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THE CHRISTIAN RADICALS ARE COMING  
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Stephanie McCrummen
October 1, 2024
The Atlantic
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_ The movement that fueled January 6 is revving up again. _

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In the final moments of the last day, some 2,000 people were on their
feet, arms raised and cheering under a big white tent in the grass
outside a church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. By then they’d been told
that God had chosen them to save America from Kamala Harris and a
demonic government trying to “silence the Church.” They’d been
told they had “authority” to establish God’s Kingdom, and
reminded of their reward in heaven. Now they listened as an evangelist
named Mario Murillo told them exactly what was expected of Christians
like them.

“We are going to prepare for war,” he shouted, and a few minutes
later: “I’m not on the Earth to be blessed; I’m on the Earth to
be armed and dangerous.”

That is how four days under the tent would end—with words that could
be taken as hyperbolic, or purely metaphorical. And on the first day,
people were not necessarily prepared to accept them. But getting
people ready was the whole point of what was happening in Eau Claire,
an event cast as an old-fashioned tent revival, only not the kind
involving Nilla wafers and repentance. This one targeted souls in
swing states. It was an unapologetic exercise in religious
radicalization happening in plain sight, just off a highway and down
the street from a Panera. The point was to transform a like-minded
crowd of Donald Trump–supporting believers into “God-appointed
warriors” ready to do whatever the Almighty might require of them in
November and beyond.

So far, thousands of people have attended the traveling event billed
as the “Courage Tour,” including the vice-presidential candidate
J. D. Vance, who was a special guest this past weekend in Monroeville,
Pennsylvania. The series is part of a steady drumbeat of violent
rhetoric, prayer rallies, and marches coming out of the rising
Christian movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, whose
ultimate goal is not just Trump’s reelection but Christian
dominion—a Kingdom of God. When Trump speaks of “my beautiful
Christians
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he usually means these Christians and their leaders—networks of
apostles and prophets with hundreds of thousands of followers, many of
whom stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, a day preceded by
events such as those happening now.

Although Murillo headlined the Eau Claire revival, the chief organizer
is the influential prophet Lance Wallnau, who exhorted his followers
to travel to Washington, D.C., on January 6, casting efforts to
overturn the election as part of a new “Great Awakening.” Kindred
events in the coming weeks include a series of concert-style rallies
called “Kingdom to the Capitol,” aiming to draw crowds to state
capitals in Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia, with a
final concert in D.C. just days before the election. A march called
“A Million Women” is planned for the National Mall in mid-October.
Every day, internet prophets are describing dreams of churches under
attack, Christians rising up, and the start of World War III,
acclimating followers to the prospect of real-world violence.

And this is what awaits people under the tent: leaders waging an
intentional effort to move them from passivity to action and into
“God’s army.” It involves loudspeakers. It involves drums and
lights and a huge video screen roughly 20 feet wide and eight feet
high. It is a deliberate process, one choreographed to the last line,
and in Eau Claire, on the grass outside Oasis Church, the four days
began with a kind of promise.

“The first thing I’m going to say is you did not come to see
me,” Murillo said. “You came to see Jesus Christ.”

This was on a warm Sunday evening, the first day of the process.
Volunteers were smiling and waving cars into a gravel parking lot,
ushering people toward the tent on the grass. The mood was friendly.
The crowd was young and old and mostly white, people wearing khaki
pants and work boots, gold crosses and Bible-verse tattoos. They were
locals and out-of-towners from as far away as Texas.

Into the tent they went, past a gantlet of tables that left no doubt
that the great spiritual battle they believed to be under way included
politics, and that God had chosen sides. People could sign up to be
“patriots” with America First Works, which is linked to the
Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. They could sign up for
something called the Lion of Judah, which aims to place Christians
inside election offices, a strategy that the group’s founder would
refer to on day two as “our Trojan horse.”

Now the sun was setting, and the video screen was glowing blue with
drifting stars. A praise band blasted one surging, drum-pounding song
after another until Murillo arrived to set expectations for the days
to come, starting with establishing his own authority.

“God has chosen to speak through men—men and women—who are
anointed,” he began.

“My father and my God … you have orchestrated for them to hear the
words I’m about to speak,” he continued. Then, step by step, he
framed the moment at hand. “Something evil is at work in America,”
Murillo said, describing a country of lost souls, decaying cities, and
drug addiction, and a degenerate culture preying on children. “Any
culture that surgically alters the gender of children is a sick,
perverted society.”

People began clapping. “I want you to listen to me,” he went on.
“If you want equality? If you want women’s rights? If you want
freedom from drugs? You want Jesus Christ.” More clapping and amens.

“But we chose, in America, a _philosophical_ approach,” Murillo
said, proceeding to argue against 400 years of Enlightenment thought
underpinning the concepts of individual rights, religious pluralism,
Church-state separation, and American democracy itself. The problem,
he said, was a wrong turn in the Garden of Eden, followed by a wrong
turn in the 17th century, when people replaced God with their own
reason. “The philosophical elephant in the room for America is very
simple,” he said. “To the degree that we took God out, we brought
misery in. If we want the misery to get out, we’ve got to bring God
back into our schools, back into our government.”

People cheered, and soon, Murillo introduced Wallnau, a slightly
disheveled man in jeans and a sweat-soaked shirt, a fast-talking
former pastor whom some modern-religion scholars consider the most
influential theologian of the 21st century.

When mainstream evangelicals were rejecting Trump during the 2016 GOP
primary, it was Wallnau who popularized the idea that God had anointed
Trump for a “special purpose,” activating a fresh wave of
so-called prophecy voters. By now, he was a Mar-a-Lago regular. He had
about 2 million social-media followers. He had a podcast where he
hosted MAGA-world figures such as the political operative Charlie
Kirk, and frequently spoke of demonic forces in U.S. and global
politics. He was a frequent guest on a streaming show
called _FlashPoint_, a kind of _PBS NewsHour_ for the prophecy
crowd, where he’d implied that the left was to blame for the July
assassination attempt against Trump. Lately, he’d been saying that
Harris represented the “spirit of Jezebel.”

“America is too young to die. It has an unfinished assignment,”
Wallnau told the crowd now.

“Tomorrow,” he went on, “I want to talk to you
about _your_ unfinished assignment.”

For the moment, though, he described a battle scene from the
film _Gladiator_, one that takes place in an arena in ancient Rome,
where a group of enslaved warriors comes under attack. The film’s
hero, Maximus, rallies them to join forces, at which point they
decapitate, bludgeon, and otherwise defeat their enemies in a bloody
fashion. Wallnau wasn’t merely entertaining the crowd,_ _but also
suggesting how real-life events might play out.

“How many of you would like to be activated in your Maximus
anointing?” Wallnau said. People in the crowd cheered. “Put your
right hand up in the air!”

They did.

Day two. By 10 a.m., the drums were pounding, the band was blasting,
and Wallnau was at the podium holding up a small brown bottle. It was
frankincense oil.

“We’re adding to this wild army!” he told the crowd, calling
people up to the stage.

“Lord, they are hungry,” he prayed. “Now, Lord, they want more.
They believe this is real. They believe something is happening.”

He cued the praise band, then walked up and down the line of people
streaming to the stage, pressing his oiled hand to their foreheads. He
said the Lord was filling them with “mighty power.” Then he sent
them back to their chairs, ready to hear what they were meant to do
with it. People took out notebooks and pens.

“I daresay a lot of us are nobodies on Earth who are somebodies in
the spirit,” Wallnau said, explaining how good Christians like them
had allowed themselves to become something God never intended them to
be: victims. He said that they had been naive. That they’d misplaced
their faith in a government of “elites” and “oligarchs” who
wanted world domination. He said the worst part was that Christians
had allowed this to happen. “You either have God, or you’ve got
government,” he said. “Only one person can be supreme.”

And this is when he explained the assignment he’d promised the day
before. He set up a whiteboard. He drew seven mountains. Above them he
drew a stick figure, representing Jesus Christ looking down on the
world. He explained that each mountain was a sphere of
society—education, business, government, and so on—and that
believers’ job was to assert authority over each sphere. The point
was not just individual salvation but societal reformation, the
Kingdom. He said democracy would not work without the flourishing of
Christian conscience. He said Christians are called to be “the head
and not the tail.”

“I’m tired of people thinking Christianity is just some kind of a
backwoods, redneck religion,” he continued. “It’s not. It’s
the force that produced the Reformation in Europe. That formed the
United States!”

After 30 minutes of this, Wallnau led the crowd in a declaration.
“Father, I am ready,” came the sound of 2,000 voices repeating his
words. “To be a part. Of a new move of God. In the United States.
And I will occupy. The territory you give me. For the glory of God.”

Next came a man in a blue suit. This was Bill Federer, a former
congressional candidate from Missouri and the author of a book
called _Socialism: The Real History From Plato to Present_. He took
out a laser pointer. “You are important people,” he said. “God
has chosen you.”

Then he pointed his laser at the big screen, and began clicking
through a slideshow illustrating human history as a bloody struggle
between godly forces that want democracy and free-market capitalism,
and demonic forces that want world domination and are currently
working through Democrats. He clicked to a Bible verse. He clicked to
a quote from the libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel. “The political
slogan of the antichrist is ‘peace and safety,’” it read.

“In other words,” Federer told them, “don’t be afraid of the
world ending. Be afraid of the people that promise to _save _you
from the world ending.” He clicked to the last slide, a cartoon of a
golden-walled Kingdom in the clouds. “Someday, you’re going to be
dead,” he said, telling people to imagine heaven. Gold streets.
Mansions. Also, a hypothetical gathering in the living room of Moses,
where all the great Christian heroes would tell their stories. Moses
would tell about facing a government “trying to kill us.” David
would tell about chopping off Goliath’s head.

“Then everyone’s going to look at you,” Federer said. “Tell
us _your_ story … What did you do when the whole world was against
you, when the government was trying to kill you?” He paused so they
could imagine. “Guess what? We’re still on this Earth,” he said,
smiling. “You can still do those courageous faith-filled things that
you will be known for forever. This is your time.”

Wallnau returned to the stage. He told the crowd that 50,000 more
people were watching online, a number that was not verifiable. Then he
introduced a Polish Canadian preacher named Artur Pawlowski, who calls
himself “The Lion” and “a convicted felon just like your
rightful president of the United States.”

Pawlowski was known in Canada for protesting Pride Month, railing
against Muslim immigrants, and leading anti-lockdown protests during
the pandemic, including one involving tiki torches—activity that
gained him notoriety in the U.S., where he turned up as a guest on
Steve Bannon’s podcast. He was later convicted for “inciting
mischief” for encouraging truckers who staged a blockade at the
U.S.-Canadian border.

Now the audience watched the big screen as a video showed scenes of
Pawlowski cast as a martyr, being arrested, on his knees, in jail, all
set to a pounding rock song that included the lyric “Once they grab
the pastors, they come for the common man.”

And this was the point. Pawlowski told people that the government
would be coming for them next. He spoke of “the venom of lies and
poison of falsehoods that have been spreading through the veins of our
society,” and “sexual perversion,” and politicians working for
“the globalists,” calling them the modern-day Philistines, the
biblical enemies of God’s chosen people, who are “under attack.”

He told them that Christians had been too timid, too “gentle” and
“loving.”

“Here is what God is saying,” he said. “It is time to go after
the villains. It is time to chase the wicked. The time has come for
justice, and justice demands restitution.” People cheered. “It’s
time to move into offense,” he said.

Like Federer, Pawlowski left things vague. “You want to be promoted
in the Kingdom of God?” he said. “How many of you would like to
see Jesus face-to-face? Then you have to go into the fire, my friends.
He always comes to the fire. He _is_ the fire. He is _in_ the
fire. And in the fire, he sets you free.” Pawlowski never explained
to the people under the tent what the fire was, or what going into it
meant, only that a time would come when each of them would have to
make some sort of sacrifice.

Then Wallnau dismissed people for lunch. The anointed gathered their
Bibles and hand fans and headed for Panera and McDonald’s to process
what they’d heard. “It’s a little overwhelming,” a woman named
Melanie Simon, a member of Oasis Church, said. “I’m praying for
God to remove fear from our spirit,” a man in camouflage shorts
said. He gave only his first name, Steven, because he had gotten fired
from his job and was in a legal dispute with his former employer.
“We’re going to have to go to extremes,” a 63-year-old Wisconsin
man named Will Anderson said. He’d driven two hours to hear all of
this. He said he was bracing for some kind of “clash” in November.
He said it was possible that people like him would have to take
“steps and measures,” but he was not sure what they might be.
“I’m not into passivity, and neither is God,” he said.

Later, he and the others came back for more. In the hot afternoon,
Wallnau introduced a young political operative named Joshua Standifer,
who gave people one concrete idea of what they might do. He was the
founder of the Lion of Judah, whose homepage includes the slogan
“Fight the fraud.” Standifer flashed a QR code on the screen,
explaining that it would connect people to their municipality, where
they could apply to become an actual election worker—not a
volunteer; a worker.

“Here’s the difference: At Election Night, what happens is, when
polls start to close or chaos unfolds, they’re going to kick the
volunteers out,” he said. “You’re actually going to be a paid
election worker … I call this our Trojan horse in. They don’t see
it coming, but we’re going to flood election poll stations across
the country with spiritual believers.”

He flashed on the video screen the photo of Trump raising his fist
after the July assassination attempt, blood streaking down his face.
“Our enemy is actively taking ground and will do everything they can
to win by any means necessary,” he said. “Our hour of action has
arrived.” He added that he meant not only November but “what’s
coming after that.” He did not elaborate on what that might be.

“The Lord is with you, valiant warrior,” Standifer said at one
point. “Everyone say ‘Warrior.’”

“Warrior,” the crowd repeated.

Day three didn’t start until evening, and what happened felt
familiar, normal, more like the old-fashioned tent revival that
Murillo had promised in his ads. As the sun was setting, people
streamed across the green grass and back into the white tent, now lit
up under a deep-orange sky, the giant screen once again glowing blue
with drifting stars. The band started, and the singer spoke of people
“tormented by thoughts of premature death” as Murillo took his
place in front of an audience full of diseased hearts, bad livers,
arthritic hands, worn-out knees, and minds disturbed by depression.
“Hallelujah,” he said as people clapped. “We are the only
movement in the history of the world where the founder attends every
meeting. He’s _here_!”

This, too, was part of the radicalization effort, an exercise in
building trust and shoring up group identity. People waved colored
flags, believing that the same Holy Spirit that would save America was
swirling through the tent at that very moment. Murillo promised that
the “power of God is going to fall on all of you.” He said that he
didn’t want to get political tonight, but that the power was going
to fall on the entire state of Wisconsin on Election Day, too. Then he
launched into a barn burner of a sermon. Murillo spoke of souls in
“spiritual danger,” and the death of the “brittle fairyland”
of the self, and the power of surrendering that self wholly to the
Lord. Soon he cued the band and called people to the stage.

“Lord, I believe the pain in their soul is greater than their fear
of embarrassment,” Murillo said as people came forward, old men with
canes, fresh-faced young women, young men crying. “Every step you
take is a step toward freedom. Every step is toward power. What
you’re doing is wise.”

He led them in a prayer about being washed in the blood of Jesus, then
told them to turn around and look at the back of the tent. A line of
volunteers smiled and waved, ready to welcome them with prayers, and
take down their phone number and email address. “Ladies and
gentlemen, they are saved,” Murillo declared as the crowd applauded
and cheered for the new recruits. “The devil has lost them!”

The evening went on like that, the band playing gospel, Murillo moving
onto the faith healings, the people willing to believe.

“People who are deaf, ears are opening,” he said.

“The lady in the orange—there is a growth that will vanish,” he
said.

“God is healing your spine.”

“I rebuke cancer in the name of Jesus.”

Murillo looked out at the crowd of people crying, fainting, raising
hands, closing eyes, walking when he said walk, dancing when he said
dance. “Nothing will stop the will of God,” he said.

“How many of you believe we need a miracle in America?” Murillo
began on the final day. By now Wallnau was gone and the Canadian
preacher had left; it was just Murillo and a crowd that was the
largest of all four nights, filling the folding chairs and spilling
outside the tent onto the grass, where people had brought their own
lawn chairs.

Murillo said that he’d had a sermon planned, but that God had
“overruled” him and given him another message to deliver. “I
want you to listen like you’ve never listened to me before,” he
began. If there was any confusion about what the past four days had
been about, Murillo himself now clarified. It was about November. It
was not just about defeating Kamala Harris, but about defeating the
advance of Satan.

“I don’t want a devil in the White House,” Murillo said.

“God is saying to the Church, ‘Will you wake up and realize that
I’m giving you the authority to stop this thing?’” he said.
“You have the authority.”

He said that the Secret Service had deliberately failed to protect the
former president from an assassination attempt in July. “They wanted
him dead.”

He said, “It is the job of every shepherd to get up in his pulpit
… and say to the people, ‘We are going to prepare for war.’”

He said, “I didn’t pick a fight; _they _picked the fight,” he
said.

He said what leaders of groups say when they are attempting to justify
violence, and if people thought he was speaking only of spiritual
warfare, Murillo clarified with a story.

Tim Alberta: The only thing more dangerous than authoritarianism
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“Say you’re in your backyard grilling,” he said. “You got a
fence. And somebody jumps that fence, comes after your wife. You’re
not going to stand there and say, ‘It’s in God’s hands.’ No.
Right now, brother, it’s in _my_ hands. And my hands are going to
come on you real strong right now. I’ll stop you any way I can. And
we gotta stop the insanity going on in the United States.”

He went on like that, telling people to “quit feeling sorry for
yourself” and to see themselves as an “absolute lion of God.”
And as the process came to its final minutes, Murillo delivered the
last message that he’d been preparing people to hear.

“I am not on the Earth to be blessed; I’m on the Earth to be armed
and dangerous.” He went on: “I am not on the Earth to feel good.
I’m not on the Earth to do my own thing. I’m on this Earth as a
God-appointed warrior in a dark time.”

That is what four days of carefully choreographed sermons and violent
imagery had come to with only weeks to go before the presidential
election. And just as the crowds had in Arizona, Michigan, and
Georgia, people in Eau Claire cheered. They said amen, and then 2,000
Christian warriors headed into the Wisconsin evening, among them a
young man named Josh Becker, a local who’d attended all four days.
He said he felt inspired. He said he wasn’t sure exactly what he was
supposed to do, only that “we have to do something—we have a
role.”

“I believe the father is going to lead us through a dark time,” he
said, referring to the election and whatever God might require of him.
“The Kingdom of God is now.”

_Stephanie McCrummen
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writer at The Atlantic._

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