Post by ck4829 on Nov 25, 2021 10:43:46 GMT
Michael Flynn and the Christian Right’s Plan to Turn America Into a Theocracy
This past weekend, infamous FBI fibber Michael Flynn stood on a stage at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and spoke his truth: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.” Christian nationalist mic drop. He’d finally said the quiet part out loud.
Which, to be fair, was maybe not even the craziest thing that happened at Cornerstone last weekend as it hosted podcast host Clay Clark’s “Reawaken America Tour” — a shitshow so very spectacular that Cornerstone, the church of famed end times Christian Zionist John Hagee, had to release a face-saving statement saying that maybe, just maybe, things had gone a little too far even for them (“Cornerstone Church is not associated with this organization and does not endorse their views.”) There was a woman wearing a Jewish-themed prayer shawl and blowing on a ram’s horn, because, as she explained it, “Demons tremble at the sound of the shofar.” There was My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell and disgraced political operative Roger Stone on hand to provide the event with a legitimate dose of illegitimacy. There was Alex Jones growling at attendees that “the devil’s reign on this planet is coming to an end” and that Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama know that “they chose SATAN! AND THEY! ARE GOING! TO FAIL!” There were rousing rounds of the oddly-devised anti-Biden chant “Let’s go, Brandon” and worship music provided by Sean Feucht, graciously in attendance thanks to his failed run for California’s state legislature. There was also, presumably, nary a vaccinated person in the house.
But Flynn’s statements were notable not just because the quiet part was said out loud but because the quiet part has been getting louder and louder, with political and religious leaders calling explicitly for what amounts to a theocracy. Just last month, Ohio GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel used the debate stage to opine that “we should be instilling faith in the classroom, in the workplace, and everywhere in society” because, as far as he’s concerned, “there’s no such thing as a separation of church and state.” (“We stand with General Flynn,” Mandel tweeted on Saturday.) Last year, Bill Barr informed the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast that, to the extent such a separation does exist, it’s thanks to “militant secularists” who don’t understand that America would be better off if we just let Christians run the show. “It’s been a while since people were willing to say so loudly and so publicly that America is a Christian nation,” says Philip Gorski, a sociologist of religion at Yale. “You didn’t hear George Bush, senior or junior, saying anything like that. Certainly they had a way of alluding to Christian elements of the American experiment, and they could speak to Christians in a language that was a little bit veiled. But they never would have said anything like what Michael Flynn said the other day—surely not in public and probably not even in private.”
Naturally this kind of Christian nationalist talk ruffles major feathers, and with good reason. It sounds crazy because it is crazy. What would a formally Christian America actually look like? How would it be achieved? How would it get around the Constitution? Which version of Christianity would we use? And what would we do with the millions of citizens who happen to disbelieve in that “one religion under God?”
www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/michael-flynn-cornerstone-church-christian-theocracy-1260606/
This past weekend, infamous FBI fibber Michael Flynn stood on a stage at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and spoke his truth: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.” Christian nationalist mic drop. He’d finally said the quiet part out loud.
Which, to be fair, was maybe not even the craziest thing that happened at Cornerstone last weekend as it hosted podcast host Clay Clark’s “Reawaken America Tour” — a shitshow so very spectacular that Cornerstone, the church of famed end times Christian Zionist John Hagee, had to release a face-saving statement saying that maybe, just maybe, things had gone a little too far even for them (“Cornerstone Church is not associated with this organization and does not endorse their views.”) There was a woman wearing a Jewish-themed prayer shawl and blowing on a ram’s horn, because, as she explained it, “Demons tremble at the sound of the shofar.” There was My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell and disgraced political operative Roger Stone on hand to provide the event with a legitimate dose of illegitimacy. There was Alex Jones growling at attendees that “the devil’s reign on this planet is coming to an end” and that Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama know that “they chose SATAN! AND THEY! ARE GOING! TO FAIL!” There were rousing rounds of the oddly-devised anti-Biden chant “Let’s go, Brandon” and worship music provided by Sean Feucht, graciously in attendance thanks to his failed run for California’s state legislature. There was also, presumably, nary a vaccinated person in the house.
But Flynn’s statements were notable not just because the quiet part was said out loud but because the quiet part has been getting louder and louder, with political and religious leaders calling explicitly for what amounts to a theocracy. Just last month, Ohio GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel used the debate stage to opine that “we should be instilling faith in the classroom, in the workplace, and everywhere in society” because, as far as he’s concerned, “there’s no such thing as a separation of church and state.” (“We stand with General Flynn,” Mandel tweeted on Saturday.) Last year, Bill Barr informed the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast that, to the extent such a separation does exist, it’s thanks to “militant secularists” who don’t understand that America would be better off if we just let Christians run the show. “It’s been a while since people were willing to say so loudly and so publicly that America is a Christian nation,” says Philip Gorski, a sociologist of religion at Yale. “You didn’t hear George Bush, senior or junior, saying anything like that. Certainly they had a way of alluding to Christian elements of the American experiment, and they could speak to Christians in a language that was a little bit veiled. But they never would have said anything like what Michael Flynn said the other day—surely not in public and probably not even in private.”
Naturally this kind of Christian nationalist talk ruffles major feathers, and with good reason. It sounds crazy because it is crazy. What would a formally Christian America actually look like? How would it be achieved? How would it get around the Constitution? Which version of Christianity would we use? And what would we do with the millions of citizens who happen to disbelieve in that “one religion under God?”
www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/michael-flynn-cornerstone-church-christian-theocracy-1260606/