On a sweltering evening in the thumb pad of Michigan’s mitten, a self-described prophet promised 700 Christians under a crisp white tent that they were about to #cheat #death.
They would do this by winning the swing state for Donald Trump.

The reasoning was simple:
Each of the Christians assembled would soon feel a call to become a #poll #watcher or to knock on doors or to organize their church
—to take part in some act that would aid the Republican presidential candidate.

⭐️And that act would keep them safe, the prophet said, because God would not call them home before they had completed the task He had given them.
🔥“The greatest argument you have with death is an unfulfilled assignment,” the man, #Lance #Wallnau, told the crowd

This was the third stop of the “#Courage #Tour,”
a traveling worship spectacle passing through key battleground states ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

Organized by Wallnau, a sixtysomething Texas-based evangelical with a salesman’s persona,
the three-day event was a marriage of the religious and the political,
a swirl of prophecies and PowerPoints and speaking in tongues.

It was a call to arms, a campaign strategy session, and
—above all
—an honest-to-God old-fashioned Pentecostal tent revival.

It was also a showcase of the power of a rapidly growing, militant right-wing movement in American Christianity.

Wallnau is a major leader in a coalition of Christians who believe that Trump is prophesied to play a critical role in the nation’s spiritual reformation
—that the former president is destined to be a catalyst for the next Great Awakening, even.

These Christians see Trump as a modern-day Cyrus the Great,
the powerful empire builder and nonbeliever who is credited in the Old Testament with returning the Jews to the Holy Land.

They believe that under Trump’s protection, American Christians will rise up,
defeat their #demonic #enemies,
and take their rightful place of power in the country.

This belief in a Trump prophecy has only grown stronger among the faithful since the former president survived an #assassination attempt in July.

It is so strong, in fact, that anything that could stand in Trump’s way
—democratic or otherwise
—is perceived as a force of #evil that must be battled on a spiritual plane.

This has already played out once:
After Trump lost the 2020 election, Wallnau held nearly daily rants about the #stolen #election on Facebook Live;

he decreed in one online prayer call that 💥God would overturn the election results.

He spoke at a major rally for Christian election deniers in Washington on Dec. 12 of that year,
warning that there was “a backlash coming”
and announcing that it would be the “beginning of a #Christian #populist #uprising.”

He and other right-wing Christian leaders circled the Capitol while blowing #shofars and praying for the election to be overturned,
drawing clear parallels to the biblical story from the Book of Joshua in which the Israelite army marches around the city of Jericho,
blowing horns until its walls crumble and the Israelites conquer the city and #slaughter its inhabitants.

The event, which preceded a night of #political #violence in the nation’s capital, drew thousands of attendees in what was widely seen as a precursor to the Jan. 6 riot.

slate.com/news-and-politics/20…

I Went to a Pro-Trump Christian Revival. It Completely Changed My Understanding of Jan. 6.

A wild evangelical movement is storming swing states.

^{Molly Olmstead (Slate)}