is not only a Christian nation — it is a white Christian nation.

"It's tempting to write off NatCon, and Schmitt's speech in particular, as an example of a bunch of right-wing kooks indulging their little fever dream of creating a white Christian autocracy," Parton stresses. "But these are powerful people now, and if there's any person in government who is trying to create 'a pastiche of past glories' — largely by erasing the true American past, both good and bad — it's the most powerful one of all, Donald Trump, who has certainly discovered that 'you can just do things!'"

Parton continues, "Nobody paid attention to Project 2025 until it was too late, and look where that got us. It would be foolish to make that same mistake again."

Heather Digby Parton's full article for Salon is available at this link.

'Fits a profile': Suspect's Christian ties spur fears of more assassinations

Since the fatal shooting of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband in an act described by a federal prosecutor as a “political assassination,” scrutiny has turned to suspect Vance Boelter’s ties to independent charismatic Christianity, in particular a movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).

Boelter is alleged to have posed as a police officer as he gunned down Democratic Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, in the early hours of June 14. In a separate shooting, he wounded state Sen. John A. Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette Hoffman. Investigators say Boelter visited two other lawmakers and had a list of 70 targets, including Democrats, civic leaders and abortion providers.

Boelter was described in a court filing supporting federal charges as embarking "on a planned campaign of stalking and violence, designed to inflict fear, injure, and kill members of the Minnesota state legislature and their families."

Researchers who study the Christian right have homed in on Boelter’s attendance at a Bible college in Dallas in the late 1980s and missionary work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he delivered sermons critical of abortion and LGBTQ+ people.

Christ For the Nations Institute (CFNI) confirmed that Boelter attended the college from 1988 to 1990, graduating with a “diploma in practical theology in leadership and pastoral.”

Christ For the Nations Institute has been a “merging space” for trends in independent charismatic Christianity, Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic Christian Jewish Studies, told the “Straight White American Jesus” podcast.

Those trends include dominionism — the idea of Christians taking control over the world — and NAR, which emerged in the mid-1990s.

Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, described NAR to Raw Story as a movement whose adherents believe God speaks directly to modern-day apostles and prophets, and which seeks to “restore their vision of what they think 1st-century Christianity was.”

Both Taylor and Clarkson note that Apostle Dutch Sheets, one of the major proponents of New Apostolic Reformation, attended CFNI in the 1970s and taught at the college in the following decade, potentially overlapping with Boelter.

Sheets reportedly met Trump officials at the White House one week before the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Staff at Dutch Sheets Ministries declined Raw Story’s request for an interview.

In the early 2010s, Sheets was executive director at CFNI, where a sign in the lobby displays a quote attributed to founder Gordon Lindsay: “Every Christian ought to pray at least one violent prayer a day.”

Following the Minnesota shootings, the institute said its leadership was “absolutely aghast and horrified that a CFNI alumnus is the suspect,” and that it “unequivocally rejects, denounces, and condemns any and all forms of violence and extremism, be it politically, racially, religiously or otherwise motivated.”

The statement rejected any notion the college’s teachings were “a contributing factor” to Boelter’s “evil behavior.”

The statement also claimed Lindsay’s comment about “violent prayer” has been misrepresented.

“By ‘violent prayer’ he meant that a Christian’s prayer life should be intense, fervent, and passionate, not passive and lukewarm,” the statement said, “considering that spiritual forces of darkness are focused on attacking life, identity in God, purpose, peace, love, joy, truth, health, and other good things.”

‘Five soccer balls’

Researchers who track the Christian right have taken note of a sermon Boelter preached in Congo in 2023.

“They don’t know abortion is wrong, many churches,” Boelter said, in comments first reported by Wired. “They don’t have the gifts flowing. God gives the body gifts. To keep balance. Because when the body starts moving in the wrong direction, when they’re one, and accepting the gifts, God will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course.”

Clarkson told Raw Story Boelter’s rhetoric had a familiar ring.

“Nobody but someone influenced by the New Apostolic Reformation movement would say something like that,” Clarkson said.

But Taylor saw a broader strain of charismatic Christianity in Boelter’s sermonizing, connected to the Latter Rain movement, a precursor to NAR that emerged after World War II.

“Many people today would say those are NAR ideas, but they were Latter Rain ideas before they were NAR ideas,” Taylor said. “I don’t know where he picked up these ideas. He’s very clearly charismatic in his theology and in his preaching as well.”

In a sermon in Congo in 2022, Boelter used an odd metaphor involving soccer balls to suggest he was burdened with regrets.

“Do you understand what God has given us?” Boelter asked. “He’s given us eternity — with Him. And what does he ask? He says, ‘Life didn’t go the way I wanted it for you. But it wasn’t my fault. Vance, you sidetracked. You messed up your life. You took your five soccer balls, and you wrecked ’em.’

“But He says he loves us so much he came and he died to pay for it all. And he says, ‘Vance, do you want to trade your five wrecked soccer balls for all of these? Do you want to live forever with me? Then get on your face, Vance, and repent of your sins.”

Clarkson told Raw Story he thinks both personal troubles and exposure to ideas in the realm of charismatic Christianity could have factored into Boelter’s turn to political violence.

“If he’s in NAR all the way, and his marriage and his finances are falling apart, he may lean into his faith to find purpose,” Clarkson said. “If he thinks his life as he knows it is over, he may be thinking about trying to go out in a meaningful way.”

Boelter reportedly texted his family after the shootings: “Dad went to war last night.”

“He’s been planning these things for a long time; he was armed for it,” Clarkson said. “It was literally war. He did seem to assume he would be killed … When people commit violence out of religious motive, that’s profound.”

‘Priming the pump for violence’

Clarkson said that if it turns out Boelter is an NAR adherent, “this would be the first major example of the violent vision and rhetoric of the New Apostolic Reformation movement manifesting.”

On the other hand, Clarkson said, “if it turns out that he’s not NAR, it’s still the case that there are all these NAR leaders that have been teaching people that they are in an end-times war. They’re priming the pump for violence in their lifetime.”

Minnesota shooting Officers gather in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, after the shootings of two lawmakers and their spouses. REUTERS/Ellen Schmidt

Taylor suggested a different way of looking at Boelter’s attack.

Political discourse in the U.S. is “at a high boil,” Taylor said. While Boelter might have been influenced by hostility towards abortion and LGBTQ+ rights in right-wing media, Taylor noted that political violence is manifesting against an array of targets, with a firebombing attack against Jewish demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza in Colorado this month only one example.

“There’s so much of this bile in the far-right and right-wing and independent media spaces about abortion, and about LGBTQ+ rights,” Taylor said. “And that’s something that Boelter touches on in his sermons as well — about trans people, about Muslims, about immigrants.

“I worry that this is the harbinger of what’s to come. And we could see more attacks like this in the coming time, because he fits a very common profile.”