The Lie of Ceremonial Deism

It was a week full of bombshell news, and the biggest stories centered around the person who has become the new messiah of Christian nationalism: Donald Trump.

Early in the week, Donald Trump received warning in advance that the FBI would be searching his mansion at the golf resort of Mar-A-Lago down in Florida. Trump’s lawyer was given a search warrant that had been obtained from a federal judge. The judge approved the search warrant after he had been presented with evidence indicating that Donald Trump had violated the Espionage Act.

In response, Christian nationalists claimed that obtaining a search warrant to search the mansion of a billionaire who has been discovered to be in illegal possession of top secret classified documents about nuclear weapons is “tyranny”.

In order to confront this supposed tyranny of a search warrant, Christian nationalists began calling for civil war. They weren’t abstract about it, either. They called for a violent uprising against the FBI, using religious language to do so, even claiming that President Joe Biden is the AntiChrist, who must be slain.

U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who proudly admits to being a Christian nationalist, declared that a civil war had begun, and then wrote, “What is happening will not be tolerated!!! We are coming.” Yes, Congresswoman Greene actually used three exclamation points for one sentence as she made this claim.

Christian nationalist politicians in Florida seemed especially eager to start a civil war. Florida Republican congressional candidate Laura Loomer called for violent attacks against American democracy, writing, “Time to take the gloves off. It’s been time. If you’re a freedom loving American, you must remove the words decorum and civility from your vocabulary. This is a WAR! And it’s time to obliterate these communists.” Another Republican congressional candidate from Florida, Anthony Sabatini, demanded that FBI agents be thrown into prison in order to protect Donald Trump from being investigated for his criminal activity.

Christian nationalist Carmine Sabia threatened violence too, writing, “If you are not for Donald Trump you are my enemy… This is war. Pick a side. There is no gray area.”

The Christian nationalists didn’t just keep to violent rhetoric. Ricky Walter Shiffer took a rifle and a nail gun and attempted to kill FBI agents at a field office in Cincinnati. His assault failed miserably, and Shiffer tried to run away, but when cornered by law enforcement, Shiffer raised his rifle to attempt to kill police officers, but was shot dead before he had the chance.

This Christian nationalist violence didn’t come out of nowhere. Republican party leaders at the CPAC conference had called for bloody violence in the name of Christianity just a week beforehand.

Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, took to the stage at CPAC and declared that a civil war was underway in which Christians must take up arms against non-Christians. Patrick said: “Scripture says the horse is made ready for battle but the victory is the lord’s, but we have to be ready for battle. We have to be ready for the fight, because we are not in a fight any longer of Republicans and Democrats of the old days. We are in a fight of lightness and darkness. We are in a fight of powers and principalities.”

Meanwhile, Christian nationalists at the Baptist Bible Academy in Dequincy, Louisiana kicked a kindergartener out of her classroom because her parents refused to obey their orders about the kind of sex they ought to be having. In Hays, Kansas, the school board voted twice to outlaw religious expression by non-Christians while allowing Christian students to engage in religious expression without any limits.

What’s going on? How did we get to this terrible place?

It all began 40 years ago with the invention of Ceremonial Deism.

As it turns out, Ceremonial Deism is nothing more than Christian nationalism.