Last week, as a result of Zohran Mamdani winning the Democratic mayoral primary, lots of people lost their shit, including New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who ranted about Mamdani being a possible Hamas supporter. This all goes back to an interview in which Mamdani was asked to comment on the phrase “globalize the intifada”–it wasn’t a phrase he has used, but he was asked to comment on other people’s use of the phrase.
Apparently, all Muslims are supposed to be accountable for anything said by or in support of Palestinians. So if those are the rules, then I propose a new one in the same spirit:
All Christian candidates should be asked if they support the New Apostolic Reformation, the Seven Mountain Mandate, or other dominionist beliefs.
I’m sure Democrats won’t have any problem with answering this, but it will be a landmine for Republicans. Because this seems like a much greater threat than what Gillibrand is worried about (boldface mine):
The devotees she mentioned were leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation, a charismatic evangelical Christian movement led by a loose network of self-appointed prophets and apostles, who claim that God speaks directly to them, often in dreams. They believe that Christians are called to wage a spiritual battle for control of the United States. In the vanguard of an ascendant Christian nationalist movement, they are seeking an explicitly Christian command of public schools, social policy, and all levels of the government, including the courts. Some scholars claim NAR is the fastest-growing spiritual movement in the United States. Evangelical writer C. Peter Wagner described it as the most significant shake-up in Protestantism since the Reformation. Its laser focus on starting a spiritual war to Christianize America has led the Southern Poverty Law Center to call NAR “the greatest threat to US democracy that you have never heard of.”
…Since 2016, many NAR prophesies have concerned Trump, whom adherents see as having been divinely chosen to lead the country. Trump’s introduction to the movement came in 2002 when he invited Florida apostle Paula White-Cain to be his personal minister after seeing her preach on television. By the time he became president, he had acquired a handful of other NAR spiritual advisers: most notably, a South Carolina–based apostle named Dutch Sheets and prophet Cindy Jacobs, who helms an influential ministry in Texas. Throughout his presidency, Trump’s NAR counselors were mostly ignored by White House reporters, dismissed as latter-day versions of evangelical pastor Billy Graham with Richard Nixon, or Jeremiah Wright with Barack Obama. Yet “these are the key religious people around Donald Trump and the people who brought him the presidency,” Clarkson said. “They’re the people who influenced his presidency and the people who are leading the religious wing of his reelection campaign.”
NAR leaders have targeted the Supreme Court, too. In 2018, during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation hearings, Sheets urged his followers to ask God to grant them “a majority of Justices who are Constitutionalists, literalists (meaning they believe the Constitution is to be taken literally, exactly as it is written), and who are pro-life.” He prayed for “another vacancy on the Court soon,” which he felt was “coming quickly.” In a broadcast, Wallnau, the NAR leader who recently hosted Vance in Pennsylvania, described the accusations of rape against Kavanaugh as a spiritual attack…
It was Wallnau who popularized this doctrine of Christian dominion, which is sometimes known as the Seven Mountain Mandate, or 7MM. According to a recent Denison University poll, between March 2023 and January 2024, the percentage of Christian Americans who believed in the Seven Mountain Mandate increased from just under 30 percent to 41 percent. The concept routinely appears in conservative political discourse. Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker, who championed fetal personhood in a February 2024 ruling, said in an interview with a prominent NAR apostle that “God created government” and “that’s why he is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains.”
These beliefs might have influenced the Minnesota terrorist who murdered one legislator.
If Muslims are going to be accused of being Hamas supporters, then it really is time to ask Christians about this.
mikethemadbiologist
That’s a good starting question. One should follow up with something specific, as they did with Mamdani and “globalize the intifada”.
Literally following the Constitution? They could be asked about strictly obeying and enforcing the 14th Amendment, followed by further specifics — Trump being President is a lawless abomination, for example.
A Bible-based country? This invites questions specifically about women ministers and prophets and Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy 9-15, including this: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”
Of course, this requires someone willing to “throw a damn punch” (AOC) at the right targets.