More “Appeal to Heaven”
Another flag story might seem unimportant right now what with President Punchline, he of no “forever wars” fame, threatening Iran and leaving the G7 meeting to avoid further public humiliation. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), he of Merry Heavily Armed Christmas fame, has joined with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to introduce a War Powers resolution in the House to require Donald Trump to get congressional approval before entering into a war (conflict? action?) or “unauthorized hostilities” with Iran. Not that Trump’s unitary executive inner circle would pay any heed.
But there is a related thread here.
Someone at the Kelly Loeffler-run Small Business Administration flew an “Appeal to Heaven” flag above the agency last week. The Revolutionary War flag is lately associated with Christian nationalism and was commonly displayed among the election deniers, rioters, and insurrectionists of January 6. The flag remained flying over the SBA for less than a day.
Readers may recall that the wife of Justice Samuel Alito flew the flag at one of their homes, as did Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has displayed one outside his office. Johnson told the Associated Press in May last year that he was unaware the flag was associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement.
Wired reports:
“That the ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag is being flown on a government building alongside the American flag should be shocking to anyone who doesn’t wish to live in a theocracy,” says Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University. “The contemporary usage of the Appeal to Heaven flag is synonymous with Christian nationalism, full stop.”
“Those who carried the ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag to the Capitol on January 6 did so because they truly believed they had the opportunity to inject Christian fundamentalism into the very foundation of our democracy, and the image of the same flag on the SBA will give them ample evidence they succeeded,” Lewis adds.
SBA staffers who spoke on condition of anonymity told Wired:
“It was pretty jarring to walk out of work and see that flag on the building, and it’s frustrating because it makes it seem like the agency as a whole supports what it has come to stand for, when that’s just not true,” they say. “We’re proud to do work that supports, or at least is supposed to support, all Americans. The decision to raise that flag isn’t one that reflects the views of everyone at SBA.”
“I think it would’ve concerned more people if they knew what [the flag] was associated with,” says a second SBA staffer, who also asked to remain anonymous, of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag.
It is the worldview newly associated with that flag that may have inspired the murder and wounding of Democratic lawmakers and their spouses in Minnesota over the weekend by suspect Vance Boelter. He is involved with “a charismatic Christian movement whose leaders speak of spiritual warfare, an army of God, and demon-possessed politicians.” Boelter texted his family after the shootings, “Dad went to war last night.”
The Atlantic reports:
To some degree, the roots of Boelter’s beliefs can be traced to a Bible college he attended in Dallas called Christ for the Nations Institute. A school official confirmed to me that Boelter graduated in 1990 with a diploma in practical theology.
Little known to outsiders, the college is a prominent training institution for charismatic Christians. It was co-founded in 1970 by a Pentecostal evangelist named James Gordon Lindsay, a disciple of the New Order of the Latter Rain, one of many revivalist movements that took hold around the country after World War II. Followers believed that an outpouring of the Holy Spirit was under way, raising up new apostles and prophets and a global End Times army to battle Satanic forces and establish God’s kingdom on Earth. Although Pentecostal churches at the time rejected Latter Rain ideas as unscriptural, the concepts lived on at Christ for the Nations, which has become a hub for the modern incarnation of the movement, known as the New Apostolic Reformation. NAR ideas have spread far and wide through megachurches, global networks of apostles and prophets, and a media ecosystem of online ministries, books, and podcasts, becoming a grassroots engine of the Christian Right.
Read: The ‘army of God’ comes out of the shadows
Many prominent NAR leaders have connections to the school. These include Dutch Sheets, a graduate who taught there around the time Boelter was a student, and who went on to become an influential apostle who used his YouTube platform to mobilize many of his hundreds of thousands of followers to the U.S. Capitol on January 6. More recently, Sheets suggested on his podcast that certain unnamed judges—“including Supreme Court justices,” he said—oppose God and “disrespect your word and ways,” and he prayed for God to “arise and scatter your enemies.” Cindy Jacobs, an influential prophet who is an adviser and frequent lecturer at the school, was also in D.C. on January 6, praying for rioters climbing the Capitol steps.
During his time at the school, Boelter would have been exposed to the beliefs that motivate these movement leaders. He would have been taught to see the world as a great spiritual battleground between God and Satan, and to consider himself a kind of spiritual warrior. He would have been told that actual demonic forces can take hold of culture, political leaders, and entire territories, and thwart God’s kingdom. He would have been exposed to versions of courses currently offered, such as one that explains how “the World is in an era of serious warfare” and how “the body of Christ must remember that Jesus has already won this war.” He may have heard the founder’s slogan that “every Christian should pray at least one violent prayer a day.”
Christ for the Nations Institute issued a statement on Saturday separating itself from its alumnus.
“We are absolutely aghast and horrified that a CFNI alumnus is the suspect. This is not who we are. This is not what we teach,” the statement reads. “CFNI unequivocally rejects, denounces, and condemns any and all forms of violence and extremism, be it politically, racially, religiously or otherwise motivated.”
Fred Clarkson of Political Research Associates told NPR that NAR figures have featured in prayer events organized by Speaker Johnson. He calls the NAR a definitionally antidemocratic movement intent on imposing Old Testament biblical governance on society.
“It’s just understood that it’s going to involve physical warfare,” Clarkson said.
The NAR mindset, Clarkson tells The Atlantic, makes it “just a matter of time before an individual or group of individuals take some kind of action against the enemies of God and the demons in their midst.”
(I once attended a high school graduation at a Christian academy. Ceremonies began with the Pledge of Allegiance. Following that was a pledge to the Christian flag. “The Christian flag?” a niece down the pew mouthed at me.)
Is this a good time to remind readers that Mike Huckabee, himself associated with the movement, is Trump’s ambassador to Israel?
The US ambassador to Israel told Donald Trump that God saved him from assassination so he could deal with the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel.
“God spared you in Butler, PA, to be the most consequential president in a century – maybe ever,” Mike Huckabee wrote in a private text message published by the US president on social media. “You did not seek this moment. This moment sought YOU!”
What are Huckabee’s thoughts on Armageddon?
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