Brad and Dan begin this J6 anniversary episode by zooming in on certain religious elements manifest at the Insurrection. Dan decodes the various Braveheart references and signs on display, connecting them to a form of Christian nationalist masculinity via work by Kristin Kobes du Mez. Brad talks about how and why the rioters prayed as they crossed every boundary and threshold of the Capitol. It was a way of transforming the space into theirs and transforming them from criminals to God’s warriors.
They then discuss what has happened in the year since–pointing to stats of how many Republicans and Evangelicals believe the 2020 election was stolen. This give’s Dan a chance to explain what people are really saying when they repeat the mantra, “Don’t make it political.”
The last segment is on what happened on the one-year anniversary of the Insurrection. Brad and Dan analyze reactions from political leaders, religious leaders, and Trump admin figures, showing how the myth of the Big Lie took root and blinded Americans en masse.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center, UCSB, and I'm here today with my co-host.
Dan Miller, associate professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College.
It's nice to see you, Brad.
You sound like you've got a little more energy than you did last week when you were getting over your whatever non-COVID illness you had, and I'm sitting inside with snow outside, and I'm sure you're not, so you're probably enjoying that better as well.
Well, yeah, and I have to say, it's good to see you, Dan, despite the raging jealousy I have in my heart right now for you, because we started two new series this week.
One is, well, actually, yeah, we did.
Sorry, I'm getting my, I'm in my head here a little bit.
We started two new series this week.
Sorry, y'all.
One, J6, a year later, and I interviewed Sarah Posner, which is really good.
Dan started his series on Wednesday, which is, You Don't Belong Here, Religion, Politics, and Identity.
And Dan, when I listened to it, I was just reminded of the like, beautiful, textured, soothing, booming radio voice that you have, you know, and I just, it made me think that there's probably a lot of money to be made out there for you, uh, just recording advertisements or reading, um, audible books.
I don't know, but, um, it did make me very jealous.
So I just, I'm going to confess that publicly and just put it out there.
Okay.
I will own that.
In grad school, we used to play a game where we would ask, like, what celebrity voice would you want to, like, read an academic paper of yours?
And nobody ever said mine.
So, like, if my celebrity status can build enough, then maybe that'll be it.
Instead of, like, imagine James Earl Jones reading, like, a paper or Samuel L. Jackson, people will clearly be like, it has to be him.
You're nervous?
You know, it's hard for you to speak loudly?
Look, just 50 bucks and I'm your guy.
All right.
Dan, it's the day after January 6th.
One year later, it's January 7th, 2022.
And we're going to talk about something we've been talking about, but actually haven't talked about in a couple of weeks.
And that is obviously January 6th.
We're going to take three approaches.
We want to talk about what happened on that day.
We want to talk about what's happened since then.
And I think we want to finish by talking about what happened yesterday, the anniversary.
A lot of speeches, a lot of reflections, a lot of comments, a lot of whatevers.
Let's start with that day, and I'll be honest, yesterday felt... Dan, you ever feel like when you go to an amusement park?
Like, I grew up 10 minutes from Disneyland, right?
And so you go to Disneyland, and you're so excited as a kid, and now as an adult when you go there, you know, you kind of have different eyes.
And you realize that the thing that you do once a year, going to Disneyland, or once every five years, Some people who work there do it every day.
They're like just shoving out the popcorn or taking tickets every day.
So the special day for you, the day that is just this like big moment is something that is like mundane for everyone else.
I feel like that's us.
We have talked about January 6th so much.
That yesterday when some of the NPR stuff was on and CNN, I was like, you know, y'all, we've been talking about this.
We've been over it and we've been on it to the point where I think, you know, some folks were like, do you guys ever talk about anything else?
So I don't want to go over the basics of January 6th.
I don't want to retrace every moment.
I don't want to go over stuff we've talked about for the last 12 months.
I really don't.
What I do want to do is kind of zoom in and say, as we think about that day from a religious studies perspective, scholars of religion, what are things that might stick out for us in terms of just the symbols, the messages, the ideas, the garb, whatever?
And luckily for us, and I posted this at various places and I know some of you've seen it, There's an amazing new exhibit out, a partnership between the Smithsonian and the University of Alabama Religious Studies Department, and it's called Uncivil Religion.
And there's just great articles there by people who we've had on the show, Leslie Dorough Smith, and Kristen Dume, and Phil Gorski, and a bunch of others.
And they really do a great job zooming in, as I'm saying, on some of these objects, some of these flags, symbols, figures, people.
So, Dan, let me just start by asking you, you know, as we think about that day, something we've talked about already for hours and hours and hours, what's something that sort of just catches your eye and is worth remarking on in the wake of just the one year anniversary?
I think one of the things that catches my eye, and this is something that I think we're going to be talking about, we've been talking about, is the way that...
Like equal parts of people still not seeing the religious dimension to it, right?
The Christian nationalist dimension.
At the same time, and this is going to sound like completely contradictory, that we hear more and more about that.
So there is this growing awareness, right?
And things like the uncivil religion contributors are people who would see this.
But you're starting to, you know, see small bits of it in, you know, the so-called mainstream media, whatever.
This awareness that there was, in their view, sort of a Christian dimension to this.
But it's still that gap to me, that screaming gap between people, like all the people you mentioned who contributed to the uncivil religion.
I'm going to be talking about one of Kristen's pieces a little bit later.
But the stuff you and I have been talking about, anybody who sort of studies Christian nationalism, who sees this, and it's like everywhere, it's on the surface, it's evident, it's blatant.
And a lot of people are still missing it or don't see it and it kind of it's significant to me because it takes me back to part of why I think you and I started this podcast was having come out of that world there are these things that you just immediately look at and you can read the code right you're like oh that's that's Christian nationalism right but forgetting that not everybody knows that code or not everybody feels it on that kind of visceral level and so that that's something that still stood out to me as we hear more about that
In a lot of mainstream analyses, but it's still very much kind of below the surface.
And I think that people need to see more and more how significant that is and what a significant role that is, even a year later, because I think that's the connecting thread between everything from voter rights To gerrymandering, to opposition to critical race theory in schools, to January 6th is this, this continuous threat of Christian nationalism.
And I think, I think until we all can see that, we're not going to fully appreciate what January 6th was or its relation to all of these other things.
One of the articles that's in the Uncivil Religion collection is about Braveheart Masculinity, and it's by Kristen DuMay.
Many of you be familiar with Kristen.
We just aired one of our first interviews with Kristen a couple weeks ago.
Many of you will have read Jesus and John Wayne, but Dan, I'm wondering how that strikes you.
What is the connection between Christian nationalism and that Braveheart Masculinity that That was very much on display at the Capitol.
There's some great material on people who are like, why don't you go up the steps?
And they're choosing to climb up the mezzanine and hanging off a two-story thing.
And it's like, why are you doing that?
And it's like, you don't storm the Capitol by going up the steps.
And it's like, okay.
This is so performative, but it's also such a, like, masculine showmanship Braveheart thing.
Like, I can't tell people I stormed the Capitol just by walking up steps.
I have to, like, scale the building, because that's what a real man would do.
I mean, do you see connections there?
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