How Christian Nationalism Paved the Way for Jan. 6

After Trump lost the election in November, a report from the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and the Freedom From Religion Foundation concluded that Christian nationalism, also referred to as white Christian nationalism, was used to “bolster, justify and intensify the January 6 attack on the Capitol,” according to BJC’s Amanda Tyler.

FILE – In this Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021 file photo, Pastor Paula White leads a prayer in Washington, at a rally in support of President Donald Trump called the “Save America Rally.” On Sunday, Jan. 10, the first day of Christian worship services since the Capitol riot, religious leaders who have supported the president in the past delivered messages ranging from no mention of the events of that day to incendiary recitations of debunked conspiracy theories. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

In the days after the vote, Florida pastor Paula White, leader of the White House faith office, preached a sermon from her home church in which she called on “angels” from Africa and other nations to assist in overturning the election results. The next night, insisting she was only addressing “spiritual” matters, White vacillated between the ethereal and the electoral: She entreated the Almighty to “keep the feet of POTUS in his purpose and in his position” and decry any “fraud” or “demonic agenda” that “has been released over this election.”

“We override the will of man for the will of God right now, and we ask, by the mercy and the blood of Jesus, that you overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it, overturn it,” she said.

The religious rhetoric ramped up with the effort to “Stop the Steal.” Thousands of Trump’s supporters descended on Washington in mid-November for the “Million MAGA March,” where Ed Martin, a conservative politician and an executive at the Eagle Forum, flanked by signs reading “Jesus matters,” argued that the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian values” and should not be led by “CNN … or fake news.” Martin called on God to “bless us in our work” and asked God to “strengthen us in our fight” to defend Trump because the “powers of darkness are descending.”

Around the same time, activists began planning a series of  “Jericho Marches” across the country, invoking the biblical story of Israelites besieging the city of Jericho. In Pennsylvania, demonstrators marched around the state Capitol waving Trump flags and blowing on Jewish ritual horns called shofars. Verses of the hymn “How Great Is Our God” mixed with chants about electoral fraud.