Sean Feucht, a musician and worship leader associated with Bethel, the influential and controversial California megachurch, music label, and School for Supernatural Ministry, launched a campaign for Congress last Friday. In an interview posted on Monday, Feucht (pronounced FOYT) told podcaster David Harris Jr. that he believes God called him to run for Congress to help bring revival and reformation.
“I do believe it’s from the Lord,” he said of his congressional bid. “Nobody does something this crazy unless they feel that they have a call. But there’s something about this state, and I believe the calling of God, and destiny on this state, that I just feel like it’s time to dig in our heels and fight back.”
Feucht told Harris that he will need to raise between $3 and $4 million to be competitive and that his political advisers are people who ran Ben Carson’s presidential campaign.
Feucht, who also runs three nonprofits and has traveled the world as a musician-missionary, told Harris that when he was just 16, he helped mobilize for The Call, a prayer rally that dominionist Lou Engle organized on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. a few months before the 2000 election.
“We were just praying for America,” Feucht said of the 2000 rally, adding that they were praying for revival and reformation and for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. “I feel like those prayers are kind of coming back to haunt me in this season.”
Feucht, who has four young children, said he was moved by “the insanity of what our children are growing up in.” He complained about “governmental overreach and control” in California—he talked about having to get a permit to cut down an oak tree on his own property—what he calls “the vaccine issue,” high gasoline taxes, state-mandated sex education, which he said required teaching kids in kindergarten that there are 15 genders.
Feucht talked about California as a land of revival and the birth of the Jesus People movement in the 1970s, a counter-movement, which he claimed changed the lives of hippies who had been strung out on LSD. Feucht said:
California, it’s a land of revival. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence, that the enemy is coming with such an intensity to squelch out that vision and mandate, to bring division, to bring heaviness, to bring oppression and anxiety. Because that is the calling. It’s the sunshine, it’s the golden state, it’s the state that radiates the glory of God. And so, I feel like even for me a big part of this race is really stepping in to contend for that to happen again in California—that God would move in amazing ways. And that’s why we’re incorporating worship, and we’re incorporating prayer. I mean, I feel like those are two massive elements of what we’re called to carry as we walk out this campaign.
Feucht said he’s been surprised by the intensity of opposition he’s faced since launching his campaign. On Tuesday, he suggested online that “the enemy”—a reference to Satan—might be making his family sick as part of the backlash to his announcement.
In the podcast interview, Harris also used the language of spiritual warfare. “So many believers, I think, are becoming more aware of the fact that the fight that we’re in, I really feel today, is a spiritual battle.” Harris offered Feucht encouragement, saying, “They hated Jesus, too.”
