Chuck Darwin on Nostr: Walking across the bleak, hot parking lot to my rental car afterward, I could ...
Walking across the bleak, hot parking lot to my rental car afterward,
I could understand how people were drawn into their realm.
After that, I started seeing the futuristic world of the NAR all over the place.
Sprawling megachurches outside Atlanta, Phoenix, and Harrisburg
with Broadway-level production values;
lower-budget operations in strip malls and the husks of defunct traditional churches.
Lots of screens, lots of flags.
Conferences with names like "Open the Heavens".
A training course called "Vanquish Academy"
where people could learn “advanced prophetic weaponry”
and “dream intelligence.”
Schools such as "Kingdom University",
in Tennessee,
where students can learn their “Kingdom Assignment.”
In a way, the movement was a world with its own language.
People spoke of convergence and alignment
and demon portals
and whether certain businesses were Kingdom or not.
In 2023, I met a woman who believed that her Kingdom assignment was to buy an entire mountain for God,
and did.
It is in northwestern Pennsylvania,
and she lives on top of it with her husband.
They are always finding what she called “God signs,”
such as feathers on the porch.
Like many in the movement, she didn’t attend church very often.
But every day, she followed online prophets and apostles
such as #Dutch #Sheets,
an acolyte of Wagner’s who has hundreds of thousands of followers
and is known for interpreting dreams.
In 2016, Sheets began embracing prophecies that God was using Trump,
telling fellow prophets and apostles that his victory would bring
“new levels of demonic desperation.”
In the aftermath of the 2020 election,
Sheets began releasing daily prophetic updates
called "Give Him 15",
casting Trump’s attempt to steal the election as a great spiritual battle against the forces of darkness.
In the days before the insurrection, Sheets described a dream
in which he was charging on horseback to the U.S. Capitol
to stand for the Kingdom.
Although he was not in Washington, D.C., on January 6,
many of his followers were,
some carrying the APPEAL TO HEAVEN flag he’d popularized.
Others from Wagner’s old inner circle were there too.
Wallnau streamed live from near the U.S. Capitol that day and,
that night, from the Trump International Hotel.
Cindy Jacobs conducted spiritual warfare just outside the Capitol
as rioters were smashing their way inside,
telling her followers that the Lord had given her a vision
“that they would break through and go all the way to the top.”
In his most recent book,
"The Violent Take It by Force",
the scholar Matthew Taylor details the role that major NAR leaders played that day,
calling them
“the principal theological architects” of the insurrection.
I could understand how people were drawn into their realm.
After that, I started seeing the futuristic world of the NAR all over the place.
Sprawling megachurches outside Atlanta, Phoenix, and Harrisburg
with Broadway-level production values;
lower-budget operations in strip malls and the husks of defunct traditional churches.
Lots of screens, lots of flags.
Conferences with names like "Open the Heavens".
A training course called "Vanquish Academy"
where people could learn “advanced prophetic weaponry”
and “dream intelligence.”
Schools such as "Kingdom University",
in Tennessee,
where students can learn their “Kingdom Assignment.”
In a way, the movement was a world with its own language.
People spoke of convergence and alignment
and demon portals
and whether certain businesses were Kingdom or not.
In 2023, I met a woman who believed that her Kingdom assignment was to buy an entire mountain for God,
and did.
It is in northwestern Pennsylvania,
and she lives on top of it with her husband.
They are always finding what she called “God signs,”
such as feathers on the porch.
Like many in the movement, she didn’t attend church very often.
But every day, she followed online prophets and apostles
such as #Dutch #Sheets,
an acolyte of Wagner’s who has hundreds of thousands of followers
and is known for interpreting dreams.
In 2016, Sheets began embracing prophecies that God was using Trump,
telling fellow prophets and apostles that his victory would bring
“new levels of demonic desperation.”
In the aftermath of the 2020 election,
Sheets began releasing daily prophetic updates
called "Give Him 15",
casting Trump’s attempt to steal the election as a great spiritual battle against the forces of darkness.
In the days before the insurrection, Sheets described a dream
in which he was charging on horseback to the U.S. Capitol
to stand for the Kingdom.
Although he was not in Washington, D.C., on January 6,
many of his followers were,
some carrying the APPEAL TO HEAVEN flag he’d popularized.
Others from Wagner’s old inner circle were there too.
Wallnau streamed live from near the U.S. Capitol that day and,
that night, from the Trump International Hotel.
Cindy Jacobs conducted spiritual warfare just outside the Capitol
as rioters were smashing their way inside,
telling her followers that the Lord had given her a vision
“that they would break through and go all the way to the top.”
In his most recent book,
"The Violent Take It by Force",
the scholar Matthew Taylor details the role that major NAR leaders played that day,
calling them
“the principal theological architects” of the insurrection.