Dominionist pastor Ché Ahn appeared at an event in Oklahoma last night that was organized by the Christian nationalist program "FlashPoint," where he bragged that several members of his congregation are on the ballot for the November elections in California.
Ahn, a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation and head of Harvest International Ministries based in Pasadena, California, was active in the right-wing effort to keep former President Donald Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election, appearing at a rally on Jan. 5, 2021—one day before the Capitol insurrection—where he proclaimed that Trump would stay in power and that they would “rule and reign through President Trump and under the lordship of Jesus Christ.”
Even though Trump did not remain in office, Ahn is still intent on seeing his fellow right-wing Christians "rule and reign" over this nation.
"It is time for the church to rise," Ahn told the FlashPoint audience. "We have the answers. We are the ones and we can't just wait for the government—you are his ekklesia, you are his legislative body of the Kingdom of God and you need to be involved."
"We're encouraging people to run for office," he continued. "For the first time in my network of churches ... we have had seven people run in the March 5 primaries. They all ran because we gave them money to win and now they're facing the election in November. They all won (their primaries). Not one lost."
The mission of the New Apostolic Reformation was explained in a recent Right Wing Watch review of André Gagné's book, "American Evangelicals for Trump: Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and the End Times":
NAR’s political mission is “no less than the sociopolitical transformation of nations with the goal of bringing about the Kingdom of God on earth,” Gagné writes. Of course, their view of the Kingdom has no room for people who do not share their religious and political worldviews. “Spiritual warfare” must be waged constantly against God’s enemies—which in the U.S. context includes Trump’s opponents—who are under “demonic control.”
As Gagné notes, “This spiritual warfare theology creates conditions which lead to the demonization of peoples, cultures, and political communities.” And that contributes to a toxic political culture in which compromise and pluralism are seen as sinister rather than essential to healthy society and governing, and in which some “prophets” urge people to stockpile weapons and prepare for civil war:
These Charismatic leaders showed unwavering support for Trump and for his policies an viewed any opposition to the former president as spiritual warfare. They stigmatized and delegitimized their critics, claiming their enemies to be under demonic influence. These enemies include political and religious leaders who do not share the same enthusiasm for Trump and his vision for the United States. Some Charismatics have even prophesized the coming of a second American civil war—encouraging Christians to defend themselves against all opposition to Trump and their plan for a Christian hegemony. Many of these Trump-supporting Charismatics view democratic pluralism with suspicion and often try to silence church leaders who disagree with them. Pluralism is simply—and literally—demonized.
