Christian Right Observer Weekly (Volume 4)

CROW's 7 stories on the Christian Right that you need read this week.

1. Citizens United Founder Floyd Brown Wants to Conquer the ‘7 Mountains’ for Jesus. 

Brown is currently targeting the “media mountain” and Arizona’s U.S. senate race (the “government mountain”).

In “Citizens United,” the United States Supreme Court greenlit the corruption of America’s election system by holding that “corporations and other outside groups can spend unlimited money on elections,” as explained by Brennan Center. Many articles have been written about the decision, but few (if any) have addressed the religious fanaticism propelling the man behind it: Citizens United founder Floyd Brown. 

Last week, we found a video in which Brown told Charisma News that his new book, Counterpunch, is “about having Christians show up in the culture in what Lance Wallnau calls the Seven Mountains.” In the same video, Brown declared that the separation between church and state is a “lie” and “heresy … straight out of the pit of Hell.”

For those unfamiliar with Wallnau, he’s a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), an influential network of neo-charismatic Christian extremists who equate politics with “spiritual warfare” and advocate dominionism, the belief that Christians have a divine mandate to control government and other aspects of society. The “Seven Mountains Mandate” (popularized by Wallnau) is a supposedly divine strategy for achieving dominion. It involves encouraging believers to pick one or more of these “Seven Mountains” to conquer for Jesus: 1. business, 2. government, 3. family, 4. religion, 5. media, 6. education, and 7. Entertainment.

Brown (who belongs to the Council for National Policy, a powerful Christian Right umbrella organization) has set his sights on the “media mountain.” In addition to founding the Western Journal (which platforms disgraced retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn), he’s a director of Conservative Broadcast Media and Journalism, Inc., which announced in January that it had added Flynn to the board. 

Brown is also tackling the “government mountain.” He revealed, again in January, that he’s the campaign chairman for Kari Lake’s U.S. Senate campaign in Arizona, as reported by Right Wing Watch. The alliance makes sense given that Lake previously agreed to join Wallnau’s “Holy Ghost Fire and Glory” tour (per Wallnau) and endorsed the Arizona GOP’s new chairman, Gina Swoboda, who claims to be “wearing the armor of God” (as reported by Raw Story). 

2. Take a Tour of Intercessors for America Influencing Across State Legislatures

Did you know that New Apostolic Reformation adjacent Intercessors for America (IFA) has prayer groups in every state? IFA is linked to multiple major Christian Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation figures and is the platform for Trump’s emergency prayer calls with IFA CEO Dave Kubal, a major National Faith Advisory Board member.

Last year Kubal launched State Policy & Prayer Breakfasts in Capitols with the first two in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. At these events IFA prayer intercessors rubbed shoulders with state elected officials to advocate for “kingdom business.” PA State Leader Betsy West says, “We are seeing the Church partner with government, business, and leaders; if we bind these three cords together, we will see transformation and reformation in our communities.”

While the head of IFA visits legislators regularly on the United States Capitol Hill, IFA state leaders have recently shown up at State Capitol influential events with elected officials like the Louisiana governor inauguration. Kris Kubal has called this the “hidden red carpet of access.” The WV P&P event rolled the carpet out to a Legislative Prayer Caucus event where an official said “God will not be left on the front steps of the Capitol.” Take an inside look at IFA influence with their 2023 Impact Report.

3. Most ‘Conservative’ Amicus Briefs in Recent High-Profile SCOTUS Cases Link to Leonard Leo and Affiliated Nonprofits

A recent review by Politico of “tax filings, financial statements and other public documents” found that Christian Right activist Leonard Leo and his “network of nonprofit groups” were “either directly or indirectly connected to a majority of amicus briefs filed on behalf of conservative parties in seven of the highest-profile [U.S. Supreme Court] rulings over the past two years.” (Amicus briefs are legal briefs filed by individuals or organizations who are not parties to the litigation, but who nonetheless have an interest in the subject matter and are permitted to help inform the court’s decision-making process.)

Leo co-chairs the Federalist Society, which has ties to all but 8 of the 185 judges who were nominated by former president Donald Trump to the federal bench and confirmed by the Republican senate as of March 2020, as reported by Anne Nelson, author of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. As of 2020, Leo also sat on the Board of Governors of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a Christian Right umbrella organization that was heavily involved with efforts to overturn the 2020 election as further reported by Nelson. 

Politico’s report about the extensive ties between Leo and the majority of recent “conservative” amicus briefs has prompted Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Henry C. (“Hank”) Johnson to seek more transparency regarding amicus brief funding, as reflected in a letter sent in December to the Honorable John D. Bates (Chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure) and to the Honorable Jay S. Bybee (Chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules). 

4. Faith & Freedom Coalition Reveals Election Strategy in Puerto Rico

"They said [Founders] if any government so established ever subsequently violates those rights, that free men & women not only have the right. They have an obligation to overthrow that government by force if necessary. And to having government that will protect their rights. Now I didn't say that. Thomas Jefferson said that.” This was Faith & Freedom Coalition Founder Ralph Reed's rhetoric before he unveiled his multipoint strategy on gaining conservative voters in churches. 

His audience? A packed Puerto Rican church of pastors where he was establishing the first Faith & Freedom Coalition branch on January 24. This was no ordinary event. It was coordinated by Christian Dominionist & Florida US Congressional Candidate Adianis Morales-Robles who also leads the Hispanic F&FC Florida chapter. And the event was coheadlined by Puerto Rican Apostle Wanda Rolon who has once said that singer Ricky Martin would lead Puerto Rico to Hell. Apostle Rolon has appeared numerous times with major New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) prophet Cindy Jacobs.

Both NAR and the F&FC have aspirations of influencing the Hispanic population. Making inroads in Puerto Rico will help them achieve this goal, especially in Florida, where Trump somehow made gains with Puerto Rican voters in 2020, despite reports that Trump had considered selling Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017. During the recent F&FC event in Puerto Rico, Reed called the upcoming 2024 election “the most important” of their lifetime. Reed says they're going to distribute voter education literature to 125,000 churches across America and then knock on 10 million doors in 2024. The end results of his efforts? “We're going to restore this nation to Godly Principles and Biblical Values.”

5. Heritage Foundation to Spend up to ‘Eight Figures’ Cramming ‘School Choice’ Down Texans’ Throats

The so-called “school choice” movement strives to redirect public funds from public (secular) schools, which welcome everyone, to charters and private (often religious) schools, which can pick and choose who to enroll and even discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender, using the doctrine of “religious liberty” as legal cover. Even with “school choice,” many low income families remain unable to afford private schools, which is why “school choice” is sometimes called a “lie” and “welfare for the wealthy.” 

Last year, the Heritage Foundation supported legislation that would have facilitated “school choice” in Texas. The bill passed the Texas Senate, but reportedly failed in the Texas House. We recently unearthed a video, however, in which Heritage president Kevin Roberts said that his organization will spend “seven if not eight figures” to get “school choice” passed in Texas in 2024. 

Heritage has also promoted “school choice” in Arizona. Last year, Arizona became “the first state in the nation to offer universal school choice to all families,” a move that was billed as a means to help families afford private schools, except that Arizona private schools predictably raised tuition soon after, as detailed in the Hetchinger Report. 

Heritage was co-founded by the late Paul Weyrich, who also co-founded the Council for National Policy (CNP), a powerful Christian Right umbrella organization, which advocates replacing public schools with “free-market private schools, church schools and home schools as the normative American practice.” Speaking of the Christian Right’s political ambitions, Weyrich once said that, “We are talking about Christianizing America.” He also once acknowledged that the Christian Right had initially coalesced as a movement in response to the federal government’s decision to remove the tax-exempt status of a private Christian university due to the university’s exclusion of Black students. The university had claimed that racial segregation was biblically mandated. 

As for Heritage, in addition to its state-level “school choice” advocacy (which apparently spanned27 states last year), it is the moving force behind “Project 25,” which aims to dismantle multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Education, in the event that Trump takes the White House in 2024. Although Heritage claims to be secular, Roberts has said that, “we are animated by our Christianity.”

6. Christian Extremists in Oklahoma Look to ‘Criminalize Women Seeking Abortion’

"Legalized child sacrifice has been moved from the clinic to the couch. Now, it’s not happening in the abortion clinics but in the privacy of people’s homes," proclaimed Brett Baggett, the director of Rescue Those and pastor at Ekklesia Muskogee, at a rally on the steps of the Oklahoma Capitol.

Oklahoma Sen. Dusty Deevers filed SB 1729, or the Abolition of Abortion Act, which would make abortion a homicide. "Prenatal homicide is what happens when a doctor or a mother or anyone has the intention to murder a child in the womb," said Deevers, an SBC pastor and vice president of the aforementioned Rescue Those.

Missouri Republicans also just drafted a companion amendment that would ban women who have had abortions from ever having access to Medicaid — essentially telling them to drop dead.

7. ICYMI: PA Lawmaker says The Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights Are Essentially Biblical Documents

Right Wing Watch is a treasure. They unearthed this video of Pennsylvania State Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, who believes that 65 percent of the country’s founding documents came “from Jesus' words and The Bible.” (Here is a link to the full interview.)

This is not the first time the self-proclaimed ambassador for Jesus in Harrisburg has flexed her extremist Christian delusions and positions. She once prayed in the state capitol for God’s forgiveness before the swearing in of the state’s first Muslim lawmaker. She has also quoted the Bible to deny climate change during a session of the state House’s Science Committee. Democratic governors have been a firewall against an increasingly extremist, and Christian nationalist GOP in the Keystone State. Borowicz is on the leadership team of Christians Engaged.