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Rioters praying with their hands aloft as police officers are brutalised. January 6 2021 is widely remembered as a deadly insurrection by supporters of Donald Trump; but for Congressman Jared Huffman, who was locked down alone in his office that day, something else stands out.It was a very Christian coup.\u201cThis Christian nationalist movement that I had seen growing so much stronger and more militant during my time in Congress erupted in plain view,\u201d Huffman, 62, says by phone from his home in Marin county, California. \u201cI truly believed January 6 would be the wake-up call our country needed to confront this movement to understand it and to hold it to account.\u201cUnfortunately, the country went back to sleep and many of my own colleagues who the mob wanted to kill that day didn\u2019t even seem to notice the religious elements of the group that was trying to kill them.\u201dThat is a big part of why Huffman is now deciding to sound an alarm of his own with a new book, No Prophets: The Fight to Save Democracy from Christian Nationalism. Contending that the US has a \u201cBible-sized blind spot\u201d, it argues that the theocratic insurgency has only grown more powerful after Trump\u2019s return to power and is now the country\u2019s most dangerous political movement \u2013 a greater threat to science, education and freedom than most people realise.No one is better qualified to make this case than Huffman, the only current member of Congress to admit he does not believe in God. He grew up in Independence, Missouri \u2013 the home of former president Harry Truman and historic headquarters of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (now the Community of Christ), an offshoot of Mormonism. A devout Christian, Huffman was ordained into its priesthood.The first crack in his faith occurred during his sophomore year of college at UC Santa Barbara. The sudden death of his father triggered some questioning. \u201cThe bottom line is the supernatural tenets of my faith, the God belief, the notion of heaven and hell and miracles and so forth, no longer worked for me. That\u2019s a hard thing when you lose your faith.\u201cIt took me years of reflecting and thinking about it to determine that the things I liked about my religious upbringing, the universal values that are very much part of the Christian gospel, are available in all sorts of faith perspectives, including non-belief. They\u2019re things that good people often innately do and think.\u201dHuffman settled on the label humanist. \u201cThe reason I prefer that to atheist is because atheist is a negative statement about what you don\u2019t believe. That feels like it reduces me. Humanism is a much more affirmative expression of what you do believe, and humanists believe we have a duty to lead moral and ethical lives based on science and facts and reason. You choose to be a good person not because of some sky god or some inducement of an afterlife or fear of hell.\u201dFor decades, Huffman kept his secular worldview private. In 2013, on his first day in Congress, he stood sheepishly before House speaker John Boehner, who asked, \u201cAlright, who\u2019s going to hold the Bible?\u201d for the swearing-in photo-op. Huffman\u2019s devout mother was beaming in the background. Caught off guard, Huffman put his hand on a Bible, a moment that left him feeling \u201csullied and hypocritical\u201d.The turning point came in 2017. Huffman\u2019s mother had died, removing the fear of breaking her heart, and Trump had entered the White House, opening the floodgates of religious extremism. But when Huffman decided to go public as a non-believer, his wife, brother, senior staff and political advisers warned him it was \u201ca terrible, career-wrecking idea\u201d.He explains: \u201cThey were giving me good advice because the polling to this day shows that the worst label you could attach to a candidate for public office in the United States is \u2018atheist\u2019. I appreciated them trying to protect me, but I also knew that I felt increasingly uncomfortable hiding my moral framework and ducking these questions about religion. I felt increasingly drawn into the fight against all of these encroachments of religious extremism into our government. I was on a collision course with \u2018coming out\u2019, if you will, and I decided to do it against that advice.\u201dHuffman received support from individuals including House of Representatives minority leader Nancy Pelosi, congressman Jamie Raskin, with whom he founded the Congressional Freethought Caucus, and House chaplain Father Pat Conroy, a guitar-playing priest who jammed with Huffman after hours. Conroy told Huffman that he wished more members of Congress would be honest about what they believed.Huffman says: \u201cI\u2019m very glad I did it, but have I encountered some harsh judgments and prejudices? Absolutely. I\u2019ve been called every name in the book. I have Democratic colleagues who are devout Christians who seem to take some offence at my public existence as a non-believer.\u201cThey seem to feel that threatens or insults them as Christians, which is baffling, of course, because I don\u2019t have a quarrel with Christianity or Christians, but it does speak to the privileged status of Christians not just within the Republican party, where Christian nationalism has become a defining feature, but even among my fellow Democrats.\u201dHe defines \u201cChristian privilege\u201d as a deeply ingrained cultural taboo that protects home-grown religious radicalism from the same state and media scrutiny instantly applied to minority or foreign faiths.That Christian privilege was manifested in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, Huffman argues, when many fellow members of Congress did not even seem to notice the religious elements of the group trying to kill them. It was evident again, he asserts, in one of the most consequential political cover-ups in recent history: the deliberate erasure of Christian nationalism from the final report of the House January 6 select committee.As the committee raced toward its deadline at the end of 2022, its staff split into colour-coded drafting teams. The \u201cPurple Team\u201d was tasked with investigating rightwing radicalism, and they meticulously documented the role of charismatic evangelical networks, particularly the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), in radicalising and mobilising the shock troops of the insurrection.Chairman Bennie Thompson told Huffman: \u201cWe asked the Purple Team to look into the role of religion in what happened, and they came back with a report that shows those people, rightwing Christian extremists, actually had a lot to do with it.\u201dBut then came a veto. Liz Cheney, the committee\u2019s formidable vice-chair, demanded the entire section be excised. She argued that focusing on Christian nationalism would \u201cdistract\u201d from Trump\u2019s personal culpability and alienate conservative Christian voters. Cheney\u2019s argument prevailed.Huffman says: \u201cI give her huge credit for standing up to Trump at a time when almost no other Republicans would do it. That courage was very real, but she also did the country a huge disservice with her Christian privilege.\u201dIf the attackers had worn hijabs or carried Qurans, he contends, the select committee report would have dissected their religious connections with \u201csurgical precision\u201d.Against this backdrop, Huffman argues that modern Christian nationalism is not a monolith but a temporary coalition of three distinct, volatile and historically hostile religious subcultures, held together by the glue of Trump.The biggest and politically most potent is NAR, a decentralised network of self-declared \u201capostles\u201d and \u201cprophets\u201d who reject traditional denominational authority in favour of direct revelation. NAR prophets such as Paula White-Cain and Lance Wallnau cast Trump as a modern King Cyrus \u2013 a flawed, pagan ruler anointed by God to save his chosen people \u2013 to provide a divine permission structure for millions of evangelicals to overlook Trump\u2019s moral failings.On the Catholic flank are the \u201cRad Trads\u201d, a small but highly influential subculture that resent the liberalising Vatican II reforms of the 1960s and believes that Catholic moral authority should govern the state. Sympathisers include vice-president JD Vance and political strategist Steve Bannon. Neo-nazi agitator Nick Fuentes openly calls for a \u201cCatholic monarchy\u201d to replace the US constitution.Perhaps the most sophisticated and economically formidable faction is the \u201cTheobros\u201d, a network of Protestant Reconstructionists led by Pastor Doug Wilson of Moscow, Idaho. Wilson advocates for \u201cMere Christendom\u201d, a system where the Apostle\u2019s Creed is codified into the US constitution, women and non-Christians are stripped of voting rights. The Theobros have forged a powerful \u201cTheo-tech bromance\u201d with Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as Peter Thiel.The ultimate Theobro is Pete Hegseth, Trump\u2019s self-styled \u201csecretary of war\u201d, whose body is adorned with Crusader tattoos \u2013 including \u201cDeus vult\u201d (God wills it) and the Jerusalem cross \u2013 and who hosts a workday \u201cSecretary of Defense Christian Prayer & Worship Service\u201d in the Pentagon auditorium, broadcast live on internal networks.Huffman comments: \u201cThe nicest thing I can say about Pete Hegseth is to thank him for his lack of subtlety. He is so cartoonish in his Christian nationalism that he provides a great case study.\u201cIf anybody wants to know what Christian nationalism looks like in its most strident militant form, he embodies it literally in the tattoos on his own body but certainly in the rampant proselytising that he does and these overt power plays to institutionalise his version of Christianity in Pentagon prayer services once a month with radical hate preachers brought in as honoured guests.\u201dNowhere is the advance of Christian nationalism more striking than inside the Capitol itself, which Huffman describes as a \u201cshadow theocracy\u201d. Visitors on official tours see Statuary Hall and hear speeches on the separation of powers; they do not see the sprawling, tax-subsidised \u201cministry-industrial complex\u201d operating under the dome.Pastors lurk like lobbyists in the Capitol hallways, Huffman writes. The most influential is Ralph Drollinger\u2019s Capitol Ministries, which hosts weekly Bible studies for members of the House, Senate and White House cabinet. Drollinger, a 7\u20192\u201d former basketball player, teaches a \u201cfree-market gospel\u201d that frames environmentalism as a sin against God\u2019s dominion mandate and instructs cabinet members on how to inject biblical literalism into federal policy.More than a hundred years have passed since Charles Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution was debated in the \u201cScopes monkey trial\u201d in Dayton, Tennessee. But ideas long taken for granted are once again under attack. Huffman warns that Christian nationalism\u2019s ultimate target is Enlightenment values that date back to Thomas Jefferson and the founding of the US in 1776.In a chapter entitled \u201cThe Dumbing of America\u201d, he quotes Voltaire: \u201cThose who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.\u201d He also profiles Mary Miller of Illinois, who began her congressional career in 2021 by quoting Adolf Hitler to a Moms for America rally: \u201cHitler was right, whoever has the youth has the future.\u201dIn June last year, Miller had a moral panic when a Sikh cleric, Giani Surinder Singh, delivered a guest prayer in the House chamber. Assuming Singh was a Muslim, Miller tweeted: \u201cAmerica was founded as a Christian nation, and I believe our government should reflect that truth ... May God have mercy!\u201d On climate science, Miller is equally blunt, dismissing solar panels because God \u201ccontrols the sun, and the sun controls the weather\u201d.Huffman reflects: \u201cThis is potentially the unravelling of a 250-year truce between fundamentalist Christians and the Enlightenment. The stakes are much higher now than even in Jefferson\u2019s time because then it was just about the form of government and individual liberty and protecting us against religious tyranny. But today, it\u2019s about whether we cure the next disease or pandemic and whether we can survive the climate crisis. We look to these institutions of research and science and knowledge to allow us to keep living on this planet at a time when we\u2019ve created some terrible threats to our own existence.\u201dHuffman insists the fight is still winnable but will require a broad coalition that includes moderate Christians, non-Christians and secular Americans. \u201cWe need to reckon with our Christian privilege problem, our Bible-sized blind spot when it comes to just speaking without fear or favour about this movement that poses as Christian. We\u2019ve got to get more comfortable working across different faith perspectives in a pro-democracy coalition.\u201dBut he also offers a warning from history: \u201cI am thinking a lot these days about the final unraveling of the Weimar Republic in the early 1930s. From what I have read and studied about that, Hitler and his National Socialist party were a small minority that could easily have been stopped right up to the end had the centrist parties and the left been able to overcome their differences and work together.\u201cThey couldn\u2019t do it, and so they left the lane wide open for Hitler to become chancellor, and the rest is a very grim part of our history. 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