Thread by @TaylorMatthewD

Please, please, please pay attn to what is happening here:

Lance Wallnau is one of the most effective Christian Trump propagandists. He was central to mobilizing Christians for #January6th through this exact style of rhetoric -- literally demonizing their political enemies. 1/

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1770873525835829639

If you doubt it, watch this 25-minute documentary that demonstrates how Christian leaders (especially Wallnau) & their demonizing rhetoric fed directly into the Christianity on display on #January6th:

2/

How do you get Christians (whose self-image is that they love people, love democracy, & love America) to violently attempt to overturn a democratic American election?

You tell them that "We don't hate our enemies; we hate the demons controlling our political opponents." 3/

This is the theological radicalization & psychological reformulation of the religious right in the U.S.:

If you can map the discourse of spiritual warfare & spiritual violence onto Amer politics, then your enemies are literally dehumanized & recast as the puppets of demons. 4/

I understand that it sounds cuckoo to coastal & cosmopolitan elites who find such Satanic/demonic language gauche & absurd, but this rhetoric is restructuring political activism on the right & fueling our polarization. They are overlaying spiritual warfare onto Amer politics. 5/

If you can convince patriotic Christians that their political preferences are really matters of spiritual combat w/ cosmic consequences, then Christian Trump support--despite J6, despite his promises to be a dictator, despite his indictments--becomes spiritually essential. 6/

This is how you get Christians to act in ways that contravene every mainstream vision of Christian ethics: "we are spiritual warriors, led by spiritual generals & prophets like Wallnau, serving Jesus by destroying the demons" (&, implicitly, anyone on the side of the demons). 7/

As I argued in Charismatic Revival Fury, "If you imagine yourself to be on the side of the angels, you can never be in the wrong... They imagine they can battle the demons who they believe possess people & institutions & territories & not injure the people themselves." 7/

To my fellow Christians: If we do not disrupt & counter this weaponization of Christian theology & radicalization of Christian followers by Wallnau & his peers, we will likely see escalating, anti-democratic Christian nationalist violence akin to January 6th. 8/