I was happy to be interviewed, & I think @7im did a very fair job of writing about the complex case of Derrick Peterson, a former sheriff deputy & candidate for Portland's school board who was commissioned as an apostle by Ché Ahn in 2020. rollingstone.com/politics/polit… 1/
Ché Ahn also listed Peterson as an advisory board member at 1Race4Life, an anti-abortion/racial-reconciliation org that he founded in 2020 after George Floyd's murder. web.archive.org/web/2021120511…. 2/
Last week Oregon Live ran a story where Peterson downplayed his 2020 apostolic commissioning & said he "is not affiliated" with 1Race4Life. oregonlive.com/education/2023…. Since then he was removed from Ahn's site & the 1Race4Life site has gone dark. What is going on here? 3/
To be clear, I haven't spoken to Peterson, & I'd be happy to do so, but, on the surface, his story doesn't hold water. Among #NAR leaders, Ché Ahn probably has the most clearly articulated theology/philosophy of apostleship (which he unapologetically got direct from Wagner). 5/
Ahn commissioned Peterson as a "marketplace apostle" (a phrase straight from Wagner's ideology), which connotes a leader who aligns with the #NAR agenda of societal transformation & #7MM/Christian supremacy but who doesn't work primarily in the church. place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewconten… 6/
Ché Ahn has spoken & written for decades about his understanding of apostles, & here are a couple of key passages from his 2019 book "Modern-Day Apostles" amazon.com/Modern-Day-Apo… where he makes clear how rigorous & serious his vetting process is for these commissionings. 7/
Incidentally, one of the other people Ahn commissioned (as an evangelist) through HIM in 2020 was Jay Koopman, who was Ahn's associate pastor at HRC & is now Sean Feucht's right-hand man. harvestim.org/leadership/com… Again, this hardly suggests Peterson was some sort of outsider. 8/
Now the 1Race4Life website is down, but the advisory board also includes: Bill Johnson (Bethel), Cindy Jacobs, Jim Garlow, Eric Metaxas, Samuel Rodriguez, & Lance Wallnau, a veritable who's who of the #NewApostolicReformation cinematic universe. web.archive.org/web/2021120511… 9/
Each of these fellow 1Race4Life board members played an important role in instigating Christians to attend the protests/riot on #January6th. Ahn, Wallnau, & Jacobs were all in DC that day. Note that Peterson does not deny knowing these folks. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cha… 10/
If Peterson has so little connection to Ché Ahn & HIM, why is he showing up to preach at churches in the HIM & Bethel networks? And why is he doing FB live videos with Stacey Campbell, a core HIM apostle in Canada? facebook.com/mattoxkent/pos… 11/
The #NAR leadership culture is fundamentally relational, not organizational. While I'm sure not everyone in HIM shares all of Ché Ahn's politics, Peterson's effort to hide/dismiss his affiliations without explaining the nature of his connections there is downright confusing. 12/
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This is one of the most disturbing videos I've seen recently, so prepare yourself...
I'll give some context for what's happening here, and why it should have all of us concerned about the spread of far-right Christian supremacy in America. 1/
The NAR leaders were also the theological architects of the Jan 6th Riot, mobilizing their followers thru prophecy & spiritual warfare rhetoric to believe Trump's lies & show up on his behalf to stop the "demonic conspiracy" to prevent his coronation. 3/
I was asked to identify which NAR or NAR-affiliated people I see in this pic of religious leaders from the White House today.
I did you one better and labeled the picture with all the major nondenom charismatic players I see in the room. I probably missed some in the back:
1/
From Right to Left, I see:
-Malachi O'Brien - acolyte of Paula White-Cain, apologist for IHOPKC abuses, I believe he's S. Bapist
-Todd Lamphere - Paula White's right-hand pastor assoc
-Pasqual Urrabazo - respected NAR prophet, a pastor at ICLV who prophesied over Trump
2/
-Jenny Korn - administrator of the National Faith Advisory Board, who, according to LinkedIn is now "Deputy Director and Special Assistant to the President at The White House"
-Jentezen Franklin - Church of God royalty and a key religious adviser to Trump from early on
3/
Amid the many crises & distraction-chaff of Trump 2.0 we're all reeling, but you should pay attention to what Trump announced today at the Nat'l Prayer Breakfast.
He not only aligned his admin w/ Christian nationalism, he's plans on enforcing it. 1/
I've argued for years that, in the Trump era, charismatic (i.e. ecstatic, supernaturalist, revivalist) evangelicals have displaced the old guard of the relig right & brought a new more aggressive evangelical politics.
That was on vivid display in TX today.
h/t @RobertDownen_ 1/
That video is of charismatic prophet & pastor, Brandon Burden--who's associated with the Dutch Sheets wing of the extremist New Apostolic Reformation networks--praying Ekklesia/dominion theology (that Christians should rule over all societies) over a group of lawmakers. 2/
Burden is locally famous for telling his congregation on 1/10/21 (a few days after the violence of January 6th, much of it perpetrated by right-wing Christians) to "keep their guns loaded & stock up on food & water" before Joe Biden's inauguration. 3/
Crucial profile of Jenny Donnelly (NAR apostle, anti-LGBTQ "parental rights" advocate, and leader of an activist network with 1000s of "mama bears") by @aliceraeherman | @guardian.
These networks were a major force galvanizing Trump's Xn base in 2024. 1/
FWIW, centrist/Leftist activists & orgs who are opposed to the Trump admin's agenda would do well to learn from the vast organizing infrastructure & impact of these -- sometimes grassroots, sometimes grass tops -- networks on the right.
They reach people media can't reach. 2/
In a decentralized media landscape & polarized political atmosphere, multiethnic networks of angry Xn mom-activists can have outsize influence, b/c:
A decade ago, Metaxas was on track to be a popular & respected evangelical public intellectual. Raised in NYC & educated at Yale, he styled himself as an erudite & engaged public figure.
He wrote pop biographies of William Wilberforce, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, & Martin Luther. 2/
In truth, Metaxas has no pedigree as a historian nor as a theologian, but he wrote enticing books that spoke in evangelical-friendly ways about evangelical heroes.
Real scholars pointed out these books were littered w/ factual errors & poor analysis. 3/