President Donald Trump on Monday reportedly used federal police to tear-gas Christian priests, along with hundreds of peaceful protesters gathered to demand an end to police brutality against Black Americans. Clergy were passing out water and snacks to protesters in front of St. John’s Church, Lafayette Square, an Episcopal parish in Washington, D.C., before law enforcement officials in riot gear reportedly fired tear gas and flash-bangs to disperse the crowd so that Trump could walk to the church for a photo-op. Lafayette Square is a park that lies directly north of the White House.Rev. Gini Gerbasi, rector of a different St. John’s Episcopal Church in the city, said she and seminarian Julia Joyce Domenick were tear-gassed and driven off of church property by police.“I was coughing, her eyes were watering, and we were trying to help people as the police - in full riot gear - drove people toward us,” Gerbasi wrote in a Facebook post late Monday night.The patio of the church had been “holy ground” and a place of rest for protesters, Gerbasi said, but Trump turned it into a “battle ground” and a “cheap political stunt.”“I literally COULD NOT believe it,” she wrote. “PEOPLE WERE HURT SO THAT HE COULD POSE IN FRONT OF THE CHURCH WITH A BIBLE!” Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at Clemson University, told HuffPost that the president’s actions align perfectly with the goals of Christian nationalism, a phenomenon that he studies. Christian nationalism hinges on the narrative that the United States has a special covenant with the Christian God. This increasingly prominent ideology is most commonly found amongst Trump’s white evangelical supporters.“Trump was signaling to Americans who embrace Christian nationalism that he will forcibly protect them and their vision for the United States,” Whitehead said. “Trump’s use of religious symbolism symbolically baptized his authoritarian speech.”Those who embrace Christian nationalism won’t be concerned that the church Trump stood in front of doesn’t support his actions, Whitehead said. If anything, he said, they likely view the clergy and parishioners of that church as outside the faith because they don’t support Trump.“In order to explain away that the clergy were tear-gassed, my guess is that they will appeal to how we are supposed to submit to authorities,” Whitehead said. “They will say that those clergy should have cleared out on their own accord.”
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- This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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