Spiritual Warfare and Right-Wing Authoritarianism

Abstract

This article focuses on contemporary spiritual warfare discourse and on the apparent affinity to right-wing authoritarianism of Christians related to it. Drawing on material from the Philippines, I investigate the role of scholarship in fostering said affinity by reading Christians, who seem to be connected to the spiritual warfare discourse, through the lens of prominent U.S.-American dominionists. I argue that the approach of global religious history helps to critique the Anglo-Eurocentric and elitist biases underlying current research about Christianity in the majority world.