Like many Americans, I watched the live images of the insurgent siege of the nation’s Capitol on January 6 with distress and horror. As the rioters were surging up the Capitol steps, I noticed among the numerous Trump flags a large banner with the word “Jesus.” (Apparently, other insurgents carried “Jesus Saves” and “Jesus 2020”…
It has been ten presidential election cycles since Ronald Reagan defeated the nation’s most religiously devout president, Jimmy Carter, a feat he accomplished with the overwhelming support of conservative Christian voters. The preceding year (1979) had witnessed the rise of the “Moral Majority” and the Religious Right, and Reagan’s election apparently cemented the relationship between…
The images have already become iconic: militarized police using tear gas and rubber bullets to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park, positioned across from the White House, so that President Trump and his entourage could walk to the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op where the President is seen manhandling the Bible…