The third highest-ranking official in the federal government has done little to conceal the extent of his Christian nationalism. House Speaker Mike Johnson has decried American culture as ‘dark and depraved.’ He has compared himself to Moses. He has called the separation of church & state “a misnomer.” And this weekend, he was in Colorado, stumping for Gabe Evans in the seat which Johnson says may decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November.
Despite having long-established ties to the Christian nationalist movement, Evans – unlike Johnson – has remained tight-lipped about his faith during his run for office. His campaign materials have leaned more towards “law & order” than “faith & freedom,” and you’re more likely to catch him discussing crime than Christ at a campaign stop.
It hasn’t always been that way. Prior to his run for Congress, Evans’ faith was much closer to the forefront of his personal branding. When he first ran for the Colorado State House, Evans consistently started his biography by identifying himself as a Christian, as can be seen in his 2022 candidate surveys, and his bio on the Colorado House Republicans’ website.
As soon as he set his sights on higher office, though, Evans’ branding changed. He was no longer a Christian first, he was a veteran first. He does not quote scripture in speeches or reference his faith on his website. He does not talk about taking back the country for God or compare himself, like Johnson, to Moses.
But the surface-level change in branding could not obscure one fact: regardless of how he sees himself, or how he presents himself in his bid for congress, a large number of influential Christian nationalists see Gabe Evans as one of them. And they very well might be right.
As the two men rubbed elbows this weekend, I wondered if it came up: the faith they share, or the friends they have in common in the wider Christian nationalist ecosystem. And I wondered if they ever discussed who it was in that web of relationships who connected the two men so early in Evans’ Congressional campaign, who gave Speaker Johnson the push to add the upstart Coloradan to his fundraising program in February, or to endorse him ahead of the primary.
I wondered, at this late stage in the game, what we really know about Evans’ faith – and what these prominent Christian nationalists know that we might not.
If you judged Evans’ faith entirely by his alma mater, you could be excused for concluding that he is a Christian nationalist. That, after all, is what Patrick Henry College specializes in creating.
As the Colorado Times Recorder’s editor, Jason Salzman, reported in an August piece about the influential conservative school, Patrick Henry College distinguishes itself with its focus on training its students to serve in politics and government, in the hope that they will take the school’s worldview with them into halls of power. The college bills itself as a “top feeder school for White House and Capitol Hill internships,” and promises to imbue students with an “unwavering Biblical worldview.”
“The mission statement suggests that the college is strongly committed to Christian fundamentalism and Christian nationalism,” Christopher Douglas, a professor in the English Department at the University of Victoria, told CTR for the August piece.
The Patrick Henry connection has served Evans well in his political pursuits. Evans, who graduated from PHC in 2009, has credited the school with preparing him for his political career. Perhaps more significantly, it was during his time at the small college that Evans appeared on the radar of the school’s founder, Michael Farris. In addition to his role as the college’s founder, Farris is an influential leader and organizer in Christian nationalist spaces. A close acolyte of Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, and Phyllis Schlafly, Farris has argued cases before the Supreme Court, served as the executive director of right-wing litigation engine, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and co-founded a right-wing group which seeks to amend the Constitution.
Like many leaders in the Christian nationalist movement, Farris has used his faith as a fig leaf for his borderline authoritarian politics. Much of his career has been dedicated to ensuring that LGBTQ people do not receive equal protection under the law, and he once declared in an NPR interview that “tolerance cannot co-exist with liberty.”
Farris has also been a mentor to Evans and, seemingly, a significant boost to his campaign. Though there has been no reporting connecting the two dots, there is reason to believe that Farris may be the one who put Evans on the radar of his “good friend,” Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson – possibly inspiring Johnson’s early support for Evans. Johnson worked as an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom prior to Farris’s tenure as the group’s chief executive, and the two have had entwined political interests and activities for years: according to Farris, Johnson has supported Farris’ current group, Convention of States Action, since his time in the Louisiana legislature. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, both Farris and Johnson worked on efforts to overturn the results.
Johnson and Farris also have connections through various conservative Christian and Christian nationalist orgs with which both are affiliated, including Answers in Genesis, the Louisiana Family Forum, and Focus on the Family.
Both men have endorsed and vocally supported Gabe Evans.
Politics make strange bedfellows, though, and Evans’ association with prominent Christian nationalists may – despite his own roots in the movement – be a matter of expediency more than of conviction. That’s why I wanted to look at how Evans’ faith manifests in his own life.
In the present day, the church the Evans family attends – seemingly as a matter of conviction, as it provides no political expediency – also appears slanted towards a Christian nationalist interpretation of the scriptures. At a campaign event in June, Evans noted that he, his wife, and their children have attended Destiny Church in Fort Lupton for the last three years.
A small church located at the crossroads of Route 85 and First Street in Fort Lupton, Destiny is affiliated with the Assemblies of God, a cooperative of more than 140 pentecostal Christian denominations worldwide. Pentecostalism, a branch of Christianity which emerged in the early 20th century, places emphasis on the personal experience of God, which it believes is often manifest in the “gifts of the Spirit,” like faith healing and speaking in tongues.
According to Ryan Burge, an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University who is known online for his data-driven analyses of the American church, congregants in Assemblies of God churches lean heavily to the political right. In 2020, per Burge, “Nearly three-quarters of all [Assemblies of God] members said that they were Republicans.” And, during Donald Trump’s term in office, the Assemblies of God’s General Superintendent, George O. Wood, attended White House events and expressed support for the president.
The political inclination of Assemblies members, like Evans, is not surprising: the church’s strict teachings – which forbid divorce, abortion, homosexuality, and even the consumption of alcohol – largely dovetail with the kind of social conservatism which dominates right-wing culture war positions. Much like a faction of the political right, the Assemblies of God is also skeptical about the morality of in vitro fertilization.
Destiny Church, the Assemblies of God congregation Evans attends, does not appear to be an outlier in those regards. Until earlier this year, Destiny was pastored by Reverend Rob Rocca, who posted on Facebook in the second week of 2021 implying that the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol had been a setup. Later that year, Rocca preached on the perils of “woke” (and encouraged his followers to become “woke to the things of God”). Rocca departed Destiny earlier this year to become a missionary with the Assemblies of God’s global missions arm, but most of Evans’ time at the church was spent with Rocca in the pulpit.
I do not know if Gabe Evans is a Christian nationalist. I have not heard him proclaim that Christianity is a key aspect of American identity, or seen him declare that the United States should be – or was founded as – a “Christian nation.” I cannot speak to what is in Gabe Evans’ heart.
What I can speak to, though, is what is in Gabe Evans’ track record: his tenure at a school which specializes in churning-out leaders for the Christian nationalist movement, his time in the pews at a church where the pastor is more concerned with stealing elections than saving souls.
And I can speak to the fact that many of Evans’ supporters and endorsers, like Johnson and Farris, are aligned behind the Christian nationalist movement, and appear to view him as a promising young recruit to their cause. In addition to Johnson and Farris, Evans has attracted support from other GOP luminaries mired in Christian nationalism, like U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, cheerleader for Project 2025, and Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, who, like Speaker Johnson, flies the Christian nationalist Appeal to Heaven flag outside of his Capitol Hill office and whose wife runs an anti-trans organization which has been described as a “Christian nationalist bootcamp.”
“If you want to support a candidate who will make a difference and not just pay lip service to our cause,” Farris’ endorsement intoned, “join me in supporting Gabe Evans.”
So, no: I do not know if Gabe Evans is a Christian nationalist – I just know that his most powerful supporters seem to think he is.
