Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
Sign up to attend Michael’s talk in Los Angeles on Thursday, November 20: HERE.
Along with fellow internet giant Candace Owens, political commentator Tucker Carlson has become a divisive flashpoint of constant internet outrage, concern, and condemnation from many on the Right thanks to, among other morally inverse positions, his obsessive conspiracy-mongering about “the Jews.” Seemingly overnight, Carlson went from being The Great White Hope of independent conservative media, after being fired by Fox News and taking his show solo, to driving a potentially lethal wedge deep into the MAGA movement over support for Israel. Along the way, he has supportively platformed white supremacists, Left-wing historical revisionists, and 9/11 conspiracy theorists. He has defended, if not embraced, practically every ideological threat to the West, from civilizational jihad and sharia law, to terror states Iran and Qatar, to Putin’s Russia.
This is to say nothing of fringe topics into which he has dived that have many wondering if Carlson needs the intervention of a psychiatrist, such as UFOs, chemtrails and government geoengineering, and demonic attacks.
On his internet show Wednesday, Carlson dropped a new controversy. He made the reasonable observation that demonizing one’s political opponents as “Nazis” inevitably leads to murdering said “Nazis” in the name of defending democracy against a great evil. So far, so good; the Left has adopted this as its principal strategy of “resistance” since the day Donald Trump announced his first presidential candidacy, and the result has been widespread and growing violence against the Right, including the openly celebrated assassinations of such private citizens as healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, not to mention failed attempts on President Trump’s life.
But then, as an example to support his point, Carlson made the jaw-dropping choice of Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by the Nazis for his role in multiple secret plots to overthrow or assassinate Adolph Hitler. Carlson claimed that in participating in these efforts, Bonhoeffer had
reach[ed] the end of reason, or even Christianity. Bonhoeffer decided that Christianity’s not even – he was a Lutheran pastor – Christianity’s not enough, we have to kill the guy [Hitler]. I’m not judging Bonhoeffer, who was a great man in some ways. But that’s inevitable once we decide that some people are Nazis.
The illogic here is flabbergasting. People did not “decide” to smear Hitler unfairly as a Nazi. He literally was the proud leader of the Nazi movement. He is widely considered, except by some of Carlson’s guests, to be the very personification of evil. The saintly Bonhoeffer’s participation in the efforts to remove him from power was moral and heroic. Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas was outraged:
It’s seriously shocking he would say these things. Bonhoeffer did not advocate MURDER, which would have been sinful, but he did understand that within a just war people are KILLED. Will Tucker now condemn David for killing Goliath?
Theories abound as to why Tucker Carlson has gone off the rails: he has sold out to Qatari money; he is antisemitic; he is, like world-class grifter Owens, simply trolling for social media engagement and dollars; like some other former Fox News personalities, perhaps he never was a true conservative. Perhaps a combination of these explains it.
Tucker’s bizarre turn has been hugely disappointing for many conservatives, myself included; I have been repulsed by some of his newfound (?), controversial positions – except for one.
Just prior to this latest uproar over his misuse and abuse of Bonhoeffer, Carlson had drawn fire for repeating details of a supernatural attack he alleges happened to him in his bed in February 2023. In an extensive interview last Thursday with fellow former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, Carlson suggested the attack was in response to a positive supernatural experience he had had the day before, during which he was overwhelmed by a sudden wave of atypical, for him, empathy and love toward someone he thought he hated.
He described the moment as “profound and beautiful and unexpected,” that it obviously came from God, and that it was “twinned” with an evil experience later that night, in which he was “physically mauled” by an unseen force while he was sleeping.
Carlson said he awoke that night struggling to breathe, had a “horrible pain underneath my arms, like on the side of my chest” and found “claw marks on both sides, on right and left side on my ribs, and they’re bleeding.”
“Culturally, I’m just not from a world where people are attacked by demons,” Carlson told Kelly, who acknowledged that it is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the demonic in the wake of such monstrous acts of evil as the Annunciation Catholic Church shooting and Charlie Kirk’s assassination. “I challenge anyone to tell me that there aren’t demons among us,” she said to applause.
Carlson went on to explain that the experience pushed him to read the Bible, revealed to him the nature of spiritual goodness, and “completely changed my view of the world.”
“Ephesians 6 is real,” Carlson told The Christian Post at the time he first reported the attack, referencing the chapter in the New Testament which famously asserts that mankind is engaged in spiritual warfare:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
The interview with Kelly prompted a renewed flood of derision for Carlson over the demonic attack, which many attributed to mental illness or the four dogs that were sleeping in his bed that night. And in truth, Carlson’s descriptions of the incident are confusing, sometimes contradictory, and not entirely convincing.
Conservative authors and commentators such as Mark Levin and Dinesh D’Souza have dismissed Carlson’s attack as lunacy or a lie; D’Souza suggested that if it was real, it could have been “a portal that was open for some sort of a demon to enter” into him. Author Rod Dreher, however, came to his defense over the demon story, noting that Carlson had personally told him about it before sharing it with the public.
“Look, I had my bitter dispute lately with Tucker over [white supremacist Nick] Fuentes, but he told me this demon story right after it happened, a year before he went public with it,” Dreher posted on X. “That doesn’t prove it, but hard to see how he benefits from speaking publicly of it, given that many are mocking him.”
Eric Metaxas, prior to Carlson’s Bonhoeffer debacle, also defended Carlson’s account, commenting on X,
It is insane to mock Tucker Carlson about the demonic attack he suffered. The spiritual world is absolutely real. I am deeply grieved he platformed Nick Fuentes, but that only confirms to me that he is in a serious spiritual battle. We should pray for him.
Indeed we should, and not just for Tucker Carlson but for all of us. Add me to the list of his defenders, at least in terms of this incident and his subsequent awakening about the spiritual realm. It is easy to believe that spiritual warfare is nothing more than a metaphor, or that demons are a metaphor, or that evil is not a metaphysical reality but a mere psychological defect – until you come face-to-face with the supernatural.
I had a life-changing experience a year ago that was not in any way physically traumatic like Carlson’s – and unlike him, I was wide awake at the time – but which was paralyzingly terrifying, which I instantly recognized as a demonic attack, and which instantly convinced me of the reality of spiritual warfare and prompted me afterward to take my intellectual flirtation with Catholicism to full-on conversion.
Contrary to Mark Levin’s or Dinesh D’Souza’s skepticism, there is no doubt in my mind or heart that we are engaged in a cosmic fight for the soul and future of America and the West, an intensifying spiritual battle which, for those with eyes to see, is in evidence all around us.
Unherd contributing editor Mary Harrington recently tried to come to grips with this in an article titled “Why Macho Christianity is Flexing its Muscles.” She notes that “the world in general is growing more disorienting, extreme, and uncanny. This is spurring a widespread sense of existential spiritual conflict, in which post-war Christianity simply doesn’t cut it anymore”:
And if this is so, perhaps we really are in a spiritual war — and the only rational place left to stand is in a longstanding spiritual tradition, with a well-worked-out approach to demons and the uncanny…
… if [times] get any stranger, one thing is sure: woolly inclusivity and a limp handshake won’t be enough. We will all need the Armour of God; and also, perhaps, the intercession of St Michael.
She is right. It was a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel that brought my demonic attack to an end. As Ephesians 6 says, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
The day of evil is already here. Stand your ground.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.
