Meet Mark Burns
Today Heather Cox Richardson wrote “the current-day Republican Party needs chaos,” and the Lincoln Project tweeted that what remains is “an authoritarian nationalist cult dedicated only to Donald Trump.” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-16-2022?utm_source=email) Chaos and Cult was my experience at the Reawaken America Tour.
Over the next few weeks, I will introduce you to some of the speakers. Their influence often extends far beyond their thousands of followers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. For instance, Mark Burns was labeled by Time Magazine as “Donald Trump’s Top Pastor” (https://time.com/trump-pastor/), and he has appeared on a wide array of news networks. (See https://www.markburns.org/ for more.)
When he stepped onto the stage, his rhetoric immediately cast him as either a “true believer” in the cause and mission of this tour or a consummate actor. “I am here to declare war on every demonic power in the state of New York,” he began. “We are here to take over for the Lord Jesus Christ.” He pivoted throughout his 15-minute spot from using specific Christian language one might hear in some pulpits to political and culture war topics.
“I’m tired of grown men wearing a dress and going into women’s bathrooms,” he shouted – and got a standing ovation. “They are using race to divide us.” Cheers. “They hate you because they hate Jesus.” He spoke about Martin Luther King, Jr. to (mis)use him to call the crowd to engage in a new civil disobedience movement aimed at taking over the country because “they’re trying to take God out of everything.”
From there he jumped to repeating the false claims of this movement like “a stolen election” and “The Democrats messed up when they raided Trump’s home,” and the boos filled the air. Then … “Do you believe Joe Biden is the president?” … then called for Biden to be arrested for treason and led the crowd in chants for Trump to be president now. Watch this clip from that moment, posted by Right Wing Watch:
This tour has attracted tens of thousands of people to multiple events, yet the tour itself is but one slice of a movement threatening our diverse, democratic nation. The religion espoused at these events does not represent mainstream Christianity. What they call “a biblical worldview” does not represent my understanding as a Christian minister of our scriptures and faith traditions. The movement has already amassed enough legislative and judicial power to begin a reversal of the movement toward civil and human rights so many have worked for. It must be stopped.