Tens of thousands of people answered the call from New Apostolic Reformation leaders to gather on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on Saturday for what organizer Lou Engle called “a last stand for America.”
Like the pro-Trump Courage Tour being led by NAR leader Lance Wallnau in swing states, the ten-hour gathering in DC mixed worship, spiritual warfare, and MAGA politics. The day ended with NAR apostle and political activist Ché Ahn talking about the demonic spirit of Jezebel supposedly working through politicians like Vice President Kamala Harris—and making an “apostolic decree” that Donald Trump would be elected in November.
The New Apostolic Reformation is a growing religious and political movement grounded in a theology of dominion—the idea that God wants certain kinds of Christians to take control of the government and every other important institution in society to transform nations and bring culture and laws into alignment with their right-wing biblical worldview. The NAR is also characterized by the idea of strategic level spiritual warfare—prayers and decrees meant to dislodge demonic spirits controlling geographical areas or institutions in “the natural.”
In the U.S., NAR leaders reached new heights of influence during the Trump administration—thanks in part to having publicly declared during the 2016 campaign that Trump was anointed by God. NAR leaders acted as cheerleaders for Trump and prayed for God to “remove” Supreme Court justices to give him more opportunities to reshape the Court.
NAR leaders are still intimately connected with the MAGA movement and political power at the highest levels; House Speaker Mike Johnson sent a message to the gathering that was read from the stage. Wallnau and Mario Murillo’s Courage Tour is working with MAGA movement groups Turning Point USA and the America First Policy Institute in what scholar Mathew Taylor has called “the most targeted and tactical voter mobilization effort done by Christian nationalists ever.”
The NAR is not a denomination but functions as a collaborative network of leaders and ministries. Many of the movement’s top figures participated in the Oct. 12 rally. In addition to Engle and Ahn, they included Wallnau, Dutch Sheets, Cindy Jacobs, Mark Gonzales, Bill Johnson, and Jonathan Cahn. FlashPoint host Gene Bailey was interviewed on the event’s livestream.
Engle has spent decades holding large-scale prayer rallies, often connected to specific political goals, like a presidential election or, in California in 2008, passage of an anti-marriage equality ballot initiative. For this event—which was billed specifically as a call to “A Million Women”—he teamed up with Jenny Donnelly, leader of the Her Voice Movement and its anti-LGBTQ “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” campaign. The event was also promoted by Intercessors for America, the Family Research Council, and the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Before Ahn gathered the apostles behind him to make his decree about Trump’s victory, spiritual warriors on stage had engaged in more concrete violence. With Engle urging them on, Cahn and others took sledgehammers to a representation of the altar of the goddess Ishtar, who is closely associated with the biblical figure of Jezebel. Another leader had previously asked people to turn around to look at the Washington Monument, declaring that the obelisk is America’s “Asherah pole”—Asherah is another name for Ishtar. The smashing of the altar, said Engle and Ahn, signified that the day’s prayers had stripped the evil goddess of her spiritual power over the U.S.
The rally was held on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Repentance on both a personal and national level was a major theme of the day. Speakers led prayers asking forgiveness for pornography, legal abortion, marriage equality, and schools that affirm transgender students. While speakers insisted that they “love the rainbow people,” they prayed that God would “break” the LGBTQ Pride movement and defeat the “demonic principality” they blame for the existence of trans people. Engle has had a dream prophesying that 100,000 “LGBTs” would be “saved.”
Speakers told victims of sexual assault to forgive their perpetrators and people who had been subjected to racism to forgive “all those who’ve betrayed us.” Speakers also asked forgiveness for historical Christian antisemitism and for the U.S. government not being sufficiently “unequivocal” in its support for Israel.
Blue and pink “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” flags—emphasizing two genders—were prominent. One activist held a banner with the same color scheme that called for a return to a patriarchal “Holy Order”—with a hierarchy of God, husband, wife, and children.
Also popular were “Appeal to Heaven” flags, which date to the Revolutionary War but were turned into a political and spiritual warfare banner by NAR Apostle Dutch Sheets. Appeal to Heaven flags flew over the Jan. 6 crowd at the Capitol as well as Justice Samuel Alito’s beach house; one stands outside Speaker Johnson’s office.
While the NAR is global in scope and ambition, in the U.S. it works closely with other Christian nationalists who believe the U.S. has a national covenant with God to promote Christianity. In his time at the microphone, Dutch Sheets ran through a David Barton-esque list of anecdotes from early American history to justify leading the crowd through his request for God to “reconstitute” what he said was the country’s original “covenantal alliance and purpose.”
Some speakers made the connection to the upcoming elections quite explicit.
Bernadette Smith, a vice chair of the Michigan Republican Party, invoked the now-commonplace description of American politics as a “spiritual fight.” She said “it’s evil vs. good, demons vs. the light,” adding, “We are the light and we will eradicate the darkness that’s on the face of the Earth.”
“It’s not enough to pray if we’re not gonna vote,” said Mark Gonzales, a member of the Trump-supporting POTUS Shield network. He complained about reports that 41 million American Christians did not intend to vote this year, saying “and then we wonder why prayer’s not in school…then we wonder why we see same-sex marriage is legal, abortion’s legal, all these things are happening.” Gonzales talked about the difference churches could make by turning out voters in crucial swing states and counties:
We were a nation founded on biblical principles, and I’m here to tell you it’s time we take our culture back. It’s time we take back our schools. It’s time we take back the halls of government. It’s time we take back the Capitol. It’s time we take back the White House. Because I’m here to tell you, if we do our part, we’re here to take over for his honor and his glory…The time has come for the church to rise up like never before and we decide who’s gonna serve at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We’re gonna decide who’s gonna walk the halls of Congress. And we’re gonna decide who’s gonna be at our city council, our school board, our boards and commissions, if the church begins to rise up in this hour.
After a communion service and the long and frenzied smashing of Ishtar’s altar, Ahn took the microphone to talk about his successful legal challenge to public health restrictions on worship gatherings during COVID-19, which he called a victory over Jezebel as manifested in Gov. Gavin Newsom and just a warm-up to the defeat of Ishtar. He said that Jonathan Cahn had told him that Ishtar was going down on October 12:
And when I heard that, I knew that I’m to make a decree, an apostolic decree. And I want all the apostles and prophets to stand behind me because I want to make a decree. And I’m decreeing this by faith. I believe when Jonathan Cahn says that Trump is a type of Jehu and Kamala Harris is a type of Jezebel, and as you know Jehu cast out Jezebel. I took one of the stones [from the shattered altar], I went over the edge, and I threw that stone into the trash can, because it was a prophetic act for me, so I’m ready to make this decree: So I decree in Jesus’ mighty name, and I decree it by faith, that Trump will win on November the 5th. He will be our 47th president. And Kamala Harris will be cast out and she will lose, in Jesus’ mighty name.
It seems relevant to note that on Jan. 5, 2021, the eve of the Trump insurrection, Ahn attended a pro-Trump rally near the White House, where he declared that the election was stolen, that Trump would stay in power, and his supporters would “rule and reign through President Trump and under the lordship of Jesus Christ.”
Organizers of the Oct. 12 rally didn’t get a million people to attend, but the crowd was large enough to fill several blocks of the National Mall. It was a far more diverse crowd than the previous week’s Pray Vote Stand event, reflecting the fact that Pentecostal churches tend to be more ethnically diverse than traditional predominantly white evangelical denominations. The NAR has global reach and ambition, seeking to transform Christianity itself as well as the nations of the world, and it claims to have drawn viewers from around the world.
The New Apostolic Reformation is one of the most significant movements in American religion and politics today. Right Wing Watch chronicled its leaders’ rising influence during the Trump era; the movement has recently begun to get the criticalmediaattention it deserves. You can learn more by watching a webinar hosted by Political Research Associates or a webinar hosted by the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, or checking out “A Reporter’s Guide to the New Apostolic Reformation” by researcher Frederick Clarkson and religion scholar André Gagné, whose book on NAR and dominionism was reviewed by Right Wing Watch.
