\n<\/p>\n
In the two weeks<\/span> since Charlie Kirk\u2019s killing, Trump-administration officials and allies have not only promised a sweeping crackdown on liberal groups. They have marshaled the language of a rising charismatic Christian movement to describe their political agenda as a cosmic battle against the forces of evil.<\/p>\n At Kirk\u2019s memorial service on Sunday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the moment at hand as \u201cnot a political war\u201d and \u201cnot even a cultural war\u2014it\u2019s a spiritual war.\u201d The right-wing influencer Benny Johnson called out the heads of the Justice Department, the State Department, and the newly rebranded \u201cDepartment of War\u201d: \u201cGod has instituted them. God has given them power over our nation and our land,\u201d he told the crowd of roughly 70,000 people at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. \u201cMay we pray that our rulers here\u2014rightfully instituted and given power by our God\u2014wield the sword for the terror of evil men in our nation.\u201d Holding up a rosary, the far-right activist Jack Posobiec asked the crowd: \u201cAre you ready to put on the full armor of God and face the evil in high places and the spiritual warfare before us? Then put on the full armor of God. Do it now. Now is the time. This is the place.\u201d<\/p>\n The exception was Kirk\u2019s widow, Erika, who said that she forgave Kirk\u2019s killer because \u201cit is what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do,\u201d and that \u201cthe answer to hate is not hate.\u201d Two days after Kirk had been shot and killed on a Utah college campus, though, she, too, had said that \u201cthe spiritual warfare is palpable.\u201d<\/p>\n The proliferation of this kind of language is a sign of the growing momentum of a movement often known as the New Apostolic Reformation, which has become the vanguard of the broader Christian right, and whose ideas Kirk had begun to embrace before his death. Followers believe that a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit is under way, a third \u201cGreat Awakening\u201d that is raising up new apostles and prophets and an army of God; for them, spiritual warfare is a matter of combatting demonic forces and bringing all of government and society under God\u2019s dominion. At this point, concepts popularized by the NAR have spread to churches in cities and towns across the country, supplying Donald Trump with millions of followers who believe that God anointed him to usher in a new Christendom.<\/p>\n The prophets and apostles of the NAR often speak of a time when spiritual warfare will break out \u201cin the natural,\u201d meaning real life, giving rise to a \u201cwarrior generation,\u201d as one prominent prophet, Rick Joyner, has put it. He has written about a \u201cnew breed of Christians\u201d and described how \u201cchurches will start being thought of more as military bases than congregations.\u201d Many NAR leaders who rallied their followers to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, saw the insurrection as a form of spiritual warfare. And although they have not called for actual warfare in response to Kirk\u2019s killing, leaders have framed the assassination as the work of demonic forces rising against God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n On his podcast, Lance Wallnau, an influential NAR leader who described Kirk as a friend, called Kirk \u201cthe first martyr of the third Great Awakening.\u201d He and others compared Kirk to the biblical figure Stephen, who was stoned to death by a Jewish council for preaching the gospel. They said that Kirk was killed by satanic forces. They described leftist radicalization as a \u201cdemonic evil spreading across America like a cancer,\u201d in the words of Sean Feucht, a popular singer in the movement. They cast Kirk\u2019s political opponents as \u201cenemies of the true cross,\u201d as Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts put it.<\/p>\n \u201cChristians must learn to hate again,\u201d a Texas pastor posted on X, citing a Psalm that reads, \u201cDo I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe preacher in Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for love and a time for hate, a time for war and a time for peace,\u201d Doug Wilson, a theologian who leads a network of churches, including one that Hegseth attends, posted on social media. \u201cThis is not the time for love and peace.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar messages could be found in churches across the country after Kirk\u2019s killing, including a square-angled beige-brick building called Church on the Rock that I visited in Oklahoma City on the Sunday after his death. The pastor there that day, Judith Benefiel, told the congregation of a few hundred people that \u201cit was evil that took him out\u2014and the Bible says that we don\u2019t wrestle with flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. Amen?\u201d<\/p>\n Benefiel said that evil was \u201ctrying to consume our nation,\u201d that Kirk was martyred for fighting against it. \u201cI don\u2019t want to live in a country where Christians are martyred.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGod told us: Go and possess the earth,\u201d she said. \u201cWho will rise up? Who will rise up? How far are you willing to go for the Lord?\u201d<\/p>\n Although Kirk was<\/span> best known for his organization Turning Point USA, which swept droves of college students into the MAGA movement, in more recent years he\u2019d founded TPUSA Faith, which tapped into and mobilized the energy gathering in this realm of charismatic Christianity. At the time of his death, Kirk had embraced a concept popularized by NAR leaders called the \u201cSeven Mountains Mandate,\u201d the idea that Christians are called to dominate seven spheres of society, from government to education to business; Turning Point Faith had an arm devoted to each sphere, according to Matthew Boedy, the author of a forthcoming book that describes how Kirk turned the mandate into a \u201ccentral organizing element of the Trump era.\u201d Kirk spoke often of creating \u201cbiblical citizens.\u201d He argued that the separation of Church and state is a \u201cfabrication\u201d that was \u201cmade up by secular humanists.\u201d He spoke of God\u2019s design for humanity\u2014traditional marriage, two genders, biblical education\u2014as \u201cbeautiful\u201d and \u201ctrue.\u201d He described Democratic leaders as \u201cmaggots, vermin, and swine\u201d and said that the Democratic Party \u201csupports everything that God hates.\u201d<\/p>\n The question remains how grassroots believers will understand and respond to the calls for spiritual battle that have only ratcheted up in recent weeks. Within days of Kirk\u2019s death, followers of his had already taken up the cause in one form or another. In Oklahoma City, a man named Devin Shipman had set up his own protest on a grassy corner in front of a suburban veterinary clinic whose owner had reportedly written that Kirk was a \u201cright wing stupid fuck MAGA activist\u201d and asked, \u201cCould we actually be getting smart and culling the sick ones!!!\u201d The veterinarian\u2019s name was on a growing list of people accused of saying critical things of Kirk, which was circulating on social media and would eventually gather millions of views. Shipman told me that he had seen the vet\u2019s post on Facebook, gotten angry, and prayed to God, asking if he should print the veterinarian\u2019s words on a four-by-eight-foot banner and post it in front of the clinic to expose a person he considered to be \u201ca symptom of pure, unchecked evil.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t get told no,\u201d Shipman said, and so he\u2019d been sitting in a lawn chair in front of the banner every day since the Friday after Kirk\u2019s killing, and now it was Monday.<\/p>\n He said that he definitely believed that a spiritual battle was under way, and that Jesus Christ could show up at any moment. A Newsmax personality broadcast Shipman\u2019s vigil live to his 800,000 social-media followers. After that, at least a dozen people had stopped by to support Shipman\u2019s effort, staking American flags in the grass. At this point, two men were sitting with Shipman, all three of them armed with guns. Shipman\u2019s was under his sun hat in the grass. They waved at drivers who passed by honking their horns or pulled into the parking lot.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you for what you\u2019re doing,\u201d said a woman who had walked over with her son. \u201cI\u2019ve been getting the word out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThank you, sir,\u201d said the son, a skinny teenager wearing a large cross necklace. He shook Shipman\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n More cars passed and honked. The men talked about Kirk\u2019s killing and what it meant. \u201cTucker said we are seeing spiritual war spilling over into the natural,\u201d said the man sitting to Shipman\u2019s right, Paul Ainsworth, referring to Tucker Carlson. \u201cThe evil side of things has had their way for a long time. They haven\u2019t gotten pushback. They crossed a line here.\u201d<\/p>\n By 5 p.m., the men had decided that they\u2019d accomplished their mission. The veterinary clinic had been shut down all day; a sign said closed for business<\/span>. They folded up the banner. \u201cI guess he was successful,\u201d Ainsworth said, referring to Shipman\u2019s idea. \u201cThis guy\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the two weeks since Charlie Kirk\u2019s killing, Trump-administration officials and allies have not only promised a sweeping crackdown on liberal groups. They have marshaled the language of a rising charismatic Christian movement to describe their political agenda as a cosmic battle against the forces of evil. At Kirk\u2019s memorial service on Sunday, Defense Secretary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[7176,363,12585,364,7487,4678,14103],"class_list":{"0":"post-24404","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-charlie","9":"tag-killing","10":"tag-kirks","11":"tag-people","12":"tag-spiritual","13":"tag-understood","14":"tag-warfare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}