Christian Right Observer Weekly (Volume 2)
CROW's 7 stories on the Christian Right that you need read this week.
1. Turning Point Academy Teacher Accused of Sexually Abusing a Minor Student
On Jan. 26, Trump will speak during “Freedom Fest” at the “Dream City” megachurch in Arizona, which operates a k-12 Christian academy in collaboration with Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a Christian Right nonprofit that targets America’s youth. The academy says that it rejects “woke” ideology and that its teachers instill students with a “Biblical worldview.”
One of those teachers was recently arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a minor student, as reported by local media last week.
Ironically, TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk has built up his “brand” by accusing public (secular) schools of “grooming,” while promoting Christian schooling, despite the many sex-abuse scandals that have tarnished the Southern Baptist Convention, Catholic Church, Mormon Church, and now a TPUSA Christian academy.
2. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt Speaks at Theonomy Seeking City Elders
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt headlined Christian Dominionist City Elders’ January 18th banquet at the Stoney Creek Convention Center. Missouri City Elders state leader Jerry Angelo also spoke at the event and said Stitt will be signing a Biblical marriage proclamation for Oklahoma.
Stitt is no stranger to City Elders, an organization linked to the New Apostolic Reformation Movement. He was their featured speaker on November 4, 2022 “When God’s for you, who can be against you? That's what I love about this room & the City Elders.” A year earlier City Elders prayed over and did a laying of hands on Stitt during their 2021 Christmas banquet.
Journalists and activists must pay attention as City Elders continues to expand nationally past its current states of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Virginia and Missouri. Why? Listen to City Elders Founder Jesse Leon Rodgers “What's City Elders? What's Family Research Council? You trying to turn America into a theocracy? And I say it's much worse than that. We're searching for theonomy.” Kira has spent the past year researching this organization that seeks to install only Godly leaders in each county.
3. Apostle Abby Abildness Promotes William Penn Documentary on World Prayer Network
Christian Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) Apostle Abby Abildness debuted her new William Penn documentary on fellow NAR Apostle Jim Garlow's World Prayer Network Prayer Call this past Sunday. Both Garlow and Abildness advocate internationally for nations to be led by their version of Biblical governance.
Abildness's Biblical governance model centers on William Penn's vision from God that Pennsylvania was a governmental holy seed and experiment for other countries to follow.
Abildness and her Apostolic Prayer Network counterparts want to leverage the Penn documentary messaging to disciple nations and cross the aisle to sway all political parties to their vision of Christianity. Abildness has achieved success by influencing the United Nations, the Pennsylvania State Capitol, and former PA Governor candidate Doug Mastriano. Abildness and her prayer warriors were also recently credited with halting the removal of the William Penn statue in Philadelphia.
Kira has studied Abildness’s political influence extensively with her research being featured in fellow CROW contributor Jenny Cohn’s Bucks County Beacon article.
4. House Speaker Mike Johnson to Participate in Christian Extremist Gathering on Jan. 31
The Museum of the Bible in DC will host the National Gathering for Prayer & Repentance (the “Gathering”) on Jan. 31, an event co-founded by Christian Right leaders Tony Perkins (president of the Family Research Council and host of Washington Watch) and Apostle Jim Garlow, CEO of Well Versed Ministries. A few weeks ago, on Washington Watch, Perkins said that Garlow and House Speaker Mike Johnson had helped him organize the original Gathering, that about two dozen members of Congress had prayed during that event, and that Johnson would attend this year’s event too.
Speaker Johnson’s continuing ties to the likes of Perkins and Garlow should concern all Americans who care about the separation between church and state, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and public education. Perkins is “the immediate past president” of the Council for National Policy, a Christian Right umbrella organization that has called for the voluntary replacement of public schools with “private schools, church schools, and home schools.” He’s the current president of the Family Research Council (FRC), which tweeted in 2022 that “Abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of a mother.”
As for Garlow, he’s an Apostle in the New Apostolic Reformation, a global Christian supremacist movement that advocates dominionism, the belief that Christians have a mandate to control all aspects of society and culture, including government. Garlow has called marriage equality “demonic.” He and NAR leader Lance Wallnau recently attended an America First Policy Institute (AFPI) event at Mar A Lago (Trump’s home), as initially reported by Kira on X (formerly Twitter).
5. SCOTUS Permits Idaho to Enforce Strict Abortion Ban, Even in Medical Emergencies
On Jan. 5, the U.S. Supreme Court “allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban [the so-called ‘Defense of Life Act’], even in medical emergencies, while a legal fight continues,” as reported by the Associated Press (AP). “The justices said they would hear arguments in April and put on hold a lower court ruling that had blocked the Idaho law in hospital emergencies, based on a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration,” the AP explained.
The Idaho Family Policy Center (IFPC), among others, has filed an amicus brief supporting the ban, which is codified in Section 18-622 of the Idaho Statutes. IFPC is an affiliate of the Family Research Council (FRC), a nationwide Christian Right organizing juggernaut whose website lists IFPC along with many other FRC-affiliated “State Family Policy Councils.”
In 2022, FRC tweeted that “Abortion is never medically necessary to save the life of a mother.”
FRC’s national organizing strategy involves the formation of church based “Community Impact Teams” (sometimes called “Culture Impact Teams” or “CITs”) that encourage congregants to engage politically, especially at the local level. In 2022, the Idaho Capital Sun reported that IFPC was “busy educating church members about how they can get involved in cultural public policy issues, partly through what the center calls Biblical Activism Boot Camps.”
6. Good News! Massachusetts Churches Organize Against Christian Nationalism
One of the goals of this newsletter is to educate readers so that they might be inspired to organize their local communities, churches, schools, unions, etc. to join the fight against Christian Nationalism.
David Langston, deacon of First Congregational Church of Williamstown, is
helping build this countermovement with the United Church of Christ.
“We need to have a countermovement in the country,” Langston told UCC.org’s Kayla Berkey. “We want this to spread. We’d like every congregation in America to stand up and say, ‘Christian nationalism is not Christian.’” Berkey went on to report how Langston “invited churches around Western Massachusetts from the UCC and all denominations and backgrounds to host their own events” as well.
Community organizing works, as we’ve seen across the country from Colorado to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Two national organizations to check out are
https://www.christiansagainstchristiannationalism.org/ and https://www.au.org/
7. Oklahoma’s Christian Nationalist Education Superintendent Ryan Walters Invites Hateful Bigot Onto State’s Library Media Advisory Committee
Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, who the Freedom From Religion Foundation has labeled a “Christian Nationalist”, appointed Chaya Raichik to the state’s Department of Education Library Media Advisory Committee.
Raichik, a former real estate agent, has become a darling of the right because of her Twitter account Libs of Tik Tok, which whips up anti-LGBTQ hate and hysteria, even inspiring bomb threats. And if folks weren’t sure about her beliefs by just seeing her feed, she clearly states them in an interview on Tucker Carlson Today.
“The LGBTQ community has become this cult and it’s so captivating, and it pulls people in so strongly, unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” Raichik told Fox News host Carlson. “And they brainwash people to join and they convince them of all of these things, and it’s really, really hard to get out of it.”
She didn’t stop there about the community she described as “extremely poisonous.”
“I think sometimes, the simplest answer is they’re just evil,” Raichik added. “They’re bad people. They’re just evil people and they want to groom kids. They’re recruiting.”
Needless to say, expect LGBTQ books to be banned, and hate to be normalized in Oklahoma schools.
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