The fact that Russell Vought, the newly voted-in Director of the OMB, is a fierce Christian Nationalist cannot be underplayed. And that he is a prime architect of Project 2025.
Isabela Dias, in a Mother Jones article called “The Bureaucrat Who Could Make Trump’s Authoritarian Dream Real,” cites Vought in a podcast last year telling Heritage President Kevin Roberts, “It’s going to be groundbreaking.” What will be groundbreaking? His plan to remove 50,000 federal workers and replace them with “MAGA loyalists.” A move that is currently happening before our eyes.
Dias comments, For Vought, politics is downstream from religion. He sees a strong presidency as a way to bring forth a Christian nation….Vought wants to infuse the next conservative administration with the values of Christian nationalism—the conviction that the United States is bound to the teachings of Christ, from which all else follows.
I, of course, would object that Christ has anything to do with the so-called “values” of Christian nationalism or Project 2025. In fact, most of such stated values are the opposite of Christ’s values. They are antichrist values therefore. I have laid them out in my recent book on Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ. And where I take up the “values” of Project 2025 MAGA, the “Make America Grotesque Again” movement that is burning down our democracy.
One person wrote me that when he saw the term “antichrist” he felt I must be exaggerating, but when he read the book and especially the chapter on “18 Signs of the Times: The Antichrist in American politics, 2024,” he fully agreed with the term “MAGA as Antichrist.”
Interestingly, the day Vought was approved by the Republican senate this week, President Trump appeared at the National Prayer Breakfast and announced that he would be signing a new executive order to appoint AG Pam Bondi to head a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias” in the government. Which version of “Christ” does he consider anti-Christian?
And he would create a new “presidential commission on religious liberty” and set up a faith office in the White House headed by televangelist Paula White.
The writers of the Constitution who made explicit the need to keep church and state separate seem wiser than ever these days.
And Matthew Fox, Trump and The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Matthew Fox, “Spiritual Warriors” in Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 77-104.
And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood,” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Faith Traditions, pp. 404-422.
See Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, Jen Lustig, Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action.
Banner image: “We Choose to Fight: Nobody Elected Elon Protest.” Photo by Geoff Livingston on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Many people are standing up to oppose the bogus politics and bogus religion of Christian Nationalism. Consider these video reports. This too is Art as Meditation. Learn how others are protesting nonviolently.
“Thousands Protest Trump Administration Policies in Cities Across the U.S.” TIMES
“US On The Boil: Protests Against Trump, Elon Musk Rock 50 Cities.” Times of India
Protests across the U.S. Euronews.
Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
Order of the Sacred Earth: An Intergenerational Vision of Love and Action
By Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jen Listug
In the midst of global fire, earthquake and flood – as species are going extinct every day and national and global economies totter – the planet doesn’t need another church or religion. What it needs is a new Order, grounded in the Wisdom traditions of both East and West, including science and indigenous. An Order of the Sacred Earth united in one sacred vow: “I promise to be the best lover and defender of the Earth that I can be.”
Co-authored by Matthew Fox, Skylar Wilson, and Jennifer Berit Listug, with a forward by David Korten, this collection of essays by 21 spiritual visionaries including Brian Swimme, Mirabai Starr, Theodore Richards, and Kristal Parks marks the founding of the diverse and inclusive Order of the Sacred Earth, a community now evolving around the world.
“The Order of the Sacred Earth not only calls us home to our true nature as Earth, but also offers us invaluable guidance and company on the way.” ~~ Joanna Macy, environmental activist and author of Active Hope.
6 thoughts on “Bad Religion’s Role in the Current Coup”
I have never been so frightened to be alive as I am now as I witness what is playing out in our government. I try to tell myself surely this can’t happen but then it does. Everything you have expressed about this situation, in your meditations and in your book seems to be happening and it is so difficult to ignore but thinking about it all the time doesn’t benefit me either. I find myself wanting to move to another country but where? What I can do is pray and do whatever is in my power to stop this. This morning I read this piece offered by Fr. Richard Rohr which I fear will play out in the days to come.
“Inspired by Jesus’ warning to the people of Jerusalem, poet and CAC staff member Drew Jackson wrote this poem that honors the cost of prophecy:
There is a lineage of those whose blood fills
the streets
of cities and countrysides—prophets who
have spoken truth
only to find their lips kissed with the blunt
force
of thrown stones. They knew their end
before they began,
and still they continued. Fire in the bones
cannot be contained.
Handcuffs and shackles cannot restrain
their message.
More than by their shouts, we know them by
their tears—
salt dried on their cheeks from years of
endless weeping.
Many of their names have been swept away
by the winds
of history. It is the winners who write the
accounts,
yet the ground bears witness.
I am reading Alexis Navalny’s newly published memoir. His multiple strategies for outing Putin’s oligarchs is an inspiration for the USA at this time. It took thousands of ordinary Russians marching in the streets in support of Navalny to make Putin ramp up his persecution of Navalny. Navalny comes across as a deep soul relentless revolutionary who loves his country, his family and all Russians.
From Canada, it seems like watching helplessly as an old friend falls prey to a rapid drug like addiction.
As Canadians we have seen clearly the power of EVIL at work for a long time and now win in America.
Both Trump and Putin have served the Devil’s purpose well in our northern hemisphere.
I suspect that Trump’s father and grandfather are rejoicing after completing their mission.
Where is the GOOD amongst this EVIL?
Hope our courts, democratic and social institutions and leaders, and all US citizens are able to continue resisting and fighting for our Democratic and humanitarian/spiritual values against the onslaught of the antichrist Trump and his ignorant and cult MAGA followers, especially the sycophant Republicans and greedy billionaires.
May God’s Spirit of Truth, Peace, Justice, Strength, Healing, Transformation, Creativity, Compassion… be with-in and among us the next four years of struggle to save our Democracy and our humanitarian leadership for Good in the world and for our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth, sustainer of all living creatures including humanity.
We must stand strong, no matter what, in the face of this domestic terrorism and keep speaking out, even if the results do not seem to be positive. As Drew says, there is a cost in blood often, but there is more of a cost in losing one’s soul. There is a coup in progress, there is no doubt at all.
Domestic terrorism is a term used to describe violent acts that are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government. It can also refer to attacks on a country’s infrastructure.
The ruling elites designed religions to control the minds and lives of the masses. Nothing of what they have taught us about the Gods has ever been true. Everything we have been told about them has been invented with the above purpose in mind. We only have to look at how many different Gods supposedly exist to verify this.
Today, without religions our modern civilization would collapse. However, we cannot hope that anything good will come out of lies, it never has and never will. What good can be achieved by worshipping and obeying nonexistent deities is an illusion that does not last. What mankind needs to know is “Who We Truly Are” existing in human bodies. For an answer to this question, study the history of this Universe and The Tree of Life. This will reveal that we are “The Word” made flesh.