Illustration by Adria Fruitos (The New Yorker)
… In 2020, [Christian nationalism] helped drive the moral call to overturn the election. “Some of their most fanatical supernatural beliefs have been mainstreamed into the maga movement, such as the notions that Democrats are demonic or engaged in witchcraft,” Jennifer Cohn, an election-security advocate, told me. In November, 2020, Abby Abildness, the state director of Pennsylvania’s Prayer Caucus and an “apostle” with the New Apostolic Reformation, a network of pastors, hosted a series of “Jericho marches”—religious precursors to the insurrection. Followers gathered in Harrisburg, likening it to the Biblical city of Jericho, where, according to Scripture, God knocked down the walls. At similar marches in some states, people wore animal skins and blew rams’ horns, as they imagined the ancient Israelites did on their way into battle. Abildness declared her intent that, with God’s help, Pennsylvania’s electors would “go to the President” rather than to Biden. (Abildness told me, “Our Jericho march was a peaceable, worshipful prayer march allowing God to move and bring forth His purposes and election integrity in our nation.”) Earlier this year, Vote Common Good, a progressive evangelical group, sponsored a tongue-in-cheek billboard along Pennsylvania’s Route 19 that featured Mastriano and the line “Blessed are the insurrectionists.” …