Religious-right figure Rick Joyner warned in a Facebook post Tuesday that judges who “interfere” with President Donald Trump’s executive orders may be pushing the U.S. toward “another civil war.” It’s just the latest of many examples of right-wing Christian leaders and media amplifying Trump’s complaints about courts that are stepping in to slow and stop Trump administration actions that violate the Constitution or federal law.
In his Facebook post, Joyner gave lip service to the importance of an independent judiciary but then suggested that judges’ actions to pause Trump’s orders are “an encroachment on the Legislative Branch” and “an end run around the democratic will of the people.”
“SCOTUS can begin to reduce this and avoid a major Constitutional Crisis, or even another civil war, by how they decide some of the cases before them,” Joyner wrote. “They can begin to bring a desperately needed restraint on the Judicial Branch that has gotten very far outside of its lane.”
Joyner has a habit of talking about civil war. During Trump’s first months in office in 2017, Joyner warned that if the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s efforts to ban immigrants and refugees from several predominantly Muslim nations, it could lead to civil war and martial law. In 2019, he said Christians should be establishing militias to prepare for civil war. A month before the 2020 election, he told viewers that they shouldn’t worry too much about the coming civil war because the violence and bloodshed would be mostly confined to the “inner cities.”
Joyner is a prominent and controversial figure within the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation. He runs the South Carolina-based MorningStar Ministries and founded The Oak Initiative, a religious-right advocacy group whose board members include Family Research Council Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin, NAR leaders Lance Wallnau and Cindy Jacobs, and anti-abortion activist Janet Porter.
Joyner has generated criticism within conservative Christian circles for his habit of defending and “restoring” to ministry men who have been disgraced by engaging in spiritual and sexual abuse.
