VIOLENT RHETORIC INCREASES AS FEUCHT & OTHER CHRISTIAN SUPREMACISTS ACTIVATE FOR SUMMER

“King Jesus, today we gather at this Capitol and we enthrone you, we are appealing to heaven today!” Sean Feucht preached from the stage set up in front of the Sacramento state Capitol on Saturday the 8th of June. 

The large and predominantly white crowd raised their hands and an array of flags. Heavily featured was the Pine Tree Flag, more commonly known as the “Appeal To Heaven” flag—a symbol Christian nationalists use to signal they want theocracy even if it means violent revolution. In recent months, the flag has resurfaced in the mainstream after news broke that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife had flown one in front of their home. Until then, the flag had been little-known to the general public . 

“We are appealing to a higher power than what’s in this building, we are appealing to a higher flag that’s on this building,” Feucht continued.

The event was to celebrate four years of Feucht’s traveling hate circus, Let Us Worship (LUW), while also serving as an official stop on their “Kingdom to The Capitol (K2C)” tour. Joining Feucht for the first time at a public event was the Modesto-based Soldiers of The Cross motorcycle ministry (SOTC) who acted as the event’s security and led the “Jesus Rally” on their bikes. Feucht was also joined by his mentees Joel Mott and Ross Johnston of CA Will Be Saved and Greg Farrington of Destiny Church in Rocklin, CA.

Feucht’s made a name for himself by openly chasing controversy through publicity stunts. 2020 saw the launch of Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” in response to stay at home orders and congregation limits for COVID19. Unmasked, unsanitary pop-up worship events—many targeting hot spots for protests around the country following the murder of George Floyd—followed through that year. Chasing controversies around the country, Feucht is able to generate content and keep the views and donations flowing—what he euphemistically calls “shining light into darkness.” The first “Let Us Worship” tour led to Rolling Stone calling him a “superspreader,” a label he repurposed for a documentary about the tour. Since then, Let Us Worship has only continued to grow and even spawned an election-flavored version of their live in-person events, “Kingdom to the Capitol,” where Feucht is making millions in donations.

The event in Sacramento was no different. June is Pride Month globally and, so, Feucht declared it “Family and Covenant month.”

Feucht’s Sacramento rally was scheduled in February. In typical Feucht fashion, he promoted it with an over-produced Instagram video featuring footage of previous Sacramento events, people praying, worshiping, crying, and children being baptized in tubs of water with a live audio track of Feucht praying over California.

“We break off the spirit of suicide over California, we break off depression, we break off the heavy yoke, pray over Sacramento, pray over San Fransico, pray over Los Angeles,” he said in the video.

“Part of their narrative is that the United States is growing darker and darker, because the light (i.e., their movement) is breaking in,” Matthew D. Taylor, ICJS Protestant scholar and creator of the “Charismatic Revival Fury: The New Apostolic Reformation” podcast series, told LCRW.

They view abortion, suicide, homosexuality, etc. as signs of demonic oppression or possession, so when they “break off the spirit” of those things, its understood as a sort of declarative corporate exorcism.” Taylor explained.

In May, Feucht and his brands announced they would partner with United Revival prior to the State Capitol event for a “Jesus March.” Feucht and company would begin at Ali Youssefi Square, near where Sacramento Pride would be taking place.

United Revival has been active in California since October 2018. Their goal is similar to Feucht’s: persuade churches and congregations to go beyond Sunday worship and take religious activism into the streets. On Saturday, March 9th of this year, United Revival held their annual “Jesus March” in Santa Monica. The previous year’s event drew in about 600 people, including local street brawlers, January 6th attendees, Proud Boy affiliates and other violent bigots.

March 15th and 16th of this year saw United Revival join Feucht for the inaugural “Let Us Worship Firestarters Conference” in Seattle. The event was hosted by Pursuit Snohomish and pastor Russell Johnson. California Will Be Saved (CAWBS) also joined the conference. CA Will Be Saved is led by two major Sean Feucht acolytes: Joel Mott and Ross Johnston. CAWBS was inspired by Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” events in 2020. CAWBS’ founders birthed their own youth movement focusing on pop-ups filled with the music, revival and baptisms typical of evangelicalism—with a particular interest in converting queer people to a straights-only version of Christian supremacy. They also previously joined United Revival for their Santa Monica Jesus March. Joel Mott and Ross Johnston of CAWBS were also in attendance at the Sacramento event.

On June 6th, two days before the event, one of Feucht’s followers sent him an Instagram message advising him that “Sacramento’s pride event will be happening 3 blocks down!!!!!” 

“Yep. They don’t know what they are in for,” Feucht said in an Instagram story, sharing the direct message with a caption including a laughing and fire emoji.

Feucht talked up the Sacramento rally at all of his live events, interviews and podcast appearances through the year and it would attract folks from all over California. In attendance was Modesto’s Soldiers of the Cross motorcycle ministry (SOTC). Feucht was the headliner of the SOTC’s annual tent revival on May 11th where he was made an honorary member.

The SOTC opened the Jesus March on their bikes, decked out in their moto-garb, American flags and revving engines. Feucht referred to the group as “security” for the event on several occasions and, once back at the Capitol event, SOTC could be seen standing at the front of the stage when Fecucht gave them another shout out.

“I just want to acknowledge this amazing gang of holy ghost revival bikers, Soldiers of the Cross,” he said.

During the Capitol event, Feucht referred to people attending pride as “crazy people” and suggested that “God can flip an atmosphere in a moment…The moment that people of God show up, everything shifts.” In other words, he was suggesting that their presence could magically turn people away from queerness and towards their beliefs. He went on to say “California belongs to Jesus” and “The enemy can’t have this state.”

Feucht gave a teary rendition of Let Us Worship’s origin story, claiming God told him to hold the dangerously unsanitary events. According to Feucht, before the Sacramento event, God asked him “Sean, are you still hungry? Are you still desperate?” This was a springboard for Feucht to rile up the crowd and demand the “hunger and passion” of 2020 again. 

“Often times what happens with revivals is they get more institutionalized, they get more pretty, they get more calculated, they build their brand, they monetize everything and they lose the fire”, Feucht said.

Feucht was joined on stage by Greg Farrington of Destiny mega-church in Rocklin, CA for a fiery speech. Farrington has long been involved in right-wing “culture war” battles about Drag Shows and other LGBTQ+ affairs. Farrington has been doubling down on taking dominion over his “territory” while pouring gasoline over the rising rift between conservative and liberal churches in the region. While on stage he was “pleading the blood of Christ”— a term in charismatic circles which means claiming the power of Christ over problems while invoking Jesus’s ultimate sacrifice and blood on the cross. Farrington stated that he had previously been to “six signature events” at the Capitol and that the K2C/LUW event was the seventh.

“How many people know ‘seven’ is an important number in the bible?” Farrington asked the crowd. He explained:

“They walk around the walls on the seventh day and seven times and then Joshua with all the instrumentals and the hoards, and the shofars, and he said ‘when we complete the seventh time around these walls I want everybody to shout!’ We complete tonight seven times around this wall! I want everybody to shout right now!” 

The crowd shouted.

Taylor explained the context of the biblical symbolism Farrington was evoking. 

“He’s obviously invoking the battle of Jericho here (Joshua 6), where the people of Israel laid siege to the walled Canaanite city. God instructed Israel to march around the city seven times —seven being the number of perfection and completeness in the Bible in parallel to the seven days of creation. After they blew their trumpets, the walls of the city fell down, and the Israelites slaughtered all the inhabitants,” Taylor explained, adding,“This image/passage is often invoked by charismatic Christians as an encouragement to do spiritual practices to see practical breakthroughs.”

As the event continued, Feucht played his usual set-list of worship songs while the crowd hung onto his every word. Shofars could be heard through the whole event. At one point in a break between songs, Feucht showed a promotional video for their upcoming D.C. event a week before the election. He invited the crowd to plan their trips and stated that the SOTC would be traveling to the event as well.

As the event was coming to an end, Joel Mott and Ross Johnston of CA Will Be Saved joined Feucht on stage along with United Revival to lay hands on Feucht and pray for him and his family.

Feucht headlined Baptize California, previously named Baptize SoCal, on May 18th. The annual event is focused on water baptisms—a theatrical ritual where people are dunked in an inflatable pool. This year they attempted to break the world record for the most baptisms in one day. They claim that “over 12,000” people were baptized through their events. Next year Baptize California will be “Baptize America ” as they take their efforts nationally. 

In attendance at the Baptize SoCal event were Brian and Bobbie Houston, the Hillsong founders who were pushed out of the organization after financial scandals and allegations of inappropriate behavior against two women. They have since moved to Southern California. They have become friendly with Oceans Church, the founders of the Baptise California movement.

The 8th of May saw a large coalition descend on the University of Southern California (USC) for a “United March for Israel” led by Feucht. In attendance were NAR apostle Ché Ahn and NAR Prophet Lou Engle, Russell Johnson of Pursuit PNW and Ross Johnston of CA Will Be Saved.

Feucht, like other Evangelicals, couches his support of Israeli aggression in terms of fighting antisemitism. But part of Christian Zionists’ belief system is that Jews need to return to Israel to trigger a religious apocalypse in which all Jews will either convert to Christianity or die. Feucht and co however, are more aligned with Messianic Judaism, which focuses on converting Jews to Christianity now before Christian Zionists’ prophesies of genocide come to pass. 

During the USC event, Ché Ahn prayed for “one new man in Yeshua,” which refers to the conversion of Jews at the end of times to Jesus. 

Rob McCoy of GodSpeak Church and a TPUSA Faith leader was also in attendance and was photographed speaking with a man holding a large flag pole with three flags flying: the American, Gadsden and Israeli flags. The man, identified as Kelly Johnson, was seen at an April 2021 White Lives Matter rally in Huntington, CA.

LCRW attended the event and clearly noticed the shift in the energy of the movement and their hostility to outsiders. “Communist, antifa press” were at one point being threatened by Josh Fuller aka “Oreo Express,’ a Proud Boys-affiliated streamer with a history of domestic violence. 

“Either of you guys block again I’m going to put you on the ground, I promise,” Fulfer told our reporter in an incident captured on Go-Pro footage.

Another notably violent attendee was Tom Bibyan, one part of the mob that attacked anti-genocide protesters at UCLA the week prior. As of writing this piece, Bibiyan is still proudly advertising his involvement in the violence. 

“I pelted a bunch of dweebs with objects and got away with it. Suck my asssss woke mob #UCLA #israel” Bibyan said in a tweet on June 17th, attaching a CNN video highlighting his involvement in the violence.

Russell Johnson of Pursuit flew down from Seattle for the event after joining Feucht in New York, a couple of weeks prior for the first of the “United for Israel” marches at Columbia University.

Johnson led the USC march through the streets. LCRW had been pointed out by a local MAGA streamer at the start of the event and, as the march began, Johnson walked directly towards this reporter to try to intimidate them by screaming “Bring them home!”  into the megaphone  while raising it in the face of the reporter as they let him pass.

Johnson went on to hold his own version of the “United March for Israel” at the University of Washington on May 12th, where a large crowd descended on the university campus. The pro-Israel rally was due to take place in Red Square, however, many involved in the rally went straight to confront the encampment, screaming about masks and calling everyone terrorists. The rally had intended to march straight through the encampment. Police made sure to keep both sides separated, so, the pro-Israel crowd opted for standing in front of the encampment, screaming their usual hate at college students.

Johnson and Pursuit have also invested in mobile billboards with the message “We know Hamas hides in schools. We just didn’t realize they included the UW”

In recent weeks, Johnson and Pursuit have been holding “Extended Services” and have claimed that “revival is here” at their Kirkland location. 

These sessions have been extending late into the night with worshiping, crying and endless “healing miracles”. On July 1st, Sean Feucht’s hype-man, Jay Koopman of Che Ahn’s Harvest Rock Church, joined the flock for some magical healings and speaking in tongues. He claimed people were “healed” from back pain, depression, addiction, cancer and paralysis. “Miracles” were abundant! 

Ross Johnston of CAWBS has also taken the pilgrimage to Kirkland Pursuit to get amongst the revival: he posted his experience on July 4th—a video with “Tori,” a woman he claims he cured of needing ankle braces. 

“she hasn’t been able to walk, run or jump for the last few years without pain or her braces.” Johnston said In the Instagram caption, proclaiming“In a matter of seconds the Lord completely healed her! THANK YOU JESUS”

As of this writing, Johnson and Pursuit have announced their fifth week of extended services, claiming people are traveling from across the country to visit and be a part of revival.

CAWBS launched their own summer events outside of those they follow their mentor, Feucht, to. The “California Summer” tour was launched in late May, with their first stop in Fresno on June 1st, then moving on to San Francisco and Los Angeles in July. From there they will take the tour to Huntington Beach in August, San Diego In September and finish up with a “secret event” on October 31st, Halloween.

CAWBS held the San Francisco leg of their summer tour over the July 5th weekend. In the weeks leading up, Mott and Johnston have been ranting about how pride defiled the city and they were there to “heal” it.

On Friday the 5th, they held a Jesus walk named “Open the Gates” on the Golden Gate Bridge, claiming to heal depression, anxiety, addiction and to “break the evil over the city.” They did so while flying the  Appeal To Heaven Flag.

CAWBS scheduled a week of events around their July, 20th rally in Santa Monica. A notable mention is a “Pre-Rally Worship Night” at NAR Apostle Che Ahn’s Church in Pasadena.

On Saturday the 20th of July, CAWBS was joined by two other youth focused movements—Every Heart and Met By Love on the Santa Monica Pier. The day began with Evangelism training and pop up worship with the main event starting at 5. CAWBS had a large stage erected on the pier through a permit. The crowd gathered for worship songs, baptisms and some were “saved,” handing their lives over to Christ while others laid hands on them. 

Johnston took to the stage at one point with a big ask. 

“ To be fully honest and because I’m already up here, we have to raise $50,000 for tonight,” he said. “If you are 30 or older and you could give 5 or 10 thousand dollars, that would bless us tremendously.” 

At one point someone hands cash to Johnston on the stage while their QR codes were displayed on the large video screen.

In the lead up to the event Mott and Johnston of CAWBS were hinting a “Major announcement.” At the end of Worship they announced they would be returning to Hollywood Blvd on August 4th, as they did last year for another large scale event where they have a permit to close down the strip outside of the Mann’s Chinese Theatre. 

Minutes after the announcement on stage their social media accounts posted a promo video for the event. As we’ve seen over the last few months their rhetoric has been becoming more radical. The promo video  referenced “illegal Immigrants, Pride, Homeless people, civil rights protestors, Trump’s attempted assasination human trafficking and the new gender identity law signed in by Newsom.

United Revival held their annual “Jesus March” at Pioneer Square in Downtown Portland on Saturday the 13th of July, at 3pm. This year’s turnout was much larger than any of their previous events. At 1:30 about 10 antifascist counter-protesters arrived at the upper NW corner of the park to find local street brawlers already there. The protesters were immediately approached by “Church Security.” United Revival had their own official “Security” and were also joined by “volunteer security” made up of about 10 local violent fascists. Proud Boy Nate Cisneros and antisemite, David Willis were in attendance. 

Throughout the event there was back and forth between the groups, at times resulting in alertactions. At one point a fight moved from the NW entrance of the park to behind a 3 foot wall and some food carts separating it from the main event. Cisneros and Willis sprayed bear mace indiscriminately at people. Due to there being a slight breeze and densely populated area, the mace blew back onto the “security”, event attendees, children and people just going about their day. One of the event’s attendees, a young child got mace in their eyes after playing on the 3 foot wall after the macing incident. Some counter-protestors not impacted by the mace rendered aid to festival attendees caught in the mace fog. 

Right-wing disinfo accounts on Youtube and Twitter released highly edited videos of the incident after the fact, alleging that “Antifa” instigated the violence, but full video of the assaults is online, showing Cisneros and Willis can be seen bear macing people unprovoked. The police finally arrived after all the altercations and arrested one of the counter-protestors who apparently had an arrest warrant issued 4 months ago regarding an alleged macing incident. 

United Revival plans to continue its Jesus March campaign, with a recent event in Minneapolis on June 15th, and an upcoming one in Seattle on July 27th.

Feucht joined Pastor Greg Farrington after the four-year celebration of LUW at Destiny Church in Sacramento, California for a recorded conversation. The discussion was released as an episode of Feucht’s “Hold The Line” podcast on June 18th. The two discussed the origin story of LUW and K2C and what’s ahead for the movement. The conversation, according to Taylor, illustrates two strands of Christian supremacy that Feucht is trying to blend together: what Taylor calls “a charismatic vision of global revival” on the one hand and the dominionist vision of a Christian theocracy on the other. The fusion of these ideologies requires believing that Feucht and his ilk are the last lonely Christian “remnant” beset on all sides by the satanic evils of the world while they’re also healing and converting millions of people and turning the tide against the devil.

“In terms of coherence, this is quite contradictory and strange, but he’s inherited it from his NAR mentors” Taylor says. “They call it “victorious eschatology,” though that phrase sounds a little too academic for Feucht”

Of the charismatic global revival strain of Christian supremacism, Taylor says it’s a narrative of “mass conversion, mass healings, but all of this is accompanied by increased persecution.—sort of the grand finale for the Christian church: maximum persecution and maximum results.” 

“We held the largest synchronized baptism in the history of the world,” Feucht told Farrington, referring to the May 19th Baptize California event.. “So in California, in this state, this blue left whatever, this state, we held the largest synchronized baptism.” he said.

The goal for Feucht, according to Taylor, is to portray Christians of his ilk and specifically him as performing miracles, conversions and the like at an astounding rate while beset by satanic leftists and blue states. The comparison is always to the end times prophesied in the Bible. 

In part of their conversation, Farrington asked Feucht what they needed to do during the end times. 

Feucht referred  to Matthew 24, a bible passage about the end of times, while relating it to current events. He stressed he has been seeing “weakness” from the Christian faith as a whole and that only those who “stand firm to the end will be saved”, a reference to what he calls “real Christians”. 

“They’re quoting Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse in Matthew 24 and playing the “look how much that’s like our time” hermeneutical game,” Taylor said. 

“But he’s also tying in a robust dominion theology, that envisions a Christian or Christian-aligned government imposing Christian morality,” he added. “This is where you hear this language of expansion, power, and “taking over.” 

“it’s going to fill the streets of the city, and it’s going to fill the high schools and the campuses, and it’s going to take over the city. This is what we do. Not contained in the church,” Feucht concluded in his podcast with Farrinton.

On Saturday the 13th, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old registered Republican attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Milwaukee. He killed a rallygoer before the former President’s security killed him. Crooks’s motives remain unknown as of this writing.  

In response, Feucht called an Emergency Prayer call on Sunday afternoon. In attendance were Representative Lauren Boebert, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano, TPUSA Faith Leader and Pastor Rob McCoy, Newsmax presenter David Harris Jr, Baptize California and San Diego-based Ocean’s Church’s Mark Francey and former American Idol contestant/ Re-Awaken America speaker, Jimmy Levy. The call saw all in attendance pray and prophesise about the attempted assassination the day prior.  

“Trump is, in many ways, the secular messiah of these hyperpoliticized independent charismatic Christians. They have invested so much in him, applying to him endless prophecies and comparisons to biblical figures. And the unbelievable close-call of an assassin’s bullet missing killing the former president by fractions of an inch is being read by them as a miracle that confirms all of their sanctification of the man.”Taylor said.

“We are seeing an ever-increasing comfort with the language, practice, and affirmation of violence within these groups. It started as “spiritual” violence rhetoric, and that’s the position they’ll retreat to when called [out] on it,” Taylor told LCRW.. 

“But the reality is that the human brain does not have some firm line between enacting violence on spiritual forces and enacting violence on the physical person in front of you. We’re hardwired around violence, with deep evolutionary grooves about defending the tribe or destroying the other tribe,” he continued. 

“Leaders like Feucht are accessing those warlike instincts by normalizing violence, glorying in violence, and demanding violence. This is a political radicalization that is sweeping through these Independent Charismatic circles built around ecstatic experiences and the totalizing integration of spiritual warfare into all aspects of life,” Taylor concluded. 

“As on January 6, 2021, you can watch spiritual violence tip over into physical violence before your very eyes.”

With all of these groups openly collaborating, engaging in “spiritual warfare” and taking “territory” Feucht still has time to push merchandise. On the 2nd of July, his Let Us Worship account posted a reel to Instagram. The video opens with two caricatures of leftists wearing red bandanas over their faces being hit in the face with a frying pan. The video then plays on the sound of the pan hitting their heads while rotating through Feucht’s recent merchandise drop.