J6 ONE YEAR LATER, Ep. 4: Shofars, Flags, and a Declaration of War
Dr. Leah Payne is a historian of Pentecostalism and other Christian traditions in the United States. She speaks with Brad about the overwhelming presence of charismatic Christians at the Insurrection. Drawing on her insider-scholar perspective, Dr. Payne helps decode some of the religious elements at at J6: the shofars (the horns used as instruments to declare war), the flags, and other symbols. She also explains why charismatic Christianity became such a prominent part of Trump's presidency and MAGA Nation as a whole.
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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 at UCSB.
And I have a wonderful guest tonight, and that is Dr. Leah Payne.
And I'm going to talk to everybody about all your amazing stuff in a minute here, Leah, but just want to say thanks for joining me.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm delighted to be here.
I say tonight because we're taping this after children have gone to bed and we can carve out some time to actually, you know, in very busy schedules and family lives to actually like sit down and have our conversation.
So we're going to make it happen.
And so first, let me tell everybody about all your amazing All your amazing stuff.
You're Associate Professor of American Religious History, George Fox University and Portland Seminary up in the Pacific Northwest.
Your first book, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism, Making a Female Ministry in the Early 20th Century, came out in 2015.
It's an award-winning book, and you're writing a second book on an amazing topic, something I hope we can talk about in the future when you're ready, and that's the development of contemporary Christian music.
So many people are going to just love this book for so many reasons.
I'm already thinking of all the contemporary Christian music that I wish we could just talk about right now.
I do want to ask you, though, to tell us a little bit about your podcast, Weird Religion.
Oh, thank you so much.
First off, I'm so honored to be here.
I sort of feel like a little bit starstruck talking with you now because I've listened to so many Thank you so much for having me.
And yes, my colleague and I, we have a little podcast called Weird Religion where we just talk about religion and pop culture.
And it's mostly two religion scholars who just get a kick out of seeing Religious movements and religious people and ideas pop up in movies or TV or even in things like Twitter scandals.
And so we just get a kick out of talking about trying to apply all of our book knowledge to just the wild world of religion in the U.S.
mostly, but sometimes we talk about other international things.
Thanks for letting me plug that.
No, I love it.
I, you know, one of the, I will, I will admit, so first of all, any podcast by scholars of religion who are doing that kind of work, people, you should go listen.
So Weird Religion, go check it out.
And the other thing I just want to admit is that I'm super jealous of Weird Religion because y'all are, you're so good at bringing Your personalities and interest to the show and letting those like come through and we get made fun of a lot like on just in lighthearted ways in good good good natured ways about like we're kind of the straight laced duo of of of of the
Whatever podcast, like compared to Dirty Rotten Church Kids or anyone else, we're sort of like the guys in the suits who don't laugh very much.
So when I listen to y'all, I'm like, man, they are the scholars, but they're so fun and like, you know, like it's all there.
So it's pretty cool.
It's really us just being a little bit burned out.
This is, this is a delight.
You all, it's, you know, for those of you who are listening, thinking, I'm going to start a podcast, it is so much work, so much creative energy.
And I think that you're doing such a great service to the Academy because you're, you're We're having casual conversations about really serious things, so I thank you for doing what you're doing, and I know we're here to talk about other things, but it's just really fun to be here, and I just have to express that.
No, thank you very much, and you're gonna, if you keep saying nice things about me, I'm gonna probably hang up, so we're gonna need to just keep going.
All right, so we're here to talk about January 6th.
It's our ongoing series, January 6th, one year later.
And, you know, I started this series asking folks, you know, what was January 6th?
And last week I talked to Phil Gorski, and I actually didn't start with a big question.
I zoomed in and said, you know, tell me about this one instance at January 6th.
I want to ask you a somewhat different question, and that is, What was the aesthetic of J6?
What does it feel like?
What does it sound like?
What does it look like?
You know, it's easy to imagine for those of us who were not there, J6 as just this kind of chaotic, marauding event where people are just sort of violently overtaking police and running through the Capitol.
But we all know that every event has a feel, right?
If you go to a concert, a sporting event, if you go to a rally, if you go to a certain college or campus, a certain office, whatever, there's an aesthetic.
And so, In your mind, what is the aesthetic of J6th?
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