There is a new book for anyone who still believes in religious freedom, separation of church and state and is concerned about growing radicalism within this nation.
Jared Huffman, a U.S. representative from California, has written a book church leaders should read. No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism is a foundational work for understanding religious extremism in our time.
Michael Chancellor
First, Huffman takes us back to January 6, 2021, and gives a simple, clear, picture of who was in the mob and where this mob’s loyalty lay. He notes there were flags flying of different kinds: The U.S. flag, the Christian flag, the Confederate flag and the Appeal to Heaven flag. The last three were carried by violent crowd members wanting to disrupt the congressional responsibility to affirm the presidential election of 2020.
He offers a sober reflection on those flags were waved in a violent riot that took human lives.
From there, Huffman introduces us to four extreme religious groups who were present and have emerged as threats to our democracy. He breaks them down into three groups, but I would add a fourth.
The first he mentions are independent charismatic evangelicals who have pushed prophecies from the New Apostolic Reformation. They have given us Donald Trump as the new Cyrus, the anointed one and pushed a flawed Christology that calls Christians to Dominionism, which is all about control over the power centers of this nation.
The second group are paramilitary and anti-government extremists such as those responsible for the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995. There is a thread from Oklahoma City through Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian deaths that continues today.
The third group was totally unknown to me. He identified them as Radical Catholic Integralists who work to do just what the name implies — integrate government and faith, carrying us back in history to wars upon wars between religious kings pushing their religion on everyone else.
The fourth group I would add is evangelical Christian nationalists who are pushing a fabricated American history which affirms the myth we were formed as a Christian nation. The pseudo historian David Barton pushes this narrative. It shows up in the different statehouses and Congress, influencing the overreach of a hollow Christianity even the supporting politicians don’t feel compelled to follow.
This book is a helpful beginning for pastors and church leaders who want to get a sense of the changing landscape that began in the 1980s with the emergence of the Moral Majority.
Michael Chancellor served 33 years as pastor of four Baptist churches in Texas, six years as a mental health manager in a maximum-security Texas prison before becoming a therapist in private practice in Round Rock, Texas. He now lives in Taylor, Texas.