{"id":9,"date":"2026-11-01T11:59:00","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T11:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/?p=9"},"modified":"2026-11-01T11:59:00","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T11:59:00","slug":"christian-nationalists-dream-of-taking-over-america-this-movement-is-actually-doing-it-philsugar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/?p=9","title":{"rendered":"Christian Nationalists Dream of Taking Over America. This Movement Is Actually Doing It. | PhilSugar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our
\nNovember+December issue
\ninvestigates the Christian nationalist movement that aspires to take over government at all levels, from school boards and state legislatures to Congress and the Supreme Court. Read the series of stories
\nhere
\n.
\nOne August evening,
\nI drove through the cornfields and dairy farms of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to attend a government-\u00adthemed prayer night at Ephrata Community Church. The sprawling house of worship looks like an office park and houses a cafe and an indoor playground in addition to a large sanctuary. This event, however, was in a converted barn across the parking lot called Gateway House of Prayer. For the last 15 years, it has been open 24 hours a day for the faithful to worship when the main church is closed, with parishioners keeping watch in shifts.
\nIt was a Thursday night. Gradually, about 22 congregants, mostly seniors, all of whom were members of the community, filtered in. Over the next two hours, the group prayed, sometimes quietly and sometimes very loudly, and sometimes in strings of syllables, a charismatic Christian tradition known as speaking in tongues. Of the prayers that I could understand, many were what you\u2019d hear in any church\u2014gratitude for God\u2019s goodness or entreaties for family members going through hard times.
\nFarmland near Rebecca Branle\u2019s house, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. She knew her family might stand out because they didn\u2019t attend church.
\nBut interspersed were more unsettling messages: frequent references to the \u201cenemy,\u201d to a battle between good and evil, to a \u201cspiritual war\u201d playing out in our country. One prayer leader encouraged attendees to join a pair of \u201cprophets\u201d who were taking daily Communion for 90 days at exactly 4:14 p.m. Why so precise? The answer can be found in two Old Testament verses: Esther 4:14, which says Christians are called to speak up in the face of persecution, and Nehemiah 4:14, which \u201cis about fighting,\u201d the prayer leader said, \u201con behalf of our sons, our daughters, our families.\u201d
\nThe devotees she mentioned were leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation, a charismatic evangelical Christian movement led by a loose network of self-appointed\u00ad prophets and apostles, who claim that God speaks directly to them, often in dreams. They believe that Christians are called to wage a spiritual battle for control of the United States. In the vanguard of an ascendant Christian nationalist movement, they are seeking an explicitly Christian command of public schools, social policy, and all levels of the government, including the courts. Some scholars claim NAR is the fastest-growing spiritual movement in the United States. Evangelical writer C. Peter Wagner described it as the most significant shake-up in Protestantism since the Reformation. Its laser focus on starting a spiritual war to Christianize America has led the Southern Poverty Law Center to call NAR \u201cthe greatest threat to US democracy that you have never heard of.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s the transformation of an entire society\u2026something so transcendentally revolutionary that most people never even thought about something like this.\u201d
\nEstimates of Christians influenced by NAR vary widely, from 3 million to 33 million. But the number of adherents isn\u2019t the extent of its influence; its main tenets have moved beyond the confines of churches and into the political mainstream, genuine sugar baby profiles<\/a> largely thanks to traveling apostles and prophets who preach at evangelical churches all over the world. Fred Clarkson, a senior research analyst with the extremism watchdog group Political Research Associates, described the New Apostolic Reformation as a seismic cultural shift. \u201cIt\u2019s the transformation of an entire society with this certain kind of Christo-centric worldview,\u201d he told me. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about something so transcendentally revolutionary that most people never even thought about something like this.\u201d
\nDonald Trump\u2019s former national security adviser
\nMike Flynn
\nhas hosted NAR leaders on his \u201cReAwaken America\u201d tour, and House Speaker
\nMike Johnson
\n(R-La.) has worked with its apostles. Just this past weekend, GOP vice presidential hopeful Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio)
\nappeared
\nin Pennsylvania at an event hosted by Lance Wallnau,
\na Texas business strategist-turned-NAR superstar
\n. Wallnau, who has called Kamala Harris a \u201c
\nJezebel
\n\u201d and speculated that people on the political left may be controlled by
\ndemons
\n, helped develop
\nProject 19
\n, a right-wing political initiative to win 19 key counties in swing states for Trump.
\nI asked Clarkson for a metaphor to describe how New Apostolic Reformation concepts have spread beyond the confines of the movement. At first, he suggested the cellular process of osmosis, or perhaps a tea infusion, but neither accounts for the intentionality of the movement\u2019s leaders. \u201cHow do you infuse your Christian ideas into Babylon?\u201d he asked, referring to an ancient city that rejected God. \u201cThat\u2019s the nature of their thinking. It can be deeply subversive. It can also be utterly in your face.\u201d
\nParishioners place their hands on each other during a Sunday morning worship service at Ephrata Community Church.
\nSince 2016,
\nmany NAR prophesies have concerned Trump, whom adherents see as having been divinely chosen to lead the country. Trump\u2019s introduction to the movement came in 2002 when he
\ninvited
\nFlorida apostle Paula White-Cain to be his personal minister after seeing her preach on television. By the time he became president, he had acquired a handful of other NAR spiritual advisers: most notably, a South Carolina\u2013\u00adbased apostle named Dutch Sheets and prophet Cindy Jacobs, who helms an influential ministry in Texas. Throughout his presidency, Trump\u2019s NAR counselors were mostly ignored by White House reporters, dismissed as latter-day versions of evangelical pastor Billy Graham with Richard Nixon, or Jeremiah Wright with Barack Obama. Yet \u201cthese are the key religious people around Donald Trump and the people who brought him the presidency,\u201d Clarkson said. \u201cThey\u2019re the people who influenced his presidency and the people who are leading the religious wing of his reelection campaign.\u201d
\nAs the 2020 election drew near, their role became more important. White-Cain warned her followers that Christians who don\u2019t support Trump will \u201chave to stand accountable before God one day.\u201d Shortly after Trump\u2019s defeat, Sheets became an influential figure in the \u201c
\nStop the Steal
\n\u201d campaign, leading rallies across the country. He warned that the results of the presidential election were \u201cgoing to be overturned and President Trump is going to be put back in office for four years.\u201d Around the same time, White-Cain gave a
\nspeech
\nimploring religious Americans to \u201cstrike and strike and strike and strike and strike and strike and strike and strike and strike and strike until you have victory.\u201d
\nEight days before the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021, a group of apostles held a
\nstrategy
\nmeeting with Trump and his advisers. In a January 1
\nblog post
\n, Sheets shared a dream from a prophet named Gina Gholston, in which she described \u201cmoving toward the Capitol, not at a full gallop, but at a steady, determined, fast trot. As we began, written in white letters on the ground in front of us were the words, \u2018DON\u2019T STOP.\u2019\u201d A year after the insurrection, Sheets recounted a dream in which Trump had told him Quezon City sugar baby<\/a> that he would be a \u201cpolitical martyr\u201d because, he had said, loosely quoting the Bible, \u201c\u2018God has put the tools in me to tear down, root up, and confront the system.\u2019\u201d
\nNAR leaders have targeted the Supreme Court, too. In 2018, during Justice Brett Kav\u00adanaugh\u2019s contentious confirmation hearings, Sheets urged his followers to ask God to grant them \u201ca majority of Justices who are Constitutionalists, literalists (meaning they believe the Constitution is to be taken literally, exactly as it is written), and who are pro-life.\u201d He prayed for \u201canother vacancy on the Court soon,\u201d which he felt was \u201ccoming quickly.\u201d In a
\nbroadcast
\n, Wallnau, the NAR leader who recently hosted Vance in Pennsylvania, described the accusations of rape against Kavanaugh as a spiritual attack.
\nThe apostles\u2019 visions for the Supreme legit sugar daddies Manila<\/a> Court didn\u2019t get much mainstream attention\u2014until the
\nNew York Times
\nbroke a
\nseries of stories
\nabout flags displayed at the homes of Justice Samuel Alito. Outside his main residence was an upside-down American flag, a symbol associated with the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. At his vacation home in New Jersey, the
\nTimes
\n\u2019 Jodi Kantor later
\nreported,
\nflew an \u201cAppeal to Heaven\u201d flag\u2014belonging to Alito\u2019s wife, Martha-Ann\u2014showing a lone pine tree, a Revolutionary War symbol that had been revived and popularized by none other than Sheets.
\nRolling Stone
\nfound
\nthe same flag fluttering outside the Maine vacation home of Leonard Leo, the BGC sugar baby<\/a> deep-pocketed conservative judicial kingmaker whose largesse has extended to several justices and their families.
\nDigital scripture on business signage in Ephrata, where religion is prominent in public life
\nMeanwhile, NAR apostles have ensured that their teachings have spread into local civil societies. In Redding, California, the 11,000-member Bethel Church now funds the local police force and trains public school teachers. In Pasadena, Korean American apostle Ch\u00e9 Ahn\u2019s Harvest Rock Church bankrolled local candidates, including one for state Senate. The Remnant Alliance, an NAR-affiliated group, teaches Christians across the nation to run for school boards.
\nAnd then there is Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a county of 550,000 people spread out over a patchwork of fertile farmland, where I traveled to understand what this kind of local transformation looks like. Since the mid-1600s, Pennsylvania has been known for religious fervor. First came the Quakers, followed shortly after by the Anabaptists, or \u201cplain\u201d people. Ephrata, for example, was a hub for the Brethren, but the area is also known for Mennonites and particularly the Amish. Today, Lancaster also has become an NAR hub. A popular sports event venue hosts far-right Christian conferences. NAR-affiliated churches control the school boards. One local group holds Bible study in public schools; another baptizes students in portable troughs in front of public high schools.
\nAt the prayer night I attended, spiritual warfare rhetoric was on full display. An elderly woman described Lancaster public schools as being \u201cso infiltrated with evil,\u201d she prayed that \u201cschool boards would open up their eyes and ears and stop just screaming things that they think are good. If they did their homework, they\u2019d see they\u2019re not good.\u201d Another woman announced that she had a vision of a claw machine. Instead of cheap prizes at the arcade, her claw\u2014which symbolized the demonic influence of secularism\u2014had picked up people\u2019s minds so that they \u201ccan\u2019t discern what\u2019s right and wrong.\u201d Her metaphor became an entreaty to God: \u201cAnd I want to say\u2026drop those minds and take them back for the Lord.\u201d Someone blew a shofar, the ram\u2019s horn that ancient Israelites used to call their armies to battle.
\n\u201cWe declare that this gender confusion would be stopped in the mighty name of Jesus!\u201d
\n\u201cWe declare that this gender confusion would be stopped in the mighty name of Jesus!\u201d cried another man, clad in the iconic Trump campaign T-shirt bearing the mugshot of the former president emblazoned with the word \u201cwanted\u201d\u2014not for a crime but for another term in office. \u201cWe say, \u2018Fight, fight, fight, hallelujah!\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWe take the example of Donald Trump!\u201d The group broke out in a chorus of \u201cFight, fight, fight!\u201d
\nA painting vivid with both Christian and Jewish imagery inside Gateway House of Prayer, in Ephrata
\nThe New Apostolic
\nReformation may be influential, but it\u2019s also hard to pin down. With no single leader, annual conference, or website outlining statements of belief, it isn\u2019t a distinct Protestant denomination, like Baptists or Presbyterians, but a vast and amorphous network of prophets and apostles who oversee their own ministries, issue prophetic declarations, and journey to churches all over the world to spread their ideology. Though many adherents fit the stereotype of the white, male Christian nationalist, some of the most prominent American apostles are African Americans and women; some of the most powerful global apostles come from African nations. But in Lancaster, the churches are overwhelmingly white.
\nThe term \u201cNew Apostolic Reformation\u201d was coined in the 1990s by the influential evangelical writer Wagner, who emphasized that he was not the movement\u2019s leader\u2014because it had none. It was instead a coming together of several smaller sects that shared a belief that God appointed apostles and prophets who possessed special \u201cgifts of the spirit,\u201d like the ability to perform miracles, for instance, or speak in tongues. In what became known as the \u201cfivefold ministry,\u201d NAR churches organized themselves into five areas of leadership: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Leaders were urged to \u201cuse their influence to create an environment in which the blessings and prosperity of the Kingdom of God can permeate all areas of society,\u201d to conquer \u201cthe Seven Mountains: Religion, Family, Education, Government, Media, Arts & Entertainment, and Business.\u201d
\nIt was Wallnau who popularized this doctrine of Christian dominion, which is sometimes known as the Seven Mountain Mandate, or 7MM. According to a recent Denison University poll, between March 2023 and January 2024, the percentage of Christian Americans who believed in the Seven Mountain Mandate increased from just under 30 percent to 41 percent. The concept routinely appears in conservative political discourse. Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker, who championed fetal personhood in a February 2024 ruling, said in an
\ninterview
\nwith a prominent NAR apostle that \u201cGod created government\u201d and \u201cthat\u2019s why he is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains.\u201d
\nPromoting a Christian nation has seeped into some of the Supreme Court justices\u2019 opinions. In the 2019 case
\nAmerican Legion v. American Humanist Association
\n, the court ruled in favor of the American Legion, which had erected a 40-foot cross on public land in Maryland. Alito
\nwrote
\nthat taking down the cross would be \u201caggressively hostile to religion.\u201d In the 2022
\nKennedy v. Bremerton School District
\ncase, the court ruled 6\u20133 in favor of a public high school football coach who lost his job for routinely leading prayers during games. Writing for the conservative majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch unilaterally
\ndeclared
\nthat the court had \u201clong ago abandoned\u201d a decades-old precedent that established that government employees can\u2019t advance a particular religious ideology.
\nAfter the court declined in February to take up a case filed on behalf of people who had been removed from a jury because of their belief that gay marriage was wrong, Alito
\nwrote
\nin an unusual personal statement that he worried \u201cAmericans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be \u2018labeled as bigots and treated as such\u2019 by the government.\u201d
\n\u201cThere\u2019s very little question that [Christian nationalist] views are very much reflected in where this Supreme Court majority is on religion and church and state.\u201d
\nThe perception that Christians are being persecuted by the government is a potent
\nrallying cry
\nof the Christian nationalist movement. Elliot Mincberg, a Supreme Court scholar and fellow with the pro-democracy organization People for the American Way, said, \u201cThere\u2019s find sugar daddies Makati<\/a> very little question that [Christian nationalist] views are very much reflected in where this Supreme Court majority is on religion and church and state.\u201d
\nClarkson has watched as the ideas popularized by NAR\u2014the Seven Mountain Mandate, the fivefold ministry, and the concept of spiritual warfare\u2014have infiltrated churches that aren\u2019t officially connected to the movement. \u201cThere are so many Christianities, and they change over time\u2014this is a perfect example,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople don\u2019t necessarily know where every belief they hold came from.\u201d
\nNAR also appropriates Jewish imagery. Two days after I heard one shofar at Ephrata, I attended an all-day \u201cprayer burn\u201d at a barn in the countryside where several attendees blew them. Others wore tallitot, or Jewish prayer shawls. A group of tween dancers carried a chuppah, a four-posted canopy often used in Jewish weddings. The group sang in Hebrew as they danced the hora, a standard feature in Jewish celebrations. Then, one of the NAR leaders I GCash processing fee scam<\/a> recognized from Ephrata took the microphone and began to speak about Jesus. \u201cHe\u2019s the Lord of hosts,\u201d she said. A cacophonous roar of shofars came from the crowd.
\nLancaster, Pennsylvania
\nJan Brenneman and his grandson Levi, 11, play their shofars at Lord\u2019s House of Prayer, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. NAR appropriates several Jewish symbols and items used in religious ceremonies.
\nWhen I asked an attendee about all the Jewish references, she explained that it was simply a way to acknowledge the shared heritage between Christians and Jews. But that\u2019s not the whole story, as Clarkson later reminded me. Many NAR adherents believe \u201cthat they have a special role as Christians in the end-times to deliver Israel\u201d\u2014a time when Jews will finally recognize Jesus as their Savior.
\nLancaster has
\nbeen home for centuries to the plain people, the Amish, the Mennonites, and the Brethren who, to various degrees, eschew machines and other trappings of modernity. But its demographics have shifted markedly over the last few decades. About 7 percent of Lancaster\u2019s senior citizens are people of color, compared with a quarter of the youth. The gap between registered Democrats and Republicans has also narrowed.
\nMuch of this purpling is taking place in the cobblestone streets and stately brick buildings of Lancaster City, which has welcomed 5,000 refugees to its population of 58,000 over the last 20 years. When I visited, I encountered a street festival in full swing. Young people grabbed overflowing plates of chicken tikka from an Indian food truck, and a crowd around the main stage danced to the music of a Liberian hip-hop artist.
\n\u201cThe way that you\u2019re going to heal society is that you\u2019re going to eliminate many government functions.\u201d
\nCity officials may embrace this diversity, but county leaders don\u2019t. In February, the Lancaster City Council
\npassed
\na law prohibiting police and city employees sugar daddy allowance<\/a> from asking people about their immigration status; county commissioners promptly
\ndeclared
\nLancaster a \u201cnon-sanctuary\u201d county. In June, after the City Council
\npassed
\na resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, County Commissioner Josh Parsons called the move a \u201cpropaganda victory for Hamas.\u201d Lancaster\u2019s overwhelmingly Republican state representatives tend to side with the county, even publicly
\ndenouncing
\nthe city\u2019s efforts to welcome immigrants.
\nThese state representatives regularly interact with NAR leaders. In May, two of them
\nmet
\nwith Sean Feucht, an NAR-aligned pastor who travels the country holding prayer rallies on the steps of state Capitol buildings. Also present at the meeting was
\nAbby Abildness
\n, a
\nregional leader
\nfor a prominent NAR figure\u2019s network. Abildness, who works with the state\u2019s prayer caucus group inside the Capitol to promote Christian initiatives sugar baby first meeting<\/a> in government, has spoken candidly about her desire to blur the boundaries between church and state. \u201cWe need them and they need us,\u201d she said, \u201cbecause we can\u2019t go write those laws.\u201d
\nNAR influence in Lancaster churches began appearing in the early 2000s, but the Covid culture wars accelerated its spread. Six years ago, when Rebecca Branle, the owner of a local bike shop and mother of three, moved to Ephrata, she knew her family might stand out because they didn\u2019t attend church. \u201cWe weren\u2019t religious like everyone else, but I didn\u2019t think it was that big of a deal,\u201d she recalls. But in 2020, the pandemic hit, and once-negligible differences became \u201cflash points.\u201d After Branle posted a rainbow flag and a Black Lives Matter sign on her property, someone shot a bullet through the barn window, and in another incident, someone left a single slab of \u00adgranite outside; \u201cLook Behind You\u201d was written on it in permanent marker, accompanied by a smiley face with the eyes crossed out. In smaller print appeared \u201cGays will burn in hell\u201d and \u201cYou can repent.\u201d She was scared for her family\u2019s safety, but also confused: \u201cEspecially this community of people who say they\u2019re so religious, suddenly this kind of talk is okay with them?\u201d
\nThe pandemic frightened many evangelical church leaders as well, but not because of the illness. Closing churches and mask mandates, which some
\nconsidered
\noffensive to God, were the real concern. Some pastors called vaccines the \u201c
\nmark of the beast
\n.\u201d To them, the pandemic\u2019s major lesson was that government had become too powerful\u2014and Christians had neglected to exert influence over that mountain.
\nWhen the Covid pandemic struck, Pastor Don Lamb from LifeGate church in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, felt his congregation needed to become more involved in politics. He went to Washington, DC, for the January 6 rally outside the Capitol.
\nDon Lamb, an ebullient, redheaded pastor whose complexion turns ruddier when he gets excited, felt the impact of Covid profoundly. We sat in the basement of LifeGate\u00ad\u00ad \u00adchurch in the small Lancaster enclave of Elizabethtown, population 12,000, and Lamb described how once his congregation of 150 \u201cwere just doing our things, staying within our four walls, preaching the gospel.\u201d But when mask mandates came into effect, \u201cit was authoritarian into the nth degree, and so that awoke the church to say, \u2018We need to be involved here.\u2019\u201d In sermons, Lamb and his brother and co-pastor, Doug, urged their congregation to oppose not only pandemic restrictions but also mail-in ballots, critical race theory, \u201cpronoun protocols,\u201d and other culture war issues. When Joe Biden won the 2020 election, the Lambs believed that his victory was the result of coordinated election interference by the left.
\n\u201cWho gets to define the vision of society\u2014only the liberals and secularists? That\u2019s what makes us more determined to fight.\u201d
\nOn January 6, 2021, Don Lamb and several parishioners went to the rally outside the US Capitol. What was meant to be a peaceful gathering, he said, became violent only after police \u201cwere already throwing or launching flash-bang grenades at the audience.\u201d He believes that the protesters who breached the building were set up and that the chaos could have been avoided. \u201cWe could have surrounded the Capitol with 100,000 Christians arm to arm just saying, \u2018Grace, Amazing Grace,\u2019\u201d he said, \u201cand there would have been no protesters who would have broken that line.\u201d
\nLamb follows Lance Wallnau, and he subscribes to the Seven Mountain Mandate. Trump, he told me, \u201cwas providentially given the stage of America.\u201d Yet he doesn\u2019t consider his church to be part of NAR. The term \u201cChristian nationalism\u201d irks him. The real problem with our nation, he says, is \u201cliberal nationalism\u2019s\u201d obsession with cancel culture, identity politics, and elite institutions. \u201cWho gets to define the vision of society\u2014only the liberals and secularists?\u201d he asked me. \u201cThat\u2019s what makes us more determined to fight.\u201d
\nDon and Doug Lamb often refer to the persecution of Christians in their sermons. The previous Sunday, Doug began by urging his congregation to love their neighbors, even those with whom they disagreed. But by hour\u2019s end, he was berating Muslim immigrants in England who have \u201ctaken over the entire country\u201d instead of assimilating. When a Muslim visits, he said, \u201cThey\u2019re not coming as a guest. They want to take over your house.\u201d He likened this to the futility of seeking peace with those who follow Satan\u2014like gay people who \u201cdestroyed the church in America,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t compromise the truth and have peace with people who are diabolically opposed to what you believe.\u201d Later, Lamb clarified that a better way to phrase this sentiment might have been: \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t compromise the truth to be at peace with those who oppose you.\u201d
\nTen Commandments tablets outside Don Lamb\u2019s LifeGate church
\nSome LifeGate congregants appear to be using those messages to inform local politics. In 2021, three church members
\nwon seats
\non the Elizabethtown school board, flipping it to a conservative majority. This past June, the school board voted to work with the Independence Law Center, a Christian law firm that has worked with school boards to ban transgender athletes in the county. A tertiary branch of the Family Research Council\u2014a group that has long advocated against the separation of church and state\u2014the law center has deep ties to NAR and is steeped in Washington\u2019s extreme conservative religious right.
\nAfter our conversation, Don took us on a tour of his church. In the cozy, sunlit sanctuary, someone had left a flyer on a pew. The heading read, \u201cPractical areas to prepare to speak out to societal issues.\u201d The fourth item advised Christians, \u201cPeople don\u2019t care that you are a Christian, a citizen, or even a female\u2026you are the enemy! Note: This would not happen to Muslims, Atheists, or BLM groups.\u201d Lamb later told me that \u201cYou are the enemy
\nof their agenda
\n\u201d would have been more accurate.
\nBranle, the Ephrata resident whose barn was vandalized, understands how it feels to be seen as the enemy. When she emailed local police about veiled threats she had received, an officer responded: \u201cCan you elaborate on specifically what you perceive the threat to be? This appears to be a statement of opinion, which is protected speech.\u201d After reporting a few more incidents to police, \u201cI just stopped talking to them,\u201d she said. \u201cIt felt a lot like it wasn\u2019t helping.\u201d
\nGroups affiliated
\nwith NAR are also the quiet heartbeat of institutions serving Lancaster\u2019s neediest residents. TNT Youth Ministry, an evangelical group,
\nprovides
\nclassroom volunteers and field trip chaperones, and it runs Bible studies in local public schools. Another NAR-adjacent ministry, REAL Life Community Services,
\nboasts
\nthat it is the \u201conly full-time social services department\u201d in one town.
\nCommunity service is a typical mission of faith groups the world over. But for Christians who believe they are called to influence the government, the objective is not spurred by faith alone. Rachel Tabachnick, an extremism researcher who studies NAR, notes that many of its adherents believe that \u201cthe way that you\u2019re going to heal society is that you\u2019re going to eliminate many government functions.\u201d The church, not the government, will decide \u201cwhether to feed you or house you or clothe you.\u201d
\nWhile in Lancaster, I visited the Blessings of Hope food distribution center, a Walmart-size grocery store that collects surplus food from manufacturers and makes it available to food pantries throughout the region at a deep discount. Rows of shelves filling the cavernous warehouse were crammed with giant bags of nacho cheese, dried chow mein noodles, gefilte fish, and onion ring mix. An army of volunteers, mostly women, many wearing the traditional
\nhaube
\nhair covering for married \u00adMennonite women, unloaded pallets of boxes.
\nA woman reaches for produce at Blessings of Hope food distribution center in Lancaster.
\nDavid Lapp, the head of Blessings of Hope, grew up Amish but was expelled from the church. He and his eight brothers then explored evangelical Christianity and now follow NAR teachings.
\nDavid Lapp, a 42-year-old father of 12 and CEO of Blessings of Hope, was in charge. He grew up Amish and speaks with the German-\u00adinflected lilt typical of the plain communities in the region. In the early 2000s, he and his eight brothers began to read more about evangelical Christianity. By 2006, after the Amish officially excommunicated them for straying from the church\u2019s teachings, they began to follow NAR leaders, including prophet Andrew Wommack, who
\nbelieves
\nthere is \u201ca demonic deception that is blinding\u201d those who Cebu sugar dating<\/a> spoke out against Trump. They have helped convert several Amish people,
\nintroducing
\nthem to Wommack\u2019s work. Several of the Lapp brothers founded Blessings of Hope in 2006, and it has become a massive operation spread across five warehouses, providing 50,000 meals a day. Their work has drawn national attention: Ivanka Trump
\ntoured
\nthe distribution center during the 2020 campaign.
\nLapp still dresses in the style of the Amish, with a handmade collared shirt, suspenders, and a bowl cut, because \u201cwe felt like God asked us to keep the traditional garb more as a bridge back to our people.\u201d He sees his work as a divine calling. His organization\u2019s closest competitor, he said, is the behemoth nonprofit Feeding America, which he described as \u201cmore of a government-run, government-funded organization\u201d whose church participants \u201care not allowed to share the gospel when they\u2019re giving out food.\u201d Lapp, who believes in the Seven Mountain Mandate, sees publicly funded food pantries as a missed opportunity for the church. When government administers social services, he said, \u201cthey\u2019re going to miss the hearts of the people.\u201d
\nA woman prays at LifeGate church in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.
\nAn American flag at LifeGate church
\nBack at Ephrata
\nCommunity Church, I attended a Saturday evening service in the main building. Toddlers danced in the aisles as the worship band jammed. Some of the congregants had brought shofars in zippered carrying cases. After a somewhat banal sermon, I met executive pastor Jim Ehrman, who told me that he had only recently learned about NAR. Ephrata Community Church, he explained, had long had a \u201cloose affiliation\u201d with apostle Randy Clark, but \u201cwe don\u2019t have a reference for it other than a group we care about was accused of being that.\u201d I pressed further. Wasn\u2019t his church about to host John Bevere, an NAR-affiliated pastor who has warned against the practice of tolerance?
\n\u201cI had no idea he would have been associated with it,\u201d Ehrman said. As far as the Seven Mountain teaching was concerned: \u201cWe do agree [the mountains] are there, but we\u2019re very much like, \u2018No, it\u2019s who you are and how you carry yourself into those.\u2019 There\u2019s not some\u2026mandate to take over.\u201d When I told him about the prayer night, he seemed bemused. All the talk of spiritual warfare I had seen was \u201cjust the frame and the language they pick up,\u201d he said.
\nWas Ehrman just being coy about his church\u2019s connections to the New Apostolic Reformation, or was he genuinely naive to a movement that was so powerful and pervasive? In a sense, it didn\u2019t matter. Another imperfect metaphor for the influence of NAR is climate change. Like it or Manila sugar daddy<\/a> not, it\u2019s happening. The question for many pastors is how to steer their congregations through an increasingly chaotic and extreme religious landscape.
\nFor Ehrman, the label was unimportant. What mattered was that armies of angels were indeed battling with the principalities of darkness. \u201cThere are literally unseen beings who are at odds with the work of God\u2026on this earth,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we believe that they are trying to influence things as well.\u201d
\nAdditional reporting by the
\nLancaster Examiner
\n.
\nCorrection, October 8: An earlier version of this article misstated Abby Abildness\u2019 title.
\nRead our full
\ninvestigation into the rise of Christian nationalism
\n.<\/p>\n

<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_C_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_H_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_A_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_I_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_Q_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_P_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_G_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_N_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_M_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_E_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_F_2000.jpg –>
\n<!– image: https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/496_NAR_O_2000.jpg –><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our November+December issue investigates the Christian nationalist movement that aspires to take over government at all levels, from school boards and state legislatures to Congress …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philisugardaddy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}