A friend sent us a tweet by the author of The Right-Wing Christian Sect Plotting a Political Takeover just posted at New Republic:
Ahead of the US midterms, I wrote a piece on the New Apostolic Reformation, a shadowy Christian movement gaining increasing influence in the Republican Party https://t.co/HBXnjVZgLo
— elle hardy (@ellehardy) August 23, 2022
It's a worthwhile piece about NAR, which has maintained a presence in Minnesota politics for many years, though media coverage of this movement has been slim.
Here is a sampling of some of our old posts about Minnesota activists, from an endorsed statewide Republican candidate to capitol hill chaplains to NAR prophets themselves.
The friend who sent us the Elias article tweeted one of our articles from ten years ago:
The peculiar tale of Minnesota's voter restriction amendment & the New Apostolic Reformation https://t.co/dfZRA2p4xX Nov 2012 - @sallyjos @bspinmn
— /📷 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐱 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐰 📷/ (@HongPong) August 23, 2022
Go to the original post if you wish to read the entire hot mess.
Moving up to 2014, there's Prophetic intercessor Cindy Jacobs promised Dan Severson that Jesus would make him Teflon. Severson was the endorsed Republican candidate for Minnesota Secretary of State in 2010 and 2014. Bluestem reported:
Was Dan Severson running for Minnesota Secretary of State in 2010--as he is in 2014--or to be God's own non-stick cookware?
Just months before he declared his candidacy in October 2009, self-proclaimed prophet and New Apostolic Reformation leader Cindy Jacobs delivered "prophetic words" at the Deborah Company Midwest Convocation in Bloomington on Saturday, July 25, 2009, promising the Minnesota Republican that he could "to be able to say outrageous things and still have favor. I'm going to give you favor - I'm going to make you Teflon."
While Severson said outrageous things about the separation of church and state in 2010, apparently God had moved on to using ceramic coatings, since the former state legislator lost the 2010 election to incumbent secretary of state Mark Ritchie, who is not seeking a third term in 2014. . . .
Jacobs is perhaps best known for claiming President Obama's repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” was possibly responsible for the deaths of thousands of blackbirds and fish in Arkansas.
And there's the November 2016 post, Are ties of new MN Senate majority leader with New Apostolic Reformation recipe for gridlock?. We reported:
In the Fargo Forum, veteran political reporter Don Davis reports Rural insurance man tapped as MN GOP Senate leader.
But there's so much more to state senator Paul Gazelka, R- Nisswa, than selling State Farm insurance in Baxter.
Take his appearance nearly a year ago at the Now is the Time! Now is the Season! Jubilee! Chuck Pierce and Dutch Sheets, Duluth MN in Duluth, at which the state senator joined other Christian dominionists to pray for the Zenith City. (For a quick look into the mind of Dutch Sheets, check out his Baal Teachings, which equate LGBTQ people with demons; someone should find out in Gazelka--who in 2010 grabbed the endorsement from the MNGOP's only openly gay legislator--if he agrees). . . .
This wasn't a sudden conversion for Gazelka, who has maintained ties with the New Apostolic Reformation movement for years. His book on extending Christianity into the second cultural "mountain"--business--of seven mountains was issued in 2003 by Creation House Press (which appears to be a co-publishing/self-publishing service, if this Christian author's experience is correct).
Creation House is part of Charisma Media. The book was blurbed by C. Peter Wagner, one of the architect of the NAR. Wagner believes that "Satan and his demons are literally in the world" according to Wikipedia. Wagner discusses the NAR in an article in Charisma here.
In addition to NAR leaders Dutch Sheets and Chuck Pierce, Generals International State Prayer General and Call to the Wall/Minnesota Apostolic Prayer Network organizer Karen Krueger was on the Jubilee agenda. She's published Sheets and Pierce's "prophecy" uttered at the jubilee on the site. The passage begins:
And the Lord would say, I have come to pierce your ear again in this state. I have come to realign you with Me, saith the Lord. I say that by the piercing of your ear, I am designating that you belong to me (and that is why they do it Biblically-Pierce the ear.) I say as a sign, I have realigned you and you are no longer slaves to the ruling forces that were controlling the people of this region, but now you will hear and become one that serves me and a state that serves me and impacts this nation.
I say to you I have brought you to Duluth because I am giving you an authority in this city to stop the move of the blowing of the witchcraft that has blown across this state. I say beginning this weekend I am capturing the structure of witchcraft that has operated through my people and stopped my movement and I say because you have gathered; witchcraft will have no longer rule in this state.
I say to you the witching winds of the past now will not have the authority to control the movement of my people.
And I say to you the treasures that have fallen and been hidden over the last 40 years, I say to you tonight I start causing those treasures and those resources that have been held up to rise up, and I say out of Minnesota there will come effecting change that will affect the resource of this entire nation. I say to you this is the beginning of my glory coming in and beginning to be the band around the waist of this state. I say the belt of truth now that has longed to rise up and be seen in Minnesota will now rise up and be seen.
And here Bluestem thought what made Duluth special was the craft breweries. Now we learn it's witchcraft. Readers can savor more of this at the site.
We've written about Minnesota's NAR prayer warriors in the past in posts such as Prophetic intercessor Cindy Jacobs promised Dan Severson that Jesus would make him Teflon (Jacobs is the nice lady from Generals international who thought the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell caused birds to drop dead from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas).
There's also The peculiar tale of Minnesota's voter restriction amendment & the New Apostolic Reformation and Giants in the earth: Carrie Ruud, Paul Bunyan, Hermann the German and other leviathans.
These prayer warriors are the spiritual running buddies of Minnesota's new state senate Majority Leader. We'll look further into these connections as the session approaches. Let us pray that no common loons fall from the sky.
Back to the New Republic article. Hardy writes of the Gazelka blurber, C. Peter Wagner:
. . . Wagner, who coined the term New Apostolic Reformation, was intent on pushing boundaries, proclaiming that “we are currently witnessing the most radical change in the way of ‘doing church’ since the Protestant Reformation.” So while authority and structure is critical to Wagner and his disciples in establishing the hierarchy of the NAR, two key concepts central to the movement are where we see its leaders exert their authority.
The first is “spiritual warfare,” the emphasis on demonology over which Wimber and Wagner split, which holds that demons and evil spirits are present and intervening in our daily lives. Seemingly bizarre utterances, from Paula White Cain urging the termination of “all satanic pregnancies” and anti-vax doctor Stella Immanuel calling Covid “demon sperm,” are spiritual warfare terms, intended to highlight a spiritual conception of the world that is meaningful in global NAR circles and beyond. Here, sickness and poverty aren’t physical, they are the result of being possessed by demons.
Among adherents, there’s a real valence to this idea during bad times, but Wagner and his acolytes have added a more important “level” of spiritual warfare on top of these preexisting beliefs. They have introduced the concept of “territorial spirits,” demons who occupy places and institutions “strategically”—think abortion clinics, the LGBT community, or the Democratic Party. These malevolent forces don’t simply advocate for things that believers oppose—they are evil personified, and need to be cleansed. . . .
Update: Hardy also mentions the Jericho March movement prior to the uproar in DC on January 6, 2021. Here's a Minnesota episode: MN07 fake DFL candidate attended Dec. 20, 2020 Jericho March, took selfie with Kim Crockett.
Be on the lookout for that lovely rhetoric on the social media postings by Minnesota Republican candidates and that of their family and followers.
Photo: Former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka.
If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.
Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.
I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6
Comments