Opinion | JD Vance and the Prophets of Trumpism

On Sept. 28, JD Vance spoke at a Christian political event hosted by the most influential religious leader you’ve probably never heard of.

His name is Lance Wallnau, and he is one of the chief proponents of a radical religious doctrine called the Seven Mountain Mandate. He’s an election denier. He’s said Kamala Harris engaged in “witchcraft” in her debate with Donald Trump and that an “occult spirit” is working “on her and through her.” And he’s a leader of one of the most dangerous political factions in America: the religious movement that helped fuel the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In fact, as Matthew Taylor wrote in his important new book, “The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy,” Wallnau himself was instrumental to the insurrection. “I sorted through hundreds of social media profiles of Christians who were present for the riots and the protests at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,” Taylor said, “Strikingly, a common denominator you can find across many of those accounts are clips of Wallnau’s Facebook Live rants and links to episodes of ‘Flashpoint’” — a program on a Christian television network called the Victory Channel.

The event Vance attended was part of Wallnau’s “Courage Tour,” a series of meetings that target key battleground counties, with the goal of encouraging right-wing Christians to vote and recruiting them to serve as election workers and poll watchers. Vance, a Catholic, isn’t part of this movement (he spoke about drug addiction and answered questions at the event), but his presence signals its importance to Trump and his campaign. Wallnau’s audience includes many of Trump’s most zealous and most loyal supporters. Many of them were among the first to board the Trump train, and they’ve never been tempted to get off.

To understand Wallnau and the Seven Mountain Mandate, let’s go back to 2015, the year Trump announced his run for the presidency. At that time, traditional evangelical elites were steadfastly against Trump. For example, the Christian newsmagazine World polled 103 evangelical leaders and influencers throughout the 2016 primary season (I was one of the people polled), and we resolutely and consistently rejected Trump. Marco Rubio won the poll month after month.

And yet, grass-roots evangelical voters preferred Trump. Even as early as August 2015, when a dozen other Republican challengers were still in the race, he enjoyed plurality support from evangelicals, and there was one category of Christian leaders that seemed more drawn to him than others: Pentecostals and charismatics.

The terms “Pentecostal” and “charismatic” refer to Christians who believe that the supernatural signs and wonders that are described in the New Testament still occur today. There are differences between the two groups, but they both believe in divine healing and in words of prophecy. Like virtually all Christians, they believe that angels and demons exist, but Pentecostals and charismatics are more likely to engage in what they call “spiritual warfare” — the use of prayer to try to directly attack and defeat demonic spirits.

I know Pentecostalism well because I used to be a deacon in a small Pentecostal church in rural Kentucky. It was one of the warmest congregations I’ve ever known. The members of my church loved their neighbors and served their community. The belief in miracles translated into a radically welcoming spirit — none of your problems, they believed, could withstand the power of a loving God.

Were you sick? God could heal you. Were you addicted to drugs? God could free you. Was your spouse on the verge of leaving? God could revive the love in both your hearts. There is always hope in a Pentecostal church, and the exuberant worship in many Pentecostal churches reflects that hope.

The first Pentecostal revival began in 1906 in a church on Azusa Street in Los Angeles, and it was led by a Black pastor named William J. Seymour. The Azusa Street Revival featured both Black and white members, but racial divisions emerged early in the movement. To this day, however, Pentecostal churches are often more diverse than their mainstream evangelical counterparts, and Pentecostalism has grown with astonishing speed in South America.

But Pentecostalism has perilous elements, too. Its emphasis on supernatural revelations can make its members vulnerable to charlatans who claim to hear directly from God. Its emotionalism can lead to radicalism. And its culture — with an emphasis on divine revelation and miracles that other evangelicals often find puzzling or hard to believe — can lead to an insularity that walls off Pentecostals from mainstream sources of news and information.

In addition, much of the remarkable growth in Pentecostalism is occurring in independent, nondenominational churches. This means that there is no institutional discipline or accountability for misconduct. There are no true binding statements of theological belief. Indeed, there isn’t really a consensus Pentecostal theology at all — aside from the basics of belief in Jesus, high regard for the biblical text, and the belief in miracles and prophecies.

When most mainstream evangelical leaders stood on the sidelines in 2015 and early 2016, Pentecostal leaders leaned in, including, most importantly, Paula White, the pastor who became one of Trump’s top religious advisers and the chair of his Faith and Opportunity Initiative.

Taylor’s book is focused on one of the most radical Pentecostal movements, the New Apostolic Reformation — a loose network of Christian leaders who claim to be prophets and apostles who are “anointed” to discern the will of God and the true meaning of scripture. Taylor maps out exactly how the New Apostolic Reformation became what he calls the “tip of the spear” of radical Christian Trumpism, and part of that story is about the hold of prophecy on Pentecostal hearts.

I spoke to Taylor about his book, and he told me that while only a small number of Pentecostal prophets predicted a Trump victory in 2016, after he won, the trickle of prophecies became a torrent. In Taylor’s words, Trump’s victory created an “entirely new incentive structure.” Hundreds of prophets and hundreds of prophecies began to flood Christian media outlets, not just the Victory Channel but also networks like Daystar, Trinity Broadcasting Network, and the Christian Broadcasting Network.

“The chorus of prophets,” Taylor said, “create a sense of certainty and irrefutability.” In other words, as the 2020 election approached, countless Christians were not only certain that Trump would win, they were certain that Trump was divinely appointed to save the United States of America, either as King Cyrus figure (a pagan ruler who helped save the people of Israel) or as a King David figure (a flawed king, but still God’s anointed ruler).

Any dissent from that idea was met with ruthless opposition. While there is relatively little theological policing within Pentecostal America, political policing has become rampant. Taylor compared it to a “mafia dynamic.” If you “get out of line on politics,” Taylor said, “you’ll feel it.”

At the same time, the Seven Mountain Mandate provided a theological justification for supporting Trump’s quest for power. The core concept of the Mandate is simple: It states that Christians will be able to save the nation only if they or their allies gain control of each of the seven “mountains” of cultural influence: the family, religion, education, the media, the arts, business and the government.

In 2013, Wallnau wrote a short book with Bill Johnson, pastor of the powerful Bethel Church, a large Pentecostal congregation in California. In a chapter on the Mandate, Wallnau wrote, “These mountains are crowned with high places that modern-day kings occupy as ideological strongholds.” He said that he “sensed” that God was telling him that “he who can take these mountains can take the harvest of nations.”

In Pentecostalism, when people who claim to have God’s “anointing” for prophecy say they have sensed something from God, that’s often taken as direct divine revelation.

Even worse, elements of the Mandate turn Christian concepts of virtue on their head. Traditional Christianity teaches that Christian virtues should be applied to all spheres of life, that the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control — should characterize Christian engagement everywhere.

But to the Seven Mountain Mandate Christian, that’s naïve. Spirituality is necessary to dominate the church, but other characteristics are necessary to dominate the other mountains. As Taylor explained, beauty will help you in the media, so beautiful Christians should orient themselves toward television and film. Ruthlessness is useful in business and politics. In those spheres, pugilism isn’t just valuable, it’s often essential.

Looked at this way, Trump’s rage and fury become assets. “Trump is good,” Taylor told me. “He’s been baptized by their theology.”

Biblically literate readers will immediately spot the flaws in this argument. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke both relate how Satan tempted Jesus by taking him “to a very high mountain” and showing him “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.” Satan said to Jesus, “I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me.”

What was his response? “Go away, Satan!”

Jesus left the mountaintop and died on a cross. Believers in the Seven Mountain Mandate covet the mountaintop. They want to rule. As Wallnau wrote in his book, “The sober truth is that everywhere the church fails to exercise her authority, a vacuum opens for darkness to occupy.”

As a general matter, Christian nationalism is more damaging to the church than to the nation. It diverts believers from following Jesus to pursue power. It divides congregations. Yet there’s no real possibility of Catholic integralists or Protestant theonomists — people who believe in explicitly religious rule for the United States — taking over, especially when religious faith and practice has been in sharp decline.

There are simply not enough Christian nationalists to dominate a functioning democracy. But there are more than enough Christian radicals to create chaos. The Christians who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 traumatized a nation, and when you understand the prophecies believed and the theology held by some of them, you can understand exactly why it might happen again.

The seeds are being sown. In an event last month in Eau Claire, Wis., Wallnau told the crowd, “Jan. 6 was not an insurrection; it was an election fraud intervention.”

Vance’s presence at a Wallnau event means that Wallnau’s influence within the MAGA movement and within Trumpist Christianity is undeniable. Vance’s presence also helps illustrate why he refuses to acknowledge that Biden won a free and fair election in 2020. He’d be directly contradicting the prophets of Trumpism, and if you contradict the prophets of Trumpism, you will be made to pay.

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