Study of Religions Department

Dr Jonathon O’Donnell is Visiting Scholar in the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University Belfast

Thursday 11 November 2021; Online via MS Teams. Contact Dr Jenny Butler j.butler@ucc.ie for the link.

Across America today, a growing number of conservative evangelicals have made belief in—and the struggle against—demons a core part of their spiritual life. Often aligned with reactionary political forces and viewing demons as operating behind the scenes of US public and political life, such evangelicals have identified a demonic hand behind forces as varied as LGBT rights, immigration policy, terrorism, and protests against police brutality. Looking at developments of evangelical demonology since the start of the US ‘War on Terror,’ this talk unpacks the ways demons reflect anxieties over the changing social fabric of America and fears of the decline of US imperial hegemony.