Book Meme Tag (Copied from my old blog)

I lost control of my first blog to a phishing scam some time ago but somehow the links to Hootsbuddy's Place remain active thus far, like that ship without crew or captain in Coleridge's ship in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. From time to time I still visit my old blog and in a few cases, like this, I craft a backup copy in case the original vanishes. 

Ilona tagged me with this book meme. I guess the idea is to tag people and get them to reveal what books they have owned, read, etc.

I can't do this as neatly as other people. It's too complicated and I'm too poor at cooking things down to a few lines. Instead I have written an essay.

Total books owned, ever...
Last book I bought...
Last book I read...
Five Books that mean a lot to me...

At some level I knew that I would eventually have to write about my connection with books and reading. It’s rather like trying to remember how it was to nurse, then learning to use a bottle, and end up knowing how to handle tableware to eat. Where do I start?

There is a lot that I don’t remember. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t drink coffee, for example. I can recall going round the table after the meal and checking out the cups of adults to get that last little sip from the bottom. Before good filters and percolators coffee had grinds, so no one finished a cup. That “last drop” thing was a marketing notion by Maxwell House, but no one I knew ever drank it. A kid like me could usually find enough to taste, and if you were lucky there would also be some undissolved sugar that made it almost as good as candy, but you had to be very careful not to get the grinds in your mouth.

BOOKS…

Back to books. My mother’s parents were both book people. Her mother was a teacher (elocution, already) and her father a minister. Mom taught school a couple of years, but she didn’t have the temperament for it and my father felt she should be at home with my sister and me anyway. As a minister and author of one book, my grandfather had endless numbers of books, a few of which are in my little library, including Hebrew grammar books, an early Nave’s Topical Bible, The Harvard Classics, a string of books on Presbyterian church history, collections of sermon notes by world scholars, and a couple of copies of his book. There is a great family story that when my grandmother finished college (1912?) she had a job selling Compton’s Encyclopedia, traveling by horse and buggy. I think her love of books may have been one of her qualities that appealed to him.

My wife is not a book person, but her grandpa was, so we also have books from his collection, including the Lincoln Library and a wonderful “Book of Nature”, 1875, sub-titled “Structure and uses of the organs of life and generation of man and woman intended especially for the married, or those intending to marry.” 180-plus pages, about six-point type with almost no illustrations. Her grandpa was a treasure of a man, interested in everything. When radio was first being broadcast, he build his own crystal set and was able to tell how exciting it was that a vacuum tube was finally invented. He had a professional-grade camera that used glass negatives, about 4 by 5 inches, that had to be loaded into cassettes and slid into the back to take pictures one at a time. He had the first motorcycle in his community, got a certificate in accounting at the age of sixteen and grew up to be a free thinker. We are not sure which place he may have gone when he died. His faith was not quite Unitarian, but close enough to risk damnation.

When his estate was liquidated I had to watch books by the hundred going out in cardboard boxes because we didn’t have a way to store them. It was a sad sight, the significance of which was not lost on me. I have made it a habit to keep my collection under control. Anything that can be bought at any bookstore – popular novels, reference, classics, etc. – I don’t care about owning. I try to hold on to books that I might not be able to get easily. Old, curious, or early edition books I hold on to. I also have books of local interest, as well as my collection of books from the sixties that have to do with black history and civil rights.

The advent of the Internet has curtailed my avid love of books. I have come to realize that books are tools, means to an end. Except for those having sentimental value, I don’t have a need to acquire books any more. Having downsized a few years ago, I suppose we have fewer than eight hundred books in the house. Ironically, we just moved into a new house less than two years ago and for the first time I have shelves that are almost enough to display all my books. Sigh. But they do look good.

READING…

I skim a lot, because I am a slow reader when I pay attention. I graze at reading most of the time, but I pay attention when it is a topic that I am trying to understand. Of course one can’t very well graze at writing, but I recognize levels of intensity in writing that almost reflect grazing in the degree of shallowness. I am reminded of a friend, now long gone, who was defending a thesis. One of his examiners said, “Roy, your problem is that when there is a question, you don’t just answer the question. Instead you Address the Issue. As a result you are almost never specific. That is unfortunate, because when you are specific, you are almost always wrong.” That is a problem I try to avoid, but I am aware of being long-winded. I know that when I edit myself, I find a lot that can be eliminated.

In my younger days I read voraciously. I remember a summer or two that I spent reading Russian novels, because they were so long that I couldn’t get them into the school year. By the time Dr. Zhivago was filmed I had already read the book, as well as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and a few short stories by Chekov. I discovered a proper public library when I was fourteen and thought I had died and gone to heaven. They even had records, so I could listen to music as well. That was 1958 and after. I took an early interest in psychology because I was always interested to know why people acted as they did. All the moving around made me very flexible, but socialized in only the most superficial way. I guess that is why human behavior has always interested me.

The Rural Training School, Richmond, KY was
torn down years ago but this image survived in
 the Eastern KY University archives.

Before I got to high school I attended five elementary schools in Kentucky and Georgia, neither of which is famous for education. I had the privilege of going to a one-room school in Kentucky for almost two years – grades two and three, a training school for teachers who would be going into similar situations when they were assigned to isolated places in the mountains. We had six grades, with a row for each grade. There were four people in my grade, two boys and two girls. The biggest grade had seven students. There were separate outdoor privies for boys and girls. Mrs. Scott was the principle and it was a wonderful learning environment. Tests and study sheets were replicated by hectograph, a simple metal pan of gelatin that took purple ink from a master and released it up to ten or twelve times before it got too faded to read.

I’m skipping around, but hey, this isn’t a test. Maybe someday I will go back and clean it up…

The last book I bought was Virginia Postrel’s The Future and its Enemies, but I haven’t finished reading it. It’s more fun keeping up with her blog.

The most recent book I read for pleasure was The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. It is indescribable fiction by a gifted contemporary writer. The most unlikely of stories, and I found it to be more credible that I thought possible.

After I discovered ABE Books (American Book Exchange) online I decided I could get anything in print and most of what was no longer in print as well. The Guttenberg Project is also getting a lot of public domain stuff on line, little by little.

I can’t pick out five books that mean a lot to me. My grandfather’s book is one I think of, for obvious reasons. I read Don Quixote in a good translation (I think) after I got out of college and had time to read for pleasure, and it made a deep impression on me. Southern writers are special to me, particularly Lillian Smith and Carson McCullars. Why? I can’t say in a sentence or two, except to mention that I had the same high school teacher that taught Carson McCullars years before and I thought that was cool. Robert Coles’ studies of Dorothy Day and Eric Erikson, and Erikson’s study of Ghandi impressed me deeply. Mortimer Adler’s ideas about education expressed in the Paideia Program have stuck in my mind. And Buckminster Fuller’s Synergetics is part of my collection – representing a truly unique and under-appreciated figure.

That will have to do for now.

As for tagging five other people, I don't have that many contacts that would be interested. At least I don't think so. Very few people leave messages at my blog, and I really don't have much traffic. As I write I pretend to have about four to six people reading, not hundreds or more. It works for me.

And from the start I have not participated in any chaining, emails, campaigns, petitions, whatever. I don't like the arithmetic. Sorry.

Regarding the Guillotine - Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot"

"At last he began to mount the steps; his legs were tied, so that he had to take very small steps. The priest, who seemed to be a wise man, had stopped talking now, and only held the cross for the wretched fellow to kiss. At the foot of the ladder he had been pale enough; but when he set foot on the scaffold at the top, his face suddenly became the colour of paper, positively like white notepaper. His legs must have become suddenly feeble and helpless, and he felt a choking in his throat--you know the sudden feeling one has in moments of terrible fear, when one does not lose one's wits, but is absolutely powerless to move? If some dreadful thing were suddenly to happen; if a house were just about to fall on one;--don't you know how one would long to sit down and shut one's eyes and wait, and wait? Well, when this terrible feeling came over him, the priest quickly pressed the cross to his lips, without a word--a little silver cross it was- and he kept on pressing it to the man's lips every second. And whenever the cross touched his lips, the eyes would open for a moment, and the legs moved once, and he kissed the cross greedily, hurriedly--just as though he were anxious to catch hold of something in case of its being useful to him afterwards, though he could hardly have had any connected religious thoughts at the time. And so up to the very block.

"How strange that criminals seldom swoon at such a moment! On the contrary, the brain is especially active, and works incessantly-- probably hard, hard, hard--like an engine at full pressure. I imagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast through his head--all unfinished ones, and strange, funny thoughts, very likely!--like this, for instance: 'That man is looking at me, and he has a wart on his forehead! and the executioner has burst one of his buttons, and the lowest one is all rusty!' And meanwhile he notices and remembers everything. There is one point that cannot be forgotten, round which everything else dances and turns about; and because of this point he cannot faint, and this lasts until the very final quarter of a second, when the wretched neck is on the block and the victim listens and waits and KNOWS-- that's the point, he KNOWS that he is just NOW about to die, and listens for the rasp of the iron over his head. If I lay there, I should certainly listen for that grating sound, and hear it, too! There would probably be but the tenth part of an instant left to hear it in, but one would certainly hear it. And imagine, some people declare that when the head flies off it is CONSCIOUS of having flown off! Just imagine what a thing to realize! Fancy if consciousness were to last for even five seconds!"

     Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Idiot Part I: Chapter V  (This is a backup copy of a post at Hootsbuddy's Place, my first blog.)

Spiritual Warfare in America - a Case Study

He's on a mission from God: Pennsylvania GOP candidate Doug Mastriano's war with the world

Exclusive: Pa. GOP candidate closely linked to Christian extremists who want "spiritual warfare" against America

By FREDERICK CLARKSON

An animating element of politics in the age of Trump is that some people are increasingly living out religious metaphors. These metaphors are derived from contemporary understandings of the Old Testament by new elements within Christianity. This has been central to the campaign of Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who recently won the Republican nomination for governor. (He will face Democrat Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania's current attorney general, in November.) These metaphors are also integral to a movement of the post-insurrection religious and political right that is still in its formative stages.

As reporting by the New Yorker, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Word & Way and Paul Rosenberg at Salon has shown, there is something going on in Pennsylvania that is transforming politics in the state, and maybe on a larger scale as well.

Mastriano, a retired Army strategist and intelligence officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, appears to have a disturbing understanding of the relationship between metaphor and reality when it comes to biblical narratives. He suggested to an interviewer that today's Christians should emulate the warriors of Old Testament Israel.

God can intervene in history," he said, adding that such interventions are carried out by "a man or a woman," such as the biblical Queen Esther (who got authorization from the King of Persia for the Jews to kill all their enemies); and the prophet Gideon (who led 300 soldiers against a far greater force). 

Mainstream media generally describe Mastriano as an "election denialist" and a "Christian nationalist." He unconvincingly denies the latter, but he and his supporters are also more complicated than the label usually suggests. He is well known for having spoken at the Jericho March in December 2020 that unsuccessfully called for the Electoral College to switch its votes to Donald Trump. He was also slated to speak at the "wild protest" on Jan. 6, 2021, organized by "Stop the Steal" activist Ali Alexander, along with the likes of Roger Stone, theocratic activist Lance Wallnau and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. And of course, promoting the Big Lie has been central to his politics since Trump's election defeat.

But there's more.

Mastriano's core support is a fusion of QAnon, the far-right Patriot movement and the revivalist New Apostolic Reformation — which views him as a military and political leader in advancing the biblically prophesied end times. We see this in his role in the Jericho March during the run-up to Jan. 6, and more recently when he joined members of the "Shofar Army'' in a ceremony of "spiritual warfare" on the Gettysburg battlefield, and as the headliner at a conference, Patriots Arise.

May the metaphors be with you

The Jericho March was derived from the biblical story of the battle of Jericho, which took place during the journey of the Israelites, led by Joshua, to the Promised Land. God had instructed them to march seven times around the city blowing shofars. The walls of the city collapsed, and the army rushed in, carrying the Ark of the Covenant, and killing everyone in the city. The Ark of the Covenant, as fans of the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" film (among others) will recall, is a chest containing the two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses. 

Religious extremists who back Mastriano's campaign say they have direct messages from God, and see him as a general in God's army of conquest.

The story of the 2020 Jericho March purportedly began with God giving two different individuals the same vision, calling them to set up a march in Washington as well as in the capitals of the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the days before the presidential electors were to cast their votes. (They were ultimately held in other states and Canada as well.)

Supposedly God wanted the marchers to oppose alleged corruption and restore election integrity — as well as Donald Trump's presidency. In Washington, crowds marched around the Capitol, the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court. 

"God commanded this to happen like he did to Joshua," Apostle Abby Abildness explained on a religious talk show. "We believe God is gonna move'' and "that there will be that victory," she continued. There was "great hope" that Pennsylvania's electoral votes, which Joe Biden had won convincingly, would "go to the president." Of course that did not happen. 

In instances like this, believers see a difference between a foretelling of events and a prophecy that reveals God's intentions. If an event doesn't turn out as expected, they believe, it is necessary to keep on trying, to ensure that somehow, someday, God's will will be done.

Her immanence

Apostle Abby Abildness is a quietly powerful national and international religious leader, as well as a legislative lobbyist at the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg. She says she meets with legislators at least once a week, praying and "bringing forth a religious freedom agenda." She also led Jericho marches in Harrisburg.

Her manner is more that of a soft-spoken college professor (which she used to be) than a political preacher. She is nevertheless an important leader in the contemporary religious movement called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a dynamic theological and organizational revamping of much of pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. For decades, NAR has led the abandonment of traditional mainline Protestant and evangelical denominations in favor of prayer networks.

These prayer networks are led by what is known as the "fivefold ministry" as mentioned in the biblical book of Ephesians: Apostle, prophet, teacher, pastor and evangelist. The networks comprise both physical churches and prayer groups of various sizes.

Abildness is a leader in several such networks, which aim to take control of what they call the "Seven Mountains" of society in order to achieve Christian dominion. These metaphorical mountains are religion, family, government, business, education, arts & entertainment and media. Abildness, whose chosen mountain is government, is working with her allies to increase electoral engagement in apostolic networks, and to involve them in pushing for legislation. She heads the Pennsylvania Apostolic Prayer Network and plays leading roles in other important international networks, including the Oklahoma-based Heartland Apostolic Prayer Network headed by Apostle John Benefiel and the Texas-headquartered Reformation Prayer Network, led by Apostle Cindy Jacobs.

The NAR has generally abandoned written doctrines along with denominations, in favor of its own notions of Old Testament biblical law. Its movement is further informed by revelations from those understood to be apostles and prophets revealing what God wants. They believe God wants Doug Mastriano.

Last year, Mastriano denied to Eliza Griswold of the New Yorker that he was a Christian nationalist. "Is this a term you fabricated?" he asked. "What does it mean and where have I indicated that I am a Christian Nationalist?" Of course Griswold did not invent the term, which has been used by scholars and journalists for decades.

Mastriano doth protest too much. He has sponsored several bills based on models found in the Christian nationalist legislative playbook formerly called "Project Blitz." These bills would have mandated teaching the Bible in public schools and made it legal for adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples. In the face of organized opposition and intensive media coverage by the New York Times, the Guardian and Salon, among others, the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, which published the Project Blitz legislative playbook, scrubbed all mention of Project Blitz from its website in 2019. But the affiliated Pennsylvania State Legislative Prayer Caucus remains. Its state director, then as now, is Abby Abildness.

Mastriano has denied that he works directly with NAR, but has clearly had a close relationship with Abildness and the wider NAR movement. She has, for example, interviewed him on her podcast and worked with him in the legislature. She calls him "a military strategist" who leads a group of about 30 conservative state legislators (although he's only been in the legislature since 2019). She also introduced him at a regional NAR conference of several hundred people in October 2020, in Gettysburg, which is in Mastriano's senatorial district.

There, Abildness told the story about walking the Gettysburg battlefield with Mastriano, his wife and a "prayer team" on the previous Fourth of July. The senator and the apostle went to "pray to preserve the monuments" from antifa, which she believed might be coming to destroy them. She had trepidations, she said, but explained, "When the people pray, God is with us. We're not to fear, we have God. We need to stand up. Speak out. And move forward in this battle. Amen!" (Hundreds of armed militia members, bikers and others who had also heard the rumors showed up to defend the monuments and prevent the burning of the American flag. It turned out the whole thing was a hoax perpetrated by a troll on social media and then hyped by right-wing media.)

The conference's headline speaker, Apostle Chuck Pierce from Texas, was preceded by the sounding of the shofar by the Shofar Army, which then led the crowd in shouting, "Arise, oh God, and let your enemies be scattered!" This refrain is from Psalm 68, one of many Old Testament imprecatory prayers in which the faithful ask God to smite his enemies.

A new Joshua

Reported here for the first time are two videos featuring Mastriano before his run for governor. Filmed on the Gettysburg battlefield on July 18, 2020, just days after his prayers against antifa with Abildness, the videos reveal his involvement with a group called the Shofar Army. In the videos, Mastriano performs a ritual act of spiritual warfare — blowing shofars with the Shofar Army and Prophet Bill Yount of Blowing the Shofar Ministries. But as later became clear, they understood the warfare as physical, not just spiritual.

Some of these Christians wore a Jewish prayer shawl called a tikkit, and wielded the three-foot-long hollowed-out ram's horn called a shofar, which was used by ancient Israelite armies to sound battle commands and community alerts, and is used today in religious services for the Jewish High Holidays. 

In one video, the leader, Earl Hixon, prays, "Thank you, Father. We tread upon the enemy." Pointing to Mastriano, he continues, "Father God, I am looking to our new general here, that you have appointed, this Joshua. In Jesus' name!" Mastriano raises his outstretched arm in apparent acknowledgment. A year later, Warren Baker, a member of the group, sounded the shofar at the launch event for Mastriano's campaign for governor. (Former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis also attended the launch.)

In the second video, Hixon follows the Army's shofar blasts by declaring he wants to "mark this day in the history of eternity." He then leads the Army in shouts of the imprecation, "Arise, oh God, and let your enemies be scattered!"

Salon asked André Gagné, professor of theological studies at Concordia University in Montreal, and author of a study of Trump's evangelical followers, to help interpret the videos.

Hixon recognizes "the 'angelic hosts, the warring hosts that have gathered here on this journey,'" Gagné explained. "This is a reference to the assistance of angelic beings in the battle to be waged. Hixon thanks God for this 'Joshua,' pointing to Mastriano, believing that from this moment there will be new 'anointing' on him."

Joshua, of course, led the Jews to the Promised Land, fighting the Canaanites along the way, including the genocide at Jericho.

Gagné continued, "Hixon also says that Mastriano now has 'got new eyes, the new eyes of a seer' and connects it to the idea that we're on the physical ground, yes, there's the grassroots, but there is a double-edged sword as well in Jesus' name."

This, Gagné says, refers to the "opening of Mastriano's 'spiritual eyes' and the presence of the 'angelic and warring hosts.'" It may also refer to the need to wage war on two fronts, both the physical and the spiritual.

"This entire ritual," Gagné continued, "potentially builds a bridge between the language of 'spiritual warfare' and the physical realm, where possible physical violence could eventually be enacted to push back against the forces of darkness and establish the Kingdom of God."

"Now, the blowing of trumpets," he concluded, "is found in different contexts in the biblical record, and the ritual means different things for Christians. But in this specific 'spiritual warfare' ceremony, the most likely meaning is associated with the expectation and possible eruption of physical warfare."

Rising and shining

Mastriano was the star of a two-day Patriots Arise conference at a hotel near the Gettysburg battlefield the following year, in April 2021. The small stage was festooned with flag bunting and "Mastriano for Governor" signs. The event announcement declared,

It is TIME (sic) for the Patriots to Arise for God & Country! Just as they did in the first American Revolution during 1776.

The conference opened with a sounding of the shofar by 10 members of the Shofar Army. The call, blown three times, was what leader Don Kretzer called "an alarm sound that has been around for almost 4,000 years."

"Blow the trumpet in Zion! Sound the alarm on holy mountain! The day of the Lord is here!" Kretzer declared. Paraphrasing (and embellishing) God speaking to Moses in the Old Testament book of Numbers, he continued:

When you go into a land against an enemy who appears to be stronger than you, that tries to oppress you; when I hear the sound of alarm, I will remember the covenant I've made with you, and I am coming to rescue you, America!

The Shofar Army and NAR leaders envision themselves as waging "spiritual warfare" against a host of enemies, whom they understand to be possessed or controlled by demons. So when they repeatedly ask God to smite his enemies in this way, some people, as Gagné suggests, may feel compelled to act out the metaphors in more literal fashion. (It's probably fair to wonder whether that informed what happened on Jan. 6.)

The conference hosts, "apostolic and prophetic" leaders Allen and Francine Fosdick, auctioned items as a fundraiser for Mastriano ("our dear brother in Christ warrior") but not for any of the other far-right Christian GOP primary candidates from Pennsylvania and Maryland who were also present. 

Prophet Julia Green of Iowa preceded Mastriano at the podium. She said Mastriano had heard about a prophecy God had given her, and that was why he had invited her to appear at his events. She read the prophecy from her laptop while Mastriano waited to speak at a nearby banquet table:

Doug Mastriano, I have you here for such a time as this, saith the Lord. It is now time to move forward with the plan that you have been given. Yes, Doug, I am here for you and I have not forsaken you. The time has come for their great fall; for the great steal to be overturned. So keep your faith in me.

Green further prophesied that current Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, would be "removed by my hand" in the wake of a scandal, and that "Treason will be written on him for all eternity." The crowd cheered. Wolf's allegedly treasonous acts were not identified (and have not surfaced to this point). Mastriano said nothing. 

The conference began with a dramatic QAnon video comparing conspiracy-theory adherents to American soldiers. It was followed by anti-vax, anti-mask and anti-tax speakers, as well as Bobby Summers, an advocate for the idea of "sovereign citizenship."

Making the demons tremble

The event was similar (albeit much smaller) in terms of theme, tone and content to the ReAwaken America tour, led by Michael Flynn. There have been 15 such conferences since April of last year, drawing thousands of people to each event.

These events are headlined by such figures as Roger Stone, Jenna Ellis and Eric Trump, along with anti-vax and anti-mask presentations and, of course, endless propaganda about alleged election fraud. There is also a strong revivalist Christian component, including opening the event with the blowing of shofars, and speeches by pastoral provocateurs such as noted book-burner Greg Locke.

At a ReAwaken event last year, Prophet Amanda Grace explained the meaning of blowing the shofar, saying it had driven some of God's greatest biblical victories: 

When the shofar was blown the walls of Jericho fell. When the shofar was blown, Gideon and an army of 300 men defeated over 147,000 Midianities. It's an announcement to the enemy that his stronghold is about to fall. Demons tremble at the sound of the shofar.

She calls the shofar "a weapon of our warfare. And when we blow it, the power of God comes full force into that situation."

One aspect of the tour is the evident cross-fertilization of the factions of the religious and political right that is reshaping American conservative politics and public life, from the MAGA movement to Jan. 6 to the Mastriano campaign.

Controversial right-wing activist and publisher Floyd G. Brown explained a bit about how this works in his introduction of tour regular Pastor Dave Scarlett at an April 2022 ReAwaken event in Salem, Oregon. Many people who watch Scarlett's "His Glory" show are Christians, Brown said, "but many of them aren't."

"They are Patriots," he continued. "And I've heard him say many, many times, if you watch 'His Glory' and you're a Patriot, you often become a Christian. And if you watch 'His Glory' and you're a Christian, and if you don't know what's going on, you slowly become a Patriot."

Brown announced that "His Glory" would air on his new commercial streaming service, Liftable TV, which seeks to promote a "biblical worldview" and "truth-centric news." It's like a Reader's Digest of Christian-right streaming, rebroadcasting shows from the likes of anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, 7 Mountains Dominionist Lance Walnau and, of course, Dave Scarlett, who often hosts Julie Green as a guest.

Green's May 25, 2022, interview with Scarlett illuminates much about the Mastriano campaign and the wider movement. Green says that Mastriano campaign functions "are not a normal, everyday political event. … They are all focused on the Lord. They are powerful! They are anointed!" She calls Mastriano "a very powerful man of God."

Scarlett replies that he has talked with a "certain general" (without naming him) who said, about candidates he supports, "that these rallies in the 2024 cycle will start out with [evangelical Christian] praise music, then the candidate, who is a Patriot Christian, will come forward, give whatever their message is, then it will end with revival. It's going to end with altar calls."

Green replied that this was "already happening" at Mastriano's events.

Throughout Mastriano's rise, those around him have been open about their intentions. In a December 2020 broadcast of "The Damascus Road," host Earl Hixon explains their common purpose, to murmurs of agreement from his panelists: Abby Abildness, shofarists Don Kretzer and Bill Yount, and Pastor Brett McKoy, whose Maryland church hosts the broadcast. 

Mastriano was supposed to be present, but was under COVID quarantine at the time. Hixon says that in light of that, they wanted the group to serve as Mastriano's "surrogate": 

What we have here is the introduction of an army. This is what our King is endeavoring to do — especially on this battlefield we call the United States. This is what we are here for. ... We are all on the front lines. We are aware of what's happening in this country ... that's why we're here, talking about the Mountains of Dominion. 

A time to "break the bonds"

Those around Mastriano and his campaign — from Abildness to the Patriots Arise conferees, the Shofar Army and Prophet Julie Green — see themselves as entering a future where the temporal meets the supernatural.

When God is ready, they believe, the heavens will open and angelic forces allied with Christians of the right sort will battle the demonic forces of Satan to the end. This apocalyptic vision drives their support for Mastriano.

Those around Mastriano believe that when God is ready, angelic forces allied with Christians of the right sort will battle demonic forces to the end.

There is always some tension, in this domain of Christianity, between what people believe may be imminent and what may turn out to be a long way off. Regardless of the timing, they have no doubt about God's intentions, and about their commitment to carry them out.

Abildness made this clear in her keynote on the second day of Patriots Arise, when she revealed an experience she had on the Gettysburg battlefield. God had called her there, she said, because he was ready to answer a general's 150-year-old prayer. She and members of her apostolic network found themselves "in a portal where the general had prayed."

"We realized heaven is watching," she said, and that "we are joining heaven. We are joining the people of the ages in this prayer." The time was coming, she said, to "break the bonds" with "a government that is not leading the way they should."

"We realized that heaven is with us."

Mastriano himself declared, later that day, "We will win in November, and my God will make it so."