September 21, 2025 • 34 mins
The New Apostolic Reformation is a growing anti-democratic religious movement that believes that God speaks through modern-day apostles and prophets. How did they become energetic allies of Trump? (ENCORE from Season 4)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
John and I are on break now who are on
a secret mission and this before all new Mission Implausible
episodes come out this fall. But for now, we'll bring
you one of our favorite past episodes and we'll soon
be launching our YouTube channel. See you there.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
our adversaries.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
theories large and small.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
This is Mission Implausible. Today's guest is Stephanie mccrumman. She's
a Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the Atlantic and previously
worked as a journalist of the Washington Post, and we
look forward to speaking with her about some of her
recent writing on Christian nationalism and more specifically her recent
art well in The Atlantic, entitled The Army of God
(01:16):
Comes out of the Shadows. So, Stephanie, one of the
people you interviewed called the New Apostolic Reformation, the most
significant religious movement of the twenty first century and a
serious threat to democracy. Is it really becoming a more
dominant form of American Christianity.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
It seems that it is. I should say that overall
Americans are becoming more secular, so that's the overall trend.
But within people who identify themselves as Christians, this particular
segment has been growing very rapidly in recent decades. And
part of the reason it's flown under the radar a
bit is because the old categories that have been used
(01:53):
to measure religiosities are a bit out of date. So
a lot of polls and surveys and stuff ask people,
you know, are you Baptists, are you Catholic? Are you
this that people who identify with these ideas that sort
of fall under the umbrella of new Apostolic Reformation, they
don't identify with the denomination. And you know, paradoxically, if
(02:15):
you ask them if they are religious, they might even
say no because one of the key beliefs, one of
the core beliefs, is that denominations are sort of a sin,
if you will, because they divide the kingdom of God,
and so the surveys that do exist suggest certainly that
charismatic Christianity is just growing like crazy, not only in
(02:35):
the US but around the world. And this particular set
of ideas that fall into the category of New Apostolic
Reformation are also just growing by leaps and bounds. So
people who adopt these ideas, if you ask them, oh,
are you a follower of the New Apostolic Reformation, they
would say, I don't know what you're talking about, but
they if you say, do you believe in God's Kingdom,
(02:57):
then they would say yes. Or the Seven Mountains mandate,
which I can explain, they would say yes.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
So I grew up a Catholic and ALTI bore the
whole thing. And in Catholicism, at least in the past,
you could be a Democrat or Republican, right, But what
you're talking about now it's also a political movement.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
The big shift in thinking really is that they believe
that that is their duty as Christians, their mandate, their
God given mission, is to establish the Kingdom of God
on earth. It goes beyond thinking that the US is
a Christian nation and whatever. The US is more a
(03:35):
component of this larger thing called the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is to the extent that it
is translatable into a political party, you know, it aligns,
of course with the conservative agenda, I suppose, not necessarily exclusively.
So they very much believe that their job is not
to like sit over in the corner and pray and
(03:57):
wait for the kingdom to come, you know, in the
next millennia or whatever, but that they are to establish
it in the here and now, and that means going
into politics. It means going it's not just the political realm,
but every realm of life, to assert God's dominion over
every sphere of life. So that's what the Seven Mountains
(04:17):
mandate is. The people of God, you know, their mission
to exercise dominion over let's see, what are the Seven mountains? Education, family, government,
That's where politics comes in, media are It's a central
part of what they believe they are supposed to do.
And that's what makes this movement so aggressive politically and
(04:40):
effective politically. They see their mission is to mobilize people.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I just have to say, someone who spent a lot
of time in the Middle East and dealing with Middle easterners,
it says John, it sounds to me like you could
substrate Christianity for Islam and you'd have Isis, or you'd
have Iranian theocracy in there is.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
That is exactly what ISIS preaches that we need.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
To bring in their version of heaven on earth and
to fulfill the word of God, and they need to
suppress people who think differently.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
What do you do with the infidels? If you will,
what is to become of them? Maybe it'll be like,
you know, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, where if you didn't
agree and you could exist as long as you didn't
involve yourself in certain you know, in politics or certain.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
That's nice, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
And I should say that there is a very explicitly
militaristic component of this movement too. But they talk about
spiritual warfare and there are people who are in this
movement who have training camps. They speak of the manifest
Sons of God, which is supposed to be an elite unit,
if you will, of God's army, that they are supposed
to be endowed with special powers when the time comes
(05:47):
to do battle. There very much is they will say,
a component of warfare in the natural. That's that's their
language they use.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So let me get to a little bit of sort
of that potential conspiracy part of this. Right, So it
is about dismantling the institutions of secular government to clear
the way for the Kingdom of God. Right, yes, but
clearly to them the secular government doesn't include Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And what we have now?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
How is it democrats and the media became the Satanists?
Why it is only one part of the government become
the enemy and the other one not behind it? How
did it become like so tied to Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
Let's see, let's back up just a few notions. If
you're a believer in this life, human history, everything is
a great battle between God and Satan. And history is
biblical history, and time is biblical time, and Heaven is real,
and Hell is real, Satan is real, demons are real.
(06:46):
This is how people think. So the question becomes who
gets assigned to what? Who is satanic and who's demonic
and so on and so forth. So Trump comes along,
and obviously he's in the early days, if you remember,
he had a problem with evangelical voters.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
Foremost among the myriad Trump supporters put in an awkward
position by the release of that Access Hollywood tape. On Friday.
Are Republican evangelicals Christian conservatives who are being forced to
choose between voting as they almost always do for a
Republican candidate and on the other hand, seeming to condone
Donald Trump's screamingly impious behavior.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Which is what's going to story.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Going to be.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
Is Trump going to have the normal evangelical turnout or
does he lose a bunch of them.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
I think he's going to lose a lot of evangelical
women in the same way that he's going to lose
a lot of women overall. You know, the evangelical establishment,
we're supporting other candidates. Trump needed some component of these voters,
and basically he was introduced to this world. These were
the low propensity voters, if you will. These were people
(07:49):
that were sort of that hadn't quite been tapped into
by the Christian right, you know, when they're searching for
these low propensity voters. Low and behold, there are all
these churches, these charismatic Christian churches that haven't really been activated,
if you will, And they have the benefit of being
they're not just white. They're also Latino and black and brown,
(08:11):
and they're more diverse. So Trump hooks up with this woman,
Paula White, who's very much in this movement. She's an
apostle in the movement, and she opens the door to
this world.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And so the.
Speaker 7 (08:23):
Bigle says that Martha random meet him, but Mary sat still.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
She lost her praise.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
And when the enemy gets your praise, then he's got
your weapon, because your praise is a weapon that you
go to war with.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
Another figure in the movement, I think he considers himself
to be an apostle. Lance Walno, a very charismatic figure
in this movement. He writes a book casting Trump as
God's chaos candidate and develops this whole idea that Trump
is being used by God and he's a modern day Cyrus,
you know, the imperfect instrument, but who nonetheless is part
(08:59):
of God's plan.
Speaker 8 (09:01):
Christians building sodalities is what shifted America. Spannon's war room,
Charlie Kirk turning point our work that we did courage tour,
going to the five of the seven swing stats, having
raped well, he's one thousand signs, wonders and miracles of
the night. Daytime me talking to the remnants about election integrity.
(09:21):
We were able to purge one million fake votes out
of the system in America. That's how come you've got
your million popular vote. We eliminated the fake ones nobody
knows about. That was our job.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
And so this idea gets disseminated and eventually takes hold,
and pretty soon every kind of profit, big and small,
they're all buying into this idea.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
I also wanted to think of the conspiracy theory part of.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
It, and also the latent anti Semitism that's in it.
Why Hackabee is now the ambassador in Israel. He's close
to Pastor John Hagey, who I think.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Is also a part of this.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
And Hagey is famous for saying that in two thousand
and six that God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina
because of homosexuality. Another part of this, and my understanding
of is that we need to support Israel, at least
the right wing politics of Israel, because it has to
rebuild the Temple and take back the West Bank in
(10:19):
order for the end times to come. And of course
the end times, and I've worked in Israel, and I
actually worked on a kibbutz very close to mcgido with
it and the final Battle of Armaged it's supposed to
happen is that, yeah, that God's army wins and the
Jews they either have to convert.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Or they go to Hell.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And I always have trouble with Israeli politicians hugging these
guys who know at the same time they think that
their whole purpose in history is to bring about the
end of the state of Israel and the end of
the Jewish people and.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
To send them all the hell.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
What's interesting to me is to see how Natanyahu and
his crowd was very much dealing with these people. And
as this movement has not been written about very much,
and it seemed as just I think for people who
aren't in it, they think it's just what, it's just
spiritual warfare demons. But net yaou takes it very seriously.
(11:18):
And these people have a show, which I've written about
before called Flashpoint. It's a streaming show, and net ya
You've probably never heard of it. Most people aren't in
this movement haven't heard of it. It's very popular. It's
like CNN for the apostles and prophets, and instead of guests,
they have profits come on and they talk about the
news and how that fits with various prophecies and whatever.
(11:40):
You know, and that often involves what's happening in Gaza,
and it's happening in Israel and nettyaw who's been on
there at least twice. If these people, if evangelical Christians
are an important political constituency in the world of right
more right wing Israeli politics, then like this is the
future of the evangelical world, arguably in the US.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So this is a broad movement, and as far as
I can tell, there doesn't seem to be like a
leader behind it. If everybody can be a prophet, why
can't I say I'm a prophet and then say President
Biden was actually sent by God and Donald Trump is
the He's the airti Christ, which is I think you
can make a better argument on that.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
You could just say, hey, I'm a prophet. But you
also have to be recognized and have a following, and
people have to agree that, hey, Jerry's hitting them out
of the park here. So there's for example, a guy
again like these people are very powerful in this world,
but you may have never heard their names. A guy
named che An in California is a very important apostle
(12:43):
and has probably hundreds of churches under his spiritual authority,
and he has authority over these churches. It's a very
top down, not democratic structure. There's a guid named dutch Sheets.
He's the one who popularized the pine tree flag. This
is a white flag with the green pine tree that
says appealed to Heaven. That appeared January sixth at the insurrection.
(13:07):
But dutch Sheets has his own ministry. He's actually sort
of a prophet and an apostle, has hundreds of thousands
of followers, a minor sort of publishing empire. It's paradoxical.
Is so much about this thing as paradoxical. It's authoritarian
and yet it's decentralized at the same time.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I was just going to say, to what extent is
it a rural or regional phenomenon? Is it in cities
the place?
Speaker 5 (13:30):
It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Like the church that Elon Musk
spoke at. It's a big naar church in Harrisburg called
Life Center. There's a profit in Brooklyn. Joseph Mattera is
very important. You know, not everyone who follows this goes
to a church. A lot of them just follow these
profits online. But you'll find little storefront churches in rural areas.
(13:52):
You'll find big churches in cities. They're all over Texas.
You'll find old Baptist churches that maybe have been overtaken
by people who are embracing these ideas. Really, it's just
I've noticed them all over the place in my reporting.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Let's pause for a second. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Part of the conspiracy theory, part of this is that
some of the people and organizations who they pose by
the Naar, now they are controlled by Satanists, their demons.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
I may be wrong about this, but I feel like
Peter Wagner, he wrote a lot about spiritual warfare and
demons and stuff. And I've been to churches where like
the pastor will demon map the city because you know,
people this movement believe that demonic forces not only can
control people, but also territories. So like whole city may
(14:53):
be infested with demons.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Like their jersey.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I think we could all agree on that.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Yeah, the Middle East, obviously, you know, any place is
not Christian, it's you know, demonic strongholded whatever territories. Washington,
d C.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
You know.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Roger Stone caught onto this lingo and was like, oh,
there's a demon portal over the White house and whatever,
and there's a whole thing in this world, you know, demonology,
And so I think that there's like higher level demons
and lower level demons, like I may just be as
a reporter working for a secular publication that questioned Trump
(15:30):
et cetera, et cetera in God's plan, Like I may
just be a dupe. I may just be my mind
may have been taken over by Satan. But other people
may be more devoted to the mission, you know what
I mean. So I think that there's gradations.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
So what I spend a lot of time in Afghanistan
and interrupt dealing with ISIS and ISIS is a very
clear answer to that. The answer is that you knowingly
stand against God. Whether you're controlled by a demon or not.
They don't get into that, but you knowingly stand against
what they believe is God's plan, and therefore you, your family,
(16:07):
anybody who stands with you can and should be killed
or at least suppressed. So I find what you're saying
very scary because we've seen it actually in a much
more further advanced and actually taking place in another area.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
One thing, and I haven't written about this, but I
find it very interesting that there are military people, high
Profileish military people who have embraced these ideas. Michael Flynn
military intelligence, Doug Meis military intelligence, Carol Boykin military intelligence.
(16:43):
Like I mean, is that just like, oh, well, you know,
there's a lot of religious beliefs, there's a lot of
military intelligence people and some of them believe this or
I don't know, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
That's a really good question because I wonder to what
extent these guys believe that when they're inside, and maybe
they did because it really goes against what they're doing
in their day to day work, because they work for
the government. You mentioned that preacher Lance Wallnow you know
he said you either have God or you've got a government. Well,
only one person could be supreme, So how do you
engage with that? How can you be in the US
government as a military officer and believe that it's just
(17:15):
people who believe different levels of things. I suppose, and
Mike Flynn has gotten more and more. I worked with
Mike Flinn. I know Mike Flynn fairly well where we
don't get at bred WUS anymore, but he seems like
he's gotten more and more radical. For I don't know
whether it's for true religious belief or for its political
or for its money. Who knows, But yeah, those things
don't go together. And so I would find out, like
(17:36):
I did not see that in our intelligence experience.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
So it's CIA. We just talk about various shades of gray.
There's very little black or white, and in the military,
because of their mission, it's different, and I think it
is black or white. That's always the question. Is it delusional?
Do they believe this stuff? Or are they grifters right
they're that are making money off of this or opportunists.
(18:01):
A while ago, there was a it was actually a
CIA guy who was pushed out of the agency who
started making these absurd claims that Halian satellites had stolen
the real results of the twenty twenty elections and that
people like like Lynn like just started parenting this. And
what's so crazy is to say that the real results
(18:22):
were stored in Frankfort in a CIA facility, and that
the Delta and the Seals were involved in a firefight
with CIA and Hillary Clinton was caught there and put
out a mar Bartanamo obey And as crazy as this gets,
Clarence Thomas's wife took this thing that hit some of
(18:44):
the people that you're talking about supporting it or elements
of it, and she wanted to overthrow the twenty twenty
election results.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
She got to Mark Meadows with this.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Who gave it to doj So you've got religion, you've
got conspiracy theories, and you've got people who should be rational.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
I've touched to so many people who believe this stuff,
and to them it's reality. To the true believers, it's
of course, they don't see it as conspiracy. They see
it as as reality. And it's just so deep in a.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Cult, whether there's a cult leader or not, you can't
question anything, right, That's sort of one of the things.
If you can, if you're in the Democratic Party, you
could say, well, I don't think Joe Biden did that
great job. You know, he did some good things and
he fucked up on some other things.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
And with Trump, you're either.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
All in or you're all in, right or with it. No,
you're either all in or you're all up. So to
what extent do you think this is getting into cult
territory where you're not allowed to question any of this.
You're either all in or you're all out.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
This is really basically an anti Enlightenment movement. Everything went
wrong when people started trusting their brain rationality.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
It's been all downhill since the fourteen hundreds.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
I just wortge, yeah, yeah, in a very real way.
And it's like they really think that was the beginning
of displacing God and replacing God with our own reason
and so on a really fundamental level, you can't really
trust your brain unless it is guided by God in
(20:15):
the Bible. But the other thing about this movement is
that because they embrace modern day apostles and prophets, they
have innovated, if you will, the idea that God is
speaking through prophets. Like now there's new stuff, there's new materials,
it's not just the Bible anymore. It's also that Dutch
(20:38):
Sheets had a dream about riding on horseback to the
Capitol on January sixth.
Speaker 9 (20:47):
This morning, December thirty first, I dreamed I was with
our prayer team and we were coming back from having
accomplished an assignment. We were leading tall, muscular horses by
their bridle reins. Our horses didn't appear to be tired,
but they were hot and sweaty. We had apparently been
(21:13):
running them hard. We found ourselves in a field and
could see out in front of us the US Capitol Building.
We mounted our horses and as we sat looking at
the building, we heard air sirens going off. As the
(21:33):
sirens were sounding, we saw a huge hand come down
from the sky and take hold of the dome of
the Capitol Building. With the fingers of the hand wrapped
around the dome, the thumb of the hand flicked the
dome open. When it was opened, a very thick black
(21:57):
smoke began rising up out of the building. We then
heard a cavalry bugle playing the signal to charge, and
we began moving toward the Capitol, not at a full gallop,
but at a steady, determined, fast trot. As we started
(22:19):
on the ground in front of us, written in white
letters for the words don't stop. That's the end of
the dream, Happy New Year.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Not need the Jesus guy anymore, right, because you've got
modern day profits.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
I mean, it's interesting. I don't really speak a lot
about Jesus, honestly, And what they do is they speak
a lot about the Old Testament a lot, and they
also have fresh words. I have a fresh dream today,
and the fresh dream is I had a vision that
Trump was going to take over Gaza. So there's this constant, hourly, daily,
(22:58):
weekly scroll of prophecies. That's where it starts to get
to be more about a person a personality. And then
that obviously coupled with you're not supposed to trust your mind.
There's an idea of submissions admission to God. If you
go to any of these churches, they'll often talk about
(23:19):
that it's very emotional. I'm sure you've been in charismatic
Christian churches and a lot of people have that these
churches are like that on steroids. Like the music is
really really loud. The ones that have the most money
they have these professional sound systems and lights and just
pounding and the music is mantra like and there's tears.
(23:39):
It's very free, oddly again like a paradox because you're
supposed to think a certain thing and yet it's very
physically free. So it feels good and there's like a
lot of feeling to it, you know, and a lot
of catharsists. But make no mistake, but you're supposed to
submit to this and submit to this idea and submit
(24:01):
to God. And what is God? God is these things
and et cetera.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's an interesting historical time because if you go back
into the nineteenth century, even late eighteenth century, but the
first grade Awakening in this country, I mean, the Puritans
came and they were very focused on rationality and learning,
formed Harvard University and these other type of things. And
then when the first great Awakening came is the personal
relationship to God and the beginning of the evangelical sort
of spirit in the United States. And so it almost
(24:26):
seems like there must be a schism in Christianity. This
can't be something that's supported really by the Catholic Church
or other parts of the Protestant Church. How is it
that this is gaining ground in those other and in
general people are moving away from religion.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
I've gotten emails from readers. A reader who's part of
a Lutheran church, and she said that it started as
a study group in the church and then it was
a Seven Mountains thing, and then pretty soon like these
ideas were starting to overtake the church. And it does
cause sometimes splits in churches. And these ideas you will
find them in many denominational churches. And yeah, and some
(25:02):
people are like, what is this? This is weird? I
think this is heretical. You know, it doesn't always go overwell,
but I think that it seems to be overtaking a
lot of denominational churches. There are people who have needs
who go there. Churches have soup kitchens and food pantries
and drug addiction programs and porn addiction programs, and people
(25:24):
find everything that they find in real churches. They find
help and guidance in a community.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And so, putting your sociology in what need is this fulfilling?
It offers simplicity, I guess it offers you understand your
place in the world. It offers you a hero's journey.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
You know, you can be just like isis.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
You can be a soldier of God, or you could
be a sheep.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Farmer, or you know whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Jerry and I both lived in Muslim countries and we've
seen similar things happening there, whereas you know, if you're
in Indonesia, Afghanistan and Rock you know, twenty thirty forty
years ago they were not as conservative. Is this a
global thing that people are moving and moving more away
from secular society?
Speaker 5 (26:07):
What need is it fulfilling? I mean, I think that's
a fine question. Maybe it's just the need that any
religion fills. It's just that it's doing in this different way,
and it's more complete, like you said, because it does
give people a purpose. It's like, here are your marching orders.
It's not just Sunday, it's every day. It's seven mountains,
(26:27):
get with the program, figure out your purpose in life.
And their courses and seminars and trainings and everything. It's
twenty four to seven. And that's also what makes it
effective politically, because people are constantly organizing. It's not just
every four years, every two years. It's like this is
a constant movement. It's always happening, always going on.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
We'll be back in just a moment.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
In a natural part of the fracturing of our society
is more and more people become secular and their religion
is none. Those that still something within the needs of
faith that become more radical.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I'm assumed.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
I wrote about a woman who was in this movement,
and if you talk to her, she would say she
hates religion, she would say she hates church, and yet
she follows all these prophets. I think there's a sense
among the people who follow this thing that they're the
true everything else has screwed up Christianity. It has screwed up,
screwed it up.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
They're the t clergy.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Yeah, they've all divided and all these little arguments, so
you know, angels on pinheads and whatever like. These people
think that, oh, we're the real you know, we're open
to the Holy Spirit moving. It's very mystical. It's very
empowering really if you think about it, because they also believe,
you know, you can fight a war spiritual warfare, you're powerful.
(27:59):
And then look at January sixth. I mean, people really
missed this dimension of the insurrection, but there were people
outside in this movement doing spiritual warfare. Matthew Taylor's written
an excellent book about this. Dutch Sheets was traveling the
country rallying people after the twenty twenty election and preparing
(28:21):
people and visited the White House and people had different motivations,
but a lot of them thought that they were taking
the capital for God, for the kingdom. And what did
they do when they got to the rotunda? These people
they prayed, they prayed, some of them did, and they
had the flags and it's.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Cool though it's if the democratic right, it's against the constitution.
They don't want separtial church and state. They don't support
democratic values. Only the people of God right get to them, right.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
They want a theocracy.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
At the end of the day, they would say democracy
cannot flourish without a Christian conscience. Christianity has to flourish,
but people aren't able to govern themselves without this conscience,
Christian conscience.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
That's what communism was.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It was like everybody, as long as you follow Lenin's dictates,
you can like disagree inside.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
But at the end of there was.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
A book by Jack So that JD. Vance endorsed that
describes their political opponents as unhumans and that they must
be crushed on humans must be crushed. Is that a
book that spreads in this group.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Well, I mentioned that I mentioned that book in the
in the story because to me, it was an example
of how the Seven Mountains idea and this idea of
overturning this liberal order, how far that idea has seemed.
He didn't refer to the Seven Mountains, but there was
(29:45):
a part in the book where he essentially was referring
to the Seven Mountains.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
That's very fascist, right, making the other subhuman. That was
part of Nazi ideology. And this also brings us to
this guy Beattie who's now at State Department, senior at
the State Department, whose writings have come out recently where
he said that only good people, smart people should be
allowed to have children, right and low iq trash should
(30:10):
not have There should be eugenics, they should be youth
to them. But he also brings it in as basically
Christians need to like have kids white Christians. And this
is a guy who's now sitting in the State Department
and mirroring this thing that the world is filled with
unhumans and we're not worthy of basic rights to have
families or to speak out.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
This thing gets conflated with what has been, i think
personally rather vaguely called Christian nationalism, which I think doesn't
really do justice to the depth of what this movement
is all about. And it's worth just noting briefly that
Christian nationalism would say, oh, the founding fathers actually were Christian,
(30:52):
and they point to all this evidence so to speak,
of why our nation was founded as a Christian nation.
These people, again, the more serious thinkers, think that the
founding fathers screwed it up, actually, and that the real
origins go back to William Penn in Pennsylvania, and there's
(31:14):
this whole story about William Penn who came over and
God gave him a vision and the US was the
seceed of a nation and that he had a covenant
with God. And I mean, there's a whole different origin story,
is what I'm saying with this movement, and has to
do with Native Americans. Their whole concept of what gave
(31:34):
rise to this country is different than like your more
typical sort of sentimental Christian nationalism stuff. So they would
say that the Washington Monument is a pagan symbol and
Jefferson messed it up and et cetera.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And if they've decided that the rest of us are
devils or Satan's, I don't know how you push back
against that. And I worry that you know that that
Trump people know that they need this support, and they
clearly believe some of these things that Jerry and I
know to not be true about a deep state and
then working against Christians and working against the president and
all these types of things. And you can see by
(32:11):
some of the actions recently things that you might have
thought were just popular politician stuff where you create enemies
to win power. They're taking action that suggests that they
believed some of these things. Firing all those FBI people
destroying the state, are destroying USAID, destroying the CIA, these
type of things. And so this is really an important
(32:31):
issue to understand because it's something we're gonna have to
come to terms with.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
They are serious about their project. I can't say I
completely understand. There seems to be this sort of union
between some libertarian thinkers and this movement. And I don't
know if it's a temporary alliance of convenience because they
both wish to tear down the state in a way.
(32:56):
But you know, I thought it was very interesting that
must Elon Musk, of all the places he could go,
he went to an nar type church in Harrisburg. I
don't know, maybe it was just a venue. But they
call Peter Thiel a lot people in this movement, So
I don't know, that's a whole other dimension that has
(33:16):
yet to be explored. I was, I'll mention one thing.
I was at Life Center right after the election. They
had an apostle speaking there. He was a guest actually,
and the mood was obviously, you know, very celebratory. They
really saw this as something that they had brought about
through their voting but also through prayer. And so it was.
That was the mood up until one point where the speaker,
(33:38):
found seemingly out of the blue, started talking about immigration,
and he said, could it be that all these people
coming across the border are actually the harvest?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
You know?
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Are they part of God's harvest? Is God is sending
them here to us rather than sending us out into
the world. And he didn't stay on it very long,
but it sounded like a little bit of dissent, perhaps
from the Trump agenda, and I thought that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Well, I'd like to say, Stephanie, I thank you for
being with us, and it's really interesting stuff, but it
doesn't lead me warm and fuzzy.
Speaker 7 (34:17):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Ceipher,
and Jonathan Stern.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 7 (34:27):
Mission Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable
Pictures for iHeart Podcasts.
John and I are on break now who are on
a secret mission and this before all new Mission Implausible
episodes come out this fall. But for now, we'll bring
you one of our favorite past episodes and we'll soon
be launching our YouTube channel. See you there.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
our adversaries.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
theories large and small.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
This is Mission Implausible. Today's guest is Stephanie mccrumman. She's
a Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the Atlantic and previously
worked as a journalist of the Washington Post, and we
look forward to speaking with her about some of her
recent writing on Christian nationalism and more specifically her recent
art well in The Atlantic, entitled The Army of God
(01:16):
Comes out of the Shadows. So, Stephanie, one of the
people you interviewed called the New Apostolic Reformation, the most
significant religious movement of the twenty first century and a
serious threat to democracy. Is it really becoming a more
dominant form of American Christianity.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
It seems that it is. I should say that overall
Americans are becoming more secular, so that's the overall trend.
But within people who identify themselves as Christians, this particular
segment has been growing very rapidly in recent decades. And
part of the reason it's flown under the radar a
bit is because the old categories that have been used
(01:53):
to measure religiosities are a bit out of date. So
a lot of polls and surveys and stuff ask people,
you know, are you Baptists, are you Catholic? Are you
this that people who identify with these ideas that sort
of fall under the umbrella of new Apostolic Reformation, they
don't identify with the denomination. And you know, paradoxically, if
(02:15):
you ask them if they are religious, they might even
say no because one of the key beliefs, one of
the core beliefs, is that denominations are sort of a sin,
if you will, because they divide the kingdom of God,
and so the surveys that do exist suggest certainly that
charismatic Christianity is just growing like crazy, not only in
(02:35):
the US but around the world. And this particular set
of ideas that fall into the category of New Apostolic
Reformation are also just growing by leaps and bounds. So
people who adopt these ideas, if you ask them, oh,
are you a follower of the New Apostolic Reformation, they
would say, I don't know what you're talking about, but
they if you say, do you believe in God's Kingdom,
(02:57):
then they would say yes. Or the Seven Mountains mandate,
which I can explain, they would say yes.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
So I grew up a Catholic and ALTI bore the
whole thing. And in Catholicism, at least in the past,
you could be a Democrat or Republican, right, But what
you're talking about now it's also a political movement.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
The big shift in thinking really is that they believe
that that is their duty as Christians, their mandate, their
God given mission, is to establish the Kingdom of God
on earth. It goes beyond thinking that the US is
a Christian nation and whatever. The US is more a
(03:35):
component of this larger thing called the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is to the extent that it
is translatable into a political party, you know, it aligns,
of course with the conservative agenda, I suppose, not necessarily exclusively.
So they very much believe that their job is not
to like sit over in the corner and pray and
(03:57):
wait for the kingdom to come, you know, in the
next millennia or whatever, but that they are to establish
it in the here and now, and that means going
into politics. It means going it's not just the political realm,
but every realm of life, to assert God's dominion over
every sphere of life. So that's what the Seven Mountains
(04:17):
mandate is. The people of God, you know, their mission
to exercise dominion over let's see, what are the Seven mountains? Education, family, government,
That's where politics comes in, media are It's a central
part of what they believe they are supposed to do.
And that's what makes this movement so aggressive politically and
(04:40):
effective politically. They see their mission is to mobilize people.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
I just have to say, someone who spent a lot
of time in the Middle East and dealing with Middle easterners,
it says John, it sounds to me like you could
substrate Christianity for Islam and you'd have Isis, or you'd
have Iranian theocracy in there is.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
That is exactly what ISIS preaches that we need.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
To bring in their version of heaven on earth and
to fulfill the word of God, and they need to
suppress people who think differently.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
What do you do with the infidels? If you will,
what is to become of them? Maybe it'll be like,
you know, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, where if you didn't
agree and you could exist as long as you didn't
involve yourself in certain you know, in politics or certain.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
That's nice, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
And I should say that there is a very explicitly
militaristic component of this movement too. But they talk about
spiritual warfare and there are people who are in this
movement who have training camps. They speak of the manifest
Sons of God, which is supposed to be an elite unit,
if you will, of God's army, that they are supposed
to be endowed with special powers when the time comes
(05:47):
to do battle. There very much is they will say,
a component of warfare in the natural. That's that's their
language they use.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
So let me get to a little bit of sort
of that potential conspiracy part of this. Right, So it
is about dismantling the institutions of secular government to clear
the way for the Kingdom of God. Right, yes, but
clearly to them the secular government doesn't include Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And what we have now?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
How is it democrats and the media became the Satanists?
Why it is only one part of the government become
the enemy and the other one not behind it? How
did it become like so tied to Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
Let's see, let's back up just a few notions. If
you're a believer in this life, human history, everything is
a great battle between God and Satan. And history is
biblical history, and time is biblical time, and Heaven is real,
and Hell is real, Satan is real, demons are real.
(06:46):
This is how people think. So the question becomes who
gets assigned to what? Who is satanic and who's demonic
and so on and so forth. So Trump comes along,
and obviously he's in the early days, if you remember,
he had a problem with evangelical voters.
Speaker 6 (07:04):
Foremost among the myriad Trump supporters put in an awkward
position by the release of that Access Hollywood tape. On Friday.
Are Republican evangelicals Christian conservatives who are being forced to
choose between voting as they almost always do for a
Republican candidate and on the other hand, seeming to condone
Donald Trump's screamingly impious behavior.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Which is what's going to story.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Going to be.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
Is Trump going to have the normal evangelical turnout or
does he lose a bunch of them.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
I think he's going to lose a lot of evangelical
women in the same way that he's going to lose
a lot of women overall. You know, the evangelical establishment,
we're supporting other candidates. Trump needed some component of these voters,
and basically he was introduced to this world. These were
the low propensity voters, if you will. These were people
(07:49):
that were sort of that hadn't quite been tapped into
by the Christian right, you know, when they're searching for
these low propensity voters. Low and behold, there are all
these churches, these charismatic Christian churches that haven't really been activated,
if you will, And they have the benefit of being
they're not just white. They're also Latino and black and brown,
(08:11):
and they're more diverse. So Trump hooks up with this woman,
Paula White, who's very much in this movement. She's an
apostle in the movement, and she opens the door to
this world.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And so the.
Speaker 7 (08:23):
Bigle says that Martha random meet him, but Mary sat still.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
She lost her praise.
Speaker 6 (08:29):
And when the enemy gets your praise, then he's got
your weapon, because your praise is a weapon that you
go to war with.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
Another figure in the movement, I think he considers himself
to be an apostle. Lance Walno, a very charismatic figure
in this movement. He writes a book casting Trump as
God's chaos candidate and develops this whole idea that Trump
is being used by God and he's a modern day Cyrus,
you know, the imperfect instrument, but who nonetheless is part
(08:59):
of God's plan.
Speaker 8 (09:01):
Christians building sodalities is what shifted America. Spannon's war room,
Charlie Kirk turning point our work that we did courage tour,
going to the five of the seven swing stats, having
raped well, he's one thousand signs, wonders and miracles of
the night. Daytime me talking to the remnants about election integrity.
(09:21):
We were able to purge one million fake votes out
of the system in America. That's how come you've got
your million popular vote. We eliminated the fake ones nobody
knows about. That was our job.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
And so this idea gets disseminated and eventually takes hold,
and pretty soon every kind of profit, big and small,
they're all buying into this idea.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
I also wanted to think of the conspiracy theory part of.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
It, and also the latent anti Semitism that's in it.
Why Hackabee is now the ambassador in Israel. He's close
to Pastor John Hagey, who I think.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
Is also a part of this.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
And Hagey is famous for saying that in two thousand
and six that God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina
because of homosexuality. Another part of this, and my understanding
of is that we need to support Israel, at least
the right wing politics of Israel, because it has to
rebuild the Temple and take back the West Bank in
(10:19):
order for the end times to come. And of course
the end times, and I've worked in Israel, and I
actually worked on a kibbutz very close to mcgido with
it and the final Battle of Armaged it's supposed to
happen is that, yeah, that God's army wins and the
Jews they either have to convert.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
Or they go to Hell.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
And I always have trouble with Israeli politicians hugging these
guys who know at the same time they think that
their whole purpose in history is to bring about the
end of the state of Israel and the end of
the Jewish people and.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
To send them all the hell.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
What's interesting to me is to see how Natanyahu and
his crowd was very much dealing with these people. And
as this movement has not been written about very much,
and it seemed as just I think for people who
aren't in it, they think it's just what, it's just
spiritual warfare demons. But net yaou takes it very seriously.
(11:18):
And these people have a show, which I've written about
before called Flashpoint. It's a streaming show, and net ya
You've probably never heard of it. Most people aren't in
this movement haven't heard of it. It's very popular. It's
like CNN for the apostles and prophets, and instead of guests,
they have profits come on and they talk about the
news and how that fits with various prophecies and whatever.
(11:40):
You know, and that often involves what's happening in Gaza,
and it's happening in Israel and nettyaw who's been on
there at least twice. If these people, if evangelical Christians
are an important political constituency in the world of right
more right wing Israeli politics, then like this is the
future of the evangelical world, arguably in the US.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
So this is a broad movement, and as far as
I can tell, there doesn't seem to be like a
leader behind it. If everybody can be a prophet, why
can't I say I'm a prophet and then say President
Biden was actually sent by God and Donald Trump is
the He's the airti Christ, which is I think you
can make a better argument on that.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
You could just say, hey, I'm a prophet. But you
also have to be recognized and have a following, and
people have to agree that, hey, Jerry's hitting them out
of the park here. So there's for example, a guy
again like these people are very powerful in this world,
but you may have never heard their names. A guy
named che An in California is a very important apostle
(12:43):
and has probably hundreds of churches under his spiritual authority,
and he has authority over these churches. It's a very
top down, not democratic structure. There's a guid named dutch Sheets.
He's the one who popularized the pine tree flag. This
is a white flag with the green pine tree that
says appealed to Heaven. That appeared January sixth at the insurrection.
(13:07):
But dutch Sheets has his own ministry. He's actually sort
of a prophet and an apostle, has hundreds of thousands
of followers, a minor sort of publishing empire. It's paradoxical.
Is so much about this thing as paradoxical. It's authoritarian
and yet it's decentralized at the same time.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I was just going to say, to what extent is
it a rural or regional phenomenon? Is it in cities
the place?
Speaker 5 (13:30):
It's everywhere. It's everywhere. Like the church that Elon Musk
spoke at. It's a big naar church in Harrisburg called
Life Center. There's a profit in Brooklyn. Joseph Mattera is
very important. You know, not everyone who follows this goes
to a church. A lot of them just follow these
profits online. But you'll find little storefront churches in rural areas.
(13:52):
You'll find big churches in cities. They're all over Texas.
You'll find old Baptist churches that maybe have been overtaken
by people who are embracing these ideas. Really, it's just
I've noticed them all over the place in my reporting.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Let's pause for a second. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Part of the conspiracy theory, part of this is that
some of the people and organizations who they pose by
the Naar, now they are controlled by Satanists, their demons.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
I may be wrong about this, but I feel like
Peter Wagner, he wrote a lot about spiritual warfare and
demons and stuff. And I've been to churches where like
the pastor will demon map the city because you know,
people this movement believe that demonic forces not only can
control people, but also territories. So like whole city may
(14:53):
be infested with demons.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Like their jersey.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I think we could all agree on that.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
Yeah, the Middle East, obviously, you know, any place is
not Christian, it's you know, demonic strongholded whatever territories. Washington,
d C.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
You know.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Roger Stone caught onto this lingo and was like, oh,
there's a demon portal over the White house and whatever,
and there's a whole thing in this world, you know, demonology,
And so I think that there's like higher level demons
and lower level demons, like I may just be as
a reporter working for a secular publication that questioned Trump
(15:30):
et cetera, et cetera in God's plan, Like I may
just be a dupe. I may just be my mind
may have been taken over by Satan. But other people
may be more devoted to the mission, you know what
I mean. So I think that there's gradations.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
So what I spend a lot of time in Afghanistan
and interrupt dealing with ISIS and ISIS is a very
clear answer to that. The answer is that you knowingly
stand against God. Whether you're controlled by a demon or not.
They don't get into that, but you knowingly stand against
what they believe is God's plan, and therefore you, your family,
(16:07):
anybody who stands with you can and should be killed
or at least suppressed. So I find what you're saying
very scary because we've seen it actually in a much
more further advanced and actually taking place in another area.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
One thing, and I haven't written about this, but I
find it very interesting that there are military people, high
Profileish military people who have embraced these ideas. Michael Flynn
military intelligence, Doug Meis military intelligence, Carol Boykin military intelligence.
(16:43):
Like I mean, is that just like, oh, well, you know,
there's a lot of religious beliefs, there's a lot of
military intelligence people and some of them believe this or
I don't know, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
That's a really good question because I wonder to what
extent these guys believe that when they're inside, and maybe
they did because it really goes against what they're doing
in their day to day work, because they work for
the government. You mentioned that preacher Lance Wallnow you know
he said you either have God or you've got a government. Well,
only one person could be supreme, So how do you
engage with that? How can you be in the US
government as a military officer and believe that it's just
(17:15):
people who believe different levels of things. I suppose, and
Mike Flynn has gotten more and more. I worked with
Mike Flinn. I know Mike Flynn fairly well where we
don't get at bred WUS anymore, but he seems like
he's gotten more and more radical. For I don't know
whether it's for true religious belief or for its political
or for its money. Who knows, But yeah, those things
don't go together. And so I would find out, like
(17:36):
I did not see that in our intelligence experience.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
So it's CIA. We just talk about various shades of gray.
There's very little black or white, and in the military,
because of their mission, it's different, and I think it
is black or white. That's always the question. Is it delusional?
Do they believe this stuff? Or are they grifters right
they're that are making money off of this or opportunists.
(18:01):
A while ago, there was a it was actually a
CIA guy who was pushed out of the agency who
started making these absurd claims that Halian satellites had stolen
the real results of the twenty twenty elections and that
people like like Lynn like just started parenting this. And
what's so crazy is to say that the real results
(18:22):
were stored in Frankfort in a CIA facility, and that
the Delta and the Seals were involved in a firefight
with CIA and Hillary Clinton was caught there and put
out a mar Bartanamo obey And as crazy as this gets,
Clarence Thomas's wife took this thing that hit some of
(18:44):
the people that you're talking about supporting it or elements
of it, and she wanted to overthrow the twenty twenty
election results.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
She got to Mark Meadows with this.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Who gave it to doj So you've got religion, you've
got conspiracy theories, and you've got people who should be rational.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
I've touched to so many people who believe this stuff,
and to them it's reality. To the true believers, it's
of course, they don't see it as conspiracy. They see
it as as reality. And it's just so deep in a.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Cult, whether there's a cult leader or not, you can't
question anything, right, That's sort of one of the things.
If you can, if you're in the Democratic Party, you
could say, well, I don't think Joe Biden did that
great job. You know, he did some good things and
he fucked up on some other things.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
And with Trump, you're either.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
All in or you're all in, right or with it. No,
you're either all in or you're all up. So to
what extent do you think this is getting into cult
territory where you're not allowed to question any of this.
You're either all in or you're all out.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
This is really basically an anti Enlightenment movement. Everything went
wrong when people started trusting their brain rationality.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
It's been all downhill since the fourteen hundreds.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
I just wortge, yeah, yeah, in a very real way.
And it's like they really think that was the beginning
of displacing God and replacing God with our own reason
and so on a really fundamental level, you can't really
trust your brain unless it is guided by God in
(20:15):
the Bible. But the other thing about this movement is
that because they embrace modern day apostles and prophets, they
have innovated, if you will, the idea that God is
speaking through prophets. Like now there's new stuff, there's new materials,
it's not just the Bible anymore. It's also that Dutch
(20:38):
Sheets had a dream about riding on horseback to the
Capitol on January sixth.
Speaker 9 (20:47):
This morning, December thirty first, I dreamed I was with
our prayer team and we were coming back from having
accomplished an assignment. We were leading tall, muscular horses by
their bridle reins. Our horses didn't appear to be tired,
but they were hot and sweaty. We had apparently been
(21:13):
running them hard. We found ourselves in a field and
could see out in front of us the US Capitol Building.
We mounted our horses and as we sat looking at
the building, we heard air sirens going off. As the
(21:33):
sirens were sounding, we saw a huge hand come down
from the sky and take hold of the dome of
the Capitol Building. With the fingers of the hand wrapped
around the dome, the thumb of the hand flicked the
dome open. When it was opened, a very thick black
(21:57):
smoke began rising up out of the building. We then
heard a cavalry bugle playing the signal to charge, and
we began moving toward the Capitol, not at a full gallop,
but at a steady, determined, fast trot. As we started
(22:19):
on the ground in front of us, written in white
letters for the words don't stop. That's the end of
the dream, Happy New Year.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Not need the Jesus guy anymore, right, because you've got
modern day profits.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
I mean, it's interesting. I don't really speak a lot
about Jesus, honestly, And what they do is they speak
a lot about the Old Testament a lot, and they
also have fresh words. I have a fresh dream today,
and the fresh dream is I had a vision that
Trump was going to take over Gaza. So there's this constant, hourly, daily,
(22:58):
weekly scroll of prophecies. That's where it starts to get
to be more about a person a personality. And then
that obviously coupled with you're not supposed to trust your mind.
There's an idea of submissions admission to God. If you
go to any of these churches, they'll often talk about
(23:19):
that it's very emotional. I'm sure you've been in charismatic
Christian churches and a lot of people have that these
churches are like that on steroids. Like the music is
really really loud. The ones that have the most money
they have these professional sound systems and lights and just
pounding and the music is mantra like and there's tears.
(23:39):
It's very free, oddly again like a paradox because you're
supposed to think a certain thing and yet it's very
physically free. So it feels good and there's like a
lot of feeling to it, you know, and a lot
of catharsists. But make no mistake, but you're supposed to
submit to this and submit to this idea and submit
(24:01):
to God. And what is God? God is these things
and et cetera.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's an interesting historical time because if you go back
into the nineteenth century, even late eighteenth century, but the
first grade Awakening in this country, I mean, the Puritans
came and they were very focused on rationality and learning,
formed Harvard University and these other type of things. And
then when the first great Awakening came is the personal
relationship to God and the beginning of the evangelical sort
of spirit in the United States. And so it almost
(24:26):
seems like there must be a schism in Christianity. This
can't be something that's supported really by the Catholic Church
or other parts of the Protestant Church. How is it
that this is gaining ground in those other and in
general people are moving away from religion.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
I've gotten emails from readers. A reader who's part of
a Lutheran church, and she said that it started as
a study group in the church and then it was
a Seven Mountains thing, and then pretty soon like these
ideas were starting to overtake the church. And it does
cause sometimes splits in churches. And these ideas you will
find them in many denominational churches. And yeah, and some
(25:02):
people are like, what is this? This is weird? I
think this is heretical. You know, it doesn't always go overwell,
but I think that it seems to be overtaking a
lot of denominational churches. There are people who have needs
who go there. Churches have soup kitchens and food pantries
and drug addiction programs and porn addiction programs, and people
(25:24):
find everything that they find in real churches. They find
help and guidance in a community.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
And so, putting your sociology in what need is this fulfilling?
It offers simplicity, I guess it offers you understand your
place in the world. It offers you a hero's journey.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
You know, you can be just like isis.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
You can be a soldier of God, or you could
be a sheep.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Farmer, or you know whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Jerry and I both lived in Muslim countries and we've
seen similar things happening there, whereas you know, if you're
in Indonesia, Afghanistan and Rock you know, twenty thirty forty
years ago they were not as conservative. Is this a
global thing that people are moving and moving more away
from secular society?
Speaker 5 (26:07):
What need is it fulfilling? I mean, I think that's
a fine question. Maybe it's just the need that any
religion fills. It's just that it's doing in this different way,
and it's more complete, like you said, because it does
give people a purpose. It's like, here are your marching orders.
It's not just Sunday, it's every day. It's seven mountains,
(26:27):
get with the program, figure out your purpose in life.
And their courses and seminars and trainings and everything. It's
twenty four to seven. And that's also what makes it
effective politically, because people are constantly organizing. It's not just
every four years, every two years. It's like this is
a constant movement. It's always happening, always going on.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
We'll be back in just a moment.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
In a natural part of the fracturing of our society
is more and more people become secular and their religion
is none. Those that still something within the needs of
faith that become more radical.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I'm assumed.
Speaker 5 (27:16):
I wrote about a woman who was in this movement,
and if you talk to her, she would say she
hates religion, she would say she hates church, and yet
she follows all these prophets. I think there's a sense
among the people who follow this thing that they're the
true everything else has screwed up Christianity. It has screwed up,
screwed it up.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
They're the t clergy.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Yeah, they've all divided and all these little arguments, so
you know, angels on pinheads and whatever like. These people
think that, oh, we're the real you know, we're open
to the Holy Spirit moving. It's very mystical. It's very
empowering really if you think about it, because they also believe,
you know, you can fight a war spiritual warfare, you're powerful.
(27:59):
And then look at January sixth. I mean, people really
missed this dimension of the insurrection, but there were people
outside in this movement doing spiritual warfare. Matthew Taylor's written
an excellent book about this. Dutch Sheets was traveling the
country rallying people after the twenty twenty election and preparing
(28:21):
people and visited the White House and people had different motivations,
but a lot of them thought that they were taking
the capital for God, for the kingdom. And what did
they do when they got to the rotunda? These people
they prayed, they prayed, some of them did, and they
had the flags and it's.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Cool though it's if the democratic right, it's against the constitution.
They don't want separtial church and state. They don't support
democratic values. Only the people of God right get to them, right.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
They want a theocracy.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
At the end of the day, they would say democracy
cannot flourish without a Christian conscience. Christianity has to flourish,
but people aren't able to govern themselves without this conscience,
Christian conscience.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
That's what communism was.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It was like everybody, as long as you follow Lenin's dictates,
you can like disagree inside.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
But at the end of there was.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
A book by Jack So that JD. Vance endorsed that
describes their political opponents as unhumans and that they must
be crushed on humans must be crushed. Is that a
book that spreads in this group.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
Well, I mentioned that I mentioned that book in the
in the story because to me, it was an example
of how the Seven Mountains idea and this idea of
overturning this liberal order, how far that idea has seemed.
He didn't refer to the Seven Mountains, but there was
(29:45):
a part in the book where he essentially was referring
to the Seven Mountains.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
That's very fascist, right, making the other subhuman. That was
part of Nazi ideology. And this also brings us to
this guy Beattie who's now at State Department, senior at
the State Department, whose writings have come out recently where
he said that only good people, smart people should be
allowed to have children, right and low iq trash should
(30:10):
not have There should be eugenics, they should be youth
to them. But he also brings it in as basically
Christians need to like have kids white Christians. And this
is a guy who's now sitting in the State Department
and mirroring this thing that the world is filled with
unhumans and we're not worthy of basic rights to have
families or to speak out.
Speaker 5 (30:32):
This thing gets conflated with what has been, i think
personally rather vaguely called Christian nationalism, which I think doesn't
really do justice to the depth of what this movement
is all about. And it's worth just noting briefly that
Christian nationalism would say, oh, the founding fathers actually were Christian,
(30:52):
and they point to all this evidence so to speak,
of why our nation was founded as a Christian nation.
These people, again, the more serious thinkers, think that the
founding fathers screwed it up, actually, and that the real
origins go back to William Penn in Pennsylvania, and there's
(31:14):
this whole story about William Penn who came over and
God gave him a vision and the US was the
seceed of a nation and that he had a covenant
with God. And I mean, there's a whole different origin story,
is what I'm saying with this movement, and has to
do with Native Americans. Their whole concept of what gave
(31:34):
rise to this country is different than like your more
typical sort of sentimental Christian nationalism stuff. So they would
say that the Washington Monument is a pagan symbol and
Jefferson messed it up and et cetera.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
And if they've decided that the rest of us are
devils or Satan's, I don't know how you push back
against that. And I worry that you know that that
Trump people know that they need this support, and they
clearly believe some of these things that Jerry and I
know to not be true about a deep state and
then working against Christians and working against the president and
all these types of things. And you can see by
(32:11):
some of the actions recently things that you might have
thought were just popular politician stuff where you create enemies
to win power. They're taking action that suggests that they
believed some of these things. Firing all those FBI people
destroying the state, are destroying USAID, destroying the CIA, these
type of things. And so this is really an important
(32:31):
issue to understand because it's something we're gonna have to
come to terms with.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
They are serious about their project. I can't say I
completely understand. There seems to be this sort of union
between some libertarian thinkers and this movement. And I don't
know if it's a temporary alliance of convenience because they
both wish to tear down the state in a way.
(32:56):
But you know, I thought it was very interesting that
must Elon Musk, of all the places he could go,
he went to an nar type church in Harrisburg. I
don't know, maybe it was just a venue. But they
call Peter Thiel a lot people in this movement, So
I don't know, that's a whole other dimension that has
(33:16):
yet to be explored. I was, I'll mention one thing.
I was at Life Center right after the election. They
had an apostle speaking there. He was a guest actually,
and the mood was obviously, you know, very celebratory. They
really saw this as something that they had brought about
through their voting but also through prayer. And so it was.
That was the mood up until one point where the speaker,
(33:38):
found seemingly out of the blue, started talking about immigration,
and he said, could it be that all these people
coming across the border are actually the harvest?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
You know?
Speaker 5 (33:48):
Are they part of God's harvest? Is God is sending
them here to us rather than sending us out into
the world. And he didn't stay on it very long,
but it sounded like a little bit of dissent, perhaps
from the Trump agenda, and I thought that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Well, I'd like to say, Stephanie, I thank you for
being with us, and it's really interesting stuff, but it
doesn't lead me warm and fuzzy.
Speaker 7 (34:17):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Ceipher,
and Jonathan Stern.
Speaker 4 (34:24):
The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 7 (34:27):
Mission Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable
Pictures for iHeart Podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Adam Davidson
John Sipher
Jerry O'Shea
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.