Civil Religion

Carr closed out his statement by asking those networks down to patriotically clown on Independence Day to swear their fealty and commitment to the above requests by joining his Pledge America Campaign. Carr said he looks forward to broadcasters “taking the Pledge and fulfilling their public interest mandate” before noting that this is all completely voluntary, of course.

Time will tell what amazing displays of jingoism await us this summer. But it America’s birthday is anything like that lit parade they had last year to the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary—brought to you by Coinbase—we’re all in for an unforgettable experience.

For roughly half a century, a certain strain of American evangelical theology has taught millions of believers to read conflicts like Trump’s war with Iran not simply as geopolitics in action but as prophecy unfolding in real time. I was one of them.

You look at Trump and it's like, I don't know you. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you are. You are demonic. You are a demonic force. And what's really freaky is now he's always talking about going to heaven, “I'm not going to heaven.” Yeah, I think you might be right about that because you are a demonic force. You are a liar. You are diabolical. You are a traitor.

(this post is not an endorsement of any of these people)

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.

From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

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By attempting to frame the conflict as a holy war, leaders are using theological beliefs to “justify action, mobilise political opinion, and leverage support”, Jolyon Mitchell, a professor at Durham University in the UK, told Al Jazeera.

“Many on both sides of this conflict believe that they have God on their side. God is enlisted in this conflict, as with many others, to support acts of violence. The demonisation and dehumanisation of the enemy, the ‘other’, will inevitably make building peace after the conflict even harder,” Mitchell said.

“There are several overlapping reasons, and they operate at different levels: domestic mobilisation, civilisational framing, and strategic narrative construction,” Ibrahim Abusharif, an associate professor at Northwestern University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera.

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Abusharif said that the war on Iran is about power and politics, but using religious rhetoric energises supporters and “moralises” the conflict.

“The war itself is not theological. It is geopolitical. But the language surrounding it increasingly draws on sacred imagery and civilisational narratives. That rhetoric can mobilise supporters and frame the conflict in morally absolute terms,” Abusharif said.

“Yet it also carries risks: once a war is cast in sacred language, political compromise becomes harder, expectations become higher, and the global perception of the conflict can shift in ways that complicate diplomacy.”

The book 'The Religious Dimension in American Policy Towards the Arab-Zionist Conflict' by researcher and diplomat Youssef Al-Hassan, raises fundamental questions about the nature of American desperation in defending the Zionist entity. The author believes that traditional explanations, which limit this support to strategic interests or the pressures of the Israeli lobby, remain inadequate for understanding the doctrinal depth that drives the ruling elites in Washington.

The book's central hypothesis revolves around the role of the contemporary Christian fundamentalist movement in the United States as a fundamental pillar of the Zionist project. Al-Hassan explains that this movement does not see Israel merely as a political ally, but considers its existence to be the fulfillment of biblical prophecies related to the Second Coming of Christ, making its defense a form of worship.

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Fundamental questions are escalating regarding the double standards governing international politics, especially when it comes to projecting religious beliefs onto official positions. This contradiction is clearly highlighted when comparing the Western model's acceptance of its officials' religiosity with the condemnation of any religious authority in Islamic contexts.

The appointment of Mike Huckabee to a high diplomatic post was not merely a fleeting administrative measure; rather, it revealed the depth of his evangelical background and its direct impact on his decisions. Nevertheless, this background was treated as part of a legitimate personal identity within an institutional system that claims separation of religion and state.

The great paradox lies in the fact that Western religiosity is often marketed as an individual conviction governed by modern constitutional controls, while Islamic orientation is classified as a reactionary project that threatens civility. This classification is not based on objective values but reflects power balances that grant one party the right to define what is civilized.

No serious international calls emerged demanding Ambassador Huckabee leave his 'Evangelical-Talmudic' beliefs at the threshold of his position, even though his stances further complicate the region's turmoil. Instead, he is allowed to pour oil on the burning fire under the guise of biased official diplomacy.

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When pressed on whether biblical geography implied sovereignty beyond Israel’s current borders, Huckabee responded: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

That sentence is not incidental. It encapsulates a worldview. Beneath his selective invocation of international law lies Christian Zionism: the belief that Israel’s legitimacy rests not on negotiated sovereignty or contemporary legal norms, but on biblical covenant.

Some interpretations envision borders extending from the Nile to the Euphrates, encompassing territory in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, countries that together are home to hundreds of millions of people.

This is no longer fringe theology. It increasingly intersects with political power.

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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr today urged broadcasters to join a “Pledge America Campaign” that Carr established to support President Trump’s “Salute to America 250” project.

Carr said in a press release: “I am inviting broadcasters to pledge to air programming in their local markets in support of this historic national, non-partisan celebration.” The press release said Carr is asking broadcasters to “air patriotic, pro-America programming in support of America’s 250th birthday.”

Carr gave what he called examples of content that broadcasters can run if they take the pledge. His examples include “starting each broadcast day with the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ or Pledge of Allegiance”; airing “PSAs, short segments, or full specials specifically promoting civic education, inspiring local stories, and American history”; running “segments during regular news programming that highlight local sites that are significant to American and regional history, such as National Park Service sites”; airing “music by America’s greatest composers, such as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin”; and providing daily “Today in American History” announcements highlighting significant events from US history.

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Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State and a bulwark of the Trump administration, gave a “disquieting” imperialist speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday to deflect from the Epstein files fallout.

Markets are not natural, spontaneous or free. They are legal, institutional and political creations of the state. Without law, money, regulation, wages, accounting standards and trust, markets collapse into monopoly, coercion and extraction.

In this New Year’s Day video/transcript, I explain why the neoliberal myth of “free markets” is not just wrong, but actively destructive — and why rebuilding the state, rethinking capital and restoring democratic accountability must define our economic direction for 2026.

Amid concerns that he has failed to address a worsening affordability crisis, with health insurance premiums about to spike dramatically for over 20 million Americans, Donald Trump revealed on Sunday that his domestic policy chief’s main priority is building a triumphal arch for Washington DC.

Gotta keep that white enslaver god on top.

As US media try to whitewash his legacy in death, the world continues to grapple with the horrors he helped unleash.

Should you have to think twice before posting a protest flyer to your Instagram story? Or feel pressure to delete that bald JD Vance meme that you shared? Now imagine that you could get kicked out of the country—potentially losing your job or education—based on the Trump administration’s dislike of your views on social media.

On Tuesday the Trump administration staged a grotesque and openly fascistic ceremony in the White House Rose Garden to canonize the racist propagandist Charlie Kirk as a “Christian martyr,” for the MAGA-Republican Party.

In the U.S., where religion, culture and politics frequently intertwine, recognizing that sainthood in politics is always constructed – and often strategic – can better allow people to honor loss without letting mythmaking dictate the terms of public life.