Pastor Don Lamb wants his congregants to be engaged in spiritual warfare.
His small church is in a small town in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. But it has been flexing its political muscle and building an outsized reputation for blurring the line between church and state.
Lamb’s church is influenced by an elusive, hard-to-pin-down movement whose followers believe that Christians are called to control the government and that former President Donald Trump was chosen by God. It’s called the New Apostolic Reformation, and it’s nothing like the culture war–fueled Moral Majority of yesteryear. There are prophets and apostles, and a spiritual war is underway, not just in Pennsylvania. To win, the church has to do more than just preach the gospel; it has to get political.
This week, Reveal’s Najib Aminy and Mother Jones reporter Kiera Butler explain what the New Apostolic Reformation is and what happens when it seeps into small-town churches like Lamb’s.
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