House tenant Mike Johnson (R-La.) and two dozen members of Congress gathered at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., last week for the second annual National gathering of prayer and repentance. The event brought together many Christian nationalist pastors and was marked by a call for spiritual warfare, with members of Congress imploring their fellow Christians to “bind the hands of Satan” and “bind the demonic forces” that are believed to possess America.
The National Gathering of Prayer and Repentance is the original idea of Johnson, a religious fanatic who is third in line for the presidency and who, like rolling stone has reported, is convinced that America is “dark and depraved” and deserves God’s wrath. The gathering is being organized as a far-right counterbalance to the National Prayer Breakfast, a long-running ecumenical religious event, which was also held in Washington last week. This rally took place in the presence of President Joe Biden, who offered a bland speech pray that America should remember its character of “honesty, decency, dignity and respect” and find its strength in unity.
The NGPR, in contrast, featured extremist calls for Christians to oppose sinful American culture – particularly the rise of LGBTQ+ freedoms, the environmental movement, and the practice of abortion. The type of repentance the speakers sought was often less about personal failures and more about the inability of Christians to exercise power and control over those who did not obey their theology.
Pastor Ché Ahn, for example, is a far-right Christian nationalistWHO spoke during the “Stop the Steal” protest aimed at keeping 2020 election loser Donald Trump in power, a day before the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Ahn is a leader of the New Apostolic Reformation, an ascendant, power-obsessed religious movement that calls for Christians to take dominion over the nations of the world in order to hasten the return of Jesus. In his call for repentance, Ahn lamented: “We have abdicated our responsibility to occupy until your coming. »
Other NAR leaders who took the stage included “The Apostle” Dutch leaves, who preaches that Christians “have been given legal power and authority from heaven,” and Lou Engle, who prayed at NGPR for 100,000 LGBTQ+ Americans “to be saved and transformed by the power of God.” Matthew Taylor, a religion scholar who has written about the rise of Christian nationalism For Rolling stone, argues that the NGPR event highlighted “the rampant influence of antidemocratic theologies and practices among our elected officials.”
While extremist preachers attacked demons and false gods, Johnson played a relatively direct role – praying for Solomonic wisdom to carry out God’s will. The NGPR ceremony was hosted by its co-founders Jim Garlow, also considered an “apostle” of the NAR movement, and Tony Perkins, who heads Focus on the Family, a stalwart organization of the old-school religious right. Both men are longtime mentors of Johnson, who became president in October.
As a religious leader, Garlow comes from charismatic Christianity, which believes in “gifts of the spirit” such as faith healing and speaking in tongues. The NAR movement takes this approach to the supernatural even further, insisting that prophecy and divine revelation are not dead in the Bible, but alive in our world today – as is a constant struggle between angels and demons, which humans can influence through prayer or what is called. “Spiritual warfare.”
Perkins comes from an extremely conservative, but more traditional, Southern Baptist religious practice. Yet at NGPR, the usually starchy Perkins spoke the expansive language of the charismatic.
“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,” he told the crowd.
“We must fight in the heavens,” Perkins urged attendees, because, he insisted, “the sexual perversion and confusion that has gripped our nation and our children – this is not a political agenda. It’s a demonic attack. Perkins also highlighted abortion and the environmental movement (what he called “putting the planet over people”) as being “rooted in spiritual attacks on humanity.”
NAR leaders like Garlow fetishize Old Testament worship practices, and the NGPR proceedings began with a bearded man simultaneously blowing two shofars, or trumpets made from animal horns. As Garlow explains, one symbolized a “call to arms” and the other represented “the sound of work before a holy and righteous God.”
The NGPR keynote speaker was Controversial “messianic rabbi” Jonathan Cahn. Cahn grew up Jewish but accepted Christ as his savior, and he now leads the Beth Israel worship center in New Jersey. He is perhaps best known for his mystical and pop-religious bestsellers. NGPR participants received a copy of Cahn’s book The return of the gods, which, according to Garlow, “explains what’s going on in America…more than any other book I know.”
In his speech, Cahn summarized the theological argument of this book – that America is fighting not against anonymous demons, but against the influence of three pagan gods from Old Testament times. Cahn preached that because America has abandoned the Christian God, this “dark trinity” is staging a “repossession” of the country.
Cahn called these three false gods Baal, “the spirit that drives God out of all areas of public life”; Ishtar, “the spirit of sexual immorality” and “unbridled lust”; and Moloch, who tempts parents to engage in “the sacrifice of their own children.” Cahn’s sermon presented the culture wars (on secularism, sexual and LGBTQ+ rights, and abortion) as a holy war against insidious false deities, and he did not speak as if they were a metaphorical struggle. “We must pray for the power of God to cast out the spirits of darkness from our land, from the halls of our Capitol here,” Cahn urged, shouting, “Cast out the gods, cast out the spirits, and set America free.” ! »
After Cahn’s speech, the soft-spoken Johnson then led a procession of lawmakers onto the stage, all of whom wore business suits and their congressional pins, to make personal professions. The gathering included House lawmakers as well as at least one senator, James Lankford of Oklahoma.
Many of Congress’s prayers were revealing — showing that some lawmakers apparently don’t see themselves as representing members of other faiths, or even have no faith at all. At least two representatives spoke directly about the type of spiritual warfare promoted by Cahn and the organizers.
Rep. Republican. Greg Steube serves part of Florida’s Gulf Coast. He is a younger member of Congress who sports slicked-back hair and a well-trimmed beard. His prayer began: “We decree that repentance from sin shall begin to manifest itself throughout the United States of America; People everywhere will turn from their evil ways. Steube then invokes a supernatural struggle. “We bind the demonic forces…of resistance and rebellion among the people of God! He then added: “We prophesy that the intellectualists, who refuse education, will not trample the efforts of those who desire the grace and mercy of God to invade our country. »
Fellow Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar of Florida, who serves much of Miami, spoke in a mix of English and Spanish. Invoking “the power we have as Christians,” she said: “We bind the hands of Satan and all his demons and send them under the feet of Jesus. » Salazar continued: “In the name of Jesus, we declare that every person – regardless of race, nationality or language – will serve and praise You as Lord. Invoking a Christian nationalist understanding of America, she continued: “We will preserve this country as You formed it and as You imagined it,” concluding: “We declare in the number of Jesus, amen.”
Wearing a smart suit and his trademark round glasses, Johnson then made his way to the stage. He offered no criticism of his colleagues’ supernatural or undemocratic sentiments. Instead, he simply said, “How encouraging to hear the humble prayers of those in authority. The speaker quickly added: “If anyone asks you if there is ‘salt and light’ left in Washington, you tell them there is.” »
Johnson maintained that God had elevated him to his own position of authority, and he told other audiences that he was speaking personally to the Lord – who had prepared him for a “Red Sea moment.” , in which he would be a Figure similar to Moses leading a divided GOP through choppy waters. At the NGPR, Johnson invoked another Old Testament figure, Solomon, praying that God would give him the latter’s “wise and discerning heart” so that Congress, he said, “may govern and administer justice to ‘a manner which is agreeable and honorable to all’. You.”
