Christian Right Observer Weekly (Volume 13)
CROW's 7 stories on the Christian Right that you need read this week.
1. Arizona Courage Tour: Signs, Wonders and Politics at the Fairgrounds
Kicking off the Arizona Courage Tour to an initial crowd of 2,000, New Apostolic Reformation Evangelist crowed: “Platforms that are live streaming us. I see Brother Floyd Brown from the Western Journal and they have well over a million people. And then my good friend Sid Roth is streaming this live right now.”
While most eyes (including our own) are on NAR Apostle Lance Wallnau's Courage Rally Tour's featured speakers, more eyes need to take note of:
Their massive audience reach in spreading their concerning Christian Dominionist rhetoric pre election including an upcoming Mario Murillo documentary that leverages footage from the Tour.
Their more strategic and smaller, pre Courage Rally stop Pastors’ Luncheons where Christian Right leaders connect to ensure the tour audience enthusiasm stretches into the voting booth. Case in point: Candidate Kari Lake gets prayed over by Wallnau and Murillo at the Arizona function.
Calling their night time events The Living Crusades where they attract people with miraculous healings in order to convert them to their kind of Christianity and voting preference.
Grassroots Coalition organizing across the seven mountains with local and national groups speaking, recruiting at info booths, and activating teams to continue to network in the area long after the big names of Wallnau and Murillo leave.
What local legislators are attending, not just speaking. Arizona State Senator Anthony Kern was anointed by Apostle Leon Benjamin, had his Fresh Start Church Apostle Kim Owens speak at the rally, and then accompanied Apostle Mario Murillo to speak at The Courage Tour Hispanic event at Vida Church.
What QR codes are being shared and what resources are attendees being linked to: Business Leaders, Mercedes Sparks’ Liberty activist magazines, and the new As One America app.
2. Two Candidates. Two Political Dreams to Erode the Separation of Church and State.
Charismatic Calvary Christian Center pastor Diane Mullins was best known for her launch of the 2018 Deborah's Voice Movement in the Washington, D.C., Capitol complete with shofars. Culturally appropriated shofars are mostly indicative of a New Apostolic Reformation spiritual warfare ritual. Mullins’ Church supports New Apostolic Reformation adjacent Candy Christmas The Bridge and has had Prophet Kent Christmas at their church. Mullins has also appeared numerous times with NAR United States Coalition of Apostolic Leaders Eagle Rock Church Pastor Sheila Bowling including praying in the Ohio State Capitol.
Now she has bigger dreams of gaining an Ohio State Representative seat and is one step closer with her besting the Republican incumbent in the primaries. Mullins has repeatedly promoted her campaign on her church's socials. Her whole campaign team as well as Ohio State Representative Jennifer Gross appeared at her church after the primary.
In a video montage Ohio Legislative Watch documented Mullins saying anti LGBTQ+ rhetoric as well as this:
“The principle of separation of church and state is a lie anyway. The Constitution was written to say to the Government ‘The Church is watching you.’” Ohio media and voters must keep these words in mind when they head to the voting booth.
Another candidate who has put Christianity at the forefront of their campaigns past and present is former Maryland gubernatorial and current US Congressional candidate Dan Cox. A recent campaign donation appeal read “Fighting in the den to serve you in the end.” Cox has also mixed with NAR adjacent 5 fold ministry leaders including USCAL Bishop Bart Cox's Rock City Church and Apostle Harrington's Redemptive House Life Center.
Cox's governor campaign trail focused hard on activating in the pews with his former Church Outreach Director saying, "God has a better plan & it's up to the church to make it ]happen … Nonbelievers are not qualified to run our government.”
Cox and former Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate/Christian Dominionist Doug Mastriano often planned shared events. Most infamously they both spoke at NAR adjacent prophet Francine Fosdick’s 2022 Patriots Arise Conference. After a mutual event, here is a Mastriano volunteer saying “Every state will have a Governor who puts God first.”
Vital things to know about Cox:
A Catholic, Cox has granted interviewed and made appearances with Church Militant emphasizing his pro life views.
As covered by the Washington Post, his pastor father Gary Cox is a leader in the Christian homeschooling movement.
He recently did a Faith Debate four part radio broadcast on WFMD.
When Marylanders vote, remember, Cox said at a Mastriano gubernatorial event:
“What a powerful name Lord Jesus is. At his tongue, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess.”
3. SCOTUS Is the ‘Leo Court,’ Gushes Tim Busch (a Close Associate of Leonard Leo)
Leonard Leo is an “ultra conservative” Catholic activist and wealthy right wing donor who has done more than perhaps anyone else to build and shape the Supreme Court’s right wing (almost entirely Catholic) supermajority.
While many Americans remain unaware of Leo’s heavy hand, Napa Institute founder Tim Busch, one of Leo’s closest allies, has gushed in a Napa Institute video that he refers to the Supreme Court as the “Leo Court.” In the same video, which we recently found online, Busch freely acknowledges that Trump “radically changed” the direction of the Court by appointing (anti-abortion) justices “shepherded” by Leo, who he says is “one of the big supporters of the Napa Institute.”
Similarly, the Catholic Information Center (where Leo sits on the board) boasts on its website that Leo “participated in the Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett Supreme Court selection and confirmation process as well as the outside efforts in support of the Roberts and Alito …confirmations.”
Even Steve Bannon—a longtime supporter of the so-called “radical traditional Catholic” movement—has acknowledged on video that Trump allowed Leo to influence the courts in order to consolidate political support. (Credit to @ChangeTheSyst14 on X for finding the video.)
Here are Bannon’s exact words:
“[W]hen I came on the campaign in August 2016 … Trump was drawing at like 82% from registered Republicans. That’s one of the reasons I got Reince and Katy Walsh so involved. And I … said, ‘that looks like a low number.’ I didn’t know. And they go, ‘low number? It’s historically low. You gotta consolidate … all the Republicans in order to have a shot to win.’ And we did that with …Leonard Leo and all the judges, … , Leonard Leo being a ‘radical traditional Catholic.’”
Leo has also organized and attended a luxury fishing trip with Justice Alito and billionaire Paul Singer. And he appears alongside Justice Thomas and billionaire Harlan Crow in a painting that was commissioned by Crow.
For more on Leo’s influence over our judicial system I recommend this ProPublica report: “We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority”
4. SCOTUS to Decide Two Medical Emergency Abortion Cases Tied to Leonard Leo
This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two Idaho cases that will decide whether a doctor in a state with a strict abortion ban can refuse to perform an emergency abortion where the patient’s health, but not her life, is in grave danger.
Both cases (Idaho v US and Moyle v US) are tied to Federalist Society Co-Chairman Leonard Leo, a Catholic hardliner who reportedly belongs to Opus Dei. Leo has also sat on the board of “Students for Life” whose president (Kristan Hawkins) has written on social media that “Abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of a mother.”
Tellingly, the first Idaho abortion case was “brought by Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, … a member of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), whose largest funder is Leonard Leo’s Concord Fund,” per Ms. Magazine. Leo also “personally contributed to Labrador’s campaign…”
Labrador has outsourced the emergency abortion case to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), as further reported by Ms. Magazine. The ADF was co-founded by Alan Sears who sits on the board of the Napa Legal Institute with Leo. The ADF also served as “silent co-counsel” in the case that overturned Roe v Wade, per Michael Farris, the ADF’s immediate past president.
In the second Idaho abortion case, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs is “one of only three trustees listed for the Marble Freedom Trust—a $1.6 billion trust given to Leonard Leo in 2020 by anti-abortion billionaire Barre Seid,” again per Ms. Magazine.
A joint amicus brief was filed by 29 anti-abortion groups, including some with “direct financial ties to Leonard Leo,” again per Ms. Magazine.
In addition to these connections, the Supreme Court owes its right wing (mostly Catholic) supermajority to Leo, as detailed elsewhere in this newsletter. (See Brief #3 above) Other than Ms. Magazine, however, many or most media outlets covering the Idaho abortion cases have overlooked Leo's ties to the people behind the cases and to the Supreme Court itself.
5. Evangelicals Use New App to Surveil Potential New Converts
Last month, the New Republic reported on a new app called “Bless Every Home,” which is “mapping the personal information of immigrants and non-Christians in a bid to conduct door-to-door religious conversions and ‘prayerwalking’ rituals through their neighborhoods.” Prayer walking “involves believers flooding so-called ‘un-Christian’ territories in order to combat ‘demonic strongholds,’” as detailed in the article.
The app, which has “questionable safeguards around security and privacy,” enables users to “filter whole neighborhoods by religion, ethnicity, ‘Hispanic country of origin,’ ‘assimilation,’ and whether there are children living in the household,” as further detailed by the New Republic.
The app’s supporters include Gloo, a “controversial Christian data-harvesting firm.” Gloo was linked to Cambridge Analytica in the documentary People You May Know. The documentary featured Charles Kriel, special advisor to the UK Parliament on disinformation, who alleged that the two companies were using microtargeting to radicalize susceptible people into far right politics, as reported by the Texas Observer.
6. Video - Unveiling Shadows: the Threat of Christian Nationalism
The El Paso County Democratic Party organized a recent event well worth watching, "Unveiling the Shadows: The Rise of Christian Nationalism."
“This video comprehensively explores the origins, evolution, and threats posed by Christian nationalism in the United States. Dive into how this ideology impacts our society, threatens religious freedom, and challenges democratic values.”
This presentation serves as a great resource for those already familiar with the dire threat Christian Nationalism poses to inclusive, multiracial democracy and the crumbling, but still erect wall separating church and state.
7. A New Newsletter Focuses on the Threat of Christian Extremism in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Our friend @LancPAExaminer just launched a newsletter: The Lancaster Examiner’s Substack. He writes:
“Local news media does not often connect the dots between local Christian churches and nonprofits that engage in Dominionist work. For three years, I shared my work on the platform formerly known as Twitter, successfully raising awareness to the local dominionist landscape - but not often enough with actual Lancastrians. My hope is to reach more Lancastrians and do so in a format that is more easily consumed by more people.”
While his work focuses on Lancaster, Pennsylvania, it also sheds a light on the larger Christian extremist and Christian supremacist movements. His first post examines a recent bomb threat to the Lancaster Public Library which was a direct response to a planned Drag Queen Story Hour.
While the investigation remains unsolved, but Lancaster Examiner asks, “Are investigators looking at sermons? They should be.”
I'm so appreciative of CROW keeping us informed. Such valuable info!
GAWD!