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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The most important film you'll see this year--perhaps your entire life as a democratic citizen--is "Stopping the Steal" (HBO, released Sept 17, directed by @danreed1000)!
This is the inside story of the United States' recent past & impending future. 1/
If you are a true citizen, this movie will keep you up at night. This is the inside story of the anti-democratic campaign to overturn the 2020 election.
And I know you think, "OK, another January 6th documentary," but No.
This is the human story of how we came to the brink. 2/
Here we actually get to meet the heroes who barely saved our democracy in 2020.
The real-life citizens who stood down mobs. The local elected officials who put themselves in harm's way for the rest of us.
The women & men who stopped the rampaging, conniving president. 3/
In sum, the Courage Tour is a 2020-election-denying, Christian nationalist, conspiracy propagation machine masquerading as a Pentecostal-style Christian revival.
I witnessed this reality distortion field up close at their Eau Claire, WI stop. 3/
If we weren't so used to Christians theologizing Trump, his clip of Mike Johnson would be headline news:
"Authorities are est'd by God... It seems apparent to us that God has chosen [Trump] to lead the greatest nation in the world for a 2nd time." 1/
He said this on a prayer call organized by Trump's National Faith Advisory Board, the latest version of Trump's evangelical advisory council, a group that has theologically propagandized Trump & helped mobilize Christians for January 6th. 2/
Specifically, the series of abuse revelations are occurring in what are known as "fivefold" or "apostolic & prophetic" ministry circles.
These ministries take their inspiration from Ephesians 4 & believe the primary leadership of apostles & prophets should be restored today. 2/
The fivefold/apostolic & prophetic concepts & leaders are sometimes labeled as part of the "New Apostolic Reformation," but the NAR is merely one set of such networks, & many other similar networks are involved in this scandal. 3/
🧵-- I've spend the past 3.5 yrs researching the Christian leaders, theologies, & movts that gave us the chaotic, Christian nationalist violence we witnessed on #January6th.
We are currently seeing similar (if not more alarming) patterns emerging in this election cycle... 👇 1/
1st, if you're unfamiliar w/ my research, I've argued that a little-understood network of Christian leaders called the New Apostolic Reformation was at the heart of Xn organizing & theologizing of the January 6th Insurrection.
Today's ep. of Dutch Sheets' "Give Him 15" podcast exemplifies a LITTLE NOTICED THEOLOGICAL SHIFT in the Christian right that could seriously impact the 2024 election.
In short, many leaders on the Christian right have moved beyond "Rapture theology." 1/
I've had a number of reporters ask me about the phrase "the remnant" that you often hear among New Apostolic Reformation & other Independent Charismatic leaders.
Perhaps b/c of my own background, in the past I've generally chalked it up to a charis. stock phrase, one of many. 2/
I've also noticed that, if there's 1 cocktail-party fact that casual observers of the Christian right can cite, it's the idea of "the Rapture" (Jesus suddenly taking the Xns away to heaven).
More sophisticated watchers will use the phrase "dispensational premillennialism." 3/