A horn-wearing ‘shaman.’ A cowboy evangelist. For some, the Capitol attack was a kind of Christian revolt.

Late last month, one of the accused Jan. 6 Capitol insurrectionists told a D.C. judge that she didn’t recognize his authority and was making a “divine special appearance.” Another one of the accused streams a solo religious service each week that he calls “Good Morning Sunday Morning.” A third runs a 65,000-subscriber YouTube channel where she shares Bible verses and calls herself a “healer of deep inner wounds.”

...For many, their religious beliefs were not tied to any specific church or denomination — leaders of major denominations and megachurches, and even President Donald Trump’s faith advisers, were absent that day. For such people, their faith is individualistic, largely free of structures, rules or the approval of clergy.

Many forces contributed to the attack on the Capitol, including Trump’s false claims of electoral victory and American anger with institutions. But part of the mix, say experts on American religion, is the fact that the country is in a period when institutional religion is breaking apart, becoming more individualized and more disconnected from denominations, theological credentials and oversight.

That has created room for what Yale University sociologist Phil Gorski calls a religious “melee, a free for all.”

“There have been these periods of breakdowns and ferment and reinvention in the past, and every indication is we’re in the middle of one of those now,” he said. “Such moments are periods of opportunity and creativity but also of danger and violence.”

Some scholars see this era as a spiritually fertile period, like the ones that produced Pentecostalism or Mormonism. Others worry about religious illiteracy and the lack of supervision over everything from theological pronouncements to financial practices.

...Some have found in recent years a growing overlap between White Americans who put a high value on individualism and libertarianism and those who embrace Christian nationalism, a cultural belief that America is defined by Christian identity, heritage and social order and that the government needs to protect it. They are now looking at the way Trump’s presidency united disparate groups — largely White — under the umbrella of Christian nationalism.

...The Post analyzed court documents and images of the nearly 500 people charged in the Jan. 6 attack to learn more about those who cited their faith in some way. Here are the stories of three of them.

A cowboy pastor

Couy Griffin, a New Mexico county commissioner known for his black cowboy hat and frequent grin, grew up in a little Baptist church his grandfather helped found in a rural part of the state where life revolved around logging and sawmills — a “very American” upbringing, Griffin said in an interview, that was scarred by environmental laws passed in the 1970s and ’80s that dramatically cut back the area’s industry.

Griffin rode bulls competitively in college and then moved to Paris to perform as a cowboy in Disneyland Paris’s “Wild West” show. During a visit to Versailles, he said, he had a powerful experience with God — he was struck by the idea that he could be forgiven for his sins, his burdens and guilt relieved. He wanted to share this new feeling with everyone.

He returned to the United States in the 2000s, fired up about two things — sharing the gospel and fighting environmental regulations he saw as un-American limits on freedom. He rode on horseback from San Francisco to Jerusalem (with a flight in between) handing out tracts and talking about abortion.

Later, he ran for public office, focusing on reviving logging and milling. He founded Cowboys for Trump and met the former president, who promised Griffin that he would help revamp the way forests were handled.

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Decentralization is going on all around us, in both private and public institutions. Slower in governmental entities, where there are still examples of centralization, but those are not stopping the overall movement towards smaller, more efficient and more responsive units.

Since there are so many examples, why single out religion? a. Some will use whatever avenue they can find to attack religion b. Perhaps the purpose here is to show the danger in decentralizing anything c. This may be an attempt to belittle all Trump supporters, or d. Possibly the authors really did want to write about the decentralization of religion and are using Trump and the Jan. 6 event as a vehicle to express their views. Would the Post have published an article about changes in religion without the tie into Trump/Jan 6?

I'd prefer to say d. Something about the smell of this thing, though, makes me think if accurately backtracked we'll end up with c.