November 14, 2025 • 41 mins
A prayer circle in the Oval Office makes for a striking photo, but the real story sits behind the lens: how a network of independent charismatic leaders became power brokers and why that shift matters for democracy. In this episode we sit down with Dr. Matthew D. Taylor, a renowned religious scholar and author, who helps map out some recent American history—from Latter Rain revivals, to the New Apostolic Reformation, and prime-time policy fueled by fringe prophecy. Along the way, we draw a clear line between everyday “God bless America” civil religion and a harder creed Dr. Taylor calls, "Christian supremacy"—the claim that Christians are entitled to rule.
Taylor explains how spiritual warfare language migrated from church pulpits to campaign rallies, recasting opponents as demonic and compromise as defeat. That shift, he argues, turned elections into exorcisms and normalized a revolutionary posture that helped fuel January 6 and continues to shape rhetoric and policy. We also explore why this moment emerged now: the global surge of independent charismatics, the post-1990s slide in Christian identification, and the strongman bargain many believers made after cultural defeats like the Obergefell decision.
Grounded in history and attentive to faith, the conversation doesn’t call for withdrawal from public life. Instead, we make the case for a noncoercive Christian presence that seeks persuasion over domination and protects the rights of those who disagree. Whether you’re evangelical, exvangelical, or simply curious about the intersection of religion and power, this episode offers a clear framework to understand the stakes—and the alternatives.
If you'd like to learn more from Dr. Matthew D. Taylor you can purchase his book, The Violent Take It By Force, and find him online and on social media.
And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Stiller (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Evangelical Three Sixty.
I'm your host, Brian Stiller.
In recent years, we have seenChristian pastors and
evangelists gather around the USPresident Donald Trump or make
so-called prophetic predictionsregarding his calling.
Who are these people prayingwith and praising President
(00:33):
Trump?
The media calls themevangelicals.
Now that's the stream ofChristianity with which I
identify and has shaped my lastsixty years of ministry.
So, as you might guess, Ibecome quite interested when
evangelical Christians offersuch public support for a man
who has slashed U.S.
humanitarian aid and refugeeprograms, pardon people who
(00:56):
rioted at the U.S.
Capitol, and anger the peopleof my home country, Canada, as
no American has done in mylifetime.
Who were these peoplesupporting Donald Trump?
What ideology is driving them?
Matt Taylor has written a bookdescribing their ideas, what
(01:16):
they intend to do, and thedownsides of their influence.
My interest in having MattTaylor on Evangelical 360 is
that I want to encourage a deep,open conversation about issues
facing us today, especiallythose that affect the
evangelical community so deeply.
You may not agree with Matt'sanalysis and his political
(01:40):
opinions may rub you the wrongway, but I hope you will listen
to him closely.
I have another particularreason for interest in the
story.
One of the primary historicalinfluences shaping many of the
professing Christian leadersaround John Donald Trump dates
back to my boyhood days in theCanadian province of
(02:04):
Saskatchewan.
My father, as bishop, presidingover the Pentecostal churches
in Saskatchewan back in 1948,faced problems with a movement
that came to be widelyunderstood as heresy.
Matt Taylor traces the pathfrom that group to the so-called
(02:25):
Christian nationalistssupporting Donald Trump 75 years
later.
So, whatever your opinion, Ithink you'll find the discussion
fascinating andthought-provoking.
And thanks for being a part ofthis podcast.
As you listen, please considersharing this episode with a
(02:46):
friend.
And if you haven't done soalready, please hit the
subscribe button.
You can also join theconversation on YouTube in the
comments below.
Now to my guest, Matt Taylor.
Matthew Taylor, so wonderful tohave you on Evangelical 360
today.
Matthew D. Taylor (03:05):
Thank you for having me, Brian.
Brian Stiller (03:07):
Matt, I'm sure most of us have seen this
picture of Paula Taylor andother people surrounding the
president of the U.S.
praying for him in specialkinds of uh prophetic ways.
But this is a group that yousay is threatening the democracy
(03:28):
of the U.S.
Why do you come to that fairlystrong comment and analysis?
Matthew D. Taylor (03:36):
I don't come to it lightly.
I have studied these folks forthe last four years or so, have
been tracking them very closely.
I have really made it my taskto study the religious leaders
who surround Donald Trump andwho advise him, who lobby him
for their policies.
And it is not a mainstreamgroup, as most people would
(03:57):
define mainstream.
I mean, Paula White, who youmentioned, Paula White Kane
sometimes goes by, is a veryintegral part of the both the
first Trump administration andthe second Trump administration.
But she has gathered a group ofChristian leaders around Donald
Trump that I would call fromthe fringe historically, within
(04:20):
even within evangelicalism.
I'm I I grew up evangelical.
I grew up within Americanevangelicalism to the point
where we would have even calledourselves fundamentalists in in
my youth, right?
Because that term was still inuse by a lot of folks.
I I don't label allevangelicals by any measure as
extreme or as far right orsomething like that.
(04:41):
But the leaders who havesurrounded Trump, the Christian
leaders, in the same way thatDonald Trump has remade the
Republican Party in the U.S.
and brought in a lot of figureslike Steve Bannon or Stephen
Miller, who would have been moremarginal figures, would have
been seen as kind of outlierswithin the broader conservative
coalition in the U.S., but madethem the center now of the
(05:05):
party.
And many of the mainstreamleaders, the people that you or
I would have looked to to speakfor the Republican Party a
decade ago, many of themwouldn't even call themselves
Republican anymore.
They've been forced out of theparty, forced out of politics.
A similar dynamic has playedout in the evangelical advisors
who surround Donald Trump.
(05:25):
Many of these figures would nothave been counted within the
mainstream of the religiousright, even of the 1980s and
1990s.
But now they are at the centerof power and are driving the
action, driving the agendaaround religion in the new
administration.
Brian Stiller (05:41):
Let's identify this group that has consolidated
its support around theadministration.
Who are they?
What do they constitute as areligious community?
Matthew D. Taylor (05:58):
Yeah, so there are different layers of
advisors and leaders aroundTrump.
At the broadest, it's it'sevangelicals, right?
And there's there's a there's aspectrum of evangelicals
through there.
The vast majority of thoseevangelicals are what we would
call independent charismatics.
And independent here is justbeing used as a synonym for
non-denominational.
(06:18):
So these are, think of them askind of the non-denominational
wing of Pentecostalism, right?
In the US, at least, mostPentecostals belong to
denominations.
These folks, some of them comefrom Pentecostal denominations,
but most of them are coming outof these megachurches,
non-denominational networks thatare charismatic in their
spirituality.
And even within that segment,there's there's a subset of
(06:40):
Trump's advisors who comedirectly out of a network called
the New Apostolic Reformationthat has been very, very
influential in that independentcharismatic space, not only in
the US, but around the globe.
And the New ApostolicReformation is the subject of my
book, and they are the onesthat I am labeling a threat to
American democracy.
And we can get into all theirhistory and everything, but this
(07:02):
is a leadership network thatwas formed starting in the 1990s
and into the 2000 around aseminary professor named C.
Peter Wagner.
And they have an agenda forChristian domination of society,
for Christians to take controlof society.
And that is on its faceanti-democratic.
(07:24):
And those leaders, many of thekey advisors around Trump,
people who were very close tothose key advisors were central
to the orchestration andgalvanization of Christians
being there on January 6th andChristians participating in the
attack on American democracythat happened right after the
2020 election.
Brian Stiller (07:45):
So these aren't just people who would hope and
wish that America was moreChristian.
These are people who you sayare have actually moved into the
centers of power and using thelevers of political power to
assert what they believe isChristian, our Christian values
(08:05):
and the Christian way of life.
Matthew D. Taylor (08:08):
Yeah, let me define my terms here because I
want to be really clear.
We talk a lot about Christiannationalism, and I actually find
that term to be mostlyunhelpful in describing what
we're talking about here.
Christian nationalism, in itssimplest form, is just a version
of religious nationalism,right?
The idea of kind of blending anational or political identity
(08:30):
with a religious identity.
And within the US, there's abroad spectrum of people that we
would call Christiannationalists.
I mean, I grew up in a churchthat was arguably Christian
nationalists.
We had a Christian flag and anAmerican flag at the front of
our church on the chancel,right?
That was a blending of areligious identity and a kind of
(08:51):
statist identity, right?
My church was not a gravethreat to American democracy,
right?
That is a thread of Americanpolitics that has always been
there.
It's a very, very commonimpulse around the world in the
U.S.
to try to merge and holdtogether one's sense of religion
and one's sense of nationalidentity.
So there's a lot of this likesoft Christian nationalism
that's out there, kind of a Godbless America style of Christian
(09:13):
nationalism in the U.S., that Idon't think is a threat to our
democracy.
Now, when we're talking aboutthe leaders around Trump and the
Christian leaders who havebanded together around him, who
are his most ardent supporters,who were keenly involved in
January 6th, we're talking aboutthe more extreme end of this
Christian nationalist spectrum,what I would call Christian
supremacy.
(09:34):
And Christian supremacy is thebelief that Christians are
entitled to power over otherpeople, that Christians are
superior, and that Christiansare entitled to a premier form
of citizenship by divine decree,by, or by theology, right?
By their innate superiority.
And that characterizes a lotboth the New Apostolic
(09:56):
Reformation and a lot of theleaders who have surrounded
Donald Trump.
And their agenda is not merelyto have the United States be a
more Christian nation.
I can totally understand whymany Christians want the U.S.
to be a more Christian nation.
Many Muslims want the U.S.
to be a more Islamic nation.
Many Jews want it to be a moreJewish nation, many secular
people want it to be a moresecular nation.
There's nothing innately wrongwith wanting to influence
(10:18):
society.
And by definition, in ademocracy, all groups that are
participating politically aretrying to influence society.
But it's where the question is: are they still playing within (10:26):
undefined
the rules of democracy to do it?
Right.
And if we think back to thereligious right in the United
States of the 1980s and 1990s,the Jerry Falwell, James Dobson,
Pat Robertson era, theirapproach to participation in
trying to Christianize Americavery much fit within the rules
(10:49):
of democracy, right?
They would say, we're the moralmajority.
We're trying to use leverage,the leverage of Christian
demographic power in order tobring about the more Christian
society that we desire.
That's fine within the rules ofa democracy.
As long as you're kind ofplaying by the agreed-upon
consensus rules within yourdemocracy, great.
(11:10):
When we start talking about thefar right, we're talking about
where we start to move outsideof the boundaries of liberal
democracy, liberal with alowercase L, right?
Democracy that protects therights of the citizens.
Where we start moving intothese more far-right circles,
these more Christian supremacistcircles, you start to have this
idea of a top-down control ofsociety, of a revolution within
(11:34):
society to remake it moreChristian.
And if democracy works tofurther those ends, great.
But these folks understand thisas a divine mandate for
Christians to take control oversociety.
And they see that as divinedecree, and the God's will is
more important than the will ofthe people.
And that was what was thetheological context that gave us
(11:58):
January 6th, and I would arguehas really set up this current
confrontation in Americanpolitics between these more
democratic elements and theseanti-democratic, illiberal
elements that are making greatgains within American politics
today.
Brian Stiller (12:16):
What kinds of things are they promoting that,
in your view, threatensdemocracy in your country?
Matthew D. Taylor (12:24):
So at the heart of it, and this is an idea
that comes out of these newapostolic reformation networks,
is an idea called the SevenMountain Mandate.
And the Seven Mountain Mandateis a form of dominion theology.
Dominion theology comes out ofpeople's interpretations of the
Bible, especially actuallyoriginates more in Calvinist
circles, but has made its wayinto these charismatic circles.
(12:44):
And dominion theology is aninterpretation of the Bible that
says that Christians shouldhave dominion over every society
that they live in, that God hasordained for Christians to have
dominion.
And how this plays out withinthe Seven Mountain mandate is
they divide society up intoseven different areas of
authority (13:04):
family, education, government, arts and
entertainment, media, businessand commerce.
In every one of those, theyimagine them as a mountain.
And the top of that mountain,they say, and this is this is
framed as a prophecy, as a as adirect revelation from God, they
would say, at the top of thatmountain, and every society is
(13:25):
either controlled by Satan andthe demons or by God and the
Christians.
And there's no one between.
And so Christians need to takeover the Seven Mountains.
They need to rise to positionsof influence or grab hold of
leaders who are at the tops ofthose mountains and coercively
or evangelistically use thosepeople in order to secure
(13:46):
Christian power in society, inorder for Christian influence to
flow down from the top ofsociety.
Now, if you think back to thereligious right of old, right,
their idea was a grassroots, abottom-up mobilization in
society, that again is withinthe rules and boundaries of
democracy, right?
When you're talking about atop-down takeover of society, so
(14:07):
that Christians take overpositions of power and then
institute their will from thetop, that's a vanguard model of
social change.
That's a revolutionary model ofsocial change.
And that, I would argue, isreally at the heart of the
current crisis that we're in.
Now, that's not the onlyelement of this anti-democratic
movement.
One of the other realmanifestations of this, and it's
(14:28):
kind of embedded with the SevenMountains idea, is this
hyper-aggressive style ofcultural spiritual warfare.
What in the New ApostolicReformation circles is referred
to as strategic level spiritualwarfare.
Now, many, many Christiansbelieve in spiritual warfare.
I grew up doing practicing andbelieving in spiritual warfare.
That is a very, very commonthing, common among
(14:49):
evangelicals, common among manyCatholics, right?
Not a grave threat todemocracy.
When you're praying againstdemons that are attacking you or
attacking your community,right?
That is not an attack ondemocracy.
It's the taking, though, ofthese kind of frameworks of
spiritual warfare, transposingthem onto national politics and
saying what nationally theDemocrats are aligned with
(15:13):
demons, or the liberals or theleft is demonic.
And we, the righteous ones,need to drive out those demons
from our society in order toclaim society for Christ, right?
This is the rhetoric that wehear all over the place: this
angelic demonic pairing, or thiswe're on the side of God,
they're on the side of Satan.
And when you insert that kindof a frame onto democratic
(15:37):
politics, it both polarizessociety and makes compromise and
cooperation and coordination,all these things that are
crucial for a democracy tofunction, makes those
impossible.
Because if the other side isdemonic, you cannot compromise
with demons.
If the other side is satanic,well, Satan is made to be driven
out, not to be compromisedwith.
And so you are labeling groupsof people, you're literally
(15:59):
demonizing your politicalopponents and saying that
there's no possibility ofcoordination or compromise, and
we can't even listen to thosepeople.
That is a recipe for politicalviolence and for authoritarian
behavior.
Brian Stiller (16:15):
The title of your book is The Violent Take It by
Force.
Describe for us what you think,what you mean by take it.
What kinds of things do you seecoming or in play even now as
we speak that are in violationof democracy, the assumptions of
democracy, and are part of whatyou see as this takeover?
Matthew D. Taylor (16:39):
The passage we're re I'm referring to there
is Matthew 11, 12.
Jesus is speaking about theimpending death of his cousin
John the Baptist, and is kind ofreflecting on the death or the
trial at that point of John theBaptist and says, Since the days
of John the Baptist, whichmeans the days that he's
speaking in right at thatmoment, the kingdom of heaven
(17:01):
suffers violence, and theviolent take it by force.
And many Christians, mostChristians, I'd argue,
throughout history, haveunderstood that as descriptive,
that the life of following Jesusentails suffering, and that the
violent forces in the worldthat feel threatened by the
non-coercive and non-violentkingdom of God will react with
(17:21):
violence.
And that Jesus is pointing tohis cousin and saying, look, the
righteous ones will sufferviolence, right?
But within these new apostolicreformation and independent
charismatic spiritual warfarecircles, that verse is taken as
a mandate to do spiritualviolence.
That Christians are made to beviolent spiritually in order to
(17:44):
take back the kingdom of God byforce, to take the kingdom of
heaven by force.
And this verse was everywherein reference to January 6th on
social media and the commentaryof many of the participants,
because they saw this as aspiritual battle.
Now, January 6th, I wouldargue, was the first big
outcropping of this that we'veseen in American politics, but
it was by no means the last.
(18:05):
I mean, this rhetoric ofspiritual warfare, of prophecy,
of seven mountains, of Christianempowerment and Christian
control has only been amplifiedsince January 6th.
And in the new administration,there is now a quote,
anti-Christian bias task forcethat is being empowered and
ramped up to go after anyone whois critical of Christianity,
(18:28):
particularly the styles ofChristianity that the Trump
administration wants to advance.
And I'll just note 62% of theU.S.
population is Christian.
There is no widespreadanti-Christian bias in the U.S.
Christians are the majority.
Christians have a lot of power.
In fact, Christians,conservative Christians even,
control the White House, ourexecutive branch, both houses of
(18:52):
our Congress, our legislativebranch, and a supermajority on
our Supreme Court, our judicialbranch.
So in what sense and where areChristians being so widely
persecuted in the United Stateswhen we start to see religious
majorities claim that they arepersecuted?
That is the pretext, that isthe predicate for them to start
(19:15):
persecuting other people.
And this is what we're seeingthrough the new policies that
are being put in place.
I mean, just yesterday wewatched as Pete Hegseth, our
Secretary of Defense and DonaldTrump gathered the U.S.
generals and gave them alecture all about the ways that
they need to be more upstandingand conform more to Trump's
(19:35):
agenda.
And part of that, historically,if you look at how Pete Hegseth
has been doing this within thePentagon within our military,
has been pushing Christianworship services, messaging
Christian doctrine.
I mean, some of the videos thathave been put out by our
military and by our Departmentof Homeland Security in recent
(19:57):
weeks involve pairing togethermilitary enforcement and police
enforcement, particularlyagainst migrants and foreigners,
with Bible verses and quotesfrom Jesus.
Pete Hegseth released a videojust this week of him praying
the Lord's Prayer and overimages of the US military
attacking different targets,right?
(20:19):
And so even as you're prayingfor God's kingdom to come and
God's will to be done, it isbeing projected alongside
American military force andviolence.
And so right now, what we'reseeing across our government is
this ramping up of a kind ofprotective authoritarian state
(20:41):
that protects people who are onthe inside, who are part of the
MAGA coalition, and labels thoseon the outside as threats.
And if you look around theworld, what happens when those
types of conditions take placein a democracy?
It's not going to remain ademocracy for very long under
those conditions.
Brian Stiller (21:01):
Matt, this didn't come out of nothing.
It didn't happen anywhere.
It happened someplace.
There was a vacuum, there wasan opportunity, there was a
need, there was a reaction.
What created the environmentthat allowed this to assert
itself?
Matthew D. Taylor (21:20):
So I think let's think on a global and a
national stage.
So on a global stage, I thinkwe have to think about the
growth of this independentcharismatic sector of
Christianity.
So when we're talking about,again, we're talking about
non-denominational andcharismatic, right?
That the juncture of those twoqualities.
The Center for the Study ofWorld Christianity at Gordon
(21:41):
Conwell Seminary estimates thatin 1970, there were 44 million
independent charismatics in theworld.
Worldwide, 44 million.
By 2020, their estimate was upto 312 million.
So we're talking about asegment of global Christianity
that is roughly doubling in sizeover 20 years right now.
(22:02):
Fastest growth we have seen ofa religious movement or a
religious tendency, maybe inglobal history.
And this is it's not just thatit's growing in terms of
converts, it's that other peopleare leaving their
denominational ornon-charismatic identities to
join up.
This is the growth edge ofglobal Christianity.
This is the exciting space,right?
(22:23):
And Peter Wagner, who was aseminary professor, an expert in
church growth at FullerTheological Seminary in
Pasadena, California in the1970s and 1980s, was watching
and observing this.
And he was really ahead of histime in recognizing that this
was the growth trend of futureglobal Christianity.
And he became very invested inthat and started to hang out
(22:45):
with leaders within that space,started to cultivate
relationships with leaders, andultimately adopted those frames
himself.
And that was the space in whichhe helped coin this phrase new
apostolic reformation in themid-1990s, as what he was trying
to describe a burgeoningmovement.
He thought of it on the orderof the formation of a new branch
(23:06):
of Christianity, a reformationon the level of the Protestant
Reformation, but this time ledby apostles and prophets.
This is a very, very importantelement of their theology, is
they believe that theythemselves, Peter Wagner called
himself an apostle, and theybelieved that they, that in the
late 20th century, God wascommissioning new apostles and
(23:27):
prophets to lead the church, totransform the church.
Sometimes goes under theheading of what's called
fivefold ministry out ofEphesians chapter four.
And they would talk about weare the new apostles and
prophets who will lead theglobal church into a global
revival and reformation andtransformation of society.
And they became politicallyradicalized around these Seven
(23:48):
Mountains ideas, but they werestill on the margins of American
Christianity until Donald Trumpcame on the scene.
And Paula White, who has beenDonald Trump's religious advisor
and personal pastor for morethan 20 years now, she helped
kind of broker this relationshipbetween Trump and many of these
independent charismatic leaderswho, again, were on the fringes
(24:10):
of American Christianity, butwere more aligned with the Trump
and MAGA coalition even fromthe start.
And that was the group that hasnow become this kind of inside
track group of advisors who arecentral to everything that we're
seeing within the both of theTrump administrations.
Brian Stiller (24:26):
But Matt, what in the American culture uh was
lacking or was uh uh was in itsface, something either allowed
it or created impetus for thisto take over, to, or at least to
(24:48):
show the kind of influence thatis manifesting today.
Matthew D. Taylor (24:52):
Yes, definitely.
So let me again give give kindof a big picture context and
then the political context,right?
So big picture context, upuntil 1990, 90% or more of
Americans in every survey thatyou can find are identifying as
Christian, right?
So when the moral majority orthe religious right of the 1980s
and 1990s is claiming we justneed to mobilize Christians and
(25:15):
get them voting, and then we canchange American politics,
that's not a crazy claim.
If 90% of the country isidentifying as Christian, you
really just need to mobilizeyour portion of that and you can
exercise great power.
As I said, today it's down toaround 62%.
So we've seen over the last 40years or so a rapid
secularization in the Americanpopulace.
(25:36):
That's been it has not been asecularization imposed from the
top down.
It has been people leavingChristian identity.
But that is experienced withinChristian communities as a real
threat to their identity.
I mean, it's it's people'schildren who are leaving the
church, right?
That's how this is happening.
And so people experience thisas a lessening of Christian
(25:57):
power, a degradation ofChristian kind of dominance in
society.
And so you got that on the oneside, this kind of demographic
shift that's constantlydeclining since 1990.
And then you have thisreligious right infrastructure
that had been built up in the1980s and 1990s.
This is what Jerry Falwell andPat Robertson and these folks
were doing.
And this whole lobbying wingthat was very, very involved in
(26:21):
Republican politics in theUnited States.
And they had done a lot in the30, 40 years that they were
doing.
But then in the summer of 2015,actually, just about a week
after Donald Trump entered thepresidential race to be to join
the Republican primary in thesummer of 2015, the U.S.
Supreme Court handed down theObergefell gay marriage decision
(26:43):
that legalized gay marriage allacross all 50 states in the
United States.
And this was something thereligious right had campaigned
against for decades.
And suddenly the Supreme Courtthat they had invested all this
time and energy in getting theirpeople on were the ones who
pushed it through.
And I think that wasexperienced as a real low point
for many of these religiousright leaders and for their
(27:04):
followers.
And it was this moment ofalmost existential crisis that
they had spent so much andinvested so much and spent so
many years trying to push theiragenda and it wasn't working.
And I think it's notcoincidental that it was right
at that time that evangelicals,both at the grassroots level and
through these independentcharismatic leaders, all banded
(27:25):
together around Donald Trumpbecause the rationale was he may
not be a godly man.
He may not even be a Christian,but he's a strong man.
He's a strong leader.
He will be a bully on ourbehalf, he will hurt our
enemies, and he will protect us.
And this has always been thebargain between religious
communities and authoritariansis they might not conform to all
(27:49):
of the scruples, all of themorality that we hold, but they
will protect us.
And that's the mentality that Ithink has really driven this
merger of very conservative andeven far-right Christianity and
Donald Trump in the UnitedStates.
And that is what has createdthe base that the hardline base
of support that he has withAmerican Christians.
Brian Stiller (28:13):
Matt, one of my interests in your book was a
group that you referred tocalled Latter Rain.
This started in my own backyardin Saskatchewan.
My father was a pastor, and in1948, after the latter rain had
was forced out of Bethel BibleInstitute in Saskatoon and went
(28:37):
to North Mattelford and calledand developed what's called the
Sharon Group.
My dad was electedsuperintendent, which is really
bishop of the province.
We moved to Saskatoon and hebecame president of Bethel Bible
Institute, where the LatterRain had actually formed and
then for a number of reasons wasforced out.
(28:58):
So I'm in I'm intrigued by thelinkage between the NAR that
you've described and the groupthat are surrounding the
president and their vision thatgoes back to a view that was
that percolated and uh came toexistence within within my old
life and personal history.
(29:19):
Now, what what was latter rainand how do you connect the two?
Matthew D. Taylor (29:25):
Yeah, great question.
And and I I find your own yourown personal journey here
fascinating because I I'veinterviewed a number of folks
who have kind of similarintersections with latter rain
early on.
So I think we have to remember,right, that Pentecostalism as a
movement emerges at the verybeginning of the 20th century,
right?
Uh the Azusa Street Revival inLos Angeles.
(29:46):
I mean, there's there's anumber of these revivals all
around the globe, really, in thefirst decade of the 20th
century.
And but by the 1940s, right,the inner all this energy,
excitement in Pentecostalism,the sense of revival, well.
You're really 40 years into themovement.
And there's a segment within itthat says, we need to renew
Pentecostalism.
(30:07):
We need a, we need a newrevival.
We need a new outpouring of thespirit.
And many of them get excitedabout this latter rain kind of
idea.
And the latter rain is areference to the rain patterns,
the weather patterns in Israel,right?
And the sense of if the day ofPentecost or maybe the rise of
Pentecostalism was the formerrains, the beginning of things.
Now in the latter rain is asense of an end times outpouring
(30:30):
of the Holy Spirit.
And so as you said, these folksbegin in Canada and begin kind
of this idea of we are therenewing generation.
We are the group.
And the that they sometimesrefer to themselves even as the
new order of the latter reign.
And these ideas, because ofthese global Pentecostal
networks, these ideas spreadaround the globe.
(30:51):
The Latter Rain wereinfluential in New Zealand and
Australia.
They were influential in China.
They were influential in theUnited States.
But the one of the core ideasof this Latter Reign renewal and
revival movement that most ofthe Pentecostal denominations
utterly rejected, right?
And we should be clear aboutthat, right?
The Pentecostal denominationslook at this Latter Rain stuff
(31:12):
and say, oh, uh oh, no, no,they're going too far.
But that's why they moved intothese more independent networks,
into these spaces that are notregulated by denominations.
But one of the core ideas ofthe Latter reign was this idea
of fivefold ministry, focusedespecially on Ephesians chapter
four.
Um, right, and in Ephesiansfour, the author of Ephesians
lists five different ministrygifts that Jesus gives to the
church upon his ascension: apostles, prophets, pastors, (31:36):
undefined
teachers, and evangelists.
And the Latter reign folks arelooking at that and say, hey,
well, we've got pastors,teachers, and evangelists, but
we don't have apostles andprophets.
We need these offices ofapostles and prophets.
And they believe, began tobelieve that they were receiving
prophecies themselves about therenewal of the apostles and
(31:57):
prophets in the life of thechurch.
And so these Latter Rain ideas,they're they're they kind of
spread out into these diffusenon-denominational networks and
are being carried by many peopleand reflected upon and
percolating and continuing inthese spaces.
But it often is happening offthe charts, right?
This is not happening withinmore institutional and
denominational bodies.
This is happening out in thehinterlands of American
(32:20):
evangelicalism.
But these ideas are verypopular and are around for 40 or
so years until Peter Wagner andsome of these other folks start
picking them up and decidingthey're really going to enact
them through the New ApostolicReformation.
That is the baseline out ofwhich these NAR networks grow.
Now, I want to be very clear: the New Apostolic Reformation is (32:37):
undefined
a particular set of theseapostolic and prophetic
networks.
There are many, manycharismatic Christians around
the globe who believe in some ofthese latter reign ideas and
are downstream of the Latterreign, who are not necessarily
on board with this whole NARprogram, right?
That was Peter Wagner's versionof it that emerges in the 1990s
(32:58):
and early 2000s.
But these apostolic andprophetic networks that are all
downstream of the Latter reign,Paula Wycane herself is very
influenced by these apostolicand prophetic ideas.
Many churches around the globeare influenced by these
apostolic and prophetic ideas.
And built into that, right, ifthese apostles and prophets,
(33:19):
right, and think about the roleof the apostles and the prophets
in the early church, right?
If you have offices of apostleand prophet that obviate the
need for bishops and supersedethe authority of pastors, you
are installing an echelon ofpersonal leadership built around
(33:39):
these personalities of theapostles and prophets that can
claim that they hear directlyfrom God, can claim that they
don't need any bureaucraticchecks or committees to help
guide them.
They don't need denominations,and they are just empowered to
lead the church.
And you can imagine what typesof personalities would gravitate
(34:01):
towards that kind of a role andthat kind of leadership.
Those are exactly the kinds ofpersonalities that you find in
these networks around PeterWagner, and we're including
Peter Wagner himself.
And it's it tends to be thesemore authoritarian type
characters, the people who don'twant accountability, the people
who feel a sense of kind ofcharismatic gifting that says
(34:23):
that they should be inleadership over others, right?
And so you get this migrationof all of these entrepreneurial
and very skilled and ambitiousleaders around first C.
Peter Wagner, and they get kindof radicalized and mentored
around him.
Almost everyone who joins theseNAR networks, and there's
hundreds of leaders around theglobe who do join these NAR
(34:44):
networks under Peter Wagner,almost all of them identify as
either apostles or prophets orboth.
And so they they are claiming alevel of authority over their
fellow Christians that isvirtually unprecedented unless
you go back to the era of theearly church, and I'd argue even
there they are severelymisinterpreting the early
apostles and prophets too.
Brian Stiller (35:03):
Okay, that's very helpful analysis.
Where do we go from here?
So I'm I'm part of a globalevangelical community.
Uh and when I look at at yourcountry and the evangelical
community in its various forms,what's the next step?
What do people do who want todisentangle politics from their
(35:32):
expression of faith?
Uh do you have any suggestions?
Matthew D. Taylor (35:38):
First of all, I'm I'm not sure that the goal
should be to disentanglepolitics from our expressions of
faith.
If we're thinking in thebroadest sense of what politics
means, right?
Politics is how we talk aboutpower in relationship with each
other, how we talk about the howwe have community together.
Well, politics is built intothat.
And and of course, the Bibleand Jesus have a lot to say
(36:02):
about politics.
So I don't think the goal isfor Christians to not
participate in politics or forChristians to eschew politics in
favor of some kind of quietistpiety or something like that.
Absolutely, Christians shouldbe involved in politics.
And the gospel has politicalimplications, right?
I think where we need to bereally careful and thoughtful is
(36:24):
if you go back throughoutChristian history, and some of
this begins with Constantine andthe Council of Nicaea in the
fourth century, but you can kindof trace throughout Christian
history the blending ofChristianity and national
identity or empire, has been oneof the most destructive forces
in human history.
(36:45):
And I am not being hyperbolicthere.
I mean, out of the blending ofChristianity and imperialism,
and this begins with the RomanEmpire appropriating and
adopting Christianity, bothunder Constantine and then under
his successor Theodosius in thefourth century, you get
crusades, you get pogromsagainst Jews in Europe and
(37:08):
around the world, you get uh thecolonization of peoples in the
name of Christ, right?
Christian imperialism andChristians imposing Christianity
on whole populations, right?
You get the Inquisition, youget the religious wars in Europe
in the wake of the ProtestantReformation.
I mean, Christianity has a lotto answer for in its history in
(37:32):
terms of how Christians haveabused and harmed other people
in using and abusing power,using and abusing politics in
the name of Christ.
And all of that historicallygoes under the heading of what
we would call Christendom,right?
The blending of Christianityand empire, the the description
of Christianity as though it isonly pertaining to the Christian
(37:56):
rulers and the Christianpeoples who were under those
rulers.
Christendom is one of the worstideas in human history.
And I would argue it wassomething that Jesus argued
directly against and completelyopposed in his own life and
teachings.
Christendom is what these folksare angling for.
And there's this recurringbelief throughout Christian
history, and you can see it evenwith Constantine.
(38:16):
This belief, well, the world isa threat to us.
And so we need to use worldlymeans.
We need to use worldly power tocoerce our enemies and to force
societies to align with ourvision of what Christianity
should be.
And I would argue that that isantithetical to the way of
Jesus, antithetical to the wayof the early church, that their
(38:37):
politics, the politics of theearly church was we give up
power to serve.
We love our enemies.
We bless those who persecuteus.
And the impulse now is well, ifI'm persecuted, I need to get a
big enforcer from thegovernment to go and protect me.
If I'm persecuted, I'm gonnahit back, right?
(38:59):
I'm gonna strike back at mypersecutors.
I'm gonna stop thisanti-Christian bias.
I'm gonna stop these people whoblaspheme the name of Jesus.
I cannot tolerate such heathenimmorality.
That is unchristian.
The early church had no optionbut to tolerate heathen
immorality because it was allthe surrounding culture, right?
And Jesus, I mean, Jesus wasfriends with the sinners and the
(39:22):
tax collectors.
He went he went out of his wayto become an ambassador for his
message with people that wouldhave seen themselves as his
enemies, right?
And yet now we have this ideathat Christians need to declare
war on their enemies, need to dobattle against these dark
spiritual forces that are takingover all of our societies as
(39:44):
though this has never been triedbefore.
As though this is as thoughthis is some new revelation,
right?
All they are doing isrepackaging the leftovers of
Christian imperialism andChristendom and turning it into
Christian nationalism andChristian supremacy and
rebranding it and then sayingthat this is some new solution.
(40:05):
This has been tried before, andit has resulted in the the
bastardization of Christianityand great, great, great harm to
people outside of the church.
And so I would call my fellowChristians back to the
marginalizing andself-decentering gospel of
(40:26):
Jesus.
It says, our space in societyis to be a blessing, to serve,
to love our enemies, to give uppower for the sake of love, and
to try to do as much as we canto serve the poor and the least
of these, as Jesus taught us.
Brian Stiller (40:44):
Matt Taylor, thanks for joining us at
Evangelical 360.
Matthew D. Taylor (40:49):
Thank you.
Brian Stiller (40:51):
Thanks, Matt, for joining me today.
Your analysis of what is goingon today in the name of the Lord
Jesus of Nazareth has certainlycaught our attention.
And thank you to our faithfullisteners for being a part of
the podcast.
Be sure to like this episodeand subscribe wherever you watch
(41:12):
or listen to the podcast.
And if you'd like to learn moreabout today's guests, check the
show notes for links and info.
And if you haven't alreadyreceived my free ebook and
newsletter, just go toBrianstiller.com.
Thanks again.
Until next time.
Hello and welcome to Evangelical Three Sixty.
I'm your host, Brian Stiller.
In recent years, we have seenChristian pastors and
evangelists gather around the USPresident Donald Trump or make
so-called prophetic predictionsregarding his calling.
Who are these people prayingwith and praising President
(00:33):
Trump?
The media calls themevangelicals.
Now that's the stream ofChristianity with which I
identify and has shaped my lastsixty years of ministry.
So, as you might guess, Ibecome quite interested when
evangelical Christians offersuch public support for a man
who has slashed U.S.
humanitarian aid and refugeeprograms, pardon people who
(00:56):
rioted at the U.S.
Capitol, and anger the peopleof my home country, Canada, as
no American has done in mylifetime.
Who were these peoplesupporting Donald Trump?
What ideology is driving them?
Matt Taylor has written a bookdescribing their ideas, what
(01:16):
they intend to do, and thedownsides of their influence.
My interest in having MattTaylor on Evangelical 360 is
that I want to encourage a deep,open conversation about issues
facing us today, especiallythose that affect the
evangelical community so deeply.
You may not agree with Matt'sanalysis and his political
(01:40):
opinions may rub you the wrongway, but I hope you will listen
to him closely.
I have another particularreason for interest in the
story.
One of the primary historicalinfluences shaping many of the
professing Christian leadersaround John Donald Trump dates
back to my boyhood days in theCanadian province of
(02:04):
Saskatchewan.
My father, as bishop, presidingover the Pentecostal churches
in Saskatchewan back in 1948,faced problems with a movement
that came to be widelyunderstood as heresy.
Matt Taylor traces the pathfrom that group to the so-called
(02:25):
Christian nationalistssupporting Donald Trump 75 years
later.
So, whatever your opinion, Ithink you'll find the discussion
fascinating andthought-provoking.
And thanks for being a part ofthis podcast.
As you listen, please considersharing this episode with a
(02:46):
friend.
And if you haven't done soalready, please hit the
subscribe button.
You can also join theconversation on YouTube in the
comments below.
Now to my guest, Matt Taylor.
Matthew Taylor, so wonderful tohave you on Evangelical 360
today.
Matthew D. Taylor (03:05):
Thank you for having me, Brian.
Brian Stiller (03:07):
Matt, I'm sure most of us have seen this
picture of Paula Taylor andother people surrounding the
president of the U.S.
praying for him in specialkinds of uh prophetic ways.
But this is a group that yousay is threatening the democracy
(03:28):
of the U.S.
Why do you come to that fairlystrong comment and analysis?
Matthew D. Taylor (03:36):
I don't come to it lightly.
I have studied these folks forthe last four years or so, have
been tracking them very closely.
I have really made it my taskto study the religious leaders
who surround Donald Trump andwho advise him, who lobby him
for their policies.
And it is not a mainstreamgroup, as most people would
(03:57):
define mainstream.
I mean, Paula White, who youmentioned, Paula White Kane
sometimes goes by, is a veryintegral part of the both the
first Trump administration andthe second Trump administration.
But she has gathered a group ofChristian leaders around Donald
Trump that I would call fromthe fringe historically, within
(04:20):
even within evangelicalism.
I'm I I grew up evangelical.
I grew up within Americanevangelicalism to the point
where we would have even calledourselves fundamentalists in in
my youth, right?
Because that term was still inuse by a lot of folks.
I I don't label allevangelicals by any measure as
extreme or as far right orsomething like that.
(04:41):
But the leaders who havesurrounded Trump, the Christian
leaders, in the same way thatDonald Trump has remade the
Republican Party in the U.S.
and brought in a lot of figureslike Steve Bannon or Stephen
Miller, who would have been moremarginal figures, would have
been seen as kind of outlierswithin the broader conservative
coalition in the U.S., but madethem the center now of the
(05:05):
party.
And many of the mainstreamleaders, the people that you or
I would have looked to to speakfor the Republican Party a
decade ago, many of themwouldn't even call themselves
Republican anymore.
They've been forced out of theparty, forced out of politics.
A similar dynamic has playedout in the evangelical advisors
who surround Donald Trump.
(05:25):
Many of these figures would nothave been counted within the
mainstream of the religiousright, even of the 1980s and
1990s.
But now they are at the centerof power and are driving the
action, driving the agendaaround religion in the new
administration.
Brian Stiller (05:41):
Let's identify this group that has consolidated
its support around theadministration.
Who are they?
What do they constitute as areligious community?
Matthew D. Taylor (05:58):
Yeah, so there are different layers of
advisors and leaders aroundTrump.
At the broadest, it's it'sevangelicals, right?
And there's there's a there's aspectrum of evangelicals
through there.
The vast majority of thoseevangelicals are what we would
call independent charismatics.
And independent here is justbeing used as a synonym for
non-denominational.
(06:18):
So these are, think of them askind of the non-denominational
wing of Pentecostalism, right?
In the US, at least, mostPentecostals belong to
denominations.
These folks, some of them comefrom Pentecostal denominations,
but most of them are coming outof these megachurches,
non-denominational networks thatare charismatic in their
spirituality.
And even within that segment,there's there's a subset of
(06:40):
Trump's advisors who comedirectly out of a network called
the New Apostolic Reformationthat has been very, very
influential in that independentcharismatic space, not only in
the US, but around the globe.
And the New ApostolicReformation is the subject of my
book, and they are the onesthat I am labeling a threat to
American democracy.
And we can get into all theirhistory and everything, but this
(07:02):
is a leadership network thatwas formed starting in the 1990s
and into the 2000 around aseminary professor named C.
Peter Wagner.
And they have an agenda forChristian domination of society,
for Christians to take controlof society.
And that is on its faceanti-democratic.
(07:24):
And those leaders, many of thekey advisors around Trump,
people who were very close tothose key advisors were central
to the orchestration andgalvanization of Christians
being there on January 6th andChristians participating in the
attack on American democracythat happened right after the
2020 election.
Brian Stiller (07:45):
So these aren't just people who would hope and
wish that America was moreChristian.
These are people who you sayare have actually moved into the
centers of power and using thelevers of political power to
assert what they believe isChristian, our Christian values
(08:05):
and the Christian way of life.
Matthew D. Taylor (08:08):
Yeah, let me define my terms here because I
want to be really clear.
We talk a lot about Christiannationalism, and I actually find
that term to be mostlyunhelpful in describing what
we're talking about here.
Christian nationalism, in itssimplest form, is just a version
of religious nationalism,right?
The idea of kind of blending anational or political identity
(08:30):
with a religious identity.
And within the US, there's abroad spectrum of people that we
would call Christiannationalists.
I mean, I grew up in a churchthat was arguably Christian
nationalists.
We had a Christian flag and anAmerican flag at the front of
our church on the chancel,right?
That was a blending of areligious identity and a kind of
(08:51):
statist identity, right?
My church was not a gravethreat to American democracy,
right?
That is a thread of Americanpolitics that has always been
there.
It's a very, very commonimpulse around the world in the
U.S.
to try to merge and holdtogether one's sense of religion
and one's sense of nationalidentity.
So there's a lot of this likesoft Christian nationalism
that's out there, kind of a Godbless America style of Christian
(09:13):
nationalism in the U.S., that Idon't think is a threat to our
democracy.
Now, when we're talking aboutthe leaders around Trump and the
Christian leaders who havebanded together around him, who
are his most ardent supporters,who were keenly involved in
January 6th, we're talking aboutthe more extreme end of this
Christian nationalist spectrum,what I would call Christian
supremacy.
(09:34):
And Christian supremacy is thebelief that Christians are
entitled to power over otherpeople, that Christians are
superior, and that Christiansare entitled to a premier form
of citizenship by divine decree,by, or by theology, right?
By their innate superiority.
And that characterizes a lotboth the New Apostolic
(09:56):
Reformation and a lot of theleaders who have surrounded
Donald Trump.
And their agenda is not merelyto have the United States be a
more Christian nation.
I can totally understand whymany Christians want the U.S.
to be a more Christian nation.
Many Muslims want the U.S.
to be a more Islamic nation.
Many Jews want it to be a moreJewish nation, many secular
people want it to be a moresecular nation.
There's nothing innately wrongwith wanting to influence
(10:18):
society.
And by definition, in ademocracy, all groups that are
participating politically aretrying to influence society.
But it's where the question is: are they still playing within (10:26):
undefined
the rules of democracy to do it?
Right.
And if we think back to thereligious right in the United
States of the 1980s and 1990s,the Jerry Falwell, James Dobson,
Pat Robertson era, theirapproach to participation in
trying to Christianize Americavery much fit within the rules
(10:49):
of democracy, right?
They would say, we're the moralmajority.
We're trying to use leverage,the leverage of Christian
demographic power in order tobring about the more Christian
society that we desire.
That's fine within the rules ofa democracy.
As long as you're kind ofplaying by the agreed-upon
consensus rules within yourdemocracy, great.
(11:10):
When we start talking about thefar right, we're talking about
where we start to move outsideof the boundaries of liberal
democracy, liberal with alowercase L, right?
Democracy that protects therights of the citizens.
Where we start moving intothese more far-right circles,
these more Christian supremacistcircles, you start to have this
idea of a top-down control ofsociety, of a revolution within
(11:34):
society to remake it moreChristian.
And if democracy works tofurther those ends, great.
But these folks understand thisas a divine mandate for
Christians to take control oversociety.
And they see that as divinedecree, and the God's will is
more important than the will ofthe people.
And that was what was thetheological context that gave us
(11:58):
January 6th, and I would arguehas really set up this current
confrontation in Americanpolitics between these more
democratic elements and theseanti-democratic, illiberal
elements that are making greatgains within American politics
today.
Brian Stiller (12:16):
What kinds of things are they promoting that,
in your view, threatensdemocracy in your country?
Matthew D. Taylor (12:24):
So at the heart of it, and this is an idea
that comes out of these newapostolic reformation networks,
is an idea called the SevenMountain Mandate.
And the Seven Mountain Mandateis a form of dominion theology.
Dominion theology comes out ofpeople's interpretations of the
Bible, especially actuallyoriginates more in Calvinist
circles, but has made its wayinto these charismatic circles.
(12:44):
And dominion theology is aninterpretation of the Bible that
says that Christians shouldhave dominion over every society
that they live in, that God hasordained for Christians to have
dominion.
And how this plays out withinthe Seven Mountain mandate is
they divide society up intoseven different areas of
authority (13:04):
family, education, government, arts and
entertainment, media, businessand commerce.
In every one of those, theyimagine them as a mountain.
And the top of that mountain,they say, and this is this is
framed as a prophecy, as a as adirect revelation from God, they
would say, at the top of thatmountain, and every society is
(13:25):
either controlled by Satan andthe demons or by God and the
Christians.
And there's no one between.
And so Christians need to takeover the Seven Mountains.
They need to rise to positionsof influence or grab hold of
leaders who are at the tops ofthose mountains and coercively
or evangelistically use thosepeople in order to secure
(13:46):
Christian power in society, inorder for Christian influence to
flow down from the top ofsociety.
Now, if you think back to thereligious right of old, right,
their idea was a grassroots, abottom-up mobilization in
society, that again is withinthe rules and boundaries of
democracy, right?
When you're talking about atop-down takeover of society, so
(14:07):
that Christians take overpositions of power and then
institute their will from thetop, that's a vanguard model of
social change.
That's a revolutionary model ofsocial change.
And that, I would argue, isreally at the heart of the
current crisis that we're in.
Now, that's not the onlyelement of this anti-democratic
movement.
One of the other realmanifestations of this, and it's
(14:28):
kind of embedded with the SevenMountains idea, is this
hyper-aggressive style ofcultural spiritual warfare.
What in the New ApostolicReformation circles is referred
to as strategic level spiritualwarfare.
Now, many, many Christiansbelieve in spiritual warfare.
I grew up doing practicing andbelieving in spiritual warfare.
That is a very, very commonthing, common among
(14:49):
evangelicals, common among manyCatholics, right?
Not a grave threat todemocracy.
When you're praying againstdemons that are attacking you or
attacking your community,right?
That is not an attack ondemocracy.
It's the taking, though, ofthese kind of frameworks of
spiritual warfare, transposingthem onto national politics and
saying what nationally theDemocrats are aligned with
(15:13):
demons, or the liberals or theleft is demonic.
And we, the righteous ones,need to drive out those demons
from our society in order toclaim society for Christ, right?
This is the rhetoric that wehear all over the place: this
angelic demonic pairing, or thiswe're on the side of God,
they're on the side of Satan.
And when you insert that kindof a frame onto democratic
(15:37):
politics, it both polarizessociety and makes compromise and
cooperation and coordination,all these things that are
crucial for a democracy tofunction, makes those
impossible.
Because if the other side isdemonic, you cannot compromise
with demons.
If the other side is satanic,well, Satan is made to be driven
out, not to be compromisedwith.
And so you are labeling groupsof people, you're literally
(15:59):
demonizing your politicalopponents and saying that
there's no possibility ofcoordination or compromise, and
we can't even listen to thosepeople.
That is a recipe for politicalviolence and for authoritarian
behavior.
Brian Stiller (16:15):
The title of your book is The Violent Take It by
Force.
Describe for us what you think,what you mean by take it.
What kinds of things do you seecoming or in play even now as
we speak that are in violationof democracy, the assumptions of
democracy, and are part of whatyou see as this takeover?
Matthew D. Taylor (16:39):
The passage we're re I'm referring to there
is Matthew 11, 12.
Jesus is speaking about theimpending death of his cousin
John the Baptist, and is kind ofreflecting on the death or the
trial at that point of John theBaptist and says, Since the days
of John the Baptist, whichmeans the days that he's
speaking in right at thatmoment, the kingdom of heaven
(17:01):
suffers violence, and theviolent take it by force.
And many Christians, mostChristians, I'd argue,
throughout history, haveunderstood that as descriptive,
that the life of following Jesusentails suffering, and that the
violent forces in the worldthat feel threatened by the
non-coercive and non-violentkingdom of God will react with
(17:21):
violence.
And that Jesus is pointing tohis cousin and saying, look, the
righteous ones will sufferviolence, right?
But within these new apostolicreformation and independent
charismatic spiritual warfarecircles, that verse is taken as
a mandate to do spiritualviolence.
That Christians are made to beviolent spiritually in order to
(17:44):
take back the kingdom of God byforce, to take the kingdom of
heaven by force.
And this verse was everywherein reference to January 6th on
social media and the commentaryof many of the participants,
because they saw this as aspiritual battle.
Now, January 6th, I wouldargue, was the first big
outcropping of this that we'veseen in American politics, but
it was by no means the last.
(18:05):
I mean, this rhetoric ofspiritual warfare, of prophecy,
of seven mountains, of Christianempowerment and Christian
control has only been amplifiedsince January 6th.
And in the new administration,there is now a quote,
anti-Christian bias task forcethat is being empowered and
ramped up to go after anyone whois critical of Christianity,
(18:28):
particularly the styles ofChristianity that the Trump
administration wants to advance.
And I'll just note 62% of theU.S.
population is Christian.
There is no widespreadanti-Christian bias in the U.S.
Christians are the majority.
Christians have a lot of power.
In fact, Christians,conservative Christians even,
control the White House, ourexecutive branch, both houses of
(18:52):
our Congress, our legislativebranch, and a supermajority on
our Supreme Court, our judicialbranch.
So in what sense and where areChristians being so widely
persecuted in the United Stateswhen we start to see religious
majorities claim that they arepersecuted?
That is the pretext, that isthe predicate for them to start
(19:15):
persecuting other people.
And this is what we're seeingthrough the new policies that
are being put in place.
I mean, just yesterday wewatched as Pete Hegseth, our
Secretary of Defense and DonaldTrump gathered the U.S.
generals and gave them alecture all about the ways that
they need to be more upstandingand conform more to Trump's
(19:35):
agenda.
And part of that, historically,if you look at how Pete Hegseth
has been doing this within thePentagon within our military,
has been pushing Christianworship services, messaging
Christian doctrine.
I mean, some of the videos thathave been put out by our
military and by our Departmentof Homeland Security in recent
(19:57):
weeks involve pairing togethermilitary enforcement and police
enforcement, particularlyagainst migrants and foreigners,
with Bible verses and quotesfrom Jesus.
Pete Hegseth released a videojust this week of him praying
the Lord's Prayer and overimages of the US military
attacking different targets,right?
(20:19):
And so even as you're prayingfor God's kingdom to come and
God's will to be done, it isbeing projected alongside
American military force andviolence.
And so right now, what we'reseeing across our government is
this ramping up of a kind ofprotective authoritarian state
(20:41):
that protects people who are onthe inside, who are part of the
MAGA coalition, and labels thoseon the outside as threats.
And if you look around theworld, what happens when those
types of conditions take placein a democracy?
It's not going to remain ademocracy for very long under
those conditions.
Brian Stiller (21:01):
Matt, this didn't come out of nothing.
It didn't happen anywhere.
It happened someplace.
There was a vacuum, there wasan opportunity, there was a
need, there was a reaction.
What created the environmentthat allowed this to assert
itself?
Matthew D. Taylor (21:20):
So I think let's think on a global and a
national stage.
So on a global stage, I thinkwe have to think about the
growth of this independentcharismatic sector of
Christianity.
So when we're talking about,again, we're talking about
non-denominational andcharismatic, right?
That the juncture of those twoqualities.
The Center for the Study ofWorld Christianity at Gordon
(21:41):
Conwell Seminary estimates thatin 1970, there were 44 million
independent charismatics in theworld.
Worldwide, 44 million.
By 2020, their estimate was upto 312 million.
So we're talking about asegment of global Christianity
that is roughly doubling in sizeover 20 years right now.
(22:02):
Fastest growth we have seen ofa religious movement or a
religious tendency, maybe inglobal history.
And this is it's not just thatit's growing in terms of
converts, it's that other peopleare leaving their
denominational ornon-charismatic identities to
join up.
This is the growth edge ofglobal Christianity.
This is the exciting space,right?
(22:23):
And Peter Wagner, who was aseminary professor, an expert in
church growth at FullerTheological Seminary in
Pasadena, California in the1970s and 1980s, was watching
and observing this.
And he was really ahead of histime in recognizing that this
was the growth trend of futureglobal Christianity.
And he became very invested inthat and started to hang out
(22:45):
with leaders within that space,started to cultivate
relationships with leaders, andultimately adopted those frames
himself.
And that was the space in whichhe helped coin this phrase new
apostolic reformation in themid-1990s, as what he was trying
to describe a burgeoningmovement.
He thought of it on the orderof the formation of a new branch
(23:06):
of Christianity, a reformationon the level of the Protestant
Reformation, but this time ledby apostles and prophets.
This is a very, very importantelement of their theology, is
they believe that theythemselves, Peter Wagner called
himself an apostle, and theybelieved that they, that in the
late 20th century, God wascommissioning new apostles and
(23:27):
prophets to lead the church, totransform the church.
Sometimes goes under theheading of what's called
fivefold ministry out ofEphesians chapter four.
And they would talk about weare the new apostles and
prophets who will lead theglobal church into a global
revival and reformation andtransformation of society.
And they became politicallyradicalized around these Seven
(23:48):
Mountains ideas, but they werestill on the margins of American
Christianity until Donald Trumpcame on the scene.
And Paula White, who has beenDonald Trump's religious advisor
and personal pastor for morethan 20 years now, she helped
kind of broker this relationshipbetween Trump and many of these
independent charismatic leaderswho, again, were on the fringes
(24:10):
of American Christianity, butwere more aligned with the Trump
and MAGA coalition even fromthe start.
And that was the group that hasnow become this kind of inside
track group of advisors who arecentral to everything that we're
seeing within the both of theTrump administrations.
Brian Stiller (24:26):
But Matt, what in the American culture uh was
lacking or was uh uh was in itsface, something either allowed
it or created impetus for thisto take over, to, or at least to
(24:48):
show the kind of influence thatis manifesting today.
Matthew D. Taylor (24:52):
Yes, definitely.
So let me again give give kindof a big picture context and
then the political context,right?
So big picture context, upuntil 1990, 90% or more of
Americans in every survey thatyou can find are identifying as
Christian, right?
So when the moral majority orthe religious right of the 1980s
and 1990s is claiming we justneed to mobilize Christians and
(25:15):
get them voting, and then we canchange American politics,
that's not a crazy claim.
If 90% of the country isidentifying as Christian, you
really just need to mobilizeyour portion of that and you can
exercise great power.
As I said, today it's down toaround 62%.
So we've seen over the last 40years or so a rapid
secularization in the Americanpopulace.
(25:36):
That's been it has not been asecularization imposed from the
top down.
It has been people leavingChristian identity.
But that is experienced withinChristian communities as a real
threat to their identity.
I mean, it's it's people'schildren who are leaving the
church, right?
That's how this is happening.
And so people experience thisas a lessening of Christian
(25:57):
power, a degradation ofChristian kind of dominance in
society.
And so you got that on the oneside, this kind of demographic
shift that's constantlydeclining since 1990.
And then you have thisreligious right infrastructure
that had been built up in the1980s and 1990s.
This is what Jerry Falwell andPat Robertson and these folks
were doing.
And this whole lobbying wingthat was very, very involved in
(26:21):
Republican politics in theUnited States.
And they had done a lot in the30, 40 years that they were
doing.
But then in the summer of 2015,actually, just about a week
after Donald Trump entered thepresidential race to be to join
the Republican primary in thesummer of 2015, the U.S.
Supreme Court handed down theObergefell gay marriage decision
(26:43):
that legalized gay marriage allacross all 50 states in the
United States.
And this was something thereligious right had campaigned
against for decades.
And suddenly the Supreme Courtthat they had invested all this
time and energy in getting theirpeople on were the ones who
pushed it through.
And I think that wasexperienced as a real low point
for many of these religiousright leaders and for their
(27:04):
followers.
And it was this moment ofalmost existential crisis that
they had spent so much andinvested so much and spent so
many years trying to push theiragenda and it wasn't working.
And I think it's notcoincidental that it was right
at that time that evangelicals,both at the grassroots level and
through these independentcharismatic leaders, all banded
(27:25):
together around Donald Trumpbecause the rationale was he may
not be a godly man.
He may not even be a Christian,but he's a strong man.
He's a strong leader.
He will be a bully on ourbehalf, he will hurt our
enemies, and he will protect us.
And this has always been thebargain between religious
communities and authoritariansis they might not conform to all
(27:49):
of the scruples, all of themorality that we hold, but they
will protect us.
And that's the mentality that Ithink has really driven this
merger of very conservative andeven far-right Christianity and
Donald Trump in the UnitedStates.
And that is what has createdthe base that the hardline base
of support that he has withAmerican Christians.
Brian Stiller (28:13):
Matt, one of my interests in your book was a
group that you referred tocalled Latter Rain.
This started in my own backyardin Saskatchewan.
My father was a pastor, and in1948, after the latter rain had
was forced out of Bethel BibleInstitute in Saskatoon and went
(28:37):
to North Mattelford and calledand developed what's called the
Sharon Group.
My dad was electedsuperintendent, which is really
bishop of the province.
We moved to Saskatoon and hebecame president of Bethel Bible
Institute, where the LatterRain had actually formed and
then for a number of reasons wasforced out.
(28:58):
So I'm in I'm intrigued by thelinkage between the NAR that
you've described and the groupthat are surrounding the
president and their vision thatgoes back to a view that was
that percolated and uh came toexistence within within my old
life and personal history.
(29:19):
Now, what what was latter rainand how do you connect the two?
Matthew D. Taylor (29:25):
Yeah, great question.
And and I I find your own yourown personal journey here
fascinating because I I'veinterviewed a number of folks
who have kind of similarintersections with latter rain
early on.
So I think we have to remember,right, that Pentecostalism as a
movement emerges at the verybeginning of the 20th century,
right?
Uh the Azusa Street Revival inLos Angeles.
(29:46):
I mean, there's there's anumber of these revivals all
around the globe, really, in thefirst decade of the 20th
century.
And but by the 1940s, right,the inner all this energy,
excitement in Pentecostalism,the sense of revival, well.
You're really 40 years into themovement.
And there's a segment within itthat says, we need to renew
Pentecostalism.
(30:07):
We need a, we need a newrevival.
We need a new outpouring of thespirit.
And many of them get excitedabout this latter rain kind of
idea.
And the latter rain is areference to the rain patterns,
the weather patterns in Israel,right?
And the sense of if the day ofPentecost or maybe the rise of
Pentecostalism was the formerrains, the beginning of things.
Now in the latter rain is asense of an end times outpouring
(30:30):
of the Holy Spirit.
And so as you said, these folksbegin in Canada and begin kind
of this idea of we are therenewing generation.
We are the group.
And the that they sometimesrefer to themselves even as the
new order of the latter reign.
And these ideas, because ofthese global Pentecostal
networks, these ideas spreadaround the globe.
(30:51):
The Latter Rain wereinfluential in New Zealand and
Australia.
They were influential in China.
They were influential in theUnited States.
But the one of the core ideasof this Latter Reign renewal and
revival movement that most ofthe Pentecostal denominations
utterly rejected, right?
And we should be clear aboutthat, right?
The Pentecostal denominationslook at this Latter Rain stuff
(31:12):
and say, oh, uh oh, no, no,they're going too far.
But that's why they moved intothese more independent networks,
into these spaces that are notregulated by denominations.
But one of the core ideas ofthe Latter reign was this idea
of fivefold ministry, focusedespecially on Ephesians chapter
four.
Um, right, and in Ephesiansfour, the author of Ephesians
lists five different ministrygifts that Jesus gives to the
church upon his ascension: apostles, prophets, pastors, (31:36):
undefined
teachers, and evangelists.
And the Latter reign folks arelooking at that and say, hey,
well, we've got pastors,teachers, and evangelists, but
we don't have apostles andprophets.
We need these offices ofapostles and prophets.
And they believe, began tobelieve that they were receiving
prophecies themselves about therenewal of the apostles and
(31:57):
prophets in the life of thechurch.
And so these Latter Rain ideas,they're they're they kind of
spread out into these diffusenon-denominational networks and
are being carried by many peopleand reflected upon and
percolating and continuing inthese spaces.
But it often is happening offthe charts, right?
This is not happening withinmore institutional and
denominational bodies.
This is happening out in thehinterlands of American
(32:20):
evangelicalism.
But these ideas are verypopular and are around for 40 or
so years until Peter Wagner andsome of these other folks start
picking them up and decidingthey're really going to enact
them through the New ApostolicReformation.
That is the baseline out ofwhich these NAR networks grow.
Now, I want to be very clear: the New Apostolic Reformation is (32:37):
undefined
a particular set of theseapostolic and prophetic
networks.
There are many, manycharismatic Christians around
the globe who believe in some ofthese latter reign ideas and
are downstream of the Latterreign, who are not necessarily
on board with this whole NARprogram, right?
That was Peter Wagner's versionof it that emerges in the 1990s
(32:58):
and early 2000s.
But these apostolic andprophetic networks that are all
downstream of the Latter reign,Paula Wycane herself is very
influenced by these apostolicand prophetic ideas.
Many churches around the globeare influenced by these
apostolic and prophetic ideas.
And built into that, right, ifthese apostles and prophets,
(33:19):
right, and think about the roleof the apostles and the prophets
in the early church, right?
If you have offices of apostleand prophet that obviate the
need for bishops and supersedethe authority of pastors, you
are installing an echelon ofpersonal leadership built around
(33:39):
these personalities of theapostles and prophets that can
claim that they hear directlyfrom God, can claim that they
don't need any bureaucraticchecks or committees to help
guide them.
They don't need denominations,and they are just empowered to
lead the church.
And you can imagine what typesof personalities would gravitate
(34:01):
towards that kind of a role andthat kind of leadership.
Those are exactly the kinds ofpersonalities that you find in
these networks around PeterWagner, and we're including
Peter Wagner himself.
And it's it tends to be thesemore authoritarian type
characters, the people who don'twant accountability, the people
who feel a sense of kind ofcharismatic gifting that says
(34:23):
that they should be inleadership over others, right?
And so you get this migrationof all of these entrepreneurial
and very skilled and ambitiousleaders around first C.
Peter Wagner, and they get kindof radicalized and mentored
around him.
Almost everyone who joins theseNAR networks, and there's
hundreds of leaders around theglobe who do join these NAR
(34:44):
networks under Peter Wagner,almost all of them identify as
either apostles or prophets orboth.
And so they they are claiming alevel of authority over their
fellow Christians that isvirtually unprecedented unless
you go back to the era of theearly church, and I'd argue even
there they are severelymisinterpreting the early
apostles and prophets too.
Brian Stiller (35:03):
Okay, that's very helpful analysis.
Where do we go from here?
So I'm I'm part of a globalevangelical community.
Uh and when I look at at yourcountry and the evangelical
community in its various forms,what's the next step?
What do people do who want todisentangle politics from their
(35:32):
expression of faith?
Uh do you have any suggestions?
Matthew D. Taylor (35:38):
First of all, I'm I'm not sure that the goal
should be to disentanglepolitics from our expressions of
faith.
If we're thinking in thebroadest sense of what politics
means, right?
Politics is how we talk aboutpower in relationship with each
other, how we talk about the howwe have community together.
Well, politics is built intothat.
And and of course, the Bibleand Jesus have a lot to say
(36:02):
about politics.
So I don't think the goal isfor Christians to not
participate in politics or forChristians to eschew politics in
favor of some kind of quietistpiety or something like that.
Absolutely, Christians shouldbe involved in politics.
And the gospel has politicalimplications, right?
I think where we need to bereally careful and thoughtful is
(36:24):
if you go back throughoutChristian history, and some of
this begins with Constantine andthe Council of Nicaea in the
fourth century, but you can kindof trace throughout Christian
history the blending ofChristianity and national
identity or empire, has been oneof the most destructive forces
in human history.
(36:45):
And I am not being hyperbolicthere.
I mean, out of the blending ofChristianity and imperialism,
and this begins with the RomanEmpire appropriating and
adopting Christianity, bothunder Constantine and then under
his successor Theodosius in thefourth century, you get
crusades, you get pogromsagainst Jews in Europe and
(37:08):
around the world, you get uh thecolonization of peoples in the
name of Christ, right?
Christian imperialism andChristians imposing Christianity
on whole populations, right?
You get the Inquisition, youget the religious wars in Europe
in the wake of the ProtestantReformation.
I mean, Christianity has a lotto answer for in its history in
(37:32):
terms of how Christians haveabused and harmed other people
in using and abusing power,using and abusing politics in
the name of Christ.
And all of that historicallygoes under the heading of what
we would call Christendom,right?
The blending of Christianityand empire, the the description
of Christianity as though it isonly pertaining to the Christian
(37:56):
rulers and the Christianpeoples who were under those
rulers.
Christendom is one of the worstideas in human history.
And I would argue it wassomething that Jesus argued
directly against and completelyopposed in his own life and
teachings.
Christendom is what these folksare angling for.
And there's this recurringbelief throughout Christian
history, and you can see it evenwith Constantine.
(38:16):
This belief, well, the world isa threat to us.
And so we need to use worldlymeans.
We need to use worldly power tocoerce our enemies and to force
societies to align with ourvision of what Christianity
should be.
And I would argue that that isantithetical to the way of
Jesus, antithetical to the wayof the early church, that their
(38:37):
politics, the politics of theearly church was we give up
power to serve.
We love our enemies.
We bless those who persecuteus.
And the impulse now is well, ifI'm persecuted, I need to get a
big enforcer from thegovernment to go and protect me.
If I'm persecuted, I'm gonnahit back, right?
(38:59):
I'm gonna strike back at mypersecutors.
I'm gonna stop thisanti-Christian bias.
I'm gonna stop these people whoblaspheme the name of Jesus.
I cannot tolerate such heathenimmorality.
That is unchristian.
The early church had no optionbut to tolerate heathen
immorality because it was allthe surrounding culture, right?
And Jesus, I mean, Jesus wasfriends with the sinners and the
(39:22):
tax collectors.
He went he went out of his wayto become an ambassador for his
message with people that wouldhave seen themselves as his
enemies, right?
And yet now we have this ideathat Christians need to declare
war on their enemies, need to dobattle against these dark
spiritual forces that are takingover all of our societies as
(39:44):
though this has never been triedbefore.
As though this is as thoughthis is some new revelation,
right?
All they are doing isrepackaging the leftovers of
Christian imperialism andChristendom and turning it into
Christian nationalism andChristian supremacy and
rebranding it and then sayingthat this is some new solution.
(40:05):
This has been tried before, andit has resulted in the the
bastardization of Christianityand great, great, great harm to
people outside of the church.
And so I would call my fellowChristians back to the
marginalizing andself-decentering gospel of
(40:26):
Jesus.
It says, our space in societyis to be a blessing, to serve,
to love our enemies, to give uppower for the sake of love, and
to try to do as much as we canto serve the poor and the least
of these, as Jesus taught us.
Brian Stiller (40:44):
Matt Taylor, thanks for joining us at
Evangelical 360.
Matthew D. Taylor (40:49):
Thank you.
Brian Stiller (40:51):
Thanks, Matt, for joining me today.
Your analysis of what is goingon today in the name of the Lord
Jesus of Nazareth has certainlycaught our attention.
And thank you to our faithfullisteners for being a part of
the podcast.
Be sure to like this episodeand subscribe wherever you watch
(41:12):
or listen to the podcast.
And if you'd like to learn moreabout today's guests, check the
show notes for links and info.
And if you haven't alreadyreceived my free ebook and
newsletter, just go toBrianstiller.com.
Thanks again.
Until next time.
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