‘Mass Exorcism’: Christian Supremacists Take Over the National Mall
Donald Trump-backing Christian supremacists gathered en masse on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Yom Kippur on Oct. 12, to fast, atone, and receive messages about a holy revolution, national deliverance from LGBTQ “demons,” and “spiritual warfare” matched to a physical “ground game.”
As one preacher put it: “You are not here to be blessed. You are here to do war.”
The militant gathering — marketed to draw “A Million Women” (it did not) — was riven with apocalyptic urgency. And it culminated with religious leaders taking up sledge hammers and pick-axes to destroy a replica of a pagan altar to an ancient goddess of “sexual immorality.” Staged in front of the U.S. Capitol, which was desecrated by many of their co-religionists four years ago, this spectacle of destruction evoked dark memories of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Ché Ahn, a towering figure in this extremist movement, closed the ceremony by issuing an “apostolic decree” — steeped in the violent, Old Testament story of Jehu and Jezebel. (In that telling, Jezebel is a fornicating devotee of a false god; Jehu has her thrown out a window — to be trampled by horses and eaten by dogs.) “Trump will win on November the 5th” Ahn prophesied, and “‘Kam-munist’ Harris” will be “cast out” and defeated, he said, “in Jesus’ mighty name.”
This collection of Christian nationalist leaders espoused that queer people are “possessed” by demons, and can be converted to heterosexuality; that the nation should pursue total abolition of abortion; and that same-sex marriage must be abolished. They also declared that America was established to “serve” the Christian God, and must return to that “covenant” relationship.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/po...235136876/
Donald Trump-backing Christian supremacists gathered en masse on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Yom Kippur on Oct. 12, to fast, atone, and receive messages about a holy revolution, national deliverance from LGBTQ “demons,” and “spiritual warfare” matched to a physical “ground game.”
As one preacher put it: “You are not here to be blessed. You are here to do war.”
The militant gathering — marketed to draw “A Million Women” (it did not) — was riven with apocalyptic urgency. And it culminated with religious leaders taking up sledge hammers and pick-axes to destroy a replica of a pagan altar to an ancient goddess of “sexual immorality.” Staged in front of the U.S. Capitol, which was desecrated by many of their co-religionists four years ago, this spectacle of destruction evoked dark memories of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Ché Ahn, a towering figure in this extremist movement, closed the ceremony by issuing an “apostolic decree” — steeped in the violent, Old Testament story of Jehu and Jezebel. (In that telling, Jezebel is a fornicating devotee of a false god; Jehu has her thrown out a window — to be trampled by horses and eaten by dogs.) “Trump will win on November the 5th” Ahn prophesied, and “‘Kam-munist’ Harris” will be “cast out” and defeated, he said, “in Jesus’ mighty name.”
This collection of Christian nationalist leaders espoused that queer people are “possessed” by demons, and can be converted to heterosexuality; that the nation should pursue total abolition of abortion; and that same-sex marriage must be abolished. They also declared that America was established to “serve” the Christian God, and must return to that “covenant” relationship.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/po...235136876/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
