I’m a scholar of religion who was trained in the History of Christianity at Rice University, and I’m endlessly fascinated by the monsters that people create, demons being one of the most often invoked and feared. I’ve been particularly interested in how people make use of ideas of demons throughout history, and much of my teaching and research has revolved around this subject. While I began as a medievalist, the contemporary United States is–believe it or not–equally, if not richer, in its materials on demons. More and more, I find myself drawn to researching the demons that pop up in an unlikely area: politics.
Weaver provides an overview of an incredibly influential movement, one at which demons are the core. The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) had an outsized influence on the 2016-2024 presidential elections, and I loved Weaver’s thorough and well-researched history of the movement.
Some of the groups that feed into the NAR or the demonology that emerges from them are so wild that you have to read it to believe it. If you want to understand the NAR’s foundations, this book is a must-read!
From Justin Bieber, to Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, to the controversial documentary Jesus Camp (2006), the New Apostolic Reformation's influence can be seen everywhere in mainstream America. Beginning with an examination of the Latter Rain, Church Growth and Shepherding movements, this book explores how the new Reformation has become one of the most powerful movements in modern evangelical Christianity and a major influence on American political and cultural life. The author describes the New Apostolic Reformation's organization, how the movement spread and its national and international objectives.
The principle of Spiritual Warfare has been at the heart of some Christian movements since the 1970s. The idea is that demons are constantly attacking believers and that these demons must be fought off by the community in a variety of different ways.
I love how O’Donnell carefully tracks a few of the demons that conservative Christian communities consider “major players,” like The Jezebel Spirit and Leviathan. So much great textual work is done in this book!
Demonization has increasingly become central to the global religious and political landscape. Passing Orders interrogates this centrality through an analysis of evangelical "spiritual warfare" demonologies in contemporary America. Situating spiritual warfare as part of broader frameworks of American exceptionalism, ethnonationalism, and empire management, author S. Jonathon O'Donnell exposes the theological foundations of the systems of queer- and transphobia, anti-blackness, Islamophobia, and settler colonialism that justify the dehumanizing practices of the current U.S. political order.
O'Donnell argues that demonologies are not only tools of dehumanization but also ontological and biopolitical systems that create and maintain structures of sovereign power, or orthotaxies-models…
As a Veteran, I once dismissed Christianity, viewing it as outdated and irrelevant.
But as I witness the West sliding into chaos, I realize how wrong I was. It is no accident that Christianity is under assault while the West is being overwhelmed by a cultural virus that sows discord…
McCloud digs into ideas of contemporary exorcisms and deliverance ministries but connects them up with truisms in American religion. The result is a solid argument that these are neither the province of “crazy people” on the fringe of the nation and that this movement is growing in popularity.
I particularly loved the material on “spiritual mapping,” a practice in the Third Wave which locates geographic areas of demonic influence.
Stories of contemporary exorcisms are largely met with ridicule, or even hostility. Sean McCloud argues, however, that there are important themes to consider within these narratives of seemingly well-adjusted people--who attend school, go shopping, and watch movies--who also happen to fight demons.
American Possessions examines Third Wave evangelical spiritual warfare, a late twentieth-, early twenty-first century movement of evangelicals focused on banishing demons from human bodies, material objects, land, regions, political parties, and nation states. While Third Wave beliefs may seem far removed from what many scholars view as mainstream religious practice in America, McCloud argues that the movement provides…
Gagné’s work is specifically focused on the 2016 and 2020 elections and the influence of American Evangelicals on both elections.
One of my favorite things in the book is Gagné’s attention to the different news cycles and how Spiritual Warfare motifs emerge, sometimes in unexpected places. Moreover, he sets the record straight on how some of these same Spiritual Warfare motifs are misunderstood or misrepresented. More often than not, when we wade through the inflammatory, we find something even more terrifying.
This book introduces the American Evangelical movement and the role it played in the support of Donald Trump. Specifically, it focuses on the Neocharismatic-Pentecostal (NCP) leaders, their beliefs, and their political strategies. The author examines why 81% of white evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016, and why he still received between 76% and 81% of their vote in 2020 despite losing the presidency. Additionally, the book discusses how NCP leaders are part of the Christian Right, a religious coalition with a political agenda centered on controversial issues such as anti-abortion activism, opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, and the protection of religious…
As a Veteran, I once dismissed Christianity, viewing it as outdated and irrelevant.
But as I witness the West sliding into chaos, I realize how wrong I was. It is no accident that Christianity is under assault while the West is being overwhelmed by a cultural virus that sows discord…
This is the culmination of all of the demon-mongering done by groups like the New Apostolic Reformation. So often, we tend to think of demons and politics as not mixing, likely because of our mistaken belief about our ability to divorce religion from politics.
Taylor attentively shows how the NAR’s focus on demons and spiritual warfare led to leaders in the group being present at the January 6th insurrection. This was not the result of a well-played conspiracy of actors but rather one that grew organically out of the kind of glorification of violent ideology that placed Spiritual Warfare at the center of the movement.
"Required reading for anyone seeking to understand Christian nationalism." ―Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne
A propulsive account of the network of charismatic Christians that consolidated support for Donald Trump and is reshaping religion and politics in the US.
Over the last decade, the Religious Right has evolved. Some of the more extreme beliefs of American evangelicalism have begun to take hold in the mainstream. Scholar Matthew D. Taylor pulls back the curtain on a little-known movement of evangelical Christians who see themselves waging spiritual battles on a massive scale. Known as the New Apostolic Reformation,…
My book tracks the development of a little-studied reaction to Spiritualism, the religious movement in the United States that held people could talk to the dead through things like seances and Ouija boards. These writers–the “Anti-Spiritualists” of the title–believed that Spiritualists were really talking to demons in disguise. Anti-Spiritualists accused Spiritualists of spreading demonic doctrines (e.g., free love, abolitionism) and claimed figures like Abraham Lincoln were trying to establish a dictatorship in the US with demonic aid.
Flash forward to the 70s. The Exorcist comes out, still using the Anti-Spiritualist paradigm a hundred years after its creation! This landmark film spreads the Anti-Spiritualist paradigm everywhere, eventually helping to found one of the most dangerous conspiracy theories in the United States: QAnon.
