Christian extremism: Taking 'holy war' literally
A self-proclaimed minister shot two lawmakers and kept a 'kill list' targeting Democratic officials and abortion providers

Our country faces a serious violent threat from evangelical Christian "zealots," said Mona Charen in The Bulwark. Vance Boelter, a Minnesota Trump supporter who was charged last week with shooting two Democratic state legislators and their spouses, allegedly had a "kill list" of nearly 70 Democratic politicians, abortion providers, and pro-choice activists. Boelter was a self-declared minister who preached in the Democratic Republic of Congo that "the devil" had infiltrated American churches that tolerated abortion and LGBTQ rights. After his shooting spree, prosecutors say, he texted to his family, "Dad went to war last night." His belief in "holy war" didn't come from nowhere, said Jeff Sharlet in Religion Dispatches. Boelter attended the Christ for the Nations Institute, a Dallas-based evangelical Bible college that also produced preacher Dutch Sheets, a Christian nationalist who exhorted his 300,000 YouTube followers to march on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The college teaches its students that they are engaged in a "spiritual war" with secular culture. Boelter might have taken this message "all too literally," becoming a Christian jihadist.
Boelter had "fixations that drove him to extremes," said Andy Mannix in The Minnesota Star Tribune, but not all of them were religious. Court records describe him as a doomsday prepper who stashed "dozens of weapons at his rural home" to prepare for an imminent catastrophe. He was reportedly a devotee of the right-wing conspiracy website Infowars and first-person-shooter video games. After multiple failed business ventures, Boelter was also in "rising mental-health distress," said John Brummett in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. His religious activities alone shouldn't be used to implicate "other abortion zealots, Trump voters, or evangelical preachers."
Most of my fellow evangelicals are not violent, said David French in The New York Times, but Christian extremism in America has taken "a dark turn." Boelter was influenced by a movement called the New Apostolic Reformation, which has a "grandiose and even militant spiritualism" that's "leaking into other evangelical traditions." In many evangelical churches, "belonging to the Democratic Party is proof positive that you're under the influence of the devil, and when the Democrats win, that means Satan wins." When faith leaders irresponsibly "pour gasoline on the fires" of political division with talk of demonic infiltration and holy war, "it should surprise no one that some Christians will put down their Bibles, pick up their guns, and choose to kill."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Real-life couples creating real-deal sparks in the best movies to star IRL partners
The Week Recommends The chemistry between off-screen items can work wonders
-
Is China's giant new hydropower dam a 'water bomb' aimed at India?
Today's Big Question River is a 'lifeline for millions' across Asia
-
Aysegul Savas' 6 favorite books for readers who love immersive settings
Feature The Paris-based Turkish author recommends works by Hiromi Kawakami, Virginia Woolf, and more
-
Democrats: The 2028 race has begun
Feature Democratic primaries have already kicked off in South Carolina
-
The Pentagon's missing missiles
Feature The U.S. military is low on weapons. Can it restock before a major conflict breaks out?
-
Rescissions: Trump's push to control federal spending
Feature The GOP passed a bill to reduce funding for PBS, NPR and other public media stations
-
Emil Bove: The start of a MAGA judiciary?
Feature President Trump's former personal attorney is on the verge of being confirmed by Senate Republicans
-
ICE builds detention camps and ramps up arrests
Feature The Trump administration's deportation efforts continue
-
Deportations: The growing backlash
Feature New poll numbers show declining support for Trump's deportation crackdown
-
Citizenship: Trump order blocked again
Feature After the Supreme Court restricted nationwide injunctions, a federal judge turned to a class action suit to block Trump's order to end birthright citizenship
-
Loyalty tests: The purge at the FBI
Feature Kash Patel is conducting polygraph tests on FBI agents to weed out anyone speaking badly about him