The “New Apostolic Reformation” Says Trump is the Anointed of God

Sometimes a “conspiracy theory” turns out to be an actual conspiracy hiding in plain sight

Then President Donald J. Trump doing a photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church, June 1, 2020. Public domain as an official White House photo.

Have you heard of the “New Apostolic Reformation” (NAR)? I hadn’t until I saw a short segment on the PBS Newshour, where a professor of religion mentioned them as a primary force behind Christian evangelical support for Donald Trump.

Intrigued, I set out to investigate a little more.

Talk about falling down a rabbit hole.

When investigators try to pin down members of NAR as members of NAR — like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, for example — they are told that it doesn’t exist and they are just being silly.

Of course, it does exist, and those who are part of NAR are thoroughly networked with one another. When confronted by people outside that network, however, they deflect and deny.

So, the result is that if investigative journalists, or even people like me, try to point out what a grave threat NAR poses to American democracy, we find ourselves sounding like nutty conspiracy theorists.

It is the classic “boy who cried wolf” situation, I suppose. There is a wolf. The NAR runs a conspiracy, and so, to point out that this is a conspiracy is not a “conspiracy theory” but rather a conspiracy fact.

What is the NAR?

As one wit put it:

…NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation. … It is like Grape Nuts — it’s not grapes and it’s not nuts. It’s like Christian Science — it’s not Christian and it’s not scientific. Well, the New Apostolic Reformation isn’t new, it isn’t apostolic, and it isn’t a reformation. But it is a rapidly expanding movement being generated by some of the same old troubling false teachers and false leaders that have been around in Charismania for decades … — John MacArthur

The phrase “new apostolic reformation” was coined by the founder of the movement, C. Peter Wagner. (One of his last acts before he died in 2016 was to endorse Donald Trump for president and his followers took notice since, after all, Wagner was a prophet of God). The NAR was founded on a non-traditional reading of Ephesians 4:11: “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers.” The idea is that modern assorted denominations of Christianity have the latter three, but why aren’t there still apostles and prophets and miracles being performed? Time to restore all of that. Yes, by the way, when NAR says prophets, they mean prophets, i.e., God speaks through them.

Some prophets (they number in the thousands now, by the way) of NAR said Trump — as the anointed of God — would win in 2020. When he didn’t win, guess who was a primary driving force behind the Stop the Steal movement as well as January 6th? Yep, the prophets, apostles, and believers of NAR. After all, God said Trump would win (as the anointed one), and it was therefore impossible that he didn’t win. I had often wondered about the vehemence of election deniers, but the religious element makes it all make sense.

I’m more than a little angry, though, that I have only just heard of NAR now. Why haven’t they been talked about more in the media? Why weren’t they mentioned by the Jan 6th committee? Especially since a prophet of NAR, Dutch Sheets, was having meetings with Trump leading up to Jan 6th?!

Why is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson getting a free pass on displaying at his office the “Appeal to Heaven” flag which is a New Apostolic Reformation emblem?! When called on it, he brushed it off, noting that the flag had been created by George Washington and had historical significance. Yeah, fine, but it is still the flag of NAR and everyone involved in NAR knows that! Mike Johnson knows that! There were hundreds of “Appeal to Heaven” flags in the crowd on Jan 6th!

Trump Victory Center in Ohio, 16 November 2020, showing “An Appeal to Heaven” flag, WikiCommons

But since Mike is part of the conspiracy, of course, he therefore does not fess up to membership. Aw shucks, he is just a history buff.

Hiding in plain sight

You can spot NAR adherents by the company they keep. Johnson has close ties with Jim Garlow, who is a NAR apostle and Trump apologist. After the 2020 election, Garlow organized a “Global Prayer for Election Integrity” call (on Zoom, I guess?) to have God reinstate Trump as president.

These Garlow calls are still going on, now called “World Prayer Network” calls, and Mike Johnson is a regular participant. According to an article by Matthew D. Taylor, Mike Johnson:

…described admiring and following Jim Garlow for more than two decades. “You’ve been a profound influence on my life and my walk with Christ, brother,” Johnson told Garlow during one World Prayer Network call.

Lance Wallnau (of NAR) wrote a book “God’s Chaos Candidate” that drummed up evangelical support for Trump in 2016.

Paula White-Cain (of NAR) gave the invocation before Trump’s Jan 6th insurrection rally.

And then there is Dutch Sheets (of NAR). Also noted by Matt Taylor:

For his part, Dutch Sheets became a one-man Trump propaganda machine after the election was called for Biden. He undertook an ambitious swing-state prayer and prophecy tour with a band of prophets and prayer warriors to try to push the spiritual dial toward Trump, leading huge rallies with hundreds of thousands following on YouTube. Sheets also, through his popular daily YouTube broadcasts (receiving 200,000+ views each day in December 2020) and myriad charismatic media appearances in the leadup to the Insurrection, was one of the foremost Christian Big Lie enthusiasts with masses of charismatic Christians tracking his commentary.

Okay, so we have established there is this thing called NAR, that Speaker Johnson is part of it, and that they do believe that Trump is the anointed of God.

You might be saying: Yeah, so?

Here is what else NAR supports: The Seven Mountains Mandate. In short, this is the belief that Christians must through spiritual warfare (and that term “warfare” is not entirely figuratively speaking, i.e., Jan 6th for example) take full and complete control of religion, family, government, business, education, media, and arts & entertainment.

To refer to them merely as “Christian nationalists” is a complete mischaracterization. That is a mistake that I have made. You are making the mistake too, as you and I both have underestimated them, both in their ambitions and in their reach in circles of power.

They don’t just want to take charge of the government to legislate Christianity into being the law of the land. They want to control everything. They want Christ’s dominion made manifest on Earth and not just in government but in the schools, in news media, and in entertainment.

Don’t laugh them off.

They are global.

That is another reason to not call them Christian “nationalists” because the nation does not matter at all. They want the whole damn planet.

And they are organized and they are networked and they are growing in strength.

Yet they will smile at you — just like Mike Johnson’s friendly grin — and deny it all if you ask.

As Frederick Clarkson and Andre Gagne note in a series of articles (which I will list down below):

… the NAR plays an important role in the culture and politics of many other nations. That this massive, multidimensional trend is so underreported and its international character, dimensions, and organization are mostly missed, means that even our best understanding of this movement is often problematic.

As for the threat it poses here in America, Clarkson and Gagne also note:

The NAR doesn’t merit our considered attention because some of the leaders may sound nutty to those outside the movement, but because it’s driven by theocratic notions of total societal dominion, including the end of democracy as we’ve known it; and it deserves our attention because it’s developed the political capacities to make these ambitions a lot less of a pipe dream than they seemed even five years ago. This ought to be reason enough to end the era of glib dismissal and casual reporting of one of the most significant religious and political movements of our time. (emphasis added)

So, why should you care? Because this is the true conspiracy behind all the other “conspiracy theories” floating around out there.

Get informed about it.

Additional info

In a short little article on Medium, I cannot give a true sense of what a rabbit hole it is to delve into this stuff, especially if you (like me) have no background in evangelical or charismatic Christianity. So, I will list here some other sources you can check out.

First, there is a series of podcasts done by Matt Taylor called “Charismatic Revival Fury: The New Apostolic Reformation.” Listen here.

As a general source to stay on top of what is going on in radical evangelical land, check out the amusingly named podcast “Straight White American Jesus.” The description reads: “An in-depth examination of the culture and politics of Christian Nationalism and Evangelicalism by two ex-evangelical ministers-turned-religion professors. If you have ever wondered what social and historical forces led white evangelicals to usher Donald Trump into the White House this is the show for you.”

There is a series of three articles written by Frederick Clarkson and Andre Gagne that contain a wealth of important info, especially since the news media has not as yet come close to properly covering the NAR:

If these are a little too dense for you and you would like a simpler summary, Slate put out a good article interviewing Gagne. The article is titled: “The Radical Evangelicals Who Helped Push Jan. 6 to Wage War on ‘Demonic Influence’: Mike Johnson has deep ties to groups that encouraged the Capitol raid — out of conviction that they’re in a literal battle between supernatural forces of good and evil.”

Fair warning if you peruse any or all of these sources: Be prepared to encounter strange and mind-blowing things.

Recreation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Piccadilly Circus (London), WikiCommons