Given my deep love for thinking and writing about liberation and freedom, it might seem somewhat ironic that a large part of my career has been built on the principle of “I read and think about terrible things so you don’t have to.” This is quite natural, of course—if we need liberating, we obviously need to be freed from (or at least avoid) something terrible—but it nonetheless means spending a lot of time wrestling with issues like Christian nationalism and the the need to protect public education from religious indoctrination. As an example of my reading and thinking about such things, I recently read a book by New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) teacher Robert Henderson, Impacting the Seven Mountains from the Courts of Heaven. I certainly haven’t written this article to recommend spending your time reading this book—let my pain be your gain—but the text nonetheless gave me an important insight into Christian nationalism.
Henderson’s claim to fame is popularizing a highly idiosyncratic reading of Daniel 7, in which Daniel’s vision of an Ancient One rendering judgment in a court is understood to be a literal court in heaven in which Christian intercessors contend in legal cases against Satan. I have little to say about this bizarre approach to a biblical vision—even though at least one ministry takes Henderson’s interpretation to its natural end-point and has established a law firm-like group for advocating cases in the heavenly courts—beyond noting he claims it provides the legal authority for pursuing the NAR’s Seven Mountains agenda. The Seven Mountains of cultural influence—religion, family, education, government, arts and entertainment, media and business—are targeted in this theology for takeover by conservative Christians in order to establish the kingdom of God on earth. “The church,” Henderson says, “is responsible to setting the standard of God in society and the cultures that make up these societies” (p. 19; all page numbers from the Kindle edition).
It is within this framework that Henderson explicitly advocates Christian nationalism. Nationalism, he says, is “an ideology that emphasizes loyalty, devotion, or allegiance to a nation or nation-state and holds that such obligations outweigh other individual or group interests” (p. 37). He believes the problem is clear and simple: either Jesus rules the nations or Satan does, and the nations are entirely loyal and devoted to whomever rules them. This means, of course, that Christians need to make Jesus the governmental ruler, thereby ensuring the nations’ total loyalty to him. He therefore proclaims,
Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection bought back legally all of the creation of God and its cultures and societies. It is the job of the church, God’s people, to put fully and completely into place the victories that His glorious cross has purchased. This is where the reformation of society occurs as the seven mountains and molders of society are penetrated. This is our job as His kingdom people (p. 11).
As I disinterestedly picked my way through Henderson’s run-of-the-mill Seven Mountain teachings (with the exception being his image of Christian nationalists as something like spiritual Perry Masons and Horace Rumpoles, with Satan and his demons as spiritual Hamilton Burgers being outwitted and outmaneuvered in the courts of heaven by the Christians’ brilliance and strength), I came across a point which surprised me: while a large number of the target demographic for Christian nationalism have for decades held to a premillennial, dispensational eschatology, they now seem to be rapidly moving almost en masse to a postmillennial eschatology.
I do not wish to become bogged down in a discussion of various Christian end-time theories, but I need to quickly define these terms. For much of the twentieth century many conservative Protestants (particularly evangelicals and charismatics) adhered to a premillennial eschatology, meaning they believed Jesus would transport all believing Christians to heaven in what is called the Rapture (if you’ve seen “In Case of Rapture This Car Will Be Unmanned” bumper stickers—those were sported by premillennialists) before the Second Coming of Christ and destruction of all non-Christian systems. Postmillennialists, on the other hand, have believed Christianity will expand throughout the world, leading to a golden age of righteousness that will be capped off by the Second Coming. Given the relatively optimistic view of postmillennialism, it is unsurprising that premillennialists see postmillennialism as a form of liberalism (and, it should be noted, in the early 20th century it was primarily espoused by moderate and liberal Protestants who believed “this world would be the scene for limitless spiritual improvement and temporal progress”).
As I said, I was initially surprised to see Henderson attack premillennialism in support of postmillennialism. He describes premillennial views not only as “bad eschatology,” but also a deluded part of the “devilish process” of Satan ruling the world. He claims a person’s end-times view “will either motivate you to take up a kingdom agenda or cause you to allow the devil and his forces to rule nations…the truth is that we should have an end-time view that coincides with God’s heart for discipling nations” (p. 36). Henderson is not alone in this move from premillennialism to postmillennialism: such NAR leaders as the late C. Peter Wagner and John Eckhardt (author of the laudatory God and Donald Trump) have also promoted this theological shift. I have never been a premillennialist, and therefore am untroubled by this theological shift in and of itself, but I nonetheless wondered: why has this shift—which has particularly occurred over the last decade—taken place? More importantly, what does it tell us about the coinciding rise of Christian nationalism?
The issue comes down to power: not merely the desire for power, but the perceived likelihood of achieving power. Premillennialism (particularly its dispensational variant) was popularized in a religio-political climate in which Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals were largely disengaged from cultural and educational institutions as well as the establishment leadership in both political parties. While promoters of the Seven Mountain Mandate trace it to a 1975 meeting between Bill Bright and Loren Cunningham, its real popularity began with the 2013 book Invading Babylon by Lance Wallnau and Bill Johnson (two of the most influential leaders in the NAR movement). This is the period in which the far-right Tea Party political movement—the predecessors of today’s MAGA movement—rose to power (successfully shutting down the federal government for 16 days in 2013) and Donald Trump began his political rise by attacking President Obama’s citizenship.
When Trump promised conservative Christians in 2016, “Christianity will have power,” the Christian nationalist movement was ready to latch onto him as their political messiah. Elizabeth Dias notes the importance of this moment:
‘I will tell you, Christianity is under tremendous siege, whether we want to talk about it or we don’t want to talk about it,’ Mr. Trump said.
Christians make up the overwhelming majority of the country, he said. And then he slowed slightly to stress each next word: ‘And yet we don’t exert the power that we should have.’
If he were elected president, he promised, that would change. He raised a finger.
‘Christianity will have power,’ he said. ‘If I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power, you don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.’
Premillennialism promises power to Christians in some future date after Christ destroys all enemies, which is one reason why dispensational Christians are notorious for incorporating every notable current event and person into their prophetic schemas to “prove” their victory will come at any moment. The modern MAGA-fied version of postmillennialism, however, promises that power is here for the taking…and the Christian nationalists are taking it. And, as with their previous fervent devotion to premillennial eschatology, they do not care which of their ostensibly cherished beliefs—such as love (1 Corinthians 13:13)—they need to leave behind to gain and keep that power.
Image: “Stop the Steal” rally in Raleigh, NC, January 6th, 2020 (Source).
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