By Erika Rasmussen
Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., Postgraduate Media Fellow
America: The Jesuit Review
The people who stormed the Capitol are…people. You might hate what they did, as you should—but in another version of this life, they could be any of us with another set of DNA and childhood memories and circumstances. I am not saying that because they are “only human” they are off the hook: They chose to raise hell for an afternoon. They should be held accountable.
But the people who did this really, wholeheartedly believe something—they believe the cause that drove them into the Capitol was justice.
We all believe things. We all hold our own convictions. We are urged forward by a faith that leads us to act in the world, to live, to vote, to protest. And we need to get down to the bottom of this: people of faith rose hell and rioted because they held convictions that are in many ways the opposite of Christian Gospel justice, and they did so on behalf of Donald J. Trump, whose platform is very, very different from Jesus Christ’s.
What are we to do with the fact that the insurrectionists and presumably many more of Mr. Trump’s supporters really treat this man like a messiah?