Men of God in the City of Man, Pt. 7: Mutation
July 14, 2023·158 comments·Politics
A narrative about Donald Trump as a prophesied leader had been circulating through American charismatic churches for years. But in 2020, something fundamental shifted. The story stopped being a prediction that could be proven wrong and became something far more dangerous: a claim that people's organizations, identities, and livelihoods depended on being true.
• Religious ministries experienced explosive growth by centering Trump and election fraud narratives. Sean Feucht Ministries grew over 1,700% in a single year by making Trump reelection the core mission. Once organizations scaled their operations around this "New Thing," walking it back became structurally impossible, regardless of election outcomes.
• The prophecy community achieved near-total alignment through social media. Prophetic voices across the charismatic church reinforced identical language and messaging about Trump's anointing and attacks against him. Prophets who didn't participate were excluded from a unified network that determined who belonged and who didn't.
• A crucial mythic reframing occurred as 2020 unfolded. Crises like COVID, protests, and economic chaos weren't just attributed to opposition to Trump. They were framed as coordinated attacks designed to prevent his reelection, with the promise that God would turn these attacks back on their perpetrators through a biblical narrative known as Haman's Gallows.
• Election fraud transformed from a testable claim into an article of faith. By merging the Haman's Gallows mythology (where weapons meant to harm the righteous are turned against the wicked) with fraud allegations, the narrative became unfalsifiable. Whether fraud occurred or didn't, believers could interpret the outcome as fulfilling the prophecy either way.
• The mutation made the narrative about identity rather than facts. Once churches, leaders, and individuals had invested their credibility, their organizations' purpose, their spiritual standing, and their sense of belonging into this story, the thought of it unraveling became psychologically unbearable. The narrative stopped being about what might happen and became about what had to happen.
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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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