Lance Wallnau, a leader of the country’s burgeoning grassroots evangelical movement, said it initially took some convincing to persuade evangelical Christians to understand. former President Donald Trump as divinely chosen to navigate this chaotic time.
“I got a lot of pushback after he was elected,” Wallnau said in a rare network television interview with CBS News, “because somebody was looking at how — how can evangelicals justify electing some barbaric character like Trump? ‘Listen, give that guy time. , they don’t know who we are, but their values resonate with our community.’
From the looks of those gathered on a recent, hot, rainy day in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Wallnau seems to have succeeded.
Wallnau leads the so-called “Courageous Tour,” a roving event that targets key battleground counties across the country with a mix of religious and political activism. The event encouraged participants not only to come out to vote, but also to come in as election workers and poll monitors.
His efforts were in line with popular ideas that called for Christians to dominate religion and politics. He called it the “Sevenfold Mandate,” referring to government, family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, education and business. Once a fringe belief, it became a popular refrain that mixed religious and political messages, says Matthew Taylor, author and religious scholar.
Wallnau tried to recruit pro-Trump evangelicals willing to look beyond the past actions of the former president and instead focus on his views on abortion, gender issues and Israel.
“You’re literally seeing two sets of values and worldviews on display,” said Joshua Standifer, one of the speakers at the Courage Tour who runs the Lion of Judah, a group that recruits evangelicals to be poll workers and watchdogs. “And as it happens, one is naturally more in tune with what we believe now.”
Hundreds attended the Wisconsin event led by Wallnau last month, with tens of thousands more watching the revival online – a way of showing religion that is unapologetically political.
The goal is to motivate fellow independent charismatic Christians to proselytize for Trump before the November election, and to encourage efforts beyond Election Day if that’s what it takes to win the presidency. “Charisma” in Greek means “gift,” and charismatic Christians, many of whom are nondenominational, emphasize the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as miracles and speaking in tongues.
In an interview with CBS News Washington correspondent Major Garrett, Wallnau described the tour as a “combination plate” of spiritual awakening and political activism. “It’s about spiritual activism,” he said.
“You can’t make America great again until you reawaken with God,” Wallnau told the Eau Claire audience, adding, “Unless you learn how to mobilize and how to move at the local level, then you’re going to let the devil take control of your culture.” .”
“We will flood election polling stations across the country with spirit-filled devotees,” Standifer told the crowd. “We believe it’s time to free the crowd from Christian voters across America.”
One participant in the revival, Jacqui Brokaw, said she wanted to vote for Trump “because he has something.” He hopes to galvanize others in the region and swing Wisconsin from blue to red.
“If we don’t get an election this year, we’re going to lose the whole country,” David Jansen said.
“What we’re seeing here today is a very targeted and tactical voter mobilization effort by Christian nationalists,” Taylor said. He believes the stakes are more than just political.
“If Trump wins, then part of the impetus is that Donald Trump can say, ‘I don’t just have a democratic mandate, I have a divine mandate to change this country according to the biblical values that these people claim to have,'” Taylor said.
Trump’s relationship with the Evangelical community back to the first race for the White House in 2015, when Paula White-Cain, a leading charismatic Christian figure, became one of the top religious advisers.
That year, White-Cain held a meeting to introduce Trump to other charismatic figures, including Wallnau. After the initial meeting, Wallnau wrote that Trump was chosen as “the trumpet of God,” becoming a “wrecking ball for political correctness.”
“I caught the idea in 2015, when I first met Trump, and I said, ‘Oh my God, this guy is like the biblical character Cyrus,'” Wallnau explained, referring to the Book of Isaiah, which describes Cyrus as the chosen outsider God to rescue the Jews from captivity.
Wallnau was one of the first charismatic leaders to spread the idea to the masses on social media after Trump had been anointed by God as the Cyrus of modern times. His Trump is a conquering hero, and Wallnau sees his own role as convincing his followers to help God’s work in electing Trump.
“If at the end of the day, we haven’t enabled you to be a poll watcher, a poll worker, someone with electoral integrity or someone who can help other people vote, I’m not sure we’ve done what we need to do,” Wallnau told the crowd. in Eau Claire.
“You don’t have to vote again, beautiful Christian. I love you Christian,” Trump said at the Turning Point Action Believers Summit in July.
After Trump lost the 2020 election, charismatic Christians supported Trump’s claims that the election was stolen from him in the weeks before. rebellion on January 6. Wallnau, too, supported it and was scheduled to speak at a public meeting in the Capitol the day before it was canceled.
In a tent in Eau Claire, Wallnau justified the riots that took place at the U.S. Capitol nearly four years ago.
“Jan. 6 is not an insurrection,” he said. “This is an electoral fraud intervention.
“A lot of people who are leaders in this movement also showed up on January 6th because they believe the election was stolen,” Taylor said. “They have a feeling that Donald Trump is right.”
Taylor said that mindset was a “satanic conspiracy” to steal the 2020 election from Trump.
“(They) believe that a demonic conspiracy manifested through the Democratic Party, manifested through unfaithful Republicans, manifested through Mike Pence, prevented Trump from winning the election and fulfilling the will of God”, said Taylor.
For Wallnau, this presidential election is not just a battle of good against evil.
“I don’t see how people with moral clarity sit out elections like this. I mean, the problem is clear,” said Wallnau. “I’m telling Christians, I’m saying, you know, what are you — what are you going to say during the Civil War?”
Wallnau uses apocalyptic language in the revival, setting up a spiritual war between believers and the devil who speaks through Democrats or liberals. In his address at FlashPoint Live, he told the audience, “You see the Left is filled with demons.”
Wallnau describes what he sees as a growing number of forces arrayed against the former president.
“(Trump) is like Samson. He has his hand between two pillars,” Wallnau explained. “They’re almost against academia, the media, the government, the intelligence community, and a lot of corporate business.”
But Wallnau is betting that he can channel the energy of deeply focused Christian politics into overcoming these obstacles.
“The tendency is to just look at the election, pray, eat popcorn, watch the results, and then go to bed and it’s over,” Wallnau said. “Christians as believers should probably participate in the process of forming this culture more aggressively and deliberately from now on because it has been formed without them.”
