Tucker Carlson claims he was “physically assaulted” by a demon in his bedroom.
The deposed Fox News host made this news public in a documentary, Christianities?, hosted by John Heers and directed by Scooter Downey, an Eastern Orthodox Christian who served as an editor on the Tucker Carlson Originals series. Heers moves in far-right social media circles, particularly within the Orthodox Church, often partnering with his brother, Peter Heers, a priest of dubious canonical standing.
The Seattle Times reported on this curious segment of the documentary.
The attack happened “in my bed at night and I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs in the bed and mauled, physically mauled … by a demon or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides,” Carlson says.
The newspaper reports a 5-minute segment of the documentary “includes creepy music, reenactments of Carlson firing a gun and dogs running through the woods in slow motion.”
According to Carlson, his wife and dogs slept through the attack but he woke up out of breath, walked to his bathroom and saw bloody claw marks on his rib cage, under his arms and on his left shoulder.
He thought he had a bad dream until he saw bloody sheets on his bed, he says.
His response to these nocturnal events? A “very intense” need to read the Bible.
“That happened to me,” he says. “No one has to believe me. I don’t care.”
What’s going on here?
Heers and Carlson are exploiting a dominant American evangelical trope: “Democrats are demons.” The argument is irrational, untrue and divisive.
In this worldview, demons represent every evil thing conservatives fear and preach against.
“Demons have left tent revivals, clapboard Pentecostal churches in the hills and migrated to the halls of Congress.”
There’s a growing army of rightwing preachers and priests promoting the “demon” trope. So much so the demon trope has moved from the fringe to the center of Republican orthodoxy. Demons have left tent revivals, clapboard Pentecostal churches in the hills and migrated to the halls of Congress.
Progressive attempts to offer counter arguments are met with a dismissive gesture: “That’s just a liberal preacher who doesn’t believe in the Bible.”
The Pentecostal emphasis on “demons” is rooted in a spurious ending to the Gospel of Mark. It is not difficult to explain to a congregation why this is not where the church goes to flesh out its theology.
That passage states: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
There’s not a single concept mentioned in these verses that is practiced in any literal way by mainstream evangelical churches. However, the demon-slaying version of Pentecostalism has merged with garden-variety evangelicalism in Donald Trump’s MAGA world.
Who is Peter Heers?
Heers, an Orthodox Greek priest, exports far-right ideologies and conspiracy theories. He has a large and growing social media following among the Reactive Orthodox movement. He has no canonical standing in America.
Peter Heers (screencap)
Heers is an anti-vaccine, anti-COVID vaccine clergyperson. He blames the response to COVID as being “demonic activity transforming the world.”
Now, add Carlson to Heers and you have a social media nightmare of misinformation, conspiracy theory, and right-wing ideology.
This is the same Carlson who compared Democrats to belligerent children who need a spanking from their father. And that father, of course, is Donald Trump.
An outbreak of false teaching
Rightwing conspiracy theorists, Orthodox rightwing podcasters, MAGA evangelicals, independent charismatic Pentecostals and an array of wacky preachers populate social media today. These prophets of doom and gloom now see demons everywhere. It seems to be contagious.
Among the false teachings found in this wasteland of thought is an emphasis on spiritual warfare and demons. Paula White, in 2020, prayed for “all satanic pregnancies to miscarry”; more recently Speaker of the House Mike Johnson prayed all demonic forces might be “bound”; and Sean Feucht and Mark Driscoll expressed a desire for “supernatural awareness” about the “demonic forces at work in politics,” across the spectrum of American Protestantism.
New Apostolic Reformation prophet Lance Wallnau declared there would be an “infestation of demons” if Kamala Harris won the 2024 election. Wallnau routinely depicts Democrats as literal demons. A favorite variation of the demon trope was to accuse Harris of “a Jezebel Spirit.” The preachers of demonology insisted this was “a literal demon called ‘The Jezebel Spirit’.”
MAGA evangelicals have been unduly influenced by a group of independent Pentecostal/charismatic leaders who are self-anointed “prophets and apostles.”
As scary as that thought is, it pales in comparison to the “demon” trope now so thoroughly implanted in orthodox Republican thought.
New awareness required
Writing off Wallnau, Heers and Carlson as rightwing idealogues doesn’t scratch the surface of dealing adequately with the “Democrats are demons” trope.
This is not a Sunday school discussion about demons. This is a war with MAGA evangelicals and their allies over the values that will define America. A war requires an enemy. Evangelicals, claiming to be the children of God marching to war against the infidel liberals, have claimed the high moral ground.
The enemy must be depicted in the worst possible terms. While Democrats and Republicans are not fighting an actual war with military weapons, they are at war in every other possible way.
Carlson, in his twisted imagination, created the perfect story. There’s no way to refute his outlandish testimony. The “demon” is unavailable to give his side of the story.
Rather than allowing this irrational ad hominem argument to be a stop sign, progressives need to make even more passionate responses. Only an arrogant preacher presumes he can dismiss 200 years of biblical scholarship with a wave of his pious hand and his sincere belief in a literal Bible — or his fear of unseen demons.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.
Related articles:
How Christian extremists are co-opting the book of Esther | Analysis by Mara Richards Bim
Tucker Carlson is a danger to American families | Opinion by Mark Wingfield
NAR prophets still declaring Trump is God’s man, scholar warns