OpinionDavid French

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By David French

Opinion Columnist

On Sept. 28, JD Vance spoke at a Christian political event hosted by the most influential religious leader you’ve probably never heard of.

His name is Lance Wallnau, and he is one of the chief proponents of a radical religious doctrine called the Seven Mountain Mandate. He’s an election denier. He’s said Kamala Harris engaged in “witchcraft” in her debate with Donald Trump and that an “occult spirit” is working “on her and through her.” And he’s a leader of one of the most dangerous political factions in America: the religious movement that helped fuel the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In fact, as Matthew Taylor wrote in his important new book, “The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy,” Wallnau himself was instrumental to the insurrection. “I sorted through hundreds of social media profiles of Christians who were present for the riots and the protests at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,” Taylor said, “Strikingly, a common denominator you can find across many of those accounts are clips of Wallnau’s Facebook Live rants and links to episodes of ‘Flashpoint’” — a program on a Christian television network called the Victory Channel.

The event Vance attended was part of Wallnau’s “Courage Tour,” a series of meetings that target key battleground counties, with the goal of encouraging right-wing Christians to vote and recruiting them to serve as election workers and poll watchers. Vance, a Catholic, isn’t part of this movement (he spoke about drug addiction and answered questions at the event), but his presence signals its importance to Trump and his campaign. Wallnau’s audience includes many of Trump’s most zealous and most loyal supporters. Many of them were among the first to board the Trump train, and they’ve never been tempted to get off.

To understand Wallnau and the Seven Mountain Mandate, let’s go back to 2015, the year Trump announced his run for the presidency. At that time, traditional evangelical elites were steadfastly against Trump. For example, the Christian newsmagazine World polled 103 evangelical leaders and influencers throughout the 2016 primary season (I was one of the people polled), and we resolutely and consistently rejected Trump. Marco Rubio won the poll month after month.

And yet, grass-roots evangelical voters preferred Trump. Even as early as August 2015, when a dozen other Republican challengers were still in the race, he enjoyed plurality support from evangelicals, and there was one category of Christian leaders that seemed more drawn to him than others: Pentecostals and charismatics.

The terms “Pentecostal” and “charismatic” refer to Christians who believe that the supernatural signs and wonders that are described in the New Testament still occur today. There are differences between the two groups, but they both believe in divine healing........

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