Tag Archives: Mark Driscoll

And Everybody Said “Amen”

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This is the arena-rock wannabe stage presentation of the Ignite Church, the conservative Evangelical church in Williston that’s a key player in efforts to build a right-wing Christian movement in Vermont. No crosses, no evidence of religion at all, just a big attention-grabbing display with slick lighting, a band, and a dudebro minister preaching the Word.

Ignite is the hub of conservative Evangelicalism in Chittenden County. It hosted far-right poster boy Charlie Kirk’s 2021 appearance in Burlington. It sponsored a talk by Eric Metaxas, a prominent Evangelical who believes the 2020 election was stolen and getting the Covid-19 vaccine is a bad idea. Last January, Ignite hosted an event called “Faith, Hope, Health COVID Summit,” which featured a number of Covid denialists. This coming Sunday, they’ll welcome Christian “influencer” Lily Kate, an associate of Kirk’s in his Turning Point USA organization. She’ll be talking about “reclaiming Biblical masculinity and femininity.” In a brief video promo on the big screen, she talked of how “Christian circles have been bought out by radical feminism.”

Now, I have no idea who Lily Kate is, but she’s a celebrity in the shadow world of Evangelical culture. I say “shadow world” because it’s pretty much invisible outside the conservative Christian orbit.

But we need to be aware of this world because it wields a tremendous amount of weight in conservative circles. And it’s not content with saving souls — tit wants to remake America in its image.

Not all Evangelicals are in this camp. There are many thoughtful Evangelicals who think the Christian flirtation with fringe politics is not just a bad idea, it’s actively counter to the essence of the faith. But the fringies have the numbers and they’re causing the trouble.

To get an idea of what Ignite is peddling, I watched its almost two-hour service from Sunday, November 13, archived on YouTube. What I saw was an attempt to bring all the bells and whistles of the 21st Century megachurch movement to the Burlington suburbs. The service consisted almost entirely of contemporary, middle-of-the-road worship music and the constant presence of senior pastor Todd Callahan. The cameras never showed more than a sliver of the seating area, so it was hard to gauge how big the room is and how many people were in attendance.

November 13, you may remember, was the first Sunday after Election Day, which was a huge disappointment for the Christian right generally and in Vermont especially. They did, after all, get mollywhopped on the reproductive rights amendment, and most of their candidates were losers. (Ignite staffer Rohan St. Marthe finished in last place in his bid for state Senate.)

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Bookshelf: “Jesus and John Wayne”

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Yes, this is very real and entirely serious.

There’s a lot of talk these days about information bubbles like Fox News, Newsmax, and the sludge pits of Facebook. But the original, biggest, and baddest information bubble of them all surrounds white evangelicalism. For decades, white evangelicals have existed in their own cultural ecosystem, with their own churches and schools and universities and books and movies and music (ever heard Christian rap?) and cartoons. And artists like Stephen Sawyer, who created the above depiction of the Lamb of God as a tattooed he-man. Biker Jesus?

Anyway. This evangelical ecosystem is invisible to the rest of us, but it’s very real. And understanding its worldview is key to understanding why over 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Yes, devout Christians voted in droves for a philandering divorcee who paid off a porn star and bragged about grabbing them by the you-know-what and has a long, sordid business career full of bankruptcies and lawsuits. And swears a lot. And clearly doesn’t know beans about the Bible, except that it’s a useful prop.

You’ll get it entirely if you read “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation” by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, published in 2020. She takes us inside the world of modern white evangelicals, and shows clearly that they didn’t support Donald Trump in spite of who he was — he was the exact kind of leader they were looking for. He fit the role to a T.

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