I do not envy the mainstream press at this moment. With multiple unthinkable things happening on a weekly basis, the task of triaging and prioritizing stories which could each dominate multiple news cycles in calmer times cannot be easy. Though I don’t envy them, I will criticize them. They play a vital role in society, keeping us apprised of events which could impact our lives – and they are currently missing a big one.
While the mainstream media’s attention has been elsewhere, a coalition of spiritual advisors with explicitly theocratic ambitions has ascended to the height of American power. With nearly unimpeded access to the president, they preach a movement which aims to erase the separation of church and state, establish a specific brand of Christian dominion over every part of society, and fundamentally reconstruct life in the United States as we know it – and I’m not just talking about Christian nationalism.
The Christian nationalist movement is more or less a unified political front. It is not, however, unified on spiritual or doctrinal matters. To borrow a rough taxonomy from Dr. Matthew Taylor of the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, modern American Christian nationalists primarily come from three different faith traditions: they tend to be traditionalist Catholics, reformed Calvinists, or independent charismatic Christians. While all three of those broad faith traditions have representation in Trumpworld (with Vice President J.D. Vance notably representing the “tradcath” bloc), the faith leaders closest to Trump all tend to come from the independent charismatic tradition.
Trump’s most visible spiritual advisor for the last decade has been Paula White-Cain. The televangelist and prosperity gospel minister chaired the evangelical advisory board for Trump’s 2016 campaign, spoke at his 2017 inauguration, and served as a special aide on faith matters during part of his first term in office. Earlier this month, Trump appointed her to lead the new White House Faith Office.
Another charismatic faith leader whose wagon is firmly hitched to Trump’s star, Lance Wallnau, is omnipresent in MAGA circles. Wallnau rose to prominence on his 2016 “prophecy” that Trump would be elected – and does not seem to have suffered many consequences when his follow-up prophecy, that Trump would be reelected in 2020, fell flat. In the lead up to the 2024 election, Wallnau accused then-Vice President Kamala Harris of witchcraft, and then hosted J.D. Vance for a campaign event. Last week, in a discussion with Steve Bannon, Wallnau explained how the new White House Faith Office is the “foothold” from which Christian nationalists can, as Bannon put it, “seize the institutions of the federal government.”
Paula White-Cain and Lance Wallnau have more in common than their charismatic Christianity and their affinity for Trump. They also share a fervent belief in a once-fringe philosophy which has been growing in the charismatic movement for the last decade. It’s called the Seven Mountains Mandate, and it’s the biggest national story the mainstream media keeps missing.
The Seven Mountains Mandate, or 7M, is not a denomination, or even a theology, really. It’s what Taylor calls a “prophetic meme,” a kind of ancillary belief which has spread from person to person in certain Christian circles but which is not necessarily based on scripture. It might be more accurate to think of it as a philosophy, or a theory of change. However you categorize it, though, its aims are clear: total dominion of society.
The idea of the Seven Mountains Mandate is that society can be divided into seven spheres, or “mountains” of influence: family, religion, education, media, arts & entertainment, business, and government. 7M adherents believe that they have been commanded to seize control of each of these “mountains” by means of spiritual warfare and other tactics (Wallnau likes to refer to “litigation, legislation, and influencing public opinion”). Their belief is that, once Christians have established dominion over all seven areas of society, they will be able to establish the kingdom of god on earth – and, as some tell it, bring about the end times.
To be clear: the ultimate ambitions of the 7M movement are to establish a theocracy, implement Christian supremacy, and, depending on your eschatology, trigger the apocalypse – though I doubt adherents would co-sign any of that phrasing.
While many 7M adherents trace the idea back to the 1970s, the movement did not kick off in earnest until 2013, when Wallnau and fellow charismatic evangelist Bill Johnson co-authored the book Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate as a roadmap for a Christian takeover of secular society. In the decade-plus since the book was published, the movement has spread like brushfire – first slowly, smoldering, then accelerating beyond containment. A 2024 poll found that around 40% of American Christians now embrace the mandate.
The 7M movement was not sitting on its hands during Trump’s sojourn in the wilderness. Cut off from federal power, movement leaders – including White-Cain and Wallnau – embraced a local strategy, championing church-backed slates for local offices and waging an aggressive campaign to influence public school policymakers. Though such takeovers are underway in towns around the country, nowhere has borne the brunt of it like Woodland Park, Colorado, where a ministry with deep ties to Wallnau is explicitly attempting to take over the town.
Now, with Trump back in the Oval Office and Paula White-Cain – one of the movement’s brightest stars – running the new White House Faith Office, the Seven Mountains Mandate is poised for an aggressive offensive.
And that brings me back to the mainstream media. Here’s the situation we are in: things no one thought could happen are happening daily, a group of prominent and influential evangelicals who subscribe to a theocratic and possibly apocalyptic worldview have the president’s ear, and not a single mainstream outlet has deemed it worthy of a story.
I lamented in October that the media seems incapable of taking Christian nationalism seriously; that it’s often played for laughs, but rarely regarded as an actual threat. That situation has not improved in the last four months. Even as the Christian nationalists around Trump influence the headline-grabbing stories of the day – like the slashing of USAID – their influence is almost always left on the editing-room floor, rarely deemed newsworthy.
If the November election had gone differently, maybe the need for the media to catch up with the experts in this field would have become less urgent, maybe there would not be a pressing need for journalists at major outlets to understand Christian nationalism. But the November election did not go differently, and the urgency has gone up. The mainstream media needs to wake up to the biggest story it’s currently missing before it’s too late – because the government isn’t the only “mountain” 7M adherents have set their sights on; they’re coming for the media too.
