The right-wing evangelicals who want Trump to turn America into a theocracy

It’s October 2019, and in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, then president Donald Trump stands at his desk in a blue suit, his eyes closed. Around him are 25 people, also smartly dressed, and with their eyes shut too. With a few exceptions, they’re mostly middle-aged white men, and those of them nearest to Trump lay their hands on him while the room falls silent in prayer.

Among the usual suspects – right-wing evangelicals like American Values president Gary Bauer, First Baptist Dallas senior pastor Robert Jeffress, and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins – are a female televangelist named Paula White-Cain, and the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Samuel Rodriguez.

These last two are leaders in a movement that is playing an increasingly significant role in American politics, constructing a religious network determined to see Trump re-elected in November so that he can continue their mission: to turn America into a theocracy. This is the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).

The NAR was founded in the mid-1990s by a New York minister and theological professor called C Peter Wagner. Its adherents believe that the idea of apostles and prophets didn’t end in Jesus’s time and that the organisation’s leaders are living prophets and apostles today.

It is distinguished by an adherence to Dominionism – the belief that God wants his followers to rise to power through civil systems so Christians can control society. At its heart is what’s known as the Seven Mountains mandate, which offers a blueprint of how the NAR can reclaim America for Christ, by imposing its influence over politics, education, family, the arts, the media, business, and religion.

Web magazine Religion Dispatches ca