Former Christian Lawmaker Among Capitol Terrorists

On an unpredictable day, we definitely saw this coming.

• Today was a rough day for democracy and decency. I’m writing this as the chaos in D.C. has died down, but without social or actual punishments for those Republicans responsible for the Capitol siege as well as everyone who laid the groundwork for it, this won’t end. There were other news stories, which we’ll mention below, but today’s events put everything else in the background.
  
  Keep this in mind: With the election of two U.S. senators from Georgia, not only has the Christian Nationalist agenda been blocked for the foreseeable future, the wall of separation between church and state just got much stronger — courtesy of the first Jewish senator from that state and a progressive minister.

• Two weeks after Tennessee was reporting the highest COVID rates in the country, Governor Bill Lee has finally come up with a plan to combat the virus: e-mailing prayers 3-days a week.

• Least surprising aspect of this attempted coup:

  Elizabeth Dias @elizabethjdias

  Another: “Jesus 2020”

  

• Before the siege, Trump supporters were so desperate to prove their ignorance, they were enthusiastically hugging maskless strangers during yesterday’s gathering. We really hoped this was going to be the most shocking thing at these rallies. Oh, how foolish we were...

  Aaron Rupar @atrupar

  "I'm going to give everyone three action steps ... turn to the person next to you and give them a hug. Someone you don't know ... it's a mass-spreader event! It's a mass-spreader event!"

  

• California Pastor Jack Hibbs, who once wore a combat helmet to exaggerate his belief that Christians were under attack, is back on his bullshit— this time saying that the pandemic restrictions are worse than COVID itself.

  Christian Nightmares @ChristnNitemare

  During his NYE service, pastor Jack Hibbs says the pandemic was "spun out of control," that the cure for the coronavirus is "worse than the pandemic itself," and that the greatest fear is not getting sick from the virus but what the governor does to your family and your business.

  

• It’s really unfortunate that The New York Times published this mini-documentary on Ark Encounter, which acts more as a promotional video than NYT’s intent of a “forum for short, opinionated documentaries by independent filmmakers.” If they needed some opinions to add, we would have been happy to contribute.

• In case what you’re wondering what evangelist Joshua Feuerstein is up to…

  

• Former Pennsylvania State Rep. Rick Saccone was among the domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol today, emboldened by God. He posted a video (now deleted) to Facebook stating his intentions to “run out all the evil people” who have betrayed the president.

  … Here in front of the U.S. Capitol. Hundreds of thousands of people storming the Capitol. They broke down the gates. They’re macing them up there. We’re trying to run out all the evil people in there and all the RINOs that have betrayed our president.

  We’re going to run ’em out of their offices. And we’re calling on Vice President Pence to support our president. Look at all these people… Hundreds of thousands. The fake news media won’t tell you how many people here… I’m telling you there are hundreds of thousands of people here to support our president and save our nation.

  Are you with me? Until next time, in God we trust.

• The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody has been promoting election fraud claims for months and now he thinks the people who believed him and acted on it “represent stupidity.”
  
  To paraphrase one commenter, should we coin the No True MAGA fallacy?

  David Brody @DavidBrodyCBN

  These despicable people today that stormed the U.S. Capitol aren’t patriots. They’re punks. They don’t represent #MAGA . They represent stupidity.

• Finally, some wise words from a religion reporter:

  Katelyn Beaty @KatelynBeaty

  It would mean a lot for just one of the white evangelical leaders who gave spiritual and moral cover for Trump these past four years to say "I was wrong" or even "oopsie my bad" today