When Donald Trump announced Pete Hegseth as his pick for secretary of defense, the initial public reaction was, understandably, something along the lines of, “A Fox News host is going to run the Pentagon?” It was only in the following days that the media fleshed out the public’s understanding of Hegseth and shone a light on one of his most prominent and controversial facets: his deep involvement with the Christian nationalist movement. As I dug into Hegseth, something deeper struck me.
This was just a battle,” Woodland Park-based evangelist Andrew Wommack wrote last week, triumphant in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory. “The war is yet to be won. The left is not going away, because they’re inspired by the devil – and the devil has never quit!”
The Christian film series “God’s Not Dead” has released five installments in the past ten years. (Most of my friends balked when I told them this.) The most recent, “God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust,” directs the series’ faith film scope towards national party politics – and its creators hope that their fictional narrative can create a real-world impact in this election.
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.
A few months ago, I was cautiously optimistic that the national news media had started paying attention to Christian nationalism – a movement which I and many others view as one of the most pressing threats to American democracy, and which is a major animating force behind Donald Trump’s current presidential campaign, but is rarely discussed as either. After seeing how the national media covered Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance’s recent appearance at a traveling revival carnival helmed by one of that movement’s leaders, though, I realized my optimism was clearly misplaced. Some in the media are paying attention, but they still aren’t getting it; what they think is a sideshow is actually the main event.
I have found myself struggling to watch cable news during this election cycle, unsettled each time I turn on the television by the way pundits discuss the ongoing presidential race. But it’s not the bickering or bothsidesism that bothers me, it’s the business-as-usual tone; one increasingly at odds with the tone taken by the academics and experts I encounter in my professional life tracking and countering extremist movements. While the talking heads on the television are dedicating their time to polls, rallies, and horse race coverage as if nothing were amiss, the national security experts, legal scholars, political scientists, and law enforcement officials are warning of a surge in political violence. Far from business as usual.
Last week, a sentence was handed down in a case that has taken more than three years to conclude. Rebecca Lavrenz – perhaps the most prominent of the 17 Coloradans arrested for participating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol – will not face jail time. Lavrenz, who has been dubbed the “J6 Praying Grandma” in right-wing social media circles, was convicted in April on four misdemeanor counts stemming from her participation in the Capitol attack. Instead of incarceration, the 72-year-old was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of house arrest, and a $103,000 fine. The judge also barred Lavrenz from using the internet during her six months of house arrest.
Controversial Christian evangelist Andrew Wommack announced that he will transition out of leadership over his Woodland Park-based Charis Bible College next month.
When I started investigating the drama surrounding the Woodland Park school board in late spring of last year, the elephant in the small mountain town’s room was difficult to ignore: the Bible college and international ministry organization which had relocated its world headquarters to a massive compound just outside of the scenic hamlet’s downtown. The same Bible college and ministry whose leader, Andrew Wommack, told his followers in 2021 that they “ought to take over” the town – and which had then taken steps to do so. It did not take long for me to realize that Wommack’s organizations were heavily involved in the local feuding over school politics, or that their influence on the town stretched far beyond the classroom.
John Leong had a decision to make. The finances were a mess: the ministry was underwater after its latest land acquisition, and no one else in leadership seemed to take that fact into account. In an organization seized by the need to expand at all costs, the $18 million debt on the balance sheet was treated as an abstract problem. As Chief Operating Officer for Andrew Wommack Ministries (AWMI), John saw it in more concrete terms. Instead of dialing back their projected spending or slowing Charis Bible College’s desired rate of expansion, though, a new board member had proposed a riskier idea: selling investment opportunities to Wommack’s loyal followers.
