(Conversation) — As a religious scholar, I participated in the Courage Tour, a series of religio-political gatherings that stopped in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, on September 27-28, 2024.
From what I observed, various speakers on the tour used conservative topics, such as the threat of communism and LGBTQ+ “ideology” taking over education, and gave them a satanic twist. They told the people that nefarious forces had conquered America and that they needed to make sure Donald Trump was elected and oust the nefarious forces.
This tour is trying to get those Christians to vote for Trump. The tour visited battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan and Georgia, drawing thousands of people to each venue.
This tour isn’t just about defeating Democrats, it’s also about defeating the devil. The idea that the devil controls the physical world is a key feature of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) worldview. The NAR is a loose group of like-minded charismatic Christian churches and religious leaders (also known as “prophets”) who want Christians to dominate all walks of life.
As someone who recently finished reading a book about the intersection of the devil and politics, The Devil in America: From Anti-Spiritualists to QAnon, I wanted to see this combination for myself. I believe it is a mistake to think of the New Apostolic Reformation as a fringe group with no real influence.
influence and reach
The group has an affiliated nonprofit organization known as Ziklag, named after a town in the Hebrew Bible that is an important place associated with David’s kingship, and for the purpose of the movement. has abundant funds. According to an investigation by ProPublica, the group “mobilized Republican-leaning voters and removed more than 1 million people from rosters in key battleground states with the goal of tilting the 2024 election in former President Donald Trump’s favor.” It turned out that they had already spent $12 million to eliminate the virus.
The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the New Apostolic Reformation “the greatest threat to American democracy we have never heard of.”
The diffuse nature of NAR membership and its rapid growth make it difficult to keep track of its followers. The number of NAR believers is estimated to be between 3 million and 33 million, but even individuals who do not call themselves NAR members may agree with the opinions of NAR groups. theology.
Additionally, the presence of Republican Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance at the meeting I attended also indicates significant tacit support for the group.
“Mission of the Seven Mountains”
According to NAR’s theology, there are “seven mountains” governing areas of secular influence, and Christians are destined to occupy them all. These mountains are religion, government, family, education, media, entertainment, and business.
This “prophecy,” known as the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” was originally published in Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate, written in 2013 by Bill Johnson, senior pastor and member of Bethel Church in Redding, California. It first attracted attention with the publication of “. Lance Wallnau, the prophet of NAR and one of the founders of the Courage Tour. In this book, the mission of Nanzan is promoted as a message received directly from God.
NAR recognizes that most of these mountains are currently occupied by demonic spiritual forces. To counter these forces, the NAR engages in “spiritual warfare.” This is an act of Christian prayer used to defeat or cast out evil spirits.
Religious scholar Sean MacLeod writes that such prayers can come from “handbooks, workshops, and actual participation in deliverance sessions.” Deliverance sessions involve diagnosing and casting out an individual’s demons.
Alternatively, it is not uncommon for pastors to incorporate spiritual warfare into their church services. For example, President Trump’s former spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain ordered all “diabolical pregnancies to be miscarried” in a highly publicized sermon. In the context of the sermon, demonic pregnancy was not a literal pregnancy. Instead, White Cain prayed that the satanic plot “conceived” by the devil would fail.
NAR theology believes that all Christians are exposed to a battle with demons and that spiritual warfare is a necessary part of life. As religious scholar Andre Gagné writes, the NAR sees spiritual warfare occurring on three “levels.”
The ground level occurs in cases of personal exorcism or deliverance, a kind of “one-on-one” battle with the devil. The second level is the occult level, where believers seek to counter what they believe to be demonic movements such as shamanism and New Age thought. Finally, there is a strategic level where the movement actually fights powerful spirits believed to be controlling geographic areas at the behest of Satan.
Friday night Courage tour.
courage tour
The Courage Tour is part of an act of spiritual warfare at a strategic level. For Mr. Trump, stamping is really about exerting Christian influence over the “mountain of government” that NAR followers believe is occupied by the devil.
America is in trouble, according to speakers on the tour. America is now run by the “left,” or Democratic Party, and this group is slowly pushing America toward communism, a system of government where private property no longer exists. The means of production are collectively owned.
The left claims that it wants to see this change happen because there are many “cultural Marxists.” This is part of a far-right conspiracy theory that suggests all progressive political movements owe a debt to the ideas of Karl Marx, whose Communist Manifesto is most closely associated with communism.
In more extreme forms of communism, the nation-state disappears. This idea is reflected in speakers’ frequent criticisms of “globalism,” generally defined as a single, worldwide government structure. This group rejects globalism on the grounds that God instituted the nation-state as a divinely ordained form of government.
Mr. Wallnow described globalism as a beast and a sign of the end, and claimed that “the intention of the Marxist elements in our country is to destroy our borders.”
A sign promoting the Courage Tour from My Faith Votes, an organization that encourages voters to vote based on the Bible.
Michael E. Hayes, CC BY
demonize queerness
The speakers further claimed that this diabolical Marxism is distorting the American education system. For example, many speakers criticized schools for allegedly indoctrinating or “evangelizing” “LGBTQ ideology” into children.
Wallnau even suggested that the “trans movement” began in the “times of Noah” when the fallen angels of Genesis 6 married human women and fathered hybrid children. This mirrors the discussion Wallnow and Rick Renner had on “The Lance Wallnow Show,” linking such “ideology” to fallen angels and the apocalypse.
This negative view of non-traditional genders and sexual orientations is a long-standing characteristic of this group. Religious scholar John Weaver, in his book The New Apostolic Reformation, said the group’s ideas were influenced by conservative theologian Ruth John Rushdoony, who supported the death penalty for homosexuals. .
Similarly, religious scholar Damon T. Berry argues that members of the movement believe that “demonic spirits” “are trying to subvert the will of God through aspects of culture such as homosexuality, abortion, addiction, poverty, and the acceptance of political correctness.” He wrote that he believed that “I am working in the field.”
Mr. Wallnow encouraged the Courage Tour audience to “fight for our families because we don’t want to leave our children with a devilish train wreck.”
It’s hard to believe, but perhaps one of the most important questions of the election is how many Americans believe in the devil.
(Michael E. Hayes, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion at Lycoming University. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect the views of Religion News Service.)
