“Most people do not understand that this attempted coup was a religious event.” — Congressman Jared Huffman on January 6

We’ve featured many stark warnings about the threat of American Christian nationalism from journalists, activists, and religious scholars. Today, that warning comes from inside the government. In No Prophets, Californian congressman Jared Huffman warns that the threat of Christian nationalism could destroy American democracy. Borrowing from Sinclair Lewis, Huffman argues that when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.

For Huffman, it’s not an abstract threat. On January 6, 2021, he watched something chillingly close to that theological nightmare unfold from his office on Capitol Hill. The attempted coup was a religious event, he insists. The insurrectionists were radicalized by the New Apostolic Reformation. These fanatics had rooms at the Willard beside Giuliani’s war room, and they preached and prophesied as the riot unfolded.

His Republican colleague Adam Kinzinger tells him Christian nationalism “wasn’t just part of the insurrection. It was the whole story, the whole thing.” And yet the 845-page select committee report ignores this story because, Huffman charges, Liz Cheney personally intervened to erase it. “We are less safe today because of it,” he says.

Like so many critics of Christian nationalism, Huffman had a religious upbringing. He grew up devout in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and then was ordained into its priesthood before losing his faith at twenty after his father’s death. Today he is a self-described “humanist,” the co-founder of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, and the only member of Congress who admits to not believing in gods. It’s an American intellectual tradition, he insists, that he shares with fellow religious skeptics like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison.

Christian nationalism and the Republican Party, Jared Huffman insists, are now one and the same. Huffman might not believe in gods, but there’s a biblical quality to his apocalyptic warnings. The prophet of No Prophets is putting all that religious training to good secular use.

Five Takeaways

• January 6 Was a Religious Event. Prophets, worship services, and the Willard Hotel war room — Kinzinger: it was “the whole story.” And Liz Cheney, Huffman charges, erased it from the 845-page report.

• The Endgame Is Theocracy. The Cyrus anointing, Drollinger’s Capitol Bible studies (God hates taxes, loves the bedroom), and a Speaker preaching “biblically sanctioned government.” Kinzinger’s joke: the American Taliban.

• Atwood Wasn’t Writing Fiction. Gilead was reverse-engineered from America. Hegseth’s TheoBros think the Nineteenth Amendment was a mistake. And don’t joke — to absolutists, opponents are demons.

• A Born-Again Atheist from the Mormon Priesthood. Ordained at church, unmoored at twenty, now Congress’s only open non-believer — a Christ-loving atheist in Jefferson’s lineage.

• A Golden Opportunity — If Democrats Dare. The GOP has surrendered religious liberty; Talarico is the breakthrough messenger; AOC steers clear. No new laws needed — just Article VI, enforced.

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Buy No Prophets: wwnorton.com/books/9781324130482

Chapters:

00:00:31 Introduction: a warning from a sitting congressman
00:01:46 Why write this book? The alarm nobody in government would sound
00:03:35 Shock troops: the New Apostolic Reformation
00:04:24 Was January 6 a religious coup?
00:05:48 How Liz Cheney erased Christian nationalism from the report
00:06:30 The Willard Hotel: organizers, prophecies, and the war room
00:08:37 Was Margaret Atwood right? Reverse-engineering Gilead
00:10:06 A nation of trad wives? Hegseth and the TheoBros
00:12:03 From Mormon priesthood to born-again atheist
00:15:14 Is Jonathan Rauch right about the Mormons?
00:16:49 Mike Johnson: a theocrat as Speaker
00:18:44 Tehran on the Potomac? The American Taliban
00:20:31 Why you can’t joke with people who think you’re a demon
00:21:16 Jefferson’s priestcraft and Franklin’s lightning rod
00:24:48 The Marie Perez question: faith vs coercion
00:26:31 Shadow theocracy: Ralph Drollinger’s Bible studies
00:28:41 The Cyrus anointing: Trump as flawed vessel
00:30:03 A golden opportunity for Democrats in 2028?
00:32:19 James Talarico: the breakthrough messenger
00:33:21 Newsom, AOC, and the ones who steer clear
00:34:19 Career-limited: no national ambitions
00:35:32 The founders got it right: just enforce Article VI
00:36:37 “I hope you’re wrong, but I fear you may be right”