Brad and Dan begin with extended analysis of the testimony of the Capitol Police officers before the 1/6 committee. Their words are shocking and harrowing. They reflect on the words hurled at them that day as they were being attacked, words marked by the racism, xenophobia, Trumpism, and Christianity of the capitol rioters.
They then turn to the explicit Christian nationalism of the rioters.
This leads Dan to comment on how "religions are what religions do." There is no calling them insurrectionists not real Christians. We have to face up to the fact that some people of faith think their faith teaches them to raise gallows with the words "God Bless America" and attack the Capitol.
This leads Brad to reflect on how what is happening is myth making in real time--a revival of the Lost Cause and the denial of reality right in front of us.
They finish with a segment on the renewed attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Extended Segment: The Delta Variant and Binary Thinking
Subscribe for $5.99 a month to get bonus episodes, ad-free listening, access to the entire 500-episode archive, Discord access, and more: https://axismundi.supercast.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/StraightWhiteJC
Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163
SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron
To Donate:
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi
Venmo: @straightwhitejc
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Axis Mundy Axis Mundy You're listening to an Irreverent Podcast.
Visit irreverent.fm for more content from our amazing lineup of creators.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
As we announced last week, we are doing our first ever Straight White American Jesus Seminar.
And I know some of you are like, what does that mean?
So basically it's this, in September, Dan Miller is going to be teaching what is basically like a college level seminar.
And it's open to all of you.
What's included in this seminar are four live sessions and they're going to be two hours each.
So they're going to be on Wednesday nights in September.
two hours in a live session with Dan and the other participants in the course.
It also includes five exclusive course videos that participants will be asked to watch before the class each week and readings from both Dan and I on the select topic.
I'll be making appearances in some of the videos and other materials, but Dan will be really leading up the seminar and it is limited to 12 people.
Dan, I'm pretty excited about this, not only because it's our first seminar, but because I know you're an amazing teacher, and whoever signs up is going to have a great experience.
I think we've both been really excited about this for a long time.
We talked about this last week, but there are people who wanted to do sort of a deeper dive, something a little bit more formal than what we can do in the podcast.
We say it's like a college class without all the bad stuff.
I don't have to grade anything.
That's what we don't like.
Nobody has to do any homework.
Nobody's there because their advisor said that they have to take it.
It's just people who want to take it.
So I'm really looking forward to it.
I'm really looking forward to the other piece of this is that The participants also, part of this is what we're calling office hours, where each individual will get to just meet with me if they want for half an hour.
And that's a chance to just clarify things or ask about other material or whatever.
So we're really excited about it.
Put a lot of work into it.
I'm really excited and hope that people will join us for that.
So the class is called Pure America, Religion, Race, Nation, and we're going to be looking at how white Christian nationalism tries to create a quote-unquote pure America.
It tries to purify the national body, and we're going to link this to things like xenophobia and racism.
We'll also link it to purity culture.
So it's a wide-ranging course.
It hits on all the classic things from our show, and you can find the info at straightwhiteamericanjesus.com under the Seminars tab.
So check it out today.
As we said, space is limited, so you'll want to grab yours as soon as you can.
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
I am Brad Onishi.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB.
Dan, take it away.
I'm Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
Brad, it's good to see you.
It's good to be here.
It's one of those summers.
Landmark just flooded a couple buildings with like torrential downpours that we had and California and the whole West Coast are still dealing with apocalyptic fires.
So I'm glad that we both take our break from the apocalypses of fire and water to get to talk again this week.
Well, we have no water here and things are on fire.
And then, yeah, East Coast and Midwest and other places, it won't stop raining.
So, monsoons in Arizona.
Blah, blah, blah.
We will leave that to another show and turn today to some things that I just think, you know, they're right on brand for us.
And they're right up there with everything we've talked about for months.
But that is the testimony by the Capitol Police officers before the 1-6 Commission or Committee, excuse me.
And there's just some harrowing testimony this week, Dan, and I think, you know, I really just want to dig into it, and then I want to get to the Christian nationalist elements of this whole story and this whole phenomenon and event, and then we'll turn to the call to overturn Roe v. Wade, which some of us, I think, knew would come at some point, but it kind of has come, and I think it's worth spending a few minutes on.
Let's start with the testimony from a couple of days ago in front of the 1-6 committee.
This is the committee that is headed by the Democrats because they have the majority in Congress, in the House, but it also has two Republicans, Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.
And here, I'm just going to give you, and you know, we don't always do this, Dan, but I'm just going to give y'all listening Some of the words and I'm actually even gonna play some of the clips from this because to me this was such overwhelming Harrowing testimony that I think we just got to slow down and and kind of hover over it.
So I Here is Officer Hodges.
Officer Hodges says, I need you guys to address if anyone in power, coordinated, aided, abetted, tried to downplay, tried to prevent the investigation of this terrorist attack.
Because we can't do it.
We're not allowed to.
And I think the majority of Americans are looking forward to that.
Representative Kinzinger, who's a Republican, says, does this feel like old history and time to move on?
And Officer Hodges says, there can be no moving on without accountability.
There can be no healing until we make sure this can't happen again.
This goes to a point we made a couple weeks ago, Dan, that you can't have water under a bridge without a bridge.
And so if you don't recognize what happened and reckon with it, then you cannot move on.
That's not a possibility.
Officer Hodges continues, the mob of terrorists were shouting, heave ho, and they pushed their way forward.
A man in front of me grabbed my baton.
He bashed me in the face and head with it.
I did the only thing I could, and I screamed for help.
Another officer, Sergeant Gunnell, who's an immigrant from the Dominican Republic and a naturalized U.S.
citizen, said that one of the Capitol writers, quote, saw my skin color and said, you're not even an American.
One of them said, if you watch the video footage, you're going to die tonight.
Officer Gunnell says, quote, my time compared to serving in Iraq is totally different.
This is our own citizens, people who we've sworn an oath to protect.
But yet they are attacking us with the same flag they claim to represent.
It was bad.
I want to read that last part again.
They are attacking us with the same flag they claim to represent.
It was bad.
Officer Ganell goes on to say this, Dan, there are some who express outrage when someone kneels while calling for social justice.
What are those same people expressing the outrage to condemn the violent attack on law enforcement, the Capitol, and our American democracy?
I want to turn to testimony from another officer, Officer Dunn, in a second, but any initial thoughts on what these two guys testified?
Thanks for listening to this free preview of our Swadge episode.
In order to get access to the full episode and so much more, become a Straight White American Jesus Premium Subscriber by clicking the link in the show notes.
It'll take you like two clicks, I promise.
In addition to getting access to this episode, you'll have access to the entire Swadge archive, over 550 episodes.
You'll also get an extra episode every month, ad-free listening, Discord access, and so much more.
All that for less than six bucks a month, and it helps us keep our flag up and continue to safeguard democracy from religious nationalism, extremism, and rising authoritarianism.
