'Greatest threat you never heard of': Report reveals lurking menace to U.S. democracy
An obscure group of religious zealots known as the New Apostolic Reformation represent the greatest threat to Democracy that America has never heard of, according to a new report.
The Southern Poverty Law Center released Tuesday its annual "Year In Hate And Extremism" and beyond recording the "highest number" of anti-LGBTQ+ and white nationalist groups ever recorded —595 hate groups and 835 antigovernment extremist groups in America — it spotlighted the NAR as a "growing movement within charismatic churches" quietly erupting stateside.
The group is described as a "new and powerful Christian supremacy movement that is attempting to transform culture and politics in the U.S. and countries across the world into a grim authoritarianism.”
The apostles, falling under the "Seven Mountains Mandate" that, according to The Huffington Post, subscribes to the thinking that they are granted “legal power and authority from Heaven” and are “God’s ambassadors and spokespeople over the earth" and that they are "equipped and delegated by Him to destroy every attempted advance of the enemy.”
According to the Huffington Post, the group has ties to the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, and friends in high places.
"The attack on the Capitol was largely inspired, the report suggests, by NAR’s theology of dominionism," the Huffington Post reports.
According to the report, “NAR prayer groups were mobilized at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as well as supporting prayer teams all over the country, to exorcise the demonic influence over the Capitol that adherents said was keeping Trump from his rightful, prophesized second term."
The Huffington Post notes "major Republican" figures took part in such events.
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"Mike Johnson, who is now the speaker of the House, joined the NAR’s 'Global Prayer for Election Integrity,' which called for Trump’s reinstatement as president, in the weeks leading up to the attack on the Capitol. Johnson has also stated that Jim Garlow, an NAR leader, has had a 'profound influence' on his life."
The NAR is an amalgamation of like-minded organs such as Truth and Liberty Coalition and City Elders pursuing the same aims: to wrest control of political sway throughout American society.
It also props up modern-day “apostles” and “prophets,” according to the report cited by the Huffington Post.
City Elders founder Jesse Leon Rodgers seeks to create the mission of a Kingdom of God in America.
That translates into a way of life where all businesses, culture schools are beholden to religious tenets.
The SPLC describes what happens with any detractors of the NAR's grand plans.
It suggests that opposition are literally “demonic” and argues demonizing any argument is perilous.
"When everyone but your own is demonic, there is no room for discussion or any daylight left between you for compromise, which undermines the very heart of a modern, democratic system," according to an SPLC release. "The effect is a wearing down, and sometimes, a tearing down of institutions and trust meant to hold people accountable to each other and to help moderate conflict before it breaks into violence.
"The destruction of our civic institutions, even when they need reform, will only give the hard right a free hand unencumbered by checks and balances to rewrite our social contract into a dystopian, Christian supremacist, and even neo-fascist future."