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A horn-wearing 'shaman.' A cowboy evangelist. For some, the Capitol attack was a kind of ...
Religion
A horn-wearing ‘shaman.’ A cowboy evangelist. For some, the Capitol attack was a kind of Christian revolt.
By Michelle Boorstein
July 6, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Late last month, one of the accused Jan. 6 Capitol insurrectionists told a D.C. judge that she didn’t recognize his authority and was making a “divine special appearance.” Another one of the accused streams a solo religious service each week that he calls “Good Morning Sunday Morning.” A third runs a 65,000-subscriber YouTube channel where she shares Bible verses and calls herself a “healer of deep inner wounds.”
Pauline Bauer, Stephen Baker and Jenna Ryan were among the thousands who descended on the Capitol in protest of what they falsely called a stolen election, including some who saw themselves engaged in a spiritual war. For many, their religious beliefs were not tied to any specific church or denomination — leaders of major denominations and megachurches, and even President Donald Trump’s faith advisers, were absent that day. For such people, their faith is individualistic, largely free of structures, rules or the approval of clergy.
{snip}
A double life
When Stephen Maury Baker appeared on a live stream on Jan. 6, imploring with a smirk from inside the Capitol for watchers to “repent,” most of his colleagues at Middle C Music in Northwest D.C. were floored. ... Baker, 32, had for years been a children’s music teacher in the liberal neighborhood. He worked Sundays and most people at Middle C never heard him talk about religion, said Dave Nuttycombe, a sales associate who worked with Baker for six years.
But Baker had launched a video blog under the name “Stephen Ignoramus.” Nuttycombe learned about it and started quietly taking notes because he was alarmed. Baker turned out to be a hardcore follower of QAnon, a sprawling set of false claims that have coalesced into an extremist ideology that has radicalized its followers. He ranted that women’s right to vote should be revoked, peppered his dialogue with anti-gay and racist slurs, and wore a “Black Guns Matter” T-shirt, according to a transcript Nuttycombe sent to the FBI.
Transcripts of shows, including some that have since been taken down, show Baker denying millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust. He said that if they “refuse to convert to the host nations” they should live in ghettos. And slammed the Civil Rights Act, saying Americans should not be told who they can hire and fire. Before the videos were taken down, Stephen Ignoramus had at least 4,400 subscribers on YouTube.
{snip}
Todd C. Frankel, Magda Jean-Louis, Julie Tate and Alice Crites contributed to this report.
By Michelle Boorstein
Michelle Boorstein has been a religion reporter since 2006. She has covered the shifting blend of religion and politics under four U.S. presidents, chronicled the rise of secularism in the United States, and broken financial and sexual scandals from the synagogue down the street to the Mormon Church in Utah to the Vatican. Twitter https://twitter.com/mboorstein
A horn-wearing ‘shaman.’ A cowboy evangelist. For some, the Capitol attack was a kind of Christian revolt.
By Michelle Boorstein
July 6, 2021 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
Late last month, one of the accused Jan. 6 Capitol insurrectionists told a D.C. judge that she didn’t recognize his authority and was making a “divine special appearance.” Another one of the accused streams a solo religious service each week that he calls “Good Morning Sunday Morning.” A third runs a 65,000-subscriber YouTube channel where she shares Bible verses and calls herself a “healer of deep inner wounds.”
Pauline Bauer, Stephen Baker and Jenna Ryan were among the thousands who descended on the Capitol in protest of what they falsely called a stolen election, including some who saw themselves engaged in a spiritual war. For many, their religious beliefs were not tied to any specific church or denomination — leaders of major denominations and megachurches, and even President Donald Trump’s faith advisers, were absent that day. For such people, their faith is individualistic, largely free of structures, rules or the approval of clergy.
{snip}
A double life
When Stephen Maury Baker appeared on a live stream on Jan. 6, imploring with a smirk from inside the Capitol for watchers to “repent,” most of his colleagues at Middle C Music in Northwest D.C. were floored. ... Baker, 32, had for years been a children’s music teacher in the liberal neighborhood. He worked Sundays and most people at Middle C never heard him talk about religion, said Dave Nuttycombe, a sales associate who worked with Baker for six years.
But Baker had launched a video blog under the name “Stephen Ignoramus.” Nuttycombe learned about it and started quietly taking notes because he was alarmed. Baker turned out to be a hardcore follower of QAnon, a sprawling set of false claims that have coalesced into an extremist ideology that has radicalized its followers. He ranted that women’s right to vote should be revoked, peppered his dialogue with anti-gay and racist slurs, and wore a “Black Guns Matter” T-shirt, according to a transcript Nuttycombe sent to the FBI.
Transcripts of shows, including some that have since been taken down, show Baker denying millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust. He said that if they “refuse to convert to the host nations” they should live in ghettos. And slammed the Civil Rights Act, saying Americans should not be told who they can hire and fire. Before the videos were taken down, Stephen Ignoramus had at least 4,400 subscribers on YouTube.
{snip}
Todd C. Frankel, Magda Jean-Louis, Julie Tate and Alice Crites contributed to this report.
By Michelle Boorstein
Michelle Boorstein has been a religion reporter since 2006. She has covered the shifting blend of religion and politics under four U.S. presidents, chronicled the rise of secularism in the United States, and broken financial and sexual scandals from the synagogue down the street to the Mormon Church in Utah to the Vatican. Twitter https://twitter.com/mboorstein
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