As the Trump administration deepens U.S. military involvement in Iran alongside Israel, a new The Intercept briefing examines a dimension of the conflict often overlooked in mainstream war coverage: the growing influence of Christian nationalist ideology inside American foreign policy. In this episode, investigative journalist Sarah Posner joins host Jessica Washington to unpack how apocalyptic theology, evangelical political networks, and religious-right power structures are shaping decisions from the Pentagon to the campaign trail.
At the center of the discussion is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose public prayers for “overwhelming violence” and rhetoric about divine mission reveal how sections of the modern Christian right increasingly frame military conflict not simply as geopolitics, but as spiritual warfare. Posner argues that this worldview goes beyond symbolic religious language: it reflects a deeper ideological belief that biblical authority supersedes international law, civilian protections, and traditional diplomatic constraints.
The conversation also traces the role of influential evangelical figures such as John Hagee, whose decades-long advocacy for confrontation with Iran ties directly into end-times prophecy and Christian Zionist doctrine. Far from fringe theology, these ideas continue to shape large sections of Trump’s political base, reinforcing a foreign policy culture where war, prophecy, and domestic nationalism increasingly intersect.
Beyond Iran, the episode links these religious currents to broader domestic agendas—from anti-LGBTQ legislation to voting restrictions and immigration policy—showing how the same ideological infrastructure behind foreign intervention is also driving a wider effort to redefine American law, citizenship, and family life. The result is a portrait of a political movement that sees no separation between spiritual destiny, military power, and state authority.
What began as another presidential justification for war has rapidly opened a broader debate about the forces driving American power abroad. In its latest briefing, The Intercept turns attention away from battlefield headlines and toward a political current that has long operated beneath the surface of U.S. foreign policy: the growing fusion of Christian nationalist ideology, apocalyptic belief, and state power inside the second Donald Trump administration.
The episode arrives as Washington’s military partnership with Israel in its confrontation with Iran enters a more dangerous phase, with rising oil instability, domestic political backlash, and widening fractures inside both major parties. Yet the discussion presented by host Jessica Washington and investigative journalist Sarah Posner argues that strategic calculations alone do not explain the intensity of current rhetoric coming from senior U.S. officials. Instead, they suggest that parts of the administration increasingly frame war through a theological lens—one in which military action is not only justified politically, but sanctified spiritually.
That argument becomes most visible in the conduct of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose recent public prayer at the Pentagon asking for “overwhelming violence” against enemies drew renewed scrutiny. For Posner, the significance lies not merely in religious language but in the specific worldview behind it. Hegseth’s association with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches reflects a current of Christian Reconstructionism that views biblical authority as the supreme legal framework governing both personal and public life. Under that framework, war can become more than a strategic instrument—it becomes part of a divine obligation to defend and expand what adherents see as a Christian nation.
The discussion carefully distinguishes this ideological current from more familiar evangelical support for Israel. Figures such as John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, have spent decades promoting confrontation with Iran through a different theological narrative: one rooted in end-times prophecy, biblical signs, and the expectation that conflict in the Middle East may accelerate events leading to the return of Jesus. While Hegseth’s rhetoric reflects dominionist ideas about establishing God’s authority through state power, Hagee’s message speaks to a broader evangelical audience that sees Israel’s wars through prophetic fulfillment.
What makes the moment politically significant is that these belief systems are no longer confined to pulpits, television ministries, or religious conferences. According to Posner, they now intersect directly with executive power, military messaging, and legislative agendas. Trump’s long alliance with white evangelical leadership has often been described by mainstream media as transactional—religious conservatives deliver votes, and Trump delivers judges. But the interview argues that the relationship has matured into something far deeper: an ideological partnership in which both sides reinforce one another’s vision of national restoration, civilizational conflict, and cultural authority.
That framework also helps explain why debates over Iran cannot be separated from domestic policy. The same religious infrastructure influencing foreign policy is also deeply involved in campaigns against abortion rights, transgender rights, immigration protections, and secular legal norms. Posner points to new policy blueprints emerging from The Heritage Foundation, where “natural family” doctrine and anti-LGBTQ language form part of a broader project to reorder public life according to conservative Christian definitions of family, gender, and citizenship.
The conversation also highlights an important tension emerging inside Trump’s own coalition. While evangelical support for Israel remains strong, some Catholic and nationalist figures on the populist right have begun openly questioning Israeli influence in American politics and criticizing the war with Iran. Yet even this fracture is unstable. Posner notes that some of the loudest anti-war voices on the far right often blend legitimate foreign policy criticism with conspiratorial or openly antisemitic narratives, creating a volatile ideological split rather than a coherent anti-interventionist bloc.
Underlying all of this is a warning about infrastructure. The Christian right’s political power, Posner argues, was not built overnight and does not operate election to election. Over decades, it developed legal institutions, media ecosystems, activist training networks, educational pipelines, and political organizations capable of shaping courts, legislation, and public discourse across generations. From judicial appointments to school boards to foreign policy framing, the movement works through a layered system designed for permanence rather than short-term victory.
In that sense, the Iran war becomes more than a foreign crisis. It becomes another window into how religious nationalism increasingly shapes the language of American power—where military force, prophecy, electoral politics, and cultural conflict are no longer separate debates but parts of a single ideological project.
For more from the Intercept Trump’s Holy War Abroad and at Home
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Fellowship Foundation’s Feb. 5, 2026, prayer breakfast, falsely claimed that America was founded as a Christian nation. (Screengrab / C-SPAN video.)
A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer.
From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).
The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.
The MRFF is keeping the complainants anonymous to prevent retribution by the Defense Department. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to my request for comment.
One complainant identified themselves as a non-commissioned officer (NCO) in a unit currently outside the Iran combat zone but in Ready-Support status, deployable at any time. The NCO said they were Christian and emailed the MRFF on behalf of 15 troops, including at least 11 Christians, one Muslim, and one Jew. (Full email printed below.)
The NCO wrote to the MRFF that their commander “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.”
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has enshrined evangelical Christianity at the uppermost levels of the U.S. military, airing monthly prayer meetings throughout the Pentagon. Last year, the Pentagon confirmed to me that Hegseth attends a weekly White House Bible study. It’s led by a preacher who says God commands America to support Israel.
Monday’s email from the NCO said that their commander’s remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the [C]onstitution.”
MRFF President and Founder Mikey Weinstein, a veteran of the Air Force and the Reagan White House, told me that since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran early Saturday morning, the MRFF has been “inundated” with similar complaints:
These calls have one damn thing in freaking common; our MRFF clients [service members who seek MRFF aid] report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times” as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.
Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.
Weinstein cited constitutional and Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) prohibitions against injecting religious beliefs into official military instruction or messaging.
He said, “Any military members seeking to take advantage of their subordinates by advancing their blood-soaked, Christian nationalist wet dreams upon the flames of this latest non-Congressionally sanctioned attack against Iran, should be swiftly, aggressively and visibly prosecuted.”
Weinstein added that the MRFF receives similar complaints about Christian eschatology — end-of-the-world theology — “whenever this shit blows up with Israel in the Middle East.”
After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, for instance, the MRFF reported a complaint about an Air Force commander who said at a briefing that, “[T]he war between Israel and Hamas has all been foretold by the Book of Revelation in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and no-one can do anything about that.”
After 9/11, Pres. George W. Bush referred to the American “crusade” against terrorism, evoking the ancient clashes between Christian crusaders and Muslims. Bush’s language was seen as potentially inspiring Muslims to take up arms against the U.S., if it proclaimed itself a Christian army waging war on Islam.
French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine said, “One has to avoid falling into this huge trap, this monstrous trap” set by al Qaeda with the 9/11 attacks. Bush dropped the term “crusade.”
While Christian nationalism has simmered in the military for decades, Hegseth has ended even the pretense of official intolerance for it. Trump, too, has cast himself as a champion of Christian exceptionalism, embedding it within divisions of the executive branch.
As I revealed last year, Hegseth sponsors the weekly White House Bible study that preaches support for Israel.
Some Christians claim biblical prophecy requires Israel to exist for Jesus to return. But Hegseth’s Bible study leader, preacher Ralph Drollinger, teaches that the reason to support Israel is that God still blesses Israel’s allies and curses Israel’s enemies, even though Israel killed Jesus (this smear, the historic root of antisemitism, has been rejected by every major religion).
After Israel’s attack on Iran last year, Drollinger dedicated two weeks of lessons to preaching support for Israel. His lessons went out to White House cabinet members and members of Congress even as Israel, too, was lobbying for U.S. engagement.
Hegseth has also initiated monthly prayer sessions, most recently featuring Doug Wilson, the far-right Christian nationalist. He has also brought in other preachers from his personal circle, rejecting any attempt at making the meetings ecumenical.
Hegseth himself also speaks at these meetings, proselytizing his personal religious beliefs. “This is … I think, exactly where we need to be as a nation, at this moment,” Hegseth reportedly said, “in prayer, on bended knee, recognizing the providence of our lord and savior Jesus Christ.”
While the MRFF historically has been able to get the Pentagon to swat down Christian incursions into the military, the Trump administration is openly disdainful of military norms and law. It remains to be seen whether and how wholesale Christianization of the Iran war will be opposed by officials inside the Pentagon, or political and legal advocates for secular values outside it.
NCO Email to MRFF
As redacted by MRFF:
From: (Active Duty Military NCO and MRFF Client’s email address withheld) Subject: Unit combat readiness briefing and Armageddon Date: March 2, 2026 at 1:02:53 PM MST To: Information Weinstein <mikey@militaryreligiousfreedom.org>
Mr. Weinstein thank you for taking my calls and the calls of some of my colleagues as to what happened earlier this morning with our combat unit.
Please protect my identity and the identities of those I’m speaking for as we discussed.
Our unit is not currently in the combat zone AOR regarding the Iranian attacks but we are in a “Ready-Support” function where we could be deployed there at any moment to join and augment the combat operations as participants.
I am a (NCOrank withheld) in our unit. This morning our commander opened up the combat readiness status briefing by urging us to not be “afraid” as to what is happening with our combat operations in Iran right now. He urged us to tell our troops that this was “all part of God’s divine plan” and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. He said that “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth”. He had a big grin on his face when he said all of this which made his message seem even more crazy. Our commander would probably be described as a “Christian First” supporter. He has been this way for a very long time and makes it clear that he desires all of us under him to become just like him as a Christian. But what he did this morning was so toxic and over the line that it shocked many of us in attendance at the ops readiness briefing. Besides myself I am reaching out to MRFF on behalf of 15 fellow troops. I know you asked me about the religious views of our group who has requested help from the MRFF. I can only tell you that I am Christian and at least 10 of the others are also Christians. One of the others is Jewish and one is Muslim. I don’t know the religious or non-religious status for the other three at this time.
I and my fellow troops know that it is completely wrong to have to suffer through what our commander said today. It’s not just the separation of church and state as we discussed Mr. Weinstein. It’s the fact that our commander feels as though he is fully supported and justified by the entire (combat unit’s name withheld) chain of command to inflict his Armageddon views of our attack on Iran on those of us beneath him in the chain of command.
I hope by sending this email to you that this will help expose these wrong actions which destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the constitution.
Full Statement from MRFF President Mikey Weinstein
“Since the start of the unprovoked American and Israeli war on Iran, this past Saturday morning, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been literally inundated with desperate calls for help from military members across all branches, organizations and MOS/AFSC/SFSC designations (military occupational areas). Well over 100 calls have already come in and more keep coming.
These calls have one damn thing in freaking common; our MRFF clients report the unrestricted euphoria of their commanders and command chains as to how this new “biblically-sanctioned” war is clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian “End Times” as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation.
Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100% accordance with fundamentalist Christian end of the world eschatology.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation demands that all personnel in the Department of Defense (not “War”) remember and fully internalize that the oaths they swear are not to the narcissistic, sociopathic, orange, POS tRump, nor to little Petey ‘Kegseth’ nor to Jesus Christ. On the contrary, their oath is SOLELY to the United States Constitution, which includes both a full separation of church and state mandate in the First Amendment and NO establishment of any sort of putrid ‘religious test’ in Clause 3 of Article VI.”
Any military members seeking to take advantage of their subordinates by advancing their blood-soaked, Christian nationalist wet dreams upon the flames of this latest non-Congressionally sanctioned attack against Iran, should be swiftly, aggressively and visibly prosecuted for numerous violations of the military criminal code known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
You know, that very same criminal code that Secretary ‘Kegseth’ is trying to prosecute Arizona Senator Mark Kelly under for simply advising military members not to obey illegal orders; you know like ordering otherwise helpless, military subordinates to acknowledge that the Iran war has been sanctioned by the fundamentalist Christian nationalist version of our Lord and Savior and the New Testament in specific order to bring about the end of the world and usher in the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ.”
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President Donald Trump is prayed over by Paula White-Cain (left shoulder) and other religious leaders. The official White House X account posted this photo on Feb. 8, along with the text: “As the Bible says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ And in that end, I hope my greatest legacy when it’s all finished, will be known as a peacemaker and a unifier.” —President Donald J. Trump Photo credit: @WhiteHouse on X
On October 12, 2024, tens of thousands of people thronged outside the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., for what organizers called the “A Million Women” rally. The event was staged by a clutch of leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a dynamic and fast-growing Christian Right movement that has influenced hundreds of millions of people around the world, including tens of millions in the United States.
Timed to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the themes of the gathering included winning Christian “dominion” over political institutions, mobilizing voters and — in keeping with the movement’s focus on the idea of spiritual warfare — exorcizing demons from the Capitol. But, although what limited media attention the event drew didn’t cover it, another major purpose was rallying support for Israel.
Rally organizer Lou Engle took to the stage, declaring, “You’ve got to align with the word of God! If we stand and bless Israel, He may save our nation!” Guiding the crowd in 10 hours of continuous worship on a stage bedecked with Israeli flags, rally leaders exhorted Congress to fulfill its “biblical mandate,” as one speaker put it, to “provide unequivocal support to Israel in the face of her enemies and our enemies.” At one point, the crowd sang the Israeli national anthem to rapturous applause.
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The far-flung networks of independent Pentecostal and charismatic churches and other institutions that comprise the NAR arguably represent the most significant religious movement in recent U.S. history. The movement was integral to Donald Trump’s three presidential campaigns dating back to his first run in 2015, and since his first victory, it has worked its way into the upper echelons of political power, with televangelist Paula White-Cain — also a spiritual advisor to Trump — recently installed as head of the new White House Faith Office.
The NAR is also at the cutting edge of Christian Zionism, a global movement of primarily evangelical, Pentecostal and charismatic Christians who believe that the Bible mandates unqualified support for the state of Israel.
As the U.S.-Israel “special relationship” enters a dangerous new phase, the New Apostolic Reformation will play a pivotal role.
As global outrage grows against Israel’s eliminationist, expansionist agenda, Trump’s second term seems to be shaping up as even more aggressively pro-Israel than his first. In his first weeks in office, Trump called for the ethnic cleansing of more than two million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and for U.S. occupation of the beleaguered territory, which remains devastated after nearly a year and a half of Israeli bombardment and invasion. Key Trump administration appointees have also pledged support for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, including White-Cain, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who promised Trump will bring changes of “biblical proportions” to the Middle East.
Israeli leaders, for their part, know where their strongest support lies. During his February visit to Washington, D.C., Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t meet with any U.S. Jewish leaders, but made time for a 90-minute gathering with evangelical leaders. At least three of those leaders were key NAR figures, including White-Cain, who reportedly held a separate, lengthy meeting with Netanyahu and conducted an extensive interview with the prime minister for Israeli TV.
All of this makes clear that, as the U.S.-Israel “special relationship” enters a dangerous new phase, the NAR will play a pivotal role.
Apostles and prophets
The NAR isn’t just any religious movement, but, in the words of political scientist Paul Djupe, is one that represents a “fundamental shift” in U.S. Christianity, as its political vision has spread beyond the charismatic/Pentecostal camp it was born in to now dominate the far larger category of U.S. evangelicalism.
TheCall co-founder Lou Engle addresses a news conference on August 15, 2008, in Washington, D.C. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
As a cross-denominational movement that evolved from multiple roots over a century, NAR was identified and named in the mid-1990s by the late C. Peter Wagner, a professor at the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary who observed that independent or nondenominational churches were growing the fastest in both the United States and worldwide. In their explosive growth, Wagner saw an emerging paradigm shift that he and his associates eventually sought to shape, organize and lead.
This broad paradigm features networks of NAR churches and ministries that reject many historic Christian doctrines, denominations and leadership roles while gradually restoring offices of the first century church as outlined in the biblical book of Ephesians. Among those offices are the movement titles of apostle and prophet, such that Lou Engle bears the title of an NAR prophet and Paula White-Cain is an NAR apostle.
During his February visit to Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t meet with any U.S. Jewish leaders, but made time for a 90-minute gathering with evangelical leaders, including at least three key New Apostolic Reformation figures.
NAR also embodies a dynamic vision of religious and political control known as the “Seven Mountain Mandate”: a metaphorical political blueprint that charges believers with establishing “dominion” over the “seven mountains” of societal power — government, religion, family, education, media, arts/entertainment and business.
Elements of the movement often envision themselves as an End Times army, destined to wage “spiritual warfare” in the heavens via prayer, but perhaps also through physical warfare against the “demonic” forces of liberalism, democracy, LGBTQ and reproductive rights and other enemies.
That’s no mere rhetorical excess. What makes NAR and its growing political clout particularly concerning is that normal political and religious differences are seen as demonic — the work of supernatural spirits creating problems at all levels, from quotidian daily life issues to international conflicts. Such demons, to the NAR, may control anything from individual people to entire nations and are seen as the principal opposition to advancing the Kingdom of God on Earth. For example, Apostles Ché Ahn and Lance Wallnau, among others, claim that former Vice President Kamala Harris is “a type of Jezebel” — literally a demonic spirit.
NAR’s worldview is spreading rapidly. According to a 2024 survey by Djupe, more than 60% of U.S. Christians agree that “there are modern-day apostles and prophets.” About half believe that “there are demonic ‘principalities’ and ‘powers’ who control physical territory” and that the church should “organize campaigns of spiritual warfare and prayer to displace high-level demons.” And 42% directly embrace NAR’s dominionist mandate in agreeing that “God wants Christians to stand atop the ‘7 Mountains of Society.’”
As a movement, NAR also helps rally the MAGA troops. NAR leaders like White-Cain and Wallnau were some of the earliest and most enthusiastic evangelical backers of Trump’s candidacy in 2015. The same leaders were also prominent in the 2020 election denial movement, with various apostles and prophets helping build momentum ahead of the Jan. 6 riots by holding prayer rallies outside the Capitol where they called on God to smite his enemies and blew shofars — the ram’s horn used as a battlefield instrument in ancient Israel and which has been widely appropriated by NAR-influenced Christians.
During the Biden administration, Wallnau and other NAR leaders were featured speakers during stops on the “ReAwaken America” tour — a series of rallies led by former Trump adviser and retired general Michael Flynn, which mixed calls for spiritual warfare with conspiracy theories about QAnon, the election, Covid-19 vaccination and more. This past September, then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance headlined a stop on the “Courage Tour,” another political roadshow and voter mobilization training organized by Wallnau in five swing states.
While NAR influence on U.S. public life has been growing for years, with Trump’s reelection, that influence is finally being recognized more widely, including through majormediacoverage of the movement’s domestic impact. But amid this new attention, the movement’s global impact, especially in the Middle East, still remains underreported.
Israel and the End Times
For decades, Christian Zionist leaders in the United States and worldwide have worked with the Israeli Right to deepen apartheid, ethnic cleansing and domination in Palestine. In recent years, the movement has advocated for increased U.S. aid to Israel, Israel’s annexation of the West Bank, belligerence against Iran, defunding Palestinian refugee relief, suppressing criticism of Israel and other far-right policies. Put simply, Christian Zionism is the backbone of U.S. and global support for Israel. If that sounds surprising, consider that the most prominent U.S. Christian Zionist organization, the Texas-based Christians United for Israel (CUFI), claims more than 10 million members — a constituency roughly 50% larger than the entire U.S. Jewish population.
To the extent that the broader public is aware of Christian Zionism, they may know about CUFI and its leader, Pastor John Hagee. This is partly because the high-profile annual CUFI conference draws leading political figures, but also because, in late 2005, Hagee infamously suggested that the Holocaust was part of God’s plan to bring the Jews to Israel, by sending Hitler as his divinely-appointed “hunter.” “Hitler’s Nazis,” Hagee claimed in his 2006 book Jerusalem Countdown, drove Jews out of Europe “back to the only home God ever intended for the Jews to have — Israel.”
Pastor John Hagee attends a Christian United For Israel (CUFI) summit in Jerusalem on March 8, 2010. GALI TIBBON/AFP via Getty Images
Since its launch in 2006, CUFI has become the evangelical counterpart to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a key pro-Israel lobbying organization frequently associated — though often misleadingly—with the U.S. Jewish community. CUFI aggressively lobbies Congress for a range of policies favored by the Israeli Right, and Israeli leaders regularly lavish praise upon Hagee for his steadfast support.
But Hagee represents an earlier form of Christian Zionism epitomized by white evangelicals like Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind novels. This older form of Christian Zionism held to a “dispensationalist” vision of the End Times, wherein faithful Christians would escape apocalypse via an event called “the Rapture” while Israel and the world are engulfed in the fiery wars of Tribulation.
But with the rise of the NAR, amid the broader growth of the Pentecostal and charismatic population, the dominant Christian Right End Times theology is shifting. Rather than waiting to be raptured to heaven, many evangelicals have become more invested in building their vision of God’s kingdom on earth. This includes seeking to reclaim “territory” from demons via a form of prayer they call “spiritual warfare” as well as engaging in nuts-and-bolts electoral politics.
Christian Zionism is the backbone of U.S. and global support for Israel, with the most prominent U.S. Christian Zionist organization claiming a constituency 50% larger than the entire U.S. Jewish population.
It also involves an intensified emphasis on the role the NAR envisions Israel playing in their vision of the End Times — which they believe is currently underway. The NAR believes it can bring about the millennial utopia — 1,000 years of perfect Christian rule — by expanding Israel’s sovereignty over “biblical” land, supporting the immigration of Jews to Israel and converting Jews to faith in Jesus. Citing Genesis 12:3, where God tells Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse,” the NAR believes that only by “blessing Israel” can nations secure God’s favor.
Thus, although the NAR is often lumped in with broad notions of U.S. Christian nationalism, the central nation in their religious and political vision is actually Israel. If the United States doesn’t sufficiently back Israel, they believe, America will be doomed, whereas, if they succeed in aligning U.S. and global support behind Israel, that will — somewhat paradoxically — help realize their broader project of establishing Christian dominion worldwide. Like older forms of Christian Zionism, this tends to cast Jews and Israel as what scholar S. Jonathan O’Donnell calls theologically “overdetermined …fetish objects invested with supernatural power” — that is, ultimately mere instruments in an overarching narrative of Christian redemption.
A new Christian Zionism
The influence of NAR is evident across the U.S. pro-Israel movement. NAR pastors and congregations regularly organize and attend pro-Israel rallies and conferences and join state and federal lobbying efforts arranged by groups like CUFI. As In These Times previously reported, in the spring of 2024, NAR leaders staged impassioned protests against supposed campus antisemitism outside several universities, with protesters scaling the gates of Columbia University and hurling epithets at students. At these rallies, evocations of the End Times mixed with demonization of Muslims and calls for the conversion of Jews, highlighting the intertwined antisemitism, anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim bigotry animating the NAR’s support for Israel.
When the Heritage Foundation released its “Project Esther” plan to crush the Palestine solidarity movement, most reporting missed the influence of NAR and Christian Zionism.
This past October, the Heritage Foundation’s Antisemitism Task Force released a 33-page plan, entitled “Project Esther,” to use lawsuits, surveillance and other repression tactics to crush the Palestine solidarity movement and the broader Left. Most reporting on Project Esther framed it as a Republican or Christian nationalist effort, missing the influence of NAR and Christian Zionism.
One leader of Heritage’s Antisemitism Task Force is Apostle Mario Bramnick, a Cuban-born pastor of a small church in Florida and president of the Latino Coalition for Israel, which calls itself the “largest Hispanic Pro-Israel organization in America.” Bramnick is also part of the Supernatural Global Network led by Apostle Guillermo Maldonado, a native of Honduras who hosted the 2020 launch event for Evangelicals for Trump at his Miami megachurch El Rey Jesús.
Apostle Guillermo Maldonado (far left) prays over Donald Trump, with Apostle Paula White-Cain at Trump’s right, at the launch of Evangelicals for Trump at his church, El Rey Jesus, on January 3, 2000, in Miami. Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images
“We know that a lot of the efforts of the task force that we launched are now being implemented by the Trump White House,” Bramnick announced on a prayer call with other NAR leaders this February, celebrating Trump’s recent executive orders and other moves by the administration to pressure universities to deport students, stifle speech and more. (Organizers of the video prayer call initially declared it off-limits for the media, but subsequently uploaded it to YouTube.)
Bramnick’s activism in what NAR calls the “mountain” of government is extensive, and he uses his government influence primarily to lobby for increased support for Israel. A key evangelical adviser to Trump since 2016, as well as a special envoy for the White House’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative during Trump’s first term, Bramnick also often meets with Benjamin Netanyahu, including during his most recent visit this February. Following that visit, Bramnick told supporters that Trump and Netanyahu had “been called and commissioned by God” to establish the “prophetic destiny of nations.”
In 2018, after Trump fulfilled a major Christian Zionist policy goal by moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, Bramnick claims to have met with at least eight other heads of state, including far-right leaders Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, attempting to convince them to follow suit.
In 2018, after Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, NAR Apostle Mario Bramnick met with at least eight other heads of state, attempting to convince them to follow suit.
During a celebration of the embassy move in 2019, Bramnick declared, “it is a miracle that God appointed Donald Trump to be a modern Cyrus,” invoking the popular NAR idea that God is using the immoral Trump to carry out his purposes, just as God once used the pagan king Cyrus to bring the biblical Israelites out of exile.
But speaking at the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast — a gathering of influential Christian Zionist, Israeli and U.S. Jewish leaders held at Mar-A-Lago this January — Bramnick updated the biblical lens through which he views Trump’s role. Trump, he claims, has now taken on “a new mantle”: that of Cyrus’ successor, Darius. According to Bramnick, this represents a “finishing anointing” to further Israeli expansion and dominance.
“For the first time since the Six Day War, IDF is beyond enemy lines in Gaza, Southern Lebanon and Syria, supernaturally,” Bramnick declared. “We’re in a tipping point moment,” in which what God started in the first Trump administration will now be completed.
Donald Trump with Apostles Paula White-Cain (right shoulder), Guillermo Maldonado of Florida (left shoulder) and Harry Jackson of Maryland (behind Maldonado), on Oct. 29, 2019. Joyce Boghosian/White House
This March, Bramnick went further, declaring during a gathering in Jerusalem that “God has given Israel a blank check with the election of Trump.” Bramnick was speaking at the Israeli launch of the Conference of Presidents of Christian Organizations in Support of Israel, a group he cofounded with other Christian Right leaders last September in order to advance pro-Israel policy and grassroots mobilization at the federal, legislative and state levels. During March’s event, also attended by Wallnau, Israeli annexation of the West Bank was a top demand.
Bramnick isn’t the only influential NAR leader in the orbit of the new Trump administration. Not only is Paula White-Cain leading Trump’s new White House Faith Office, but two other leading apostles, Cindy Jacobs and Jim Garlow, spoke at the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast.
“God has given Israel a blank check with the election of Trump,” Bramnick declared during a Christian Right gathering in Jerusalem this March.
“When we try to divide up the land of Israel, the land given by God, it doesn’t make God happy!” Jacobs declared, granting theological justification for Israeli annexation of occupied territory and the expansion of regional war. “Over and over we have handcuffed Israel, just when they could have gone on and finished the task.”
Meanwhile, Lou Engle, best known for leading a years-long, multi-national series of NAR gatherings named “The Call,” plans to take his new “A Million Women” campaign on the road both around the United States and the world. “A Million Women wasn’t just an event,” Engle recently declared on his website, “it was the starting line. Now it’s time to mobilize.” To that end, he has announced a major rally in São Paulo, Brazil, this October “as we go global with this Esthers movement!”
And in February, prominent Apostle Tim Sheets said in a livestream appearance that NAR prophets are visiting Trump at the White House, where they “pray over him, prophecy over him.”
“There are others in his Cabinet that are the same way. So, thank God that we have someone that’s paying attention to what the church has to say,” Sheets continued. “Miracles [are] taking place every day.”
A global movement
The strongest influence of NAR on Christian Zionism may be across the Global South, where many countries have long been critical of Israel in international forums like the United Nations but where the rapid growth of non-denominational forms of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in recent decades has created new, millions-strong movements of people who “bless Israel.”
“You can really see the Global South is awakening regarding Israel,” said Jurgen Buhler, a leading NAR apostle and president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ), in a 2022 interview. With branch offices and representatives in more than 90 countries and claiming to represent tens of millions of Christians, ICEJ is the largest Christian Zionist organization in the world. In addition to coordinating extensive global church outreach, lobbying and fundraising in support of Israel, ICEJ also hosts a massive Christian pilgrimage, the Feast of Tabernacles, bringing thousands of tourists to Jerusalem during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
The strongest influence of NAR on Christian Zionism may be across the Global South, where many countries long critical of Israel now have new, millions-strong movements of people who “bless Israel.”
Apostle Rene Terra Nova, ICEJ’s Brazilian director and head of a global apostolic network of more than seven million members, has held massive pro-Israel rallies in Brazil — a country where researchers estimate there will soon be more Pentecostals and charismatics than Catholics — as well as helping lead thousands on Feast of Tabernacles pilgrimages to Israel.
Nigerian Apostle Enoch Adeboye, named by Newsweek as one of the 50 most influential people in the world, oversees a sprawling church network that they claim reaches more than five million people in Nigeria and which works to influence millions more worldwide, with outposts in more than 110 countries. Adeboye pledged his network in support of Israel after October 7 and is a regular speaker at ICEJ assemblies.
Other NAR leaders and organizations, like the Missouri-based International House of Prayer, organize coordinated global days of Israel-focused prayer and fasting, like the Isaiah 62 Fast and Global Esther Fast, which mobilize millions across Pentecostal and charismatic networks in Uganda, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, India and more.
These NAR networks represent what Rutgers professor Joseph Williams has called the “Pentecostalization” of Christian Zionism across the Global South, where the growing “international appeal” of “experience-oriented, Jewish-themed practices and identities…tied to distinctive views of Jews and Israel” helps bolster both the Israeli and transnational far Right.
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, the movement founded by Brazilian NAR affiliate Edir Macedo in 1977, inaugurated its São Paulo, Brazil, replica of Solomon’s Temple on July 31, 2014. Photo by MIGUEL SCHINCARIOL/AFP via Getty Images
In São Paulo in 2014, for example, the Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God — founded by Bishop Edir Macedo, who, as part of the wider NAR movement, has described himself as a “prophet” and has called for “apostolic governance” in Brazil — opened a new $300 million megachurch complex, which they claim is a full-size replica of Solomon’s Temple, the ancient Israelite temple in Jerusalem which, according to prophecy, will be rebuilt in the End Times. With seating for 10,000, the floor and walls of the megachurch are covered in stone brought from Jerusalem.
“We wanted to help people turn to Israel, support its existence and give them an opportunity to touch Jerusalem stones, which for them is a big deal,” explained a representative of the church at the time.
Macedo’s “Temple of Solomon” was one ostentatious manifestation of a broader rightward evangelical shift with significant political implications. While in 2014, the year the temple was opened, Brazil condemned Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip and recalled its ambassador to Tel Aviv, by 2018 Macedo helped marshall evangelical support for the election of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, a staunch supporter of Israel.
Global vision
From the Temple of Solomon to the “A Million Women” rally, the NAR’s growth exemplifies how the Right’s popular adage that “politics is downstream from culture” applies to religion as well. Indeed, religion is often at the center of culture — so much so that Pat Buchanan, the hard-right politician who launched the term “culture wars” into our political lexicon, described it as nearly interchangeable with the idea of a “religious war.”
Today, the same war continues, even if the players and the battlefield have evolved and expanded, with the Global South emerging as a major part of the fight. NAR leaders certainly understand it this way.
And as NAR continues to grow as a major religious and political global force, we can expect the Christian Zionist movement to become even more militant, aggressive and bent on what they call “world transformation.” Progressives can’t afford to lose sight of this in order to adapt our own strategies to defend democracy and transform U.S. foreign policy.
BEN LORBER works as senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank monitoring right-wing movements, where he focuses on white nationalism and antisemitism. His book Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism was released in 2024.
Mention 9/11 to most Americans and the two numbers are considered sufficient to give meaning to that day. But mention 9/12, the day after when “terror” became our national mantra and the “smoking gun” brandished by a neocon-infested administration for its devilish designs in the Middle East and the numbers are meaningless beyond the platitudinous, “they hate our freedoms” and “God Bless America.”
Such platitudes, hawked ad nauseam by TV “faith-healers” and political snake oil peddlers, may act as a balm to soothe a body politic traumatized by the attacks on 9/11, but they do not explain—only obfuscate—the real causes that brought terror to our “blessed shores.”
Like many Americans on the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I turned to the Bible for an answer, a problematic move for an atheist such as myself. Predictably, I went straight to verse 9:11 in the Book of Revelation—the Bible’s most terror filled text—and found a short blurb about Abaddon the Destroyer; admittedly, an interesting coincidence, but not a “big picture” explanation.
However, thanks to Providence or serendipity, the very next verse, 9:12, was a godsend: “One terror now ends, but there are two more coming.”
Considering the last seven years, plagued to biblical proportion as they have been by the Bush administration’s criminal domestic and international response to 9/11, no prophet is needed to give meaning to the first half of Rev 9:12, while only a cursory vita review of the Republican and Democratic vice presidential candidates is needed to illuminate the rest of the verse.
John McCain will be the oldest man ever elected as a first-term president. He is also the fellow who made an enemy of the religious right in 2000 when he blasted them for “the evil influence that they exercise over the Republican Party.” McCain needs youth and sex appeal and religious right muscle to prevail. He needs Sarah Palin . . . who happens to be an “end times” fundamentalist.
Barack Obama will be the first “black” man ever elected president. He is young and inexperienced in foreign affairs. He is also not polling well among influential older white voters. Obama needs age and white hair and foreign policy muscle to prevail. He needs Joseph Biden . . . who happens to be a self-professed Zionist.
Behold the twin “terrors” of the Holy Land: a sexy fundamentalist and a white-haired Zionist.
Introducing Governor Palin to Master’s Commission graduates, a youth ministry whose vision is to “see young men and women who are not afraid to lead and are violent in their pursuit of righteous,” Ed Kalnins, pastor of the Wasilla Assembly of God church where Palin was baptized, told the audience that she is the “real deal.”
Pastor Kalnins is the same guy who believes that certain parts of the world are controlled by demons—guess which parts—and preaches an “end times” theology, the radical fundamentalist belief that the corruption of the Holy Land, that would be Muslims, Jews, sundry heretics and unbelievers, must be purified by God’s cleansing fire before the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ can occur.
Knowing Palin is the “real deal” and that several of the churches she’s attended are associated with the likes of Christians United for Israel, a right-wing “end times” organization dedicated to leading the charge to Armageddon (beginning with the nuking of Iran), odds are good Palin embraces this apocalyptic vision.
Frederick Clarkson, author of “Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy” recently told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, “[Palin’s] well-documented belief that she’s living in the “end time” . . . and her interpretation of the Book of Revelation may be driving her public policy and particularly her foreign and military policy views.”
Palin clarified one of her foreign and military policy views for the Master’s Commission graduates by assuring them that the invasion of Iraq was “a task from God.” For a would-be vice president this policy view, one first held by medieval Crusaders as they whacked off Muslim heads, is a real diplomatic nonstarter for the 325 million Arabs living in the Middle East, not to mention the billion-plus Muslims worldwide.
But the mother of all diplomatic nonstarters among Middle East Arabs is a comment Joseph Biden, the current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Obama’s would-be foreign policy advisor, made during an interview with the Jewish-American cable network, Shalom TV, “I am a Zionist.”
Having a declared Zionist as the vice president of Israel’s most ardent—to the point of irrational—ally waves a shoe in the face of Arabs who are convinced (rightly or wrongly) that Zionism’s ultimate goal is to fulfill the 3000-year-old biblical mandate in Genesis 15:18 to reclaim the land between the Nile and Euphrates rivers as Eretz Yisrael, a territory that includes all or part of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, a slice of Turkey and upwards of 160 million Arabs.
Considering the brutal tactics used by a succession of right-wing Israeli governments—backed by U.S. dollars and military hardware—to secure the Vermont-sized “Eretz Yisrael-lite,” it’s little wonder that Arabs living within the biblical boundaries of Eretz Yisrael feel terrorized by Israel’s chutzpa and its 200 nuclear warheads and have long since elevated their terror alert to blood red.
Keep in mind that when a terrorized people lack a superpower ally and more sophisticated means, their only recourse is to throw stones or strap explosives to their backs or pack suitcases with mini-nukes and deadly microbes or hijack airliners with box cutters and visit their enemy’s “blessed shores” This is not to excuse it. This is not to condone it. This is to explain it.
Come November Americans will choose one of two “terrors” (since our political system allows only two choices): the Middle East in flames to fulfill a biblical “end times” prophecy or the Middle East in flames to secure a biblical Eretz Yisrael. Either way, 325 million Arabs will have an answer that will undoubtedly send a twinge of terror, and most likely rage, down many a “radicalized” spine.
If the Bible or patriotic platitudes or political snake oil continue to be the extent—or sincerity—of our search for understanding the cause of 9/11, we will sooner than later have two more numbers of national significance and another annual occasion for remembering and mourning.
Biography: Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He can be contacted at: robertweitzel@mac.com
Peace and Justice Post 
Twin Terrors of the Holy Land: The Sexy Fundamentalist and a White-Haired Zionist
September 22, 2008Robert Weitzel, Sep 21, 2008
Mention 9/11 to most Americans and the two numbers are considered sufficient to give meaning to that day. But mention 9/12, the day after when “terror” became our national mantra and the “smoking gun” brandished by a neocon-infested administration for its devilish designs in the Middle East and the numbers are meaningless beyond the platitudinous, “they hate our freedoms” and “God Bless America.”
Such platitudes, hawked ad nauseam by TV “faith-healers” and political snake oil peddlers, may act as a balm to soothe a body politic traumatized by the attacks on 9/11, but they do not explain—only obfuscate—the real causes that brought terror to our “blessed shores.”
Like many Americans on the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I turned to the Bible for an answer, a problematic move for an atheist such as myself. Predictably, I went straight to verse 9:11 in the Book of Revelation—the Bible’s most terror filled text—and found a short blurb about Abaddon the Destroyer; admittedly, an interesting coincidence, but not a “big picture” explanation.
However, thanks to Providence or serendipity, the very next verse, 9:12, was a godsend: “One terror now ends, but there are two more coming.”
Considering the last seven years, plagued to biblical proportion as they have been by the Bush administration’s criminal domestic and international response to 9/11, no prophet is needed to give meaning to the first half of Rev 9:12, while only a cursory vita review of the Republican and Democratic vice presidential candidates is needed to illuminate the rest of the verse.
John McCain will be the oldest man ever elected as a first-term president. He is also the fellow who made an enemy of the religious right in 2000 when he blasted them for “the evil influence that they exercise over the Republican Party.” McCain needs youth and sex appeal and religious right muscle to prevail. He needs Sarah Palin . . . who happens to be an “end times” fundamentalist.
Barack Obama will be the first “black” man ever elected president. He is young and inexperienced in foreign affairs. He is also not polling well among influential older white voters. Obama needs age and white hair and foreign policy muscle to prevail. He needs Joseph Biden . . . who happens to be a self-professed Zionist.
Behold the twin “terrors” of the Holy Land: a sexy fundamentalist and a white-haired Zionist.
Introducing Governor Palin to Master’s Commission graduates, a youth ministry whose vision is to “see young men and women who are not afraid to lead and are violent in their pursuit of righteous,” Ed Kalnins, pastor of the Wasilla Assembly of God church where Palin was baptized, told the audience that she is the “real deal.”
Pastor Kalnins is the same guy who believes that certain parts of the world are controlled by demons—guess which parts—and preaches an “end times” theology, the radical fundamentalist belief that the corruption of the Holy Land, that would be Muslims, Jews, sundry heretics and unbelievers, must be purified by God’s cleansing fire before the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ can occur.
Knowing Palin is the “real deal” and that several of the churches she’s attended are associated with the likes of Christians United for Israel, a right-wing “end times” organization dedicated to leading the charge to Armageddon (beginning with the nuking of Iran), odds are good Palin embraces this apocalyptic vision.
Frederick Clarkson, author of “Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy” recently told Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, “[Palin’s] well-documented belief that she’s living in the “end time” . . . and her interpretation of the Book of Revelation may be driving her public policy and particularly her foreign and military policy views.”
Palin clarified one of her foreign and military policy views for the Master’s Commission graduates by assuring them that the invasion of Iraq was “a task from God.” For a would-be vice president this policy view, one first held by medieval Crusaders as they whacked off Muslim heads, is a real diplomatic nonstarter for the 325 million Arabs living in the Middle East, not to mention the billion-plus Muslims worldwide.
But the mother of all diplomatic nonstarters among Middle East Arabs is a comment Joseph Biden, the current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Obama’s would-be foreign policy advisor, made during an interview with the Jewish-American cable network, Shalom TV, “I am a Zionist.”
Having a declared Zionist as the vice president of Israel’s most ardent—to the point of irrational—ally waves a shoe in the face of Arabs who are convinced (rightly or wrongly) that Zionism’s ultimate goal is to fulfill the 3000-year-old biblical mandate in Genesis 15:18 to reclaim the land between the Nile and Euphrates rivers as Eretz Yisrael, a territory that includes all or part of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, a slice of Turkey and upwards of 160 million Arabs.
Considering the brutal tactics used by a succession of right-wing Israeli governments—backed by U.S. dollars and military hardware—to secure the Vermont-sized “Eretz Yisrael-lite,” it’s little wonder that Arabs living within the biblical boundaries of Eretz Yisrael feel terrorized by Israel’s chutzpa and its 200 nuclear warheads and have long since elevated their terror alert to blood red.
Keep in mind that when a terrorized people lack a superpower ally and more sophisticated means, their only recourse is to throw stones or strap explosives to their backs or pack suitcases with mini-nukes and deadly microbes or hijack airliners with box cutters and visit their enemy’s “blessed shores” This is not to excuse it. This is not to condone it. This is to explain it.
Come November Americans will choose one of two “terrors” (since our political system allows only two choices): the Middle East in flames to fulfill a biblical “end times” prophecy or the Middle East in flames to secure a biblical Eretz Yisrael. Either way, 325 million Arabs will have an answer that will undoubtedly send a twinge of terror, and most likely rage, down many a “radicalized” spine.
If the Bible or patriotic platitudes or political snake oil continue to be the extent—or sincerity—of our search for understanding the cause of 9/11, we will sooner than later have two more numbers of national significance and another annual occasion for remembering and mourning.
Biography: Robert Weitzel is a contributing editor to Media With a Conscience. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times in Madison, WI. He can be contacted at: robertweitzel@mac.com
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Tags:9/11, America, Barack Obama, Bible, Christians, Governor Palin, Holy Land, Israel, John McCain, Joseph Biden, Pastor Kalnins, platitudes, the Second Coming, Zionist
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