I wrote the article I am “pressing” here in September 2020. The buzz around the prophecies of a Trump win in the upcoming election was at a fever pitch. People I knew, some dating back 40 years, were caught up in it. I was skeptical. “Do not despise prophecy, but test everything,” was ringing in my ears, my head, and my heart. (1 Thess. 5:20)
I am still skeptical, and the happenings over the last 5 years have done nothing to ameliorate my skepticism. January 6th, the pardons of the people who participated in the January 6th debacle, and everything that is happening now have only sharpened and solidified my skepticism that the movement that is led by Donald Trump is anything close to God’s order or design.
The article published today in The Atlantic, The Minnesota Suspect’s Radical Spiritual World, recalls to my mind this article I wrote what seems like a lifetime ago, in 2020. Vance Boelter, the person accused of killing a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband in their home and who shot up another Minnesota lawmaker and her husband in their home the same evening, was deeply involved in the spiritual movement that is behind Donald Trump.
It is the movement I became involved in when I was 22 in 1982 as a very new Christian.
Boelter graduated from Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, founded by Pentecostal evangelist. James Gordon Lindsay, a disciple of the New Order of the Latter Rain. I am not familiar with that strain of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR, but then much water has passed over the dam since I left the the church I joined in 1982 and went to law school.
I do remember the emphasis on the battle between God and Satan in world and the call to be spiritual warriors in prayer, in worship, and in the way we lived out our lives – including our political involvement. I don’t remember any call to violence, but I can easily see how the fervor might have steered that way. At least for some people.
Boelter texted his family after the shootings, “Dad went to war last night.”
Boelter’s alma mater was swift to denounce his actions: “We are absolutely aghast and horrified that a CFNI alumnus is the suspect. This is not who we are…. CFNI unequivocally rejects, denounces and condemns any and all forms of violence and extremism, be it politically, racially, religiously or otherwise motivated.”
Like I said, I don’t remember any talk whatsoever of violence when I was involved in those circles. We engaged in spiritual warfare through prayer and worship. The article, though, blames “NAR thinking” for Boelter’s actions.
It’s easy to see how the language of warfare might lead them to that conclusion. Many people who were present on January 6th when the Capitol building was overrun by zealous political defenders of Donald Trump were influenced by the thinking of the NAR.
I would like to think that most level-headed people of faith know the difference between spiritual warfare and storming Capitol buildings and shooting politicians. Some obviously don’t, and that is problematic.
After Jesus fed the 5000 on the Galilee mountainside, the people wanted to “make him king by force”, but Jesus withdrew from them to a mountain so they could not do it. (John 6:1-14) When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you King of the Jews?” Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:33, 38)
Jesus is the King of kings who sits at the right hand of the Father in glory, but he is biding his time until he comes again. At that time he will rule heaven and earth. Until then, we are to be salt and light. We are to go and make disciples of all nations. I see no biblical imperative for followers of Christ to take over earthly governments.
That doesn’t mean that some of us are not called to be like Daniel and his friends in the Babylonian government. In that role, though, we are salt and light. We are ambassadors of Christ and His kingdom, which is not of this earth. If we are warriors, we are warriors who carry a cross instead of a sword.
Navigating by Faith 