“Is it possible to be astonished and, at the same time, not surprised?”
A colleague recalled that quote — by fictional President Josiah Bartlet on a 2005 episode of the Emmy Award-winning political drama “The West Wing” — as a real-life mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
A Capitol Police officer this morning became the fifth person to die as a result of the insurrection.
How does religion figure in the tragic last stand of the nation’s conspiracy theorist-in-chief?
Let us count the ways, as highlighted by Religion Unplugged contributors:
• As thousands of protesters gathered outside the Capitol building claiming election fraud, some installed a giant wooden cross on the lawn, Hamil R. Harris notes.
• Others in the crowd carried flags and banners with Christian symbols and messages such as “Jesus Saves.” Kimberly Winston explains the history behind the array of flags.
• Christian leaders — some of whom have backed President Donald Trump because of his anti-abortion stance — condemned the pro-Trump mob and called for peace, Jillian Cheney reports.
In other noteworthy coverage, Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins explores the “two forms of faith on display” amid the chaos. The Atlantic’s Emma Green weighs in on “Storming the Capitol for God and Trump.”
Another must read: Houston Chronicle religion writer Robert Downen interviews Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler, who says he’s “genuinely shocked and horrified” by what happened Wednesday but stands by his Trump vote. (Click here for the GetReligion post and podcast about that piece and Mohler’s own podcast on the topic.)
Looking ahead, President-elect Joe Biden has invited Jesuit priest Leo O'Donovan, former president of Georgetown University, to deliver the invocation at Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, the National Catholic Reporter’s Christopher White reports.
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. ‘Only in America’: Raphael Warnock’s rise from poverty to U.S. senator: Associated Press writer Russ Bynum profiles the progressive reverend who — as explained by Religion News Service’s Adelle M. Banks — plans to remain senior pastor of his Atlanta church.
That church is the historic Ebenezer Baptist where civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. preached. In light of Warnock’s victory Tuesday, the Washington Post’s DeNeen L. Brown recounts Ebenezer’s 134-year-old history.
Religion Unplugged’s own Hamil R. Harris delves into the significance of Georgia voters electing two Democratic senators — Warnock and Jon Ossoff — to give that party control of both chambers of Congress as well as the White House.
2. Inside Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, staff push leaders to take responsibility for scandal: Back in October, I praised Christianity Today journalist Daniel Silliman’s investigative reporting on sexual assault allegations against the late Zacharias.
Silliman’s latest in-depth coverage of the scandal involving “arguably the most famous Christian apologist in the world” is equally stellar and worthy of readers’ attention.
3. Randall Cunningham is back in the NFL … as Raiders chaplain: “I want to preach myself into a Super Bowl ring,” the former quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings tells the New York Times.
CONTINUE READING: “The Role Of Religion In President Donald Trump's Tragic Last Stand,” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.