There's a Christian Extremist Cult Secretly Taking Over our Government

Most Americans have never heard of them but they've been slowly conquering our political system one prayer at a time

When I tell people that there is a movement in America that believes there are territorial demons ruling in physical locations around the world, and the only way to defeat them is to travel to these locations and wage spiritual warfare, they look at me as if Alex Jones told them that fluoride in the water was turning frogs gay.

But unlike Alex’s claim, I can assure you this is true.

Even worse, many of the leaders in this movement have invaded the U.S. government, convinced the Trump regime to give them an office in the White House, and routinely invite their Christian zealot friends to worship on White House grounds as an act of spiritual warfare.

They’re part of a network called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), and this network is experiencing an explosion of growth in America.

And I’m about to expose what it is and who the leaders are.

Context First

Before we dive in, I need to set the stage for those of you who might not be familiar with the way Christianity is broken up. Let me construct a visual in your mind that will help you for the rest of this piece. Christianity is like a massive house with three major wings: Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestantism. (There are others, but for our context we’ll keep it here.) The Protestant portion is the newest addition to the house and occupies several floors with different rooms.

On the very bottom floor—the basement—lives modern American evangelicalism. And down in the basement is a world of different factions with various theological convictions. This basement houses the largest religious group that is in step with Trump and the MAGA movement. I would strongly argue that they are the voting bloc solely responsible for the rise of Trump—white evangelicals. The only reason he got traction in the Republican Party is because evangelical leaders slowly but surely came out in support of him

Jerry Falwell Jr. was one of the first to do so, but there was someone even before him who was giving Trump the divine stamp of approval years before he ran in 2016—but we’ll get to them later on.

Theological Divide

One of the biggest schisms in American evangelicalism is the role the Holy Spirit plays in the life of the Christian. There are some who believe that the supernatural gifts the Bible talks about—such as miraculous healings, prophecy, and speaking in tongues—have ceased. They are called cessationists. Doug Wilson and Pete Hegseth have this view.

However, there is another part of the basement that insists the supernatural gifts of the Spirit still happen today. These folks are called continuationists, or more plainly, charismatics.

Here’s why this distinction matters—and why I need you to hold onto it for the rest of this piece. The continuationist (charismatic) tradition operates on the premise that God is STILL speaking. Directly. To people. Today.

Which means if someone in that world stands up and says, “God told me…”—you cannot really refute it. There’s no institutional check. There’s no peer review. There’s no appeals process. God has spoken and you’d better listen.

And once you hand someone the authority of “God spoke to me,” my friends, you have handed them something that is almost impossible to take back.

Keep that in mind.

Got it? Good, because there’s more.

The Wild Wild West

Evangelicals have two major ways of structuring their churches. They either form denominations, or they are non-denominational churches. Denominational churches operate with oversight (in theory anyway, but that’s a different discussion), and non-denominational churches have no such oversight except for what the pastor and elders of the church deem necessary.

I promise this is all relevant to the New Apostolic Reformation, so hang in there. This context is so important to understand just how fast things have changed.

In the world of non-denominational charismatic churches (I’ll refer to this corner of the basement as Independent Charismatic Churches) lies a subset of charismatics called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). This is the group I am talking about that has captured the White House and is waging war in the Spirit over America daily.

For those not familiar with this language, to wage war in the Spirit is a euphemism for praying to God and making declarations that he’ll do something based on your request or it could be fighting Satan and his demons in the name of Jesus. Many in this charismatic world believe that things like depression are a sign of demonic attack and can only be defeated by waging war against the demonic stronghold in your life. NAR theology uses warfare language throughout. They believe they are at war with demonic forces that are destroying the country. More on that later.

Even by evangelical standards, independent charismatics operate like the Wild West and have historically been seen as a fringe sect. Kind of like that weird uncle you see during the holidays that the rest of the family doesn’t talk to—unless they have to.

While they are highly networked, there is usually very little governing oversight for its leaders. Independent charismatic churches are built on hierarchies and authority structures with a heavy spiritual foundation. Church leaders are believed to be specially chosen by God for a divine purpose. Often the word anointing is used to describe it.

In independent charismatic theology, if someone is anointed by God, that means they have a special call on their life by God to be used for a divine purpose. The NAR, which is birthed out of the independent charismatic world, takes this idea and turbocharges it while expanding its emphasis on not just the church, but all areas—or mountains—of society.

Meet the Founder

The architect of the NAR is a man named C. Peter Wagner.

And here’s the thing—Wagner wasn’t some fringe pastor screaming into a microphone in a strip mall church. He was a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California—one of the most respected evangelical academic institutions in the country.

He had legitimacy. He had credentials. He had the ear of serious people.

Which is EXACTLY why, when he started saying God was raising up a new class of apostles, people didn’t laugh. They leaned in.

He was well respected and a pioneer of the Church Growth Movement, which is responsible for much of how the evangelical church operates today. This guy was no slouch. He was a pro.

Step Aside, Disciples

In the 90s, he developed a brand new concept in Christianity that was not based in any historical teachings. He believed that God was raising up new apostles to usher in a new age of the church.

Apostles in the Bible were the first people commissioned by Jesus and some of the earliest church leaders—the apostle Paul, for example. The church historically saw the role of apostle as pretty limited to the original ones mentioned in scripture, but Wagner, coming out of the evangelical charismatic tradition, believed God gave him a vision that a new wave of apostles—anointed by God to usher in God’s kingdom on earth—were forming.

They were being called and raised up in these “last days.”

Peter himself said that this was “the most radical change in the way of doing church since the Protestant Reformation.”

In charismatic spaces, there is a heavy weight placed on God speaking to people through dreams, visions, through the Bible, and through an inner voice. As far as they’re concerned, it’s as if the God of the universe himself is speaking—thus their words should be treated with that level of authority.

Unchecked Abuse

You can see how people who are viewed to have a special anointing or connection to God are often viewed as untouchable. Touch not God’s anointed, as the slogan goes. And yes, this creates a culture where prominent leaders get away with abuse of all kinds.

One of the most recent examples is Shawn Bolz, a self-described prophet who claimed to receive words of knowledge where he would call out people’s names, addresses, and birthdays—but in reality, he was data mining ahead of time. There are also accusations of Bolz being involved in “sexual deviancy.” Bolz would allegedly walk around naked in front of other men who were volunteering in his ministry and perform various “acts” on himself. This of course was non-consensual and therefore abuse

.

There is also good evidence to suggest that other big leaders in the charismatic world knew about the controversy surrounding Shawn and either downplayed it or ignored it. Leaders at Bethel Church were made aware of abusive allegations and quietly removed his books from their shelves and stopped inviting him to speak—instead of raising the alarm that there was a predator touring the country doing this.

This kind of pattern also exists in the NAR, but because it operates in a very structurally informal but highly relational way opening the door for more unchecked abuse to happen.

The Dangerous Genius of the NAR

The New Apostolic Reformation isn’t a denomination. It’s not a church you can join, and it’s not a neatly organized institution with a headquarters and a clear org chart. That’s kind of the point. It’s a loose, decentralized network of leaders who claim direct authority from God as apostles and prophets.

At the top, you have these self-appointed apostles. NAR founder Peter Wagner argued that God was restoring the office of apostle in the modern church. These apostles aren’t elected. They aren’t accountable in any meaningful institutional way. Their authority comes from their claim that God chose them—or another leader anoints them as an apostle. That’s it. That’s literally it.

They claim to have been given authority by God, people agree and commission them as apostles, and then they start leading people.

Under the apostles are the prophets—people who claim to receive direct, ongoing revelation from God. Figures like Bill Johnson or Cindy Jacobs operate in this ecosystem, where “hearing from God” isn’t just encouraged—it’s the currency of power.

These are not fringe voices shouting from the margins.

They have access.

Real, documented access to the halls of American power and influence over millions of people.

The NAR has a complicated web of aligned churches, ministries, and networks. Think places like Bethel Church or International House of Prayer (IHOP), which has been mostly gutted due to their founder Mike Bickle being a serial predator.

When you build institutions on unchecked spiritual authority—when the leader’s word is essentially the word of God—you create the perfect conditions for predators to operate. Every single time.

These churches and organizations aren’t franchises like McDonald’s, but instead they’re relationally tied to apostles and prophetic leaders. Loyalty flows upward. Influence flows downward.

And that’s really the key to understanding the structure: it’s relational, not institutional. Instead of a denominational hierarchy, you get overlapping networks of influence. Apostles oversee “spheres”—churches, media, politics, business—and the goal is to take dominion over all of them. What you end up with is a system that looks informal on paper but functions with very real power. No clear accountability. No centralized oversight. Just a web of leaders who reinforce each other’s authority by claiming divine backing and when a leader is abusive everyone can claim that they never formally worked for the church or organization they were networked into.

It’s not disorganized.

It’s unregulated.

And that distinction matters.

Defeating the "Queen of Heaven”

Peter Wagner, the founder of this movement, coined the term the dominion mandate. In 2007 Wagner said the following that I believe really outlines what the NAR movement is really built upon:

“Our theological bedrock is what has been known as Dominion Theology. This means that our divine mandate is to do whatever is necessary, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to retake the dominion of God’s creation which Adam forfeited to Satan in the Garden of Eden. It is nothing less than seeing God’s kingdom coming and His will being done here on earth as it is in heaven.”

While in the beginning Wagner saw the role of the Church to influence society for good, over time this evolved to mean taking ground in culture. One of his protégés, Lance Wallnau, coined the term the Seven Mountain Mandate in the early 2000’s, arguing that the Church — read: people who think and believe like them — were to invade and conquer the seven mountains of influence: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. The concept of the seven mountain mandate isn’t Lance’s original idea. The concept dates back to the 70’s.

Spiritual Mapping

NAR adherents—especially the apostles and prophets in the movement—believe that there are areas in the world ruled by Satan and his demons. To free those areas from demonic strongholds, they must travel to the location physically and wage spiritual violence. They have no problem using violent imagery to describe what they’re doing. A popular Bible verse they use to justify this is Gospel of Matthew 11:12, which says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.”

Peter Wagner believed that God gave the church what he dubbed a “new spiritual technology,” which he called strategic-level spiritual warfare. Charismatic theology has a history of believing that demons can possess someone, so that wasn’t what he was referring to. He called that ground-level spiritual warfare. This was a new iteration entirely.

Wagner believed that there were spiritual territories and that demons controlled entire geographical regions in order to rule over and control people groups.

How do you find them?

Well, with spiritual mapping, of course.

Certain people who have the gift of prophetic espionage—as Wagner coined it—were supposedly able to use their gift to sniff out these strongholds. This led Wagner to bring a team to Mount Everest to try and cast out a “territorial spirit” called the Queen of Heaven.

That is real.

That is how serious they take this stuff.

A team of apostles and prophets were so convinced that they had a supernatural anointing giving them spiritual authority to claim physical territory for God that they scaled Mount Everest to cast out a supposed territorial demon called the Queen of Heaven.

Interesting, by the way, that the demon is “she” and not “he.”

Satan is Stealing the Election

Back in 2020, when Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen from him, many NAR leaders began organizing various rallies to “appeal to heaven,” asking God to overturn the election results—driven by the same ideology that drove a team to Mount Everest.

For NAR leaders, there was a demonic territorial spirit taking over Washington, and they had to wage spiritual warfare to take back the nation before it was too late.

While many NAR leaders were not physically present on January 6th, many of them WERE on calls warring in the spirit for God’s will to be done. Some were on Capitol grounds holding worship services on site as the violence broke out.

There’s another element to this.

NAR adherents believe that the more people they can get to pray in the spirit in agreement with them—even from afar—the more likely it is that God will move on their behalf. They don’t think they necessarily have supernatural power themselves, but they do believe they have a special connection to the God over all things who can move on their behalf if enough people petition him.

They genuinely believe they can change the course of history if they can convince God to intervene.

This is why so many NAR leaders were not on Capitol grounds on January 6th, but were instead mobilizing their prayer networks and declaring that God wasn’t done with Trump and would intervene.

Remember this video of Paula White asking for God to dispatch angels from Africa?

She’s doing spiritual warfare.

She’s asking God to send a territorial angel from one region to combat the territorial demon over the White House.

The Age of the Charismatic

As I said earlier, historically the NAR was seen as a fringe sect of evangelicalism—even by evangelical standards—but the rise of Trump has flipped the script. Now moderate evangelicals are seen as liberal, and Christian extremists like those in the NAR have taken center stage.

Remember that person I mentioned earlier in the piece who was responsible for helping Trump run for president?

Her name is Paula White.

She is Trump’s pastor and mentor, and has been for a LONG time.

In fact, Trump initially wanted to run in 2012, but White advised against it. When Trump wanted to run in 2016, Paula White brought her network of pastors to Trump Tower to meet Trump—to get them on board.

If she could get them to see God’s “hand” on Trump, she knew they would be able to convince their followers of the same.

Remember, these leaders are seen to have a special anointing by God to see the unseen and hear what is often unheard. These leaders created all kinds of easy-to-understand metaphors for their already conservative audience to get behind Trump.

This network was a major reason Trump got the nomination and eventual election win in 2016. Don’t forget—2016 saw many Republican hopefuls run for office, and frankly speaking, many of them were more qualified in every way than Trump ever was.

Yet Paula White believed that God spoke to her and that Trump was being called by God to shake up the status quo in American politics.

The Prophecy Given Years Ago

This was reinforced by a prophecy uttered by Kim Clement in 2007 that declared Trump would one day become president.

Kim Clement died in November of 2016—weeks after the election he prophesied.

But here’s the thing: the NAR movement has turned him into a martyr.

For the leaders of this movement Clement was a prophet who spoke truth the world wasn’t ready to hear.

His 2007 recording was shared millions of times in the lead-up to the election. Replayed. Clipped. Posted with fire emojis.

As you can imagine, when NAR leaders heard that Trump wanted to run in 2016, many recalled the 2007 prophecy and saw his election bid as a sign that the prophecy would be fulfilled.

Hostile Takeover

These days Paula White leads the White House Faith Office—which should really be called the White House Christian Supremacist Office, considering no other faiths or progressive iterations of Christianity will ever be invited to the White House.

Today, NAR leaders are motivated more than ever to take America back for God and every time another one of their leaders gains access to political power they see it as God blessing their crusade.

And yes, they are Christian nationalists—and as the data suggests, they are less likely to believe in pluralism, democratic norms, and finding common ground with their political opponents.

It makes sense once you understand that for the NAR, they believe they are literally in a battle against the forces of evil—which they believe are manifested in the Democratic Party.

What’s the evidence for such a claim?

The Democrats support open borders, want to “trans” kids, and of course support the demon-worshipping act of abortion.

This is not hyperbole.

They believe that abortion is a religious act of sacrificing children on the altar of Molech

.

For the apostles and prophets of this movement, spiritual warfare must be waged and territory claimed for the kingdom of God.

My Warning

This is why I’ve been warning secular Democrats for years that you cannot play ball with Christian nationalists. Not because you don’t want to be a good faith actor—but because these Christians believe you are under demonic possession and must be defeated.

Once again, this is not hyperbole.

This is the worldview they operate in.

I know because I grew up in a slightly different variant of the Christian supremacy that animates the NAR.

You must understand that for these apostles and prophets, the stakes cannot be higher. Not only do they believe that they have a special connection to God—armed with spiritual authority to cast out demons, supernaturally heal people, utter angelic languages, and speak on behalf of the almighty—they believe that God has raised them up at this moment in history to be the generation that ushers in the return of Christ.

A Word to the Wise.

I understand that for the part of my audience that did not grow up in a religious context—especially an evangelical one—you might be tempted to dismiss these people as lunatics who will eventually go away if ignored long enough.

I assure you that is a grave mistake.

They will not go away.

In fact, Christian fundamentalists have been working for decades behind the scenes, building organizations, networks, and acquiring billions of dollars to turn America into a society that worships at their feet in the name of their god.

The web is deeper, more complex, and better funded than you can possibly imagine.

Money, Lies, and God by Katherine Stewart will give you a taste of just how well organized and strategic Christian nationalists are.

If secular progressive media outlets and pundits are going to fully expose the Trump regime, then they have to take the religious side incredibly seriously and do their homework instead of writing these people off as nut jobs.

Faith is a very personal thing, and Christianity is the dominant faith in America—and it’s not going anywhere.

People—including progressives—are spiritual, religious, and do not want to give up faith in order to join a movement that promotes human flourishing for all of their neighbors.

Values>Beliefs

This is why we must build a movement with shared values instead of shared beliefs.

Me, a Muslim, an atheist, and a Hindu can all work together to ensure our immigrant neighbors stop getting kidnapped, our trans neighbors have the right to access healthcare, and everyone can access affordable care.

Sure, we might have different beliefs that lead us there—but we share the same value of loving our neighbors as ourselves.

THAT is how we defeat Christian nationalism.

We don’t ignore them. We don’t pretend that they aren’t as influential as they are. Instead, we offer a BETTER narrative. One of hope. Of love. Of justice. Of inclusivity.

Literally a message of human flourishing. But it starts with education and knowing just how radical of a movement we are facing which is why I made this piece.

I hope it helped you understand just how dire the situation is—and how we must work together to extinguish the hell on earth Christian nationalism is creating.

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