Men of God in the City of Man, Part 3: Memetics
July 5, 2023·158 comments·Politics
A narrative virus didn't emerge from a single source or moment. It was built by multiple figures who, over decades, consciously and unconsciously wove together ancient story patterns into a framework that eventually convinced millions of Americans that their elections could no longer be trusted. This essay identifies the five foundational memes and the "narrative virologists" who deployed them.
• The apostolic-prophetic movement shifted from describing how churches should be governed to declaring that Christian leaders hold divine authority to rule nations. Peter Wagner packaged the restoration of apostles and prophets into a grand narrative of religious reformation, giving scattered charismatic groups a unified identity and a mandate to reshape American institutions. What began as internal ecclesiastical reorganization became something far larger.
• America's founding was reframed as a covenant with God, making faithfulness to Christian nationalism a theological obligation rather than a political choice. Dutch Sheets and Chuck Pierce wove together Puritan sermons, historical proclamations, and charismatic prophetic language to create the sense that the nation itself had made a binding agreement with God. Abandoning this covenant meant divine judgment. Keeping it meant awakening and harvest.
• The vague idea of Christian cultural influence was transformed into a conquest mandate requiring Christian dominance over seven spheres of society. Lance Wallnau replaced the modest language of cultural engagement with the language of mountains to be conquered and dominion to be seized. This shifted the entire framework from persuasion to control, from bottom-up cultural change to top-down institutional capture.
• A broken, profane businessman became narratively available as a divinely chosen instrument through the ancient story of King Cyrus. Jeremiah Johnson and Lance Wallnau connected Donald Trump to the biblical account of a pagan ruler used by God for his purposes. This meme resolved the cognitive dissonance that had paralyzed evangelical voters and created permission to see political defeat as spiritual betrayal.
• The language of a faithful remnant enduring in the face of opposition became the emotional glue holding the entire structure together. This meme, drawn from Old Testament prophecy about Israel's return, transformed ordinary setbacks and contradictions into signs of persecution. It made persistence feel righteous and dissent feel like betrayal, regardless of evidence.
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Comments
Nine parts. I can only imagine how many hours of discussion went into this. Looking forward to all of it.
@rguinn I was wondering: did you use the narrative machine retrospectively, whether wholly or in part, to identify the sources here?
As someone raised Catholic and currently attending an evangelical Baptist church I audibly guffawed at this paragraph. Absolute perfection.
As a socially liberal and fiscally conservative Presbyterian who is probably more agnostic now and (yes a run-on sentence) am fully ingrained with the fact that our country’s laws are based on Presbyterian polity, I too laughed out loud at this statement.
Levity, a good carrier for important considerations.
Rusty,
Curious to see what attention, if any, the doctrine of biblical innerancy will get in this series.
As a teenager, I was baptized in and eventually pastored at a wonderful Foursquare church in Oregon. Additionally, for several years during that time, I lived with 4 Calivinist buddies of mine.
During my years-long exposure to both charismatic Pentecostalism and Calvinism, I found over and over again how fundamentally problematic the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and literalism is for all churches, regardless of whether it’s the reformed Eric Metaxas/Wayne Grudem/John Piper type or the charismatic Pentecostal Benny Hinn type.
In my experience, the “charismatic norms” (like prophesy), can be a really beautiful thing. But it’s when the charismatic norms (like prophesy) are connected to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy/literalism that things can go super sideways and do anything but “edify”. As I see it, inerrancy is the core virus that has been wreaking havoc in the churches (you name the tradition) and the world for centuries.
Anyway, really looking forward to reading these notes.
Three of the mentioned fellows will make at least a cameo appearance, but it isn’t necessarily a focus of the series. I agree that it would also be fascinating to see how that narrative - the soul of American evangelicalism, really - emerged and became common knowledge, but that would be a different series.
In part, although as I think you’ll discover as we go along, our aim was to be thorough enough not to have to be stingy in our source selection.
Man, fascinating stuff. Can’t wait to read the rest.
I was raised mainline Protestant in NY in the 80s. Never even heard of Charismatics until I moved to TX as an adult.
I think I understand why it is the fastest-growing branch of Christianity. Vs the stuff I was raised with, my first impression as an outsider is the level of passion and… hmm… immediacy.
I’m assuming that this is the basic story we’re discussing, I had not heard it yet. It explains what some prophets need(ed?) to be true and why.
This was a great and insightful read, @rguinn.
“Like the Widening Gyre, the most effective vectors for effective astroturfing campaigns may focus not so much on changing common knowledge but on changing What We Need to Be True.”
Inoculation against direct responsibilities is one of the fundamental traits of human beings’ proto-centralized religions. In a context of apparent lack of control, agency was projected outward.
Witchcraft was the reason for pain without feeling guilty and gods’ (God) wrath for pain when feeling guilty in ancient cultures.
In this context of apparent lack of control (post 2008), changing what we need to be true is an escape from direct responsibilities when focusing on the excuses that explain the individual or collective failure as an out-of-control external factor (spiritual: evil-witchcraft- the devil or kind of real threats: immigrants - woke - deep state), that apparently has agency and goes directly against you as a cosmic good vs. evil fight. So, it’s the perfect context for this phenomenon to emerge in the American-style, spirit-filled charismatic Christianity.
Low locus of control (direct control over outcomes) + belief in miracles (indirect control over outcomes) + best in class already system of memes (Christianity).
You’ve got it nailed. Only I think that we will discover that there are many more areas of our society and culture which exhibit very similar traits in very different wrappers.
Really interesting start…as someone who has walked among the movements you reference, I’m looking forward to your reflections and observations.
I’ll just observe here that the role of discernment has always been the weak link when it comes to Pentacostal/Charismatic movements.
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