Joel’s Army”—the militant Protestant movement that fueled both the January 6 insurrection and the recent political assassinations in Minnesota—is rearing its head once again, this time in the 2026 race for California governor. Pasadena megachurch pastor Che Ahn, who announced his candidacy earlier this month with an anodyne press release, told his audience just a few months earlier: “We are the family of God, but we are also in the army of God. And the moment you’re born again, God calls you to warfare.”
Not that one could look at the announcement of Ahn’s candidacy, in which he describes himself as “an internationally respected evangelical leader, successful businessman, and longtime community advocate,” and immediately see the militant rhetoric and beliefs that have fueled his career as an apostle of the New Apostolic Reformation. And Ahn doesn’t merely position himself as a mainstream conservative; he’s aiming for a more universal appeal, describing his vision for California’s politics as one of “compassionate justice.”
There’s been a growing awareness in recent years that metaphorical talk of militaries and God’s armies by charismatic Christians—particularly those associated with the New Apostolic Reformation—is, well, far less metaphorical than many had previously realized. Ahn’s embrace of moderate political rhetoric belies a decades-long career of violent rhetoric.
“The attack that the devil has on children, think about it,” Ahn shared in a video on X earlier this summer. “The number one killer is abortion. We’re seeing teen suicide among children, number two killer.” Plenty of evangelicals who’ve never subscribed to MAGA are deeply pro-life, but what’s notable is the language he uses. The video’s caption reads, “The enemy is after our children. This isn’t cultural—it’s spiritual.” In other words, Ahn understands the political struggles around abortion, trans kids, and the drivers of teen suicide as matters of spiritual warfare.
In a 2009 memoir, long before it became an evangelical idiom, he showed that he is deeply involved in fulfilling the dominionist Seven Mountain Mandate, the belief that Christians must take control of every aspect of society. “God is God of all, and He is tired of humanistic, selfish man claiming the forefront of the ‘seven mountains of society,” he wrote. “God’s intent is for His people to be in the forefront of all societal realms” [emphasis in original] (page 61).
To that end, he founded his Pasadena-based apostolic network, Harvest International Ministries, to help fulfill the Seven Mountain Mandate, not only in nearby Hollywood and public schools, but also in government itself—America’s and beyond: “We now have members who have successfully run for parliament in their respective nations; others are nearing the top of the ladder in their government roles.”
The guiding principle for the takeover of the Seven Mountains, especially the mountain of government, is the radical militarism of Joel’s Army and its spinoff, Elijah Revolution. The Joel’s Army movement bases its political theology on an idiosyncratic interpretation of Joel 2 that sees it as prophesying an End-Times military force that utterly destroys the enemies of God. Elijah Revolution, popularized in no small part by Ahn’s ministry partner Lou Engle, teaches that America is in the grip of a demonic spirit that the Bible calls Baal. In The Call of the Elijah Revolution: The Passion for Radical Change, Engle and his co-author, James Goll (likewise a long-time partner of Ahn), wrote in 2008:
Enough of the prophets of Baal! Enough of all the trash coming out of Hollywood and the television studios! No more tolerance and no more compromise! Enough of abortion, drugs, and violent crime that are destroying our generation! Enough of laws that remove God and the prophetic voice of the Church from the public arena! We will not run, we will not give in, we will not quit, until all the ‘altars to Baal’ are removed from our land!
Teachings about the Elijah Revolution so fully saturate Ahn’s political theology that, as noted earlier, it was the source material for the speech he gave at Freedom Plaza on January 5, 2021, to the crowd that would attack the US Capitol the next day: “I believe this week, we’re going to throw Jezebel out, and Jehu’s going to rise up, and we’re going to rule and reign through President Trump and under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”
Ahn’s Harvest International Ministries now encompasses upwards of 25,000 churches and faith-based ministries around the world, and Harvest Rock Church is one of the largest megachurches in the United States. While Ahn may not be a traditional politician (and while he hardly appears to be a plausible frontrunner in California’s political landscape), whether he wins or not his influence over MAGA evangelicals paints the possibility that he could affect the race’s outcome. At the very least he will almost certainly raise his and the NAR’s profile, and in so doing he may even lay the groundwork for his or another NAR candidate’s future success.
Keri Ladner received her PhD at the University of Edinburgh and is the author of End Time Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon (Fortress Press, 2024).
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