As the sky darkened on DC's National Mall last Saturday, evangelical preacher Ché Ahn gave a speech to the thousands of worshipers gathered there.
Trump said Ahn is a figure similar to the biblical king Jehu and that “Kamala Harris is a Jezebel guy, and you know, Jehu drove out Jezebel.”
“I decree in the mighty name of Jesus, I decree by faith,” Ann said, “that on November the fifth Trump will win and be our 47th president and Kamala Harris will be overthrown and defeated in the name of Jesus. .”
The biblical story that Ahn mentions is very violent. In it, Jehu throws the Phoenician princess Jezebel out of a window. Then the horses trample her and the dogs eat her corpse. Ahn didn't go into the details of this story at the DC event, but he didn't need to: In a world of charismatic and evangelical pastors, preachers, self-styled prophets and apostles, and their followers, Jezebel is an important figure. history.
A rally at the mall on October 12, billed as One Million Women, was billed as a rallying cry for women to wage spiritual warfare against changing gender norms in America. The event, which attracted tens of thousands of people, demonstrated the ability of leaders of the emerging New Apostolic Reformation Christian Right to mobilize their followers and inspire them with militant political rhetoric.
Experts fear his spiritual message has the potential to incite real-world political violence, especially if Trump loses the November election.
As Ann spoke, the crowd gathered at the mall to “turn hearts to God” through prayer and praise, swaying and listening. Few had heard of the rally through Bible studies and religious groups, and had no idea that many of the featured speakers were deeply involved in right-wing politics. Others joined the protest at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which turned into a deadly riot. All of the day's speakers weighed in on a bleak view, good and bad, of American politics, and regularly visited podcasts and YouTube channels. And in front of Christian television and its congregations.
Matthew Taylor, a scholar focused on the New Apostolic Reformation, said implicit calls for violence are common in the religious rhetoric of the NAR, a loose network of the Christian right that encompasses modern-day apostles and prophets.
“Because it was a women's march, I think they toned down some of the violent rhetoric,” said Taylor, a senior fellow at the Institute of Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies. But Ann's order, he said, “surprised” him.
“If you have the right combination of charismatic identity theology associated with NAR and an individual's violent, unrestrained tendencies, I can very easily imagine: Yes, that could very easily be a motivating factor in an assassination attempt,” Taylor said. .
Leaders of the movement, who spoke to The Guardian, insisted on drawing their followers into spiritual warfare and rightly noted that the rally at the mall was peaceful.
“We were fasting, we were all fasting on that stage,” said Pastor Folake Kellogg, who organized the event and spoke there. “We weren't eating, we were praying. We know that war is not against any man. We love our brothers and sisters.
Ann rejected the idea that her order could incite its followers to violence, writing in an email that such language was “totally spiritual.”[a]Anyone who advocates physical violence in the name of Jesus is not a true disciple of Jesus who taught us to turn our cheek.
NAR leaders “believe that they are called kings and priests [members of] A state,” said Jonathan Sawyer, an academic whose research focuses on religious and political extremism. He added that when such people “give some kind of mandate like this, there is a definite impact on the 'natural sphere' and politics.”
Because preachers like Ann rely heavily on biblical metaphors, they are likely to be rejected if their followers interpret their speech as inciting violence. In the world Ahn occupies, this type of language has been in the air for years. Ahn's decree may be familiar to some: On January 5, 2021, Ahn issued a nearly identical one at the Stop the Steel rally in Washington DC.
The idea that Harris herself embodies the spirit of Jezebel has become common among NAR preachers.
“Republicans, like Ahab in the Bible, give way to Jezebel,” said self-proclaimed pro-Trump prophet Lance Wallnau on the Sept. 13 episode of his podcast, titled Trump vs. the Jezebel Spirit: How Trump Can Still Win. Presidential debate. In the episode, Wallnau accused of collusion between ABC anchors and the Harris campaign, which aggressively fact-checked many of Trump's lies: “What he knows as president, that is, and we'll get to this later, that's the seduction. I would say it is witchcraft.”
Wallnau, who has 1 million followers on Facebook and 78,000 on YouTube, offers a series of lectures on topics ranging from electoral politics and theology to health, often presenting the 2024 election in apocalyptic terms.
“We are in a place, my brothers, that in 30 days – 30 days or more – will die. “I don't think we'll recover from this if Trump can't win,” Wallnau said on his Oct. 7 show. “Once it is eliminated, I believe the anti-Christ forces will begin to move faster.”
Jenny Donnelly, organizer of the Oct. 12 rally, hopes the women she has brought to the National Mall – “Esthers,” she calls them – are prepared to fight these anti-Christ forces. Donnelly often cites the biblical story of Esther in her appeals to women and mothers. In it, Esther, the Jewish wife of the Persian king, risks her life to save her people from persecution. Donnelly and other members of the NAR use the story that forms the basis of the Jewish holiday of Purim to inspire their followers to engage in their own spiritual battles.
Many of the women who attended the rally wore t-shirts emblazoned with the words “If I die, I die,” a statement in history.
“We had a dream in 2022 and we will gather today to declare a battle cry,” said Kellogg, a pastor who joined Donnelly in the early hours of Oct. 12. “On the cross, Jesus' last words were: 'It is finished.'
Moments later, a dramatic rebroadcast video of the event at the mall was broadcast on giant screens.
“On this day of atonement, we come together to stand up and shout for America,” the video's narrator said. “If we perish, we perish. Let us unite and make way for God. Now is the time. A brief clip of a hand casting a vote appeared on the screen.
“As America goes, so will the nations of the earth,” the narrator said. “This is the last resistance.”
