Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania Doug Mastriano tried to hide this video:
From Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch:
"State Sen. Doug Mastriano acted shocked and even hurt last year when the Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker journalist Eliza Griswold wrote an in-depth profile of the Republican who would be Pennsylvania’s 48th governor and asked him whether he was a part of the Christian Nationalist movement — which wants to make its interpretation of God the driving force in governing the United States.
“Is this a term you fabricated?” Mastriano wrote back. “What does it mean and where have I indicated that I am a Christian Nationalist?”
A pretty good indication of Mastriano’s stance on church and state came on Dec, 30, 2020 — just over one week before the Capitol Hill insurrection where the lawmaker reportedly crossed police lines — when he made a case for God and his earthly servants to keep election loser Donald Trump in the White House. It happened in a Zoom meeting where Mastriano spoke to mostly far-right religious leaders while seated in front of a Revolutionary War flag with a green pine tree and the slogan, “An Appeal to Heaven.”
“You don’t have a flag like that unless you know what it means,” Bruce Wilson — the Massachusetts-based researcher of the Christian Right in American politics who unearthed the 2020 Mastriano video and shared it this weekend with Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson — told me on Monday. He said the Pine Tree Flag
flown by members of the U.S. Navy in the American Revolution was established as a main symbol of the New Apostolic Reformation — a loosely knit network of influential Christian clerics and churchgoers seen as the vanguard of the Christian Nationalist movement — by its leading apostle, a pastor named “Dutch” Sheets.
Mastriano’s symbolism that day is alarming, but its tone was surpassed by the dark words of the future GOP gubernatorial hopeful. He cited a divine right and obligation for Congress and citizens to keep Donald Trump in power that winter, with no regard for the earthly realities that Democrat Joe Biden received 7 million more votes and handily won the Electoral College.
“We know we overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony and not loving our lives unto death,” Mastriano said near the start of a short, rapid-fire invocation on that pre-Jan. 6 Zoom call, part of a series of meetings that had been organized by leading Christian Nationalist minister Jim Garlow and were called a “Global Prayer for Election Integrity.”
Regarding the looming events at the Capitol, the retired Army colonel said, “I pray that … we’ll seize the power that we had given to us by the Constitution, and as well by You, providentially. I pray for the leaders also in the federal government, God, on the Sixth of January that they will rise up with boldness.”
It’s not news at this point that Mastriano — despite running to lead the state where America’s Founders laid out a revolutionary vision of separating church from state — mixes God and his extreme-right politics as casually as a Philadelphian lathers spicy mustard on a soft pretzel. His campaign rallies feature invocations from holy rollers like self-proclaimed prophet Julie Green, who foresees a Mastriano victory that will cleanse Pennsylvania — when she’s not making other claims like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “loves to drink the little children’s blood.”
But experts on the rise of Christian fundamentalism in modern Republican politics say the growing evidence that Mastriano has forged close ties with the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR, movement — despite his ridiculous denials — should take on special significance for Pennsylvania voters. That’s because the increasingly visible spiritual and political leaders of NAR are clear-eyed in their focus on a government that would be dominated by the word of God and not the will of the people — or what we would call a democracy.
The view by Mastriano’s key backers and, apparently, the candidate himself, that Christian ideas and values should rule our political actions in Washington and Harrisburg looms large over his position in favor of an extreme ban on abortion, on his education policies that would undermine our public schools to give families cash they could spend on religious classrooms, and his view that a God-inspired government overrides earthly technicalities like who gets the most votes.
The researcher Wilson noted that Mastriano’s December 2020 Zoom monologue was larded with references that serve almost as dog whistles to the Christian Nationalists involved with NAR, such as a comment “that we will seize our Esther and Gideon moments.” He said Mastriano often invokes Gideon, who in the Bible takes on a massive army with just 300 men.
“Mastriano thinks he is a latter-day Gideon against impossible odds in the race for governor,” said Wilson, noting the candidate’s clear obsession with lost causes and martyrs, from the grey uniform of the Confederacy to the “Let’s Roll” of Flight 93′s Todd Beamer and his cockpit-charging suicide mission. American democracy feels on the brink of civil war; the last thing Pennsylvania needs is a governor with a martyr complex.
The relationship between Mastriano and Garlow is also significant. Researchers of the Christian right say the former California megachurch pastor has become a giant of the NAR, arguing that pastors should be freed to take part in political activity and that “Biblical principles should guide a voter’s choice.” In recent weeks, Garlow has openly touted the Mastriano campaign while forging closer ties with Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who — like Mastriano — is under scrutiny for his Jan. 6 role.
Wilson noted that Garlow and Flynn recently joined forces for a rally in which they commissioned pastors into what they called a “Black Robe Regiment,” an allusion to the myth of a minister who took up arms in a battle. He told me the ceremony was not a good look for Virginia, a state with a rising militia movement, but neither is it desirable for Pennsylvania.
Mastriano’s religious ties can seem confusing if not outright weird, especially for the majority of voters for whom the world of these rural far-right congregations might as well exist on Pluto. But it does exist on the ground here in the Keystone State, with a call to arms for a dangerous candidate that polls have pegged within striking distance of conquering Harrisburg on Nov. 3. I am not done writing about this.
- If you want to know more about Christian nationalism in the United States — what it is, its deep history going all the way back to Colonial times, and its implications for American politics in the (possibly) post-Trump era — then you’ll be excited to know that two top academics this year released an impeccably timed book on the topic. The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy, by Yale’s Philip S. Gorski and the University of Oklahoma’s Samuel L. Perry, is winning rave reviews as a primer for folks like us to understand a movement that — in candidates like Pennsylvania’s Mastriano — dreams of taking America by storm."
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Doug Mastriano’s shock video on God and Jan. 6 | Will Bunch Newsletter
Plus, key players from an infamous 1990s Philly election surface in the Trump probe.
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U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert is perhaps best known for her gun-rights advocacy and said this summer that Jesus had been killed by Romans because he didn’t have enough assault rifles “to keep his government from killing him.”
"U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s pattern of pushing for a religious takeover of America, spreading falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election and warning of an impending judgment day amounts to Christian nationalism, religious, political and social experts say.
Those ideals threaten the rights of non-Christian — and typically non-white — Americans but also endanger the foundation of the country’s democratic process, those experts say. The far-right Western Slope congresswoman represents a high-profile and incendiary voice in the movement, which is infiltrating virtually every level of American government and its judiciary.
Boebert leaned on those talking points Friday — in her official capacity as a member of Congress — at the Truth & Liberty Coalition’s From Vision to Victory Conference in Woodland Park.
“It’s time for us to position ourselves and rise up and take our place in Christ and influence this nation as we were called to do,” Boebert, of Silt, told the crowd, which responded with applause.
“We know that we are in the last of the last days,” Boebert later added. “This is a time to know that you were called to be part of these last days. You get to have a role in ushering in the second coming of Jesus.”
Boebert and her contemporaries, whether in Congress, state or local governments, can be expected to increase the volume and frequency of their Christian nationalist rhetoric as the November midterm elections approach and even beyond, Philip Gorski, a sociologist and co-director of Yale’s Center for Comparative Research, said.
“This is new and worrisome,” Gorski said. “There’s an increasing number of people saying ‘We’re in this battle for the soul of America. We’re on the side of good and maybe democracy is getting in the way. Maybe we need to take power and if that means minority rule in order to impose our vision on everybody else then that’s what we’re going to do.’”
Boebert’s comments Friday in Woodland Park serve as a dog whistle for violence, Anthea Butler, chair of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Religious Studies. Especially in the context of the congresswoman’s penchant for firearms and her framing the issue around the November elections.
“Now the apocalypse is because if we don’t get our people in, it’s an apocalypse,” Butler said. “She’s posing with guns and talking about the apocalypse.”
As of Monday, Boebert’s representatives would not say whether the congresswoman would accept the results of the upcoming election even if she loses. Instead, they assert that the congresswoman will be reelected “and her first act will be to fire Nancy Pelosi.”
“This is not compatible with democracy.”
A spokesperson for Boebert, who did not identify themselves, declined an interview request for the congresswoman but added that she doesn’t consider herself a Christian nationalist. Still, The Denver Post spoke to six social, political and religious experts from across the country who said her comments fit squarely within the belief system.
At their core, Christian nationalists believe that America holds a unique and divinely ordained purpose, Andrew Whitehead, an assistant professor of sociology at Indiana University Bloomington.
“I believe that there have been two nations that have been created to glorify God. Israel, whom we bless, and the United States of America,” Boebert said in June. “And this nation will glorify God.”
In the same address Boebert said she was “tired of this separation of church and state junk” and claimed that God “anointed” Donald Trump to the presidency.
Christian nationalists also hold a strong sense of moral traditionalism, express comfort with authoritarian control as a way of maintaining order and embrace strong ethno-racial boundaries, particularly revolving around national identities, Whitehead said.
The congresswoman told Christians at a right-wing religious conference last year to “speak up” for God and to remove “unrighteous politicians, these corrupt, crooked politicians” while installing “righteous men and women of God in their place.”
Boebert is perhaps best known for her gun-rights advocacy and said this summer that Jesus had been killed by Romans because he didn’t have enough assault rifles “to keep his government from killing him.”
She blamed a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, on “godlessness that is here overtaking America” and she frequently says drug use and violent crime are on the rise because of the Latin American people illegally immigrating through the southern border.
“It’s the idea that government power should be in the hands of ‘real Americans’ and those ‘real Americans’ are defined by an ethnoreligious category that usually entails white conservative Christians,” Kristin Kobes DuMez, a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, said. “This is not compatible with democracy.”
The end goal for certain sects of Christian nationalism, which subscribe to so-called Dominion theory, is to conquer what are called the “seven mountains” or seven areas of influence, Gorski said. They are family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government.
“Once they do, that will trigger the second coming of Christ,” Gorski said, citing their prophecy.
Boebert is moving in those circles, which also have ties to militia groups, Gorski added.
“An organized quest for power.”
Religious nationalism isn’t a new concept, it’s centuries old, said DuMez, whose 2020 book “Jesus and John Wayne” focuses on the historical intersection of evangelicalism and American politics. But it’s seeing a resurgence.
Current examples of religious nationalists include Vladimir Putin, of Russia, Viktor Orbán, of Hungary and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of Turkey, according to Katherine Stewart, an investigative journalist whose 2020 book, “The Power Worshippers”, focuses on the rise of religious nationalism. Political leaders like these bind themselves to ultraconservative religious figures in their countries to consolidate authoritarian, political power.
“These leaders use religious nationalism to bubble-wrap themselves in sanctimony, to guard against any democratic check on their power or critique of their corruption,” Stewart said.
American Republicans welcomed Orbán to the stage of the Conservative Political Action Conference in August shortly after he said that Hungary must not become a “mixed race” country, Politico reported.
“Christian nationalism is a means of persuading a large subsection of the American public to vote for the political candidates that the movement favors, and thus empower movement leaders and enshrine the policies they want in our laws and society,” Stewart said. “Movement leaders want power and political access, policies that favor certain ‘approved’ religious and political viewpoints and access to private and public money.”
“It is a political phenomenon that involves the exploitation of religion for political purposes,” Stewart added. “I think of it as combining two things. On the one hand, it is a set of ideas or an ideology. On the other hand, it is a political movement, an organized quest for power.”
Stewart added that former president Donald Trump also capitalized on the movement.
The movement is also evolving, DuMez said. Christian nationalists aren’t as subtle as they once were. Some, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, publicly identify as Christian nationalists.
Other contemporaries mentioned by the experts include Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron Desantis, both of Florida, Rep. Louie Gohmert, of Texas, and gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano, of Arizona and Pennsylvania, respectively.
The list goes on and spans every level of American government, DuMez said….
MORE AT:
DENVER POST
Is Lauren Boebert a Christian nationalist?
Experts say yes. “This is not compatible with democracy,” said Kristin Kobes DuMez, an expert on Christian nationalism
September 14, 2022 at 6:00 a.m.
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I’ve known about evangelical Christian nationalists for decades. I tried to warn the Chester County Democratic Committee about them. In 2004 they were mostly at threat in the City of Coatesville, PA. That threat came to a close when the arson fires exposed the incompetence and corruption of the local government installed by the evangelical Christian nationalists & drug dealers in Chester County PA.
Most people still don’t understand that evangelical Christian nationalists led by John Birch Society Chapter Leader Pat Sellers installed the “Bloc of Four” coalition of drug dealers & evangelical Christian nationalists. The arson fires ended that chapter of Coatesville PA’s history.
SEE:
Monday, July 11, 2022
The evangelical Christian nationalists have sucked up the Republican Party and several nations. I worry that the fact that the Republican Party is not what it was 5 years ago is almost unknown.
Will news that the Republican Party has been taken over by violent Christian nationalists get out to ordinary people before the November elections?
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