Demonizing has been ramping up this US election season. Not just in a metaphorical but a literal sense. And not just on the fringe but in the mainstream. To counter the dangerous effects of this infusion of politics with ancient mythic concretism, we need to understand the psychology at play in this disturbing trend of Christian Nationalism.
“You know what the Lord told me? He said ‘Micah,’ he said, ‘I sent those riots to Washington.’ He said, ‘What you saw yesterday was my hand at work.’” This is self-proclaimed “prophet” Micah Beckwith speaking on Jan. 7, 2021, pronouncing the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol the day before to be the work of “God” battling the work of the “devil” who is thought to have the Capitol in his claws (see the above image Beckwith posted just a few months ago). Now Beckwith wants to bring his brand of fire and brimstone rule to the Indiana government. He is the official GOP candidate for Indiana Lt. Governor, running together with the candidate for Governor, Sen. Mike Braun.
Beckwith is a poster child of a multifaceted national movement that does politics by literally demonizing their opponents. Emboldened by coming closer than ever to overthrowing perceived “evil” in the seat of power, this very active, influential, and well-organized minority of militant Christian groups is seeking to establish “dominion” over the US government. Many of them were strategically involved in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. As reported by Molly Olmstead in Slate, House Speaker Mike Johnson has deep ties to “Radical Evangelicals Who Helped Push Jan. 6 to Wage War on ‘Demonic Influence’.” Whoever is on the wrong side of their “spiritual warfare” to establish theocracy is labeled as demonic.
Far from being on the fringe, this movement lies increasingly at the center of the effort to re-elect Donald Trump to the White House. In its most dangerous expression, its proponents openly advocate “biblically” for taking the country for God “by force,” as Pastors-for-Trump star Mark Burns told a receptive audience last year at the Trump-endorsed Re-Awaken America tour of Mike Flynn at Trump’s Miami property.
If you want to go down the rabbit hole of recent expert reporting on the politics of demonizing and spiritual warfare, you find ample resources in The Atlantic (here and here), Rolling Stone (here and here), the AP (here and here), Religion Dispatches (here and here), and Slate (here). They have brought to light the major players and developments of the spiritual war movement on behalf of Trump. Key people include Trump advisors Michael Flynn and Roger Stone and a diverse group of “charismatic” pastors and “prophets” loosely associated around ideas of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and Neo-Charismatic Pentecostalism. These ideas aim to replace democratic structures in churches with hierarchies run by “apostles” or “prophets.” At the same time, their proponents want to establish this same theocratic rule, if necessary by violent means, in an earthly “kingdom of God” over the “Seven Mountains” of government, business, education, media, entertainment, family, and religion.
I will briefly sketch just four key psychological features (there are more) that characterize the politics of demonizing. These features become particularly dangerous when wedded to political power.
The first key feature of demonizing in politics is whipping up absolute fears by basically painting the proverbial glass not just half empty but fully empty. While the overt fear rhetoric is apocalyptic and taps into people's struggles in external life with addictions, unemployment, poverty, etc., we need to realize that those whipping up these fears are themselves internally haunted by fears of no control, of uselessness, and of having nothing of value in them. Their visions of fear stem from their own (repressed) psyches and resemble the medieval paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. They use the political sphere to project these fears outside so that they do not have to face them within themselves. Their strategy is fighting fear by making others afraid and then playing savior. Ironically, this is the same kind of strategy that the “serpent” (the voice of nothingness) in the symbolic story of Gen. 3 uses to first paint a demonized picture of God by making people afraid that they have no resources available because God supposedly withheld them (which is not at all how God had been portrayed in Gen. 2), and in a second step to play savior and promise humans to be like God. The story doesn’t end well.
This brings us to the second feature: the conflation of self with God. “God told me” or “The Lord spoke to me” are common phrases when self-proclaimed “godly” leaders or “prophets” claim with absolute certainty that certain politicians or parties are possessed by the devil and his demons, or that certain developments in culture which they disagree with are from the devil. Psychologically, this is an omnipotent inflation of the ego and points to an attempt to compensate for deep underlying fears about being insignificant or being merely human. The prophet Elijah learned this lesson the hard way in another symbolic story in the Bible. He had demonized the prophets of Baal and slaughtered 450 of them to defend his “God” (there is no historical evidence this violent act ever happened in real life). Afterward, he fell into a deep suicidal depression. Then, the story continues, God teaches Elijah a lesson in how to leave a demonized image of God behind and how to recognize when God (ultimate loving presence) is there and when not: not in the storm wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, only in the sound of a soft whisper or of sheer silence, in the “not doing,” as Lao Tzu would say.
The third key feature of the politics of demonizing is the collapsing of the psychological into the physical. The world of mythic images, which have their origin ultimately in the dream world of the human psyche, is projected outside onto physical reality and history. Roger Stone fantasized in an interview that he had seen a “demonic portal” over the Biden White House. This is one of the most dangerous features of demonizing. Because when the demonic is seen as having infested physical reality, the step to try to destroy evil by destroying the physical person or group thought to be possessed is never far. The Salem Witch trials and the Inquisition are notorious examples of this. It is of utmost importance that those who project these images outside work them through internally instead within trusting relationships. Then they can realize that they themselves are no poor devils for having absolute fears of their human “nature.” That, however, requires a sort of “psychological enlightenment” (Eugen Drewermann), which explores the symbolic meaning of what is projected in demonizing rather than taking it literally.
The fourth feature is the splitting into absolute good and absolute evil. Spiritual warfare is portrayed as a war between the forces of good and evil. As God’s voice on earth, those who demonize others claim to be on the side of absolute good fighting those on the side of absolute evil. This obsessive splitting goes hand in hand with moral absolutism and serves to justify claims of absolute theocratic power. In this nightmarish vision, a person’s or group’s life and value are judged by what they do and not by having innate worth. One of Trump’s court pastors, Robert Jeffress, goes so far as to claim that all newborn babies are part of absolute evil: “You are born as a part of Satan's kingdom. He has ownership of every person who is ever born into this world.” He furthermore claims that “every person who is not a Christian is possessed by Satan and his demons” (Video, Minute 18:02). Only when people “do” the right thing and become “Christians,” he says, can they become good and worthy. The blatant devaluation of everyone slated for hell in this horror vision is clear for all to see who have not been trapped by the icy spell of these absolute fears.
The ironic part of the politics of demonizing is that those who promote it, in the end, become what they fear and fight. This can best be illustrated (besides the story of Elijah) with the well-known symbolic story of the temptation of Jesus. The theology of “Dominionism” that wants to establish the Kingdom of God by coercive theocratic rule does exactly what the proverbial “devil” (not an entity but a fear-based mindset) tempts Jesus to do: “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, 9 and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ 10 Then Jesus said to him, ’Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ 11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him” (Mt 4:8-11 NRSVE).
UPDATE to illustrate the lethal danger of the politics of demonizing:
In a post on Aug. 20, Micah Beckwith, the IN candidate for Lt. Governor I had mentioned in the essay, posted a photo with assault weapons he would need to fight tyranny.
When someone commented "Interesting stance for a man of God and pastor. Ever hear of the Sermon on the Mount?," Beckwith, who is a pastor without formal training, replied:
"'Blessed are the peaceMAKERS, for they will be called children of God.' Let me ask you, how do you MAKE peace in a world full of evil? You go to war with that evil. Ex. How did we MAKE peace with the Nazis in WWII? We killed them .... And rightfully so. You can't pet a demon. You either kill it or it kills you and those you love."
Prepare for the lethal consequences of Beckwith's politics of demonizing.
Beckwith has apparently taken his comment on killing people he considers demons down.
But a conservative radio host who "loves" Beckwith has shared screenshots of it here (available as of this writing):
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/wpSFiMWkTKb8GPTx/