These Present Darknesses: Contemporary Demonology and the Conjuration of “Judeo-Christianity”

ABSTRACT: Among the central features of the spiritual warfare strategies of the New Apostolic Reformation were their focuses on territoriality and on the multiplicity of the demonic. Analyzing a cross-section of reactionary religious texts, the article wrestles with the legacy of NAR demonologies in American evangelicalism. By utilizing the multiplicity of the demonic as a lens for processing changes in politics and to link ideological and geopolitical territories, post-NAR demonology facilitates a spiritualized narrative of threat facing a monolithic and exclusionary vision of “Judeo-Christian civilization” or “the west.” Deviations from or challenges to this monolithic vision (e.g., by LGBT equality, Islam, and alleged government overreach) are seen as demonic—to be excised and exorcised to maintain or restore national identity and futurity.