America’s first and second “Great Awakenings” of the 18th and 19th centuries were religious revivals that offered salvation from sin and conversion to Christianity. These revivals spurred church growth and sparked far-reaching social reforms.
But now, self-proclaimed pro-Trump “prophets” including Lance Wallnau and Andrew Wommack promote a “Third Great Awakening” that prioritizes politics over evangelism, saving America over saving souls.
Wallnau, a Dallas entrepreneur whose profile and popularity have risen since he predicted Donald Trump’s 2016 election win, is currently leading “The Courage Tour,” a road show that features far-right GOP officials and election deniers and is visiting swing states crucial to determining who wins the 2024 election.
“America’s Awakening Begins Here,” says a Courage Tour promo. “Experience revival in 7 key states … marking the dawn of our nation’s Third Great Awakening. Embrace transformation and reformation.”
A video promoting the tour features grim pronouncements: “America has abandoned God.” “Liberty hangs in the balance.” “We have to save our nation.” The tour is designed to rouse the church from its “zombie stupor.”
Wommack, the health and wealth preacher who has sought to take over one Colorado city, claims God spoke to him on March 5, 2021, saying the Third Great Awakening already had begun.
“Wow! This overwhelmed me,” Wommack said. “I believe it will turn the tide of socialism and the woke culture and all the demonic assaults on this nation.”
“This is a life and death fight for our freedoms that our forefathers have given us,” he added. “We have more people waking up,” he said, citing figures showing increased turnout in recent election cycles.
Gene Bailey, who hosts the FlashPoint TV show featuring pro-Trump prophets and the FlashPoint Live tour, wrote the book Flashpoint of Revival: The Third Great Awakening and the Transformation of our Nation.
“When President Trump took office, we thought he was the answer to the story of America,” Bailey writes. But now, “we’ve had an illegitimate leader who is causing our nation (and the church) great stress.”
“Many Christians are waiting on God to send down revival, but God is waiting on the church to rise up,” Bailey says. “We, the church, are pretty wimpy.” Now it’s time to: “Boldly take a stand for righteousness in the face of opposition”; “intercede for your city”; and “raise your voice for truth in our land.”
Wallnau claims the “awakening began when believers prayed in Trump to disrupt the status quo.” He explains: “I believe that the only people that don’t agree with me are religious people and people that got devils.”
His Courage Tour features more political operatives than preachers, including:
- Far-right U.S. Rep., Marjorie Taylor Greene, who after Trump’s 34 felony convictions in New York, said, “The man that I worship is also a convicted felon, and he was murdered on a Roman cross.”
- Mark Finchem, a member of the Oath Keepers militia group who sought to overturn Arizona’s 2020 election results and took part in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol
- Barry Loudermilk, who authored an alternative report on the January 6 attack that blamed it on the Capitol Police and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
- David and Tim Barton, who claim the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation
- Jason Yates of My Faith Votes, which has worked to get out the vote for GOP officials
- Jared Fleming, strategic director for Turning Point USA, the $81 million organization that is helping the Trump campaign in swing states.
In one “Great Awakening” talk, Andrew Wommack claims that even though it seems the world grows more evil and wicked day by day, he’s certain the Third Great Awakening will somehow cure America of the sins he regularly rails against: “I don’t have any uncertainty about whether this ungodliness — transgenderism, homosexuality, abortion, pro-death — I don’t have any uncertainty about whether or not we are going to be able to push this back and win.”
Predictions of political revival are not new. For decades, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson has promoted a “battle for righteousness” through politics and law rather than through the traditional ministries of the church.
But today’s “Trump Revival,” as The Nation calls it, is a new kind of “full-fledged political revival movement.” And Wallnau, Wommack and others represent a changing of the guard to a new breed of allegedly Spirit-filled leaders who followed Pentecostal teacher Paula White into Trump’s orbit.
“As Trump powered his way to the Republican nomination, entrepreneurial outsiders like Wallnau recognized that the playbook had been rewritten for religious leaders who sought top-tier political influence,” The Nation noted. “Traditional gatekeepers of evangelical power, such as Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed and ‘family values’ ideologue James Dobson, were no longer the first people in the room; now the inner circle was made up of charismatics like White-Cain. Much like the partisans of the nascent Trump movement, these religious innovators intuitively understood that a deeply anti-institutional, personality-driven approach was the path forward.”
This article originally appeared in Baptist News Global.
