https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to oklahoma city bombing en https://religiondispatches.org/2024/04/04/virginians-may-vote-elections-counties-militias-democracy-hangs-balance Religion Dispatches’s sibling publication, The Public Eye—a quarterly magazine for analysis and commentary on the U.S. and Global Right—is back! To celebrate The Public Eye’s return, Religion Dispatches will present a series of articles from the magazine’s Fall 2023/Winter 2024… Thu, 04 Apr 2024 05:00:56 EDT Carolyn Gallaher, Priya Dixit 88a085e0-ca20-4589-bb69-2fd520c76c29 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/03/27/launch-rally-waco-former-president-sets-stakes-trump-24-campaign-apocalyptic-violent Donald Trump ’s Waco rally this past weekend was, in the end, filled with echoes of the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound —just not the kind we like to talk about. And, despite the New York Times profile… Mon, 27 Mar 2023 05:05:09 EDT Annika Brockschmidt, Thomas Lecaque 6a5cc7ee-f0b1-40de-9e97-cf95edff5466 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/03/21/trumps-arrest-prediction-inflames-holy-war-narrative-and-sanctifies-violence-welcome This coming Saturday, March 25 th—one week after a hysterical all-caps social media post in which he declared that he “will be arrested on Tuesday” and called on supporters to “protest, take our nation back!”— Trump will host his first… Tue, 21 Mar 2023 04:20:27 EDT Thomas Lecaque c4b85ca0-0967-4720-88c5-7797bcadeca3 https://religiondispatches.org/2023/03/08/should-we-expect-see-rise-christian-nationalist-violence-us Troubling new details regarding the violent propensity of Christian nationalism have been revealed by a new survey on American Christian nationalism released last month. According to the PRRI/Brookings Institution data, adherents of Christian nationalism are almost seven times as likely… Wed, 08 Mar 2023 03:50:50 EST Nilay Saiya fad69605-0ace-4ded-adc6-5dd4a5b51101 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/05/20/if-media-are-reluctant-properly-label-gops-racist-christian-nationalist-ideologies-well On Saturday, 18-year-old white supremacist P.G. drove to the “Tops” supermarket with the intention to kill people of color. He murdered ten people and wounded three others before he was arrested. All ten who were killed were Black. The racism… Fri, 20 May 2022 11:52:48 EDT Annika Brockschmidt 7baf028e-84e2-4d11-8a95-a7f4bb884b17 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/07/19/cult-inaccurate-unhelpful-and-dangerous-label-followers-trump-qanon-and-16 In the twentieth century the word “ cult ” (originally meaning “worship”) became a pejorative word that people apply to a group or movement that they do not like and perhaps fear. The word “cult” implies a stereotype that involves… Mon, 19 Jul 2021 02:22:53 EDT Catherine Wessinger a0342f76-3e08-4527-8e0b-18a8e97d57ca https://religiondispatches.org/2021/06/24/guns-god-and-government-coming-white-minority-rule In 2012 James Carville was ecstatic on CNN as incumbent President Barack Obama had just won re-election in convincing fashion over GOP challenger Mitt Romney. Carville who co-authored the 2008 book 40 More Years: How Democrats Will Rule the Next… Thu, 24 Jun 2021 02:10:28 EDT A. E. Brooks-Key c01956d4-081c-4c51-b91a-534044e7f092 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/05/28/what-do-january-6-commission-covid-deaths-and-gun-massacres-all-have-common-gods-chosen I’m going to try connecting things that don’t at first seem related. They’re the fight over a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection; the disproportionate number of Covid deaths in states run by Republican governors; this week’s shooting massacre… Fri, 28 May 2021 01:55:26 EDT John Stoehr 8ed3bb99-0052-43a0-b189-a449e9e246d0 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/01/08/three-qualities-marking-capitol-assault-terrorism While the horrific scenes of the invasion and occupation of the US Capitol building were played out on television, I happened to be in a radio interview for my new book, God at War. The reporter asked if there were… Fri, 08 Jan 2021 04:55:45 EST Mark Juergensmeyer 685ae1c7-f1ca-42f8-8511-2273f3c88d1d https://religiondispatches.org/2019/08/14/reason-cautious-optimism-mauna-kea-telescope-standoff Though conflicts between religious groups and the civil authorities often result in a violent outcome, activists and scientists in Hawaii have thus far managed to avoid the violence with some surprisingly simple techniques. Wed, 14 Aug 2019 04:51:31 EDT Jean Rosenfeld 59933986-332f-472e-b8c2-c5c727d60eeb https://religiondispatches.org/2019/03/21/myth-lone-wolf-terrorist-continues-new-zealand-attack It makes no difference whether or not Tarrant or Breivik were card-carrying members of racist organizations. They imagined themselves as triumphant warriors in a great social struggle. Thu, 21 Mar 2019 03:34:22 EDT Mark Juergensmeyer cb904e2e-897f-40bd-9fdd-270e529166a9 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/06/23/why-dylann-roof-acted-his-racism It’s all about the apocalypse. Tue, 23 Jun 2015 01:49:35 EDT Joseph Laycock 874f3ad7-feb8-4998-8654-714e2195b34a https://religiondispatches.org/2014/12/25/year-satanism 2014 was the year of the Satanist. In December 2013, The Satanic Temple announced plans to erect a statue of Baphomet on the grounds of the capital in Oklahoma City. This Baphomet statue was intended to challenge the constitutionality of… Thu, 25 Dec 2014 02:12:41 EST Joseph Laycock c5d95f6b-f7b0-46f8-b62a-c43c084c1663 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/11/04/ok-christian-and-muslim-decapitation-challenge-religious-violence-narrative Murder often functions as a cultural Rorschach test: the narratives we tell about why people kill often reveal more about ourselves than the killers. The day before Halloween, 21-year-old Isaiah Marin of Stillwater, Oklahoma, murdered his 19-year-old friend, Jacob Crockett—nearly… Tue, 04 Nov 2014 12:11:36 EST Joseph Laycock 516044b0-8f2b-42b1-9ea4-e911dc4af585 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/09/17/isis-islamic-it-state In his September 10th address, President Obama asserted that the Islamic State is neither Islamic nor a state. And there is some truth to both assertions. ISIS—the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (sometimes known as ISIL since al… Wed, 17 Sep 2014 04:40:12 EDT Mark Juergensmeyer cc1ae08d-7c17-4f05-a77f-6cc228315482 https://religiondispatches.org/2014/07/09/black-masses-continue-titillate-conservative-catholics In May, conservative Catholics mobilized in response to an announcement of a Satanic black mass to be held at Harvard University. For some, the event was a smoking gun proving not only that Satanists hold black masses all over the… Wed, 09 Jul 2014 01:11:27 EDT Joseph Laycock b3a90404-779c-4f70-81dd-5d3cbddbc7fc https://religiondispatches.org/2013/08/01/sacramental-american-day-thanks Secular holidays, actually constituting a quasi-sacred calendar, span the entire year: From New Year’s Day, the King Holiday, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veteran’s Day, and now, at long last, Thanksgiving Day. Thu, 01 Aug 2013 10:55:29 EDT Louis A. Ruprecht 335f52b2-0865-494a-b3f5-d0203aa4fe2b https://religiondispatches.org/2013/04/22/dont-blame-religion-boston-bombings As soon as it became clear that the older of the two suspects in the Boston bombing had become a more fervent Muslim in recent years, commentators began to point to religion as the culprit. But is it? Mon, 22 Apr 2013 08:49:21 EDT Mark Juergensmeyer 6e76093b-bf77-4e13-a767-49d9d740010c https://religiondispatches.org/2013/04/17/who-bombed-boston-marathon No one has yet stepped out of the shadows to claim credit for the horrific bomb attacks on the Boston marathon Monday that killed three and seriously injured over a hundred. But rumors abound. Wed, 17 Apr 2013 05:13:42 EDT Mark Juergensmeyer e06a3fcb-9822-47a7-9e1c-0123704113a6 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/12/17/newtown-tragedy-horror-no-future We remember child martyrs in the crusades, young Holocaust victims like Anne Frank, the deaths of Emmett Till and four little girls in Birmingham, Alabama. The children of the day care center in Oklahoma City. Our enduring image from that dark day is a fireman, soaked in blood, carrying a baby on the cover of the magazines. Youth move us because they bring to the light the existential horror of no future. Mon, 17 Dec 2012 08:17:51 EST Jodi Eichler-Levine d0a17855-d6d8-4531-8d61-52cf4e32f941 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/12/17/masculinity-and-mass-violence-when-will-we-acknowledge-smoking-gendered-pronoun-hiding The recent spate of mass killers all sought to solve their problems with a certain expression of gun violence that maps easily onto the masculinist roots of Christianity and other religious traditions—particularly in more conservative expressions. Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:14:09 EST Elizabeth Drescher 9cdc85ee-a407-47f9-a89b-7ca9951354c5 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/08/06/christian-terrorism-comes-milwaukee Shooter Wade Michael Page thought he was a soldier in a cosmic war. Mon, 06 Aug 2012 03:14:24 EDT Mark Juergensmeyer 6a3b89a5-62a2-4444-b0ba-58231736b364 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/05/01/lessons-defeat-oklahoma-personhood-bill A power struggle between personhood lobby and the Republican leadership? Tue, 01 May 2012 12:29:48 EDT Sarah Morice-Brubaker fcb1d182-b632-46f2-bd93-ac74766fa777 https://religiondispatches.org/2012/04/17/norways-suspected-murderer-anders-breivik-christian-terrorist If Anders Behring Breivik isn’t a Christian terrorist, then the same can be said of Osama bin Laden and many other Islamist activists—whose writings show that they were much more interested in Islamic history than theology or scripture and imagined themselves as re-creating glorious moments in Islamic history in their own imagined wars. Tue, 17 Apr 2012 03:18:43 EDT Mark Juergensmeyer 06408f24-9ed6-4e40-9077-e2ff28c1b262 https://religiondispatches.org/2011/07/26/whats-actually-breiviks-declaration-independence An overview. Tue, 26 Jul 2011 03:51:54 EDT Julie Ingersoll 84de73d6-74eb-4491-bc93-f1f6893605ea