Paige Stevens is a sophomore from Edinburgh, Scotland, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Journalism. This article was adapted from an essay originally written for Professor Jenny Wood Crowley’s course, “Religion and Politics in American History.”
In the 2024 presidential election, groups like the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) handed Trump his most powerful campaigning weapon of all: the armaments of spiritual warfare. Although the New Apostolic Reformation was founded (by missionary C. Peter Wegner) more than forty years ago, it has been gaining extraordinary momentum in recent years. Although the NAR is technically a religious organization, like many other evangelical organizations it has taken on a political impulse in the past decade.
Influenced by apostolic-prophet tradition in Latin American and the combative Neo-charismatic movement, members of the NAR are shepherded by modern-day prophets. President Trump has become their most influential prophet yet. The NAR see Trump as instrumental to their larger mission of building “God’s Kingdom on Earth,” in which they call for “a social and institutional revolution” where followers seek “to destroy the secular state.” In turn, Trump has made consistent efforts to rally the support of the NAR, making the group a little-known but crucial part of a frighteningly radical political base. Then, suddenly, the NAR’s weight in politics significantly heavier than it ever has been.
The President’s taking to the New Apostolic Reformation is controversial in that it compromises some elements of American tradition. In his essay “Civil Religion in America,” Berkeley sociologist Robert N. Bellah identifies the separation of church and state (protected by the First Amendment) as a key pillar of American culture—a principle which Americans, normatively, ought to take very seriously. Unlike in most European countries, which have a declared national religion, religion in America is a private matter—meaning that faith is personal endeavor and something to be practiced at home. In that sense, religion takes no control of the political sphere, although “it doesn’t deny the political realm a religious dimension.” While religion informs morals, opinions and beliefs on an individual basis, “all other religious opinions are outside the cognizance of the state and may be freely held by citizens.”
Yet, the New Apostolic Reformation has built a machine which carries out an explicitly political agenda. The prophets endorse specific candidates and policies. From rallying voters to disseminating political media, the NAR declares political loyalty to one candidate or another, a backing which carries weight. Although it is difficult to identify exactly who is part of this group, it is clear that the organization is part of a definite trend in American Christianity: more and more evangelicals are moving into organizations like the NAR. Others have adopted prophetic beliefs without joining a group. Any way you look at it, new American “prophets” have a large swathe of influence over this growing number of believers.
Enforcing the notions of Christian supremacy on the American population would mean erecting an American government based on biblical law. Across Southern states, Christian nationalization efforts are underway. The Christian Coalition, founded by Rev. Robertson, has established a campaign within education to influence the curriculum taught in Texas schools. In Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Utah, proposed new laws have mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools. Some lawsuits against these rulings are ongoing. U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles, who struck down the Louisiana law, ruled that “the law violates the First Amendment’s provisions forbidding the government from establishing a religion or blocking the free exercise of religion.” According to deGravelles Louisiana Ten Commandments law, like many of the NAR’s ideas about Christian nationalism, was “coercive” in its vision of imposing explicitly Christian morality in a secular setting.
However, supporters of the law say that displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms is not just a religious endeavor, but of “historical significance to the foundation of U.S. law.” Individuals such as evangelical David Barton claim that America was founded on exclusively Christian ideas and that the country has a Christian centre which must be adhered to. In this way, Christianity isn’t just the “right” way; it is the “American” way. Just as the idea of “geographic predestination,” or “manifest destiny,” was a key justification for the expansion of Anglo-Americans settlers to the West, radical Christian organizations maintain the belief that America holds a Christian destiny; in other words, that Kingdom will come. This belief operates in tandem with the embrace of ‘chosen ones’ entitlement; Christian nationalists believe they are “the rightful heir[s] to North America,” and that, they are, in the name of God, “destined to lead the way in the moral and political emancipation of the world.”
The events of the January 6, 2021, insurrection demonstrate the seriousness and urgency of these radical Christian nationalist groups. According to the NAR, the fight to overturn Trump’s electoral defeat was “a great spiritual battle against the forces of darkness.” An attempt to sway the political process, justified by religion, poses a large threat to America’s political integrity: free and fair elections stand as a core feature of democracy, which is clearly compromised by overturning election results.
Christian nationalists were large in numbers among January 6 rioters; and in fact, Stephanie McCrummen, staff writer at the Atlantic, has argued that many NAR leaders were “the principal theological architects” of the insurrection. That members of Christian nationalist organizations were willing to violently storm the Capitol Building—a symbol of American democracy—in the name of religion shows the lengths which they will go to impose their beliefs on the country.
In fact, the triumph of Christian nationalism would completely undermine the defining character of American culture: our long-protected principle of civil religion. American civil religion requires a duality: to hold an acknowledgment of the existence of God, but of no distinctive God that excludes any religious group. A melting pot of, as Alexis de Tocqueville puts it, “the spirit of religion” and “the spirit of freedom.” This is defining American identity not by religion, but by a collection of characteristics and principles—some informed by religion and others not. Tocqueville states, “the legitimacy of the republic itself does not presuppose belief in a particular god or any god at all.” He goes further to say, America is governed by “the sovereignty of the people,” not by a God, nor by Church leaders.
The New Apostolic Reformation and organizations like it radically oppose leadership of the people. What they propose—an America governed by God—would look dramatically different from how the United States looks today. An American theocracy would mean dismantling many of America’s fundamental values, including democracy, pluralism, and civil religion. Whether you support a nationally Christianized America or not, it’s hard to argue that the group does not pose “a profound threat to Democracy,” as NAR observer Frederick Clarkson has argued. Given that they stand against core American principles of freedom and democracy, how patriotic are these radical Christian nationalists?
By Paige Stevens
