The Antichrist has long haunted American politics. Now it’s rearing its head again | Matthew Avery Sutton

From Silicon Valley to Michigan, the biblical figure is in the headlines. The shift from pulpits to politics is familiar - and dangerous

Two scenes from the past two weeks capture something unsettling - and familiar -about American public life. In San Francisco, a tech billionaire delivered a soldout, offtherecord lecture series on the antichrist. In Michigan, a man rammed his pickup truck into a Latterday Saints meetinghouse during Sunday worship, opened fire and set the building ablaze, apparently believing that Mormons are the antichrist.

The antichrist is clearly back. But perhaps he has never really left.

Matthew Avery Sutton is a Guggenheim Fellow and author of the forthcoming Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity (Basic Books), in addition to five prior books on Christianity. He is the Claudius O and Mary Johnson distinguished professor and chair of the department of history at Washington State University. The views expressed here are his own and do reflect those of WSU