IT'S ALWAYS THE rIGHT:

For two days in late October, I attended Clay Clarke's MAGA-driven ReAwaken America Tour near my home in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Keynote speakers included a predictable Who's Who of Trump surrogates, including Michael Flynn, Mike Lindell, Roger Stone, and Eric Trump. The real driver of the event, however, was the lineup of dominionist, charismatic, Christian pastors, prophets, and lay leaders who were there to openly declare war on their enemies in the name of Jesus. These leaders, aligned with the movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), are driven by a prophetic certainty that God is commanding them to establish a militant Christian theocracy in the United States.

I've spent my entire life immersed in New Apostolic Reformation circles. I was raised in the tradition from infancy, remained a fervent foot soldier into my twenties, and have now been studying the movement as an outsider for the past two decades. As a consequence, I honestly wasn't expecting any big surprises when I bought my ticket to see some of the NAR's brightest stars at the ReAwaken rally when it swept through my hometown. 

I was wrong. While forays into national politics and spiritual warfare rhetoric have long marked the NAR movement, the degree to which the dominionist theology of NAR has co-opted far-right political extremism, conspiracy theory culture, and open calls for violence is both a novel and dangerous development. And this is a movement that is no longer confined to the fringes of American religious and political life. The tour has already visited 16 US cities, drawing sold-out crowds at every stop, with regularly priced tickets ranging between $250 and $500. It is arguably the dominant brand of today's Republican Party. For good reason, a growing number of expert observers have begun sounding the alarm. I suggest it's time we hit the panic button.

The rally featured plenty of repugnant elements--from the relentless attacks on transgender youth consistent with fascist scapegoating, to the steady drumbeat of election fraud claims, to accusations that Dr. Fauci engineered Covid-19 in a Chinese lab to help a demonic cabal in Davos to impose a one-world government over freedom-loving Americans like themselves. Emboldened by their movement's surging popularity, speakers repeatedly embraced the once-toxic label of "Christian nationalist" to thunderous applause. 

But underneath it all was a seething groundswell of spiritually sanctioned incitement to violence that was impossible to ignore. The spiritual leaders of this new religio-political movement are using increasingly violent rhetoric to direct an inspired army of God to wage war against all who stand outside their camp. I watched as 4,000 faithful warriors sprang to their feet with each call to arms, roaring their approval, hands outstretched to the heavens in warfare worship, prayers pouring from their lips.

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