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Christian nationalism

DAVIS: A Colorado Christian Nationalist Looks Back at January 6th

·August 22, 2024

Last week, a sentence was handed down in a case that has taken more than three years to conclude. Rebecca Lavrenz – perhaps the most prominent of the 17 Coloradans arrested for participating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol – will not face jail time. Lavrenz, who has been dubbed the “J6 Praying Grandma” in right-wing social media circles, was convicted in April on four misdemeanor counts stemming from her participation in the Capitol attack. Instead of incarceration, the 72-year-old was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of house arrest, and a $103,000 fine. The judge also barred Lavrenz from using the internet during her six months of house arrest.

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DAVIS: How I Investigated a Secretive Bible College

·July 25, 2024

When I started investigating the drama surrounding the Woodland Park school board in late spring of last year, the elephant in the small mountain town’s room was difficult to ignore: the Bible college and international ministry organization which had relocated its world headquarters to a massive compound just outside of the scenic hamlet’s downtown. The same Bible college and ministry whose leader, Andrew Wommack, told his followers in 2021 that they “ought to take over” the town – and which had then taken steps to do so. It did not take long for me to realize that Wommack’s organizations were heavily involved in the local feuding over school politics, or that their influence on the town stretched far beyond the classroom. 

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Fire on the Mountain: Inside a Secretive Colorado Bible College (Part II)

·July 17, 2024

John Leong had a decision to make. The finances were a mess: the ministry was underwater after its latest land acquisition, and no one else in leadership seemed to take that fact into account. In an organization seized by the need to expand at all costs, the $18 million debt on the balance sheet was treated as an abstract problem. As Chief Operating Officer for Andrew Wommack Ministries (AWMI), John saw it in more concrete terms. Instead of dialing back their projected spending or slowing Charis Bible College’s desired rate of expansion, though, a new board member had proposed a riskier idea: selling investment opportunities to Wommack’s loyal followers.

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DAVIS: What if the Worst Happens?

·July 10, 2024

If the 2024 presidential election were held today, Donald J. Trump would win it. He would not have to sic his followers on Congress again, nor would he need to rely on his followers in Congress to approve false electors, or tamper in any way with the certification of the vote. He would win outright. 

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DAVIS: What I Learned While Being Kicked Out of a Christian Nationalist Event

·June 19, 2024

I arrived at Radiance Church in Commerce City shortly before noon on Tuesday and took up a parking space in the thin band of midday shade cast by the trees at the small parking lot’s far edge. I was nervous in a way I had not expected to be. I have handled plenty of hostile interviews as a reporter, and even enjoyed them from time to time, but this was different. 

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DAVIS: Chekhov’s Gun, Christian Nationalism and the Supreme Court

·June 12, 2024

If you say in the first act that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the third act it absolutely must go off,” reads one of the many versions of the narrative principle commonly known as “Chekhov’s gun”. Developed by 19th-century Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, Chekhov’s gun was the playwright’s way of insisting that every element in a story must ultimately be necessary; that there can be no insignificant details, and, therefore, that every detail carries a sense of imminence with it. Through my years of studying, analyzing, and working in politics, I have come to believe that a similar principle applies in real life: the details, often unnoticed at the time of their emergence, have a way of coming back and turning the plot like Chekhov’s gun.

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