An anonymous source told me about an invitation-only gathering of apostles & prophets (from the New Apostolic Reformation & other movements) last week.
My source--who is anti-Trump & devastated by the prophetic debacle in 2020--expressed real worry about what they witnessed. 1/
Unlike other NAR conferences with thousands in attendance, this gathering (titled the National Apostles & Prophets Conference 2024) was specifically for the dozens of apostles & prophets themselves to collaborate.
(h/t to @KiraResistance who dredged up photos from the event). 2/
A major focus of the gathering was to honor Bill Hamon, a long-time prophet who was part of C. Peter Wagner's inner circle in the NAR (a.k.a., EVAT - the Eagles' Vision Apostolic Team).
Hamon turns 90 this year, & they were celebrating his 70 yrs in ministry. 3/
Other EVAT members in attendance included Lance Wallnau, Ché Ahn, Becca Greenwood, John Kelly, & Chuck Pierce.
Many of these leaders were at the molten core of Christian mobilizing for January 6th, as I detailed in Charismatic Revival Fury:
My source (who was present for the gathering, not hearing about it secondhand) described a disturbing environment of absolute certainty in the prophets & the growing number of prophecies about Trump in 2024.
These folks truly believe that their prophets are hearing from God. 5/
My source also described constant conversation at the conference about "reformation," which is code in these circles for the full-blown Christian "takeover of society" through conquering the Seven Mountains -- this is from an insider, not my theory, spin, or interpretation. 6/
My source, who has operated in these circles for years and who knows many of these folks personally, said they left the conference more anxious about how Independent Charismatics are operating politically in 2024 than they've ever felt before. 7/
I know that this looks like a friendly gathering of middle-aged & senior-citizen church leaders, but we have to recall that these NAR folks lead networks that touch hundreds of thousand if not millions of Amer charismatic Christians, who believe these ldrs are divine oracles. 8/
I also observed to my source that I'm seeing increasing evidence of collaboration & cross-pollination between these Independent Charismatic, Trumpy leadership circles & overt right-wing militias & white nationalist groups, & my source said they were seeing the same thing. 9/
E.g., here you see the Appeal to Heaven flag, a Revol. War symbol repurposed by NAR apostle Dutch Sheets to be a key NAR prophecy & Christian nationalism symbol (these flags were everywhere on January 6th), being flown by Oregon neo-Nazis alongside the Nazi Sonnenrad flag. 10/
To be clear, this NAR-militia collaborative dynamic is relatively new post-January 6th. It might have happened marginally before 2020, but it's much more in the open now, all of them unified by their ardent support for Trump & Trump's authoritarian leadership style. 11/
The people who were gathered at this conference are among the top-tier Christian propagandists & instigators who have theologized Donald Trump & made him a Christian icon. They built the spirituality of January 6th, & that spirituality is, if anything, more popular today. 12/
Put simply, my source conveyed that as bad as the Trump prophecies, righteous certainty, & spiritually violent ideation was in these circles around the 2020 election & January 6th, what they saw last week was even more scary & unified. 13/
Yes, the violence of January 6th was incubated in online message boards & Proud Boys group texts. But the theology of January 6th was incubated in rooms like this, w/ these NAR leaders syncing up their visions of Christian supremacy & casting Trump as their prophetic vehicle. 14/
If you want to see how that prophetic-theological synchronization & organizing played out in late 2020 and early 2021, watch this 25-minute documentary produced by @ICJSBaltimore:
. 15/
And, if you want the full story of the New Apostolic Reformation, where it came from, who were the NAR leaders that served as the principal theological architects of January 6th, & how they're threatening our democracy again, buy my book:
These folks are well-connected, organized, compelling communicators with captive audiences of ardent Christians who are bought into this Christian supremacy project.
These are the true believers who would gladly see our society move into a Trumpian autocracy. 17/
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Lance Wallnau is one of the most effective Christian Trump propagandists. He was central to mobilizing Christians for #January6th through this exact style of rhetoric -- literally demonizing their political enemies. 1/
If you doubt it, watch this 25-minute documentary that demonstrates how Christian leaders (especially Wallnau) & their demonizing rhetoric fed directly into the Christianity on display on #January6th:
2/
How do you get Christians (whose self-image is that they love people, love democracy, & love America) to violently attempt to overturn a democratic American election?
You tell them that "We don't hate our enemies; we hate the demons controlling our political opponents." 3/
Many New Apostolic Reformation leaders & other charismatic apostles & prophets posted photos from an invitation-only conference of apostles & prophets in Dallas last wk.
Here we can see the inklings of another January 6th...
Keep reading! 1/
Unlike other NAR conferences with thousands in attendance, this gathering (titled the National Apostles & Prophets Conference 2024) was specifically for the dozens of apostles & prophets themselves to collaborate.
(h/t to @KiraResistance who found photos from the event). 2/
A major focus of the gathering was to honor Bill Hamon, a long-time prophet who was part of C. Peter Wagner's inner circle in the NAR (a.k.a., EVAT - the Eagles' Vision Apostolic Team).
Hamon turns 90 this year, & they were celebrating his 70 years in ministry. 3/
There's a lot of talk of "Christian nationalism" today, & many Christians in the U.S. are pushing back, saying that CN is just a slur against conserv Christians.
Take a minute to watch this clip of OK State Sen Dusty Deevers preaching at a conf this month, then read below. 1/
As a scholar of religion who's studied this for years, "Christian nationalism" is not a slur but a diagnostic, descriptive term for how people blend their Christian religious ID w/ their national/political ID.
This is not unique to Christianity, nor unique to America. 3/
In fact, "Christian nationalism" is a species of religious nationalism, a global set of phenomena we see across religious traditions. Here is a little chart I made using the Kingdom-Phylum taxonomy system from the biological sciences as an analogy. 3/
Charismatic worship leader & far-right provocateur Sean Feucht had AZ senate candidate Kari Lake on his podcast today.
She said something that is very much worth noting... Recall that Kari Lake denied the results of her lost bid for AZ gov'r in 2022. 1/podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cou…
W/ Feucht, Lake said : "We have to continue fighting. The devil is working. Evil is working. Those stolen elections [i.e., hers in 2022, Trump's in 2020] were meant to make us feel like we have been beat down and there's no hope... We cannot sit here feeling wounded." (22:30) 2/
This is a very, very dangerous narrative, one that drove many Christians to the Capitol on January 6th. It's the claim not that nefarious human actors (Democrats or disloyal Republicans) stole the election but that Satan & demons are stealing elections. Why is this dangerous? 3/
I get pushback from Christians (esp. charismatic Xns) when I write/talk about the Seven Mountain Mandate (a.k.a., 7M) as an outlined program for Christian supremacy.
I've dug more deeply into the origins of 7M than just about anybody, & skeptics should read this article. 1/
As I laid out in Charismatic Revival Fury (ep. 3), the Seven Mountain Mandate is a prophetic meme created by Lance Wallnau in 2000. Then Wallnau & his mentor, C. Peter Wagner used the New Apostolic Reformation networks to spread this meme everywhere. 2/
Yes, I know, 7M is a rebranding of societal spheres theological ideas that originated w/ the Christian Reconstructionists in the 1970s (& arguably w/ Neo-Calvinists over a century ago), but Wallnau both popularized & modified it with the imagery of mountains to be conquered. 3/
AL Chief Justice Tom Parker has stoked controversy, but missing from news coverage is the prophecy movement that's shaped Parker's worldview: the New Apostolic Reformation.