Spiritual Warfare and the Apocalypse: The Religious Framing of Political Violence in American Cultural Nationalism

Introduction

It is hard to ignore the prevalence of religious ideas and symbols among conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremists engaged in political unrest and violence in the U.S. today. QAnon has appropriated evangelical ideas about spiritual warfare and a hoped for religious great awakening (Argentino, 2020; Burke, 2020). There is no hiding support from the Christian right for the stop-the-steal movement after the 2020 presidential election or conservative Christian involvement in the rally and riot at the Capitol building on the day of the certification of the Electoral College results (Boorstein, 2021; Cox, 2021; Dias & Graham, 2021; Green, 2021). Current far-right warnings of an impending civil war have antecedents in racist interpretations of Bible prophecy and dystopian novels (Allen, 2019; Kaplan, 2018). Even after the inauguration of Joe Biden, “prophets” declared that Trump would still become President and at times even promised a military coup (Boorstein, 2021; Faith Unveiled Network, 2021; Mantyla, 2021).

Until recently, the appearance of religious themes in domestic extremism, actions such as the bombing of abortion clinics or the criminality and violence of the Posse Comitatus and Montana Freemen, had been viewed as isolated events tied to radicalized lone wolves or small groups of zealots (Juergensmeyer, 1998; Schlatter, 2006). However, we are now seeing the rise of a new-right coalition that mobilizes people using well-established religious frames tied to spiritual warfare and apocalyptic violence in the promotion of American cultural nationalism, whether or not its followers are personally religious (Nascimento, 2005). The result has been the mainstreaming of extremism (Barkun, 2017).

This cooperation of Christian conservatives and non-Christian extremists under the same religious umbrella could not have been anticipated four decades ago. In the 1980s, the rise of a transatlantic network of right-wing extremists challenged Protestant hegemony over the American far right with a new wave of groups (Berlet & Vysotsky, 2006; Gardell, 2003; Hawley, 2018; Kaplan & Weinberg, 1998; Main, 2018). Recognizing this development raises two obvious questions. First, how did Christian groups that had once regarded the development and spread of democratic institutions as part of the nation’s divine mission come to reject democracy in favor of authoritarianism and accelerationism? Second, how did new-wave extremists come to find Christian language acceptable? This paper discusses the development of these religious frames, activities contributing to the formation of this coalition and the message of the framing, and whether the alliance is sustainable in its present form.