Kayleigh McEnany, a White House press secretary under former President Donald Trump, is scheduled to speak Saturday at an event hosted by Ché Ahn, a California-based pastor and leader of the dominionist New Apostolic Reformation. “Reforming California: Taking a Stand for Life, Liberty & Family” will also feature dominionist Dutch Sheets.
McEnany’s appearance with Ahn and Sheets reflects the degree to which Pentecostal dominionists achieved unprecedented access to power during the Trump administration.
“A battle is raging for the soul of America,” declares a promotional video for the event, which repeats right-wing complaints about LGBTQ issues being taught in public schools.
NAR leaders seek to “transform” entire nations through spiritual revival and political activism to bring government policies into alignment with their biblical worldview. “Reforming California” is being sponsored by Revive California, one of the political organizations affiliated with Ahn’s Harvest International Ministry. In 2020, he launched 1RACE4LIFE, a group that asks people to pledge to vote for only anti-abortion and anti-marriage-equality candidates. Revive California’s website includes a five-step vision that defines reformation this way: “Activate every believer to vote biblically, and learn how to run for local, state or national office.”
Ahn was an energetic supporter of Trump and the former president’s false claims to have won the 2020 presidential election. Before the election, Ahn described it as a crucial moment in the battle for the soul of America. On the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters hoping to derail the peaceful transfer of power, Ahn spoke at a rally in D.C. where Christian nationalism and conspiracy theories mingled with threats of violence. Ahn told the crowd they would “change history,” adding, “I believe that this week we’re going to throw Jezebel out and Jehu’s gonna rise up, and we’re gonna rule and reign through President Trump and under the lordship of Jesus Christ,” he said.
Sheets, another NAR leader who has long taught that the church—the ekklesia—is meant to be a governing body legislating God’s will on Earth, was also a big Trump booster. In 2018, he and other NAR leaders gathered 1,300 prayer warriors at Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel to call on God to remove pro-choice Supreme Court justices and destroy Trump’s enemies. The following year, Sheets helped Trump aide Paula White launch the One Voice Prayer Movement, a thinly disguised campaign operation to maintain strong evangelical support for Trump.
In the weeks after the 2020 election, Sheets waged “spiritual warfare” against what he called a demonic plot to steal the election from Trump. During one prayer session he declared, “As Christ’s ekklesia on the Earth, we have been delegated his supreme authority to declare into the spiritual realm what is lawful and what is unlawful, forbidden, and allowed. … We decree the next four years of Donald John Trump’s presidency will see the fruit of God’s divine reset in America.”
Revive California’s advisory board includes other leaders associated with NAR and dominionist Pentecostalism. Among the advisory board members: Bill Johnson, the longtime leader of the controversial Northern California megachurch Bethel, which has international reach through its School of Supernatural Ministry and its music label; Shannon Grove, the minority leader of the California state Senate; Samuel Rodriguez, head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; religious-right activists and husband-and-wife pair Jim Garlow and Rosemary Garlow; Dran Reese, president of The Salt & Light Council, which encourages and equips conservative churches to get more involved in politics; Tony Kim, the U.S. director of Ahn’s Harvest International Ministry; and others.
