#Millstones and #swords


In 2022, Kimber Glidden was fighting for her job as a library director in northern Idaho after refusing to cave to the book-banning demands of hard-right Christian parents who smeared her as a danger to children.


At one public meeting, Glidden recalled in a recent interview, a woman looked her in the eye while quoting
#Matthew 18:6, which describes a lethal punishment for anyone harming the young:

“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”


“It’s like, ‘I’m not actually threatening you
— I’m just quoting scripture at you,’” said Glidden,
who eventually resigned because of the attacks.

“You can threaten people and you can intimidate them, as long as you have a Bible tract in your hand.”

Religion scholars say Christian nationalists are skilled at plucking scripture out of context to justify intolerant or conspiratorial beliefs,
literalist readings that can be used to persuade worshipers that violence is a biblically sound response to perceived existential threats to their country and faith.

Such cherry-picking distorts the text to suggest that ordinary Christians should be carrying out punishments that traditionally are interpreted as being meted out by God, said Kaitlyn Schiess, a theologian at Duke University
and author of
“The Ballot and the Bible,”
which tracks how scripture is used in political speech.


“It gives them a sense of belonging to some kind of exciting drama
— the fight between good and evil,” Schiess said.
“And that can have really disastrous effects.”

To explain why it’s permissible to engage in fiery partisan fights
while simultaneously recounting the peaceful examples of Jesus,
some turn to #Mark 12:17:

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”

To legitimatize militancy against leftist opponents, Christian hard-liners quote a verse from #Matthew that proclaims,

“I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

#Millstone references pop up regularly in calls for retribution against librarians, teachers, abortion providers, racial justice activists, LGBTQ advocates and anyone else some members of the religious far right deem a threat to the project of a White Christian nation.

At a Proud Boys protest outside a drag event in Maryland last year,
one man wearing the far-right group’s yellow-and-black insignia
held a sign that quoted
#Matthew 18:6 above the words,
“It’s millstone time!”

In April, anti-fascist activists in Miami criticized the singer Jimmy Levy,
a MAGA favorite who has performed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida,
for warning President #Biden in lyrics that he was
“coming for your neck like a milly,”
a millstone reference.

Levy suggested the outrage was alarmist, writing on social media:
“I never threatened Biden. I referenced what God says about those who hurt little ones.”


Republican lawmakers in states including Oklahoma, Texas and South Carolina have introduced versions of what they call a
“Millstone Act,”
legislation seeking to ban gender-affirming care for young adults.

Civil rights groups say the proposals are part of a bigger right-wing campaign that uses religion to vilify transgender people with unfounded accusations of grooming and pedophilia.

Speaking in a small-town church last month, Mark #Robinson, the Trump-endorsed GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, told the audience that
♦️ “some folks need killing.”♦️

“It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful.
It’s a matter of necessity!” Robinson, the lieutenant governor, said, according to a video of the speech surfaced by the New Republic.


The recording shows Robinson shouting about
“wicked people,” including liberals, socialists and communists.

He was introduced at the event by a local pastor, the Rev. Cameron #McGill, who told the audience:
“Who’s behind President Biden, and that administration?
Is it Obama.
Is it Clinton?
Read your Bible.
It is the Devil.”

Mike #Lonergan, Robinson’s campaign spokesman, said on X that the candidate’s words referenced World War II enemies
and were taken out of context in a “gutless and dishonest smear.”

In Arizona, Jeff #Durbin, a far-right “abortion abolitionist”
and influential Christian nationalist,
has said that women deserve to be executed if they have an abortion
— a stance he recently reiterated is “the historical position of the Christian church.”

💥“You forfeit your right to live,” 💥Durbin said last month in a New York Times podcast.

After receiving backlash for the remarks, Durbin doubled down in a post on X:

“We make no apologies for God’s Word and affirm that capital punishment is a just response from the state for the crime of murder