(OPINION) The pastor lights his cigar as he sits down on the sofa, casting the lit match aside. The floral upholstery starts to burn, the flames get bigger. “It’s not the job of the preacher to be a firefighter,” Doug Wilson says, as the fire spreads. “We’re supposed to be arsonists in the world.”
Wilson leads a church in Moscow, Idaho. It’s a small city nestled beside mountains and surrounded by green, home to the University of Idaho. It voted for Joe Biden in 2020. But Wilson, who opposes same-sex marriage and rails against the Pride flag, wants to turn Moscow into a “Christian town”.
Stirring across America is a movement focused on tearing down the wall separating church and state. Conservative Christians are moving to remote states to live a rural life according to their values. A real-estate company in Idaho that sells survival homes to such people offers buyers an AR-15 rifle as a “closing gift”.
Christian nationalism is the belief that America should be governed as a Christian nation according to faith. While it is not a new concept, some experts argue it has gone from a fringe ideology to a force in Donald Trump’s Republican party and is now a threat to the very fabric of American democracy.
One professor said the movement uses Christian ideals to mask racist ideas, but others say the Christian nationalist label is simply used to dismiss any Christians who want to be involved in politics. More than half of Republicans are at least sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideas, according to a recent survey.
Religious leaders like controversial pastor Wilson and political actors like ex-Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn are considered key figures in the movement.
So how much of a danger is Christian nationalism? At the January 6 insurrection, flags saying “An Appeal to Heaven” and “Jesus is my savior” appeared alongside neo-Nazi iconography as rioters poured into the Capitol.
And while hundreds of people have been charged following the events in Washington DC, experts fear that Christian nationalism poses the “greatest threat to democracy” in America, amid talk of a “spiritual war”.
“Well I gotta get home for dinner,” Pastor Wilson says as the video draws to a close. The clip then ends with sped-up footage of the sofa engulfed by the fire. (READ MORE)
