It’s one of the best books explaining many of the roots of the violent attack on the Capitol of January 6, 2021. Matthew D. Taylor’s “The Violent Take It by Force” (Broadleaf Books 2024) digs deep to reveal the tendrils that led to the riot and insurrection attempt of J6.
The subtitle of Taylor’s book is “The Christian Movement that is Threatening Our Democracy.” But Taylor, who is a Christian himself, says “Christians are the best people to defang extremist Christianity.” And he champions the true meaning of “religious freedom” as outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
“Free speech and freedom of religious expression are core values of American democracy,” he writes. Taylor calls for “a civic reckoning that we need to have within American Christianity and in American society.”
“The mobilization for the Capitol Riot was conducted –– and the ongoing pageant of spiritual warfare in American politics is still being directed –– by Christian ministers and Christian politicians. They are using Christian theology, Christian Bible citations, Christian worship, and Christian symbols; therefore, this story pertains to all Christians. Whether we are Independent Charismatics or not, NAR (New Apostolic Reformation) fans or not, we are our ‘brother's [and sister's] keeper’ (Gen. 4); we all share in the same baptism and worship the same Lord in Jesus Christ (Eph. 4); we are part of the same body (Rom.12). So if, as a Christian, you object to the activities and theologies I have outlined, it is your obligation to speak up. We will be complicit if we allow such things to be done in our name.
It is my opinion, informed by history, that Christianity in America has not been this divided-theologically, socially, regionally, or epistemically— since the eve of the Civil War [when, as Frederick Douglass informed a nation, chattel slavery was justified by white slavers as ordained in the Bible]. We desperately need intra-Christian and ecumenical conversations— perhaps some quite heated and contentious-that speak to these differences and bridge these divides. The best people to defang extremist Christianity are Christians.”
Extremist Christianity –– Christian nationalism –– is proudly proclaimed, promoted, and displayed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth; Speaker of the House Mike Johnson; Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Jim Jordan; as well as dozens of advisors and influencers in the Trump administration.
Influential true-believers also include B-listers like Project 2025’s Russell Vought, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (who is recruiting a “Christian Army”), activist Charlie Kirk, televangelists like Kenneth Copeland (of “COVID-19 Wind of God” YouTube fame), and (to a lesser degree now) former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Not every Republican is a Christian extremist, by the way, but every Christian extremist is likely a Republican.
Though they are a minority among all Christians or other people who believe in God, these Christian supremacists were indispensable in motivating rioters on Jan. 6, 2021.
Taylor’s book introduces many influential women and men in the Christian Supremacy movement who see themselves as prophets, apostles, or otherwise ordained leaders and motivators. Among them are:
- Paula White, who helped elect Donald Trump and now serves in the White House as his spiritual advisor. Trump is just one of many celebrities who gravitated to White (or vice versa); others whom she ministered to include Michael Jackson (after allegations of child molestation), Deion Sanders, Darryl Strawberry, Kid Rock, and Tyra Banks. White conducted an officially sanctioned prayer service on the morning of January 6, 2021 calling for the presidential election to be “overturned right now in the name of Jesus.”
- Cindy Jacobs, celestial-charismatic Pentecostal Christian prophet who believes in actual demons. Her 2025 prophecies include themes of “overcome,” "global reset," and increased “spiritual authority” and "disruptive glory.” Jacobs participated in a prayer tour in the White House on January 5, 2021. She spoke at a Jericho March on Dec. 12, 2020, a forerunner to the rally one year later that led to the Capitol riot.
- Lance Wallnau, who at that same 2020 rally said: ”You are the privileged generation that is called to endure the contradiction along with Donald Trump and see America restored," he told the crowd. "This is not a weak movement. This is the beginning of a Christian populist uprising! There is a backlash coming. We are going to continue to build this as a groundswell from now till 2022. You will be on the news; they will not be able to ignore you… There is a Great Awakening coming! This is the spark that is starting it right now!” He is the champion of the Seven Mountains Mandate –– a blueprint for Christian dominion takeover of seven spheres of society: government (including the military), education, media, arts/entertainment, business, family, and religion. Wallnau defended Trump after the Access Hollywood tape after the presidential candidate bragged about assaulting women; Wallnau said it was the “Devil’s fault.” His YouTube “Flashpoint” show galvanized believers across the country. Taylor writes: “If we are looking for the key mobilizers that got Christians enraged and activated enough to drive or fly, sometimes cross-country, to the US Capitol on January 6, we have to look at Lance Wallnau and his NAR Flash Point platform, two of the most important and influential conduits of that mobilization.” Wallnau hosted then-VP-candidate J.D. Vance at a NAR town hall in 2024 leading up to the election. Taylor calls Wallnau “chief propagandist of the MAGA movement” and someone to watch carefully in the months and years ahead.
- Sean Feucht (“foyt”) says “worship is a weapon.” He ties his worship music to politics and sees himself as David against Goliath, naming his row house in Washington, D.C. “Camp Elah,” after the stream where David gathered stones for his sling. Trump hosted Feucht at Mara Lago and signed Feucht’s guitar. Feucht played, prayed and preached at his Let Us Worship services in 175 cities in 2023. He recently said, “We’re living in a spiritual war …The Bible says, when you encounter wicked deeds of darkness, expose them. Don’t tolerate them. It’s like David: David didn’t go try to tolerate the giant. He came into a nation full of apathy and said, ‘The giant needs to fall down.’” Taylor says Feucht “plays heavily on a persecution neurosis among American evangelicals.” Taylor concludes, “Sean Feucht did not have a direct hand in the Capitol Riot, but we should not underestimate the impact that his city-by-city crusade had in fostering the psyche and ethos of January 6.”
- Ché Ahn spoke at a prayer rally in D.C. on Jan. 5, and said: “I believe this week we are going to throw Jezebel out and Jehu is going to rise up, and were going to rule and reign through President Trump and under the lordship of Jesus Christ, because I'm telling you the consequences are severe if Biden [or] Harris becomes president… We are here to change history. I believe we are going to shift this nation and this election that's been stolen from Donald Trump and from the United States of America. This is why it's so important that we gather tomorrow and pray and show up and just take the stand to show the world that this is the most egregious fraud — the most scandalous [thing] –– that has happened in U.S. history….”
- Lou Engle is NAR partner with Ahn. The two Independent Charismatic leaders gained fame with their followers a quarter of a century ago at a mass event: The Call DC, held September 2, 2000. Engle said he received a prophecy to organize the rally, which in hindsight was a precursor to J6, considering what was said at the event. “In fact,” according to Taylor, “one of the prayers offered from the stage during The Call DC was, ‘Lord, we turn our hearts to the Capitol building. ... Lord, would your fire just flood through the Capitol, your fire of revival just flood through the Capitol building.’ After the event, Engle opined, ‘I believe The Call DC was part of a shift in the heavens and that God has thrown a window open... We have entered a season of time in a massive spiritual war: It's Pearl Harbor. It's Nazirites [the biblical sect of ascetic adherents to strict Judaism that included John the Baptist] or Nazism. We are in a war, and if we don't win, we lose everything.’” Note that this was said 25 years ago and two decades before J6.
- Dutch Sheets may be the foremost promoter of the Christian nationalist flag known as An Appeal to Heaven, which looks more (ironically) like an environmental icon with it’s distinctive green fir tree on a white background. Sheets showed the flag to President Trump, who attended one of Sheets’s NAR rallies. Sheets believes, based on his interpretation of the Bible, that Jesus should be at the center of government and have dominion over everything. Taylor says this is counter to what most Christians believe, interpreting Jesus’s own words, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). Sheets is one of the most radical extremists, calling former President Barack Obama a Muslim, calling for God to “cleanse our government,” and organizing a militia “using the authority of Christ’s name.” Taylor shows how the White House coordinated with Sheets in 2020 and the lead-up to January 6. Evidence of Dutch Sheets’s influence at J6 is found in the sheer number of Christian nationalist flagpoles carried and in some cases, as with other flagpoles, used as weapons to attack police and guards.
- C. Peter Wagner was the father of New Apostolic Reformation and the mentor/godfather of the apostles, prophets, and leaders mentioned above. Though he died on October 21, 2016, he had already done his part to help elect President Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton less than three weeks after his death. And, his legacy continues thanks to the garden of followers he grew.
“Claiming that Peter Wagner ‘radicalized’ all these people would be a stretch because many of them were radical long before they crossed paths with him. But he knit them together, mentored them, raised their celebrity profiles, and boosted their epistemic confidence that they were the vanguard of the end times, meant to vanquish God's demonic enemies on the earth. I think a more accurate rendering of events would be to say that they all radicalized each other.
It was their shared theology and their Seven Mountains ideology that made these apostles and prophets gravitate toward politics and right-wing Christian activism. It wasn't a conspiracy that drew them to Donald Trump; it was an opportunity—an unprecedented chance to see their visions of revival and reformation with a top-down takeover of society accomplished.”
Taylor is clear that not everyone who participated in the J6 riot was motivated by their religion. Among the rioters were also outright racists, anarchists, and autocracy supporters with various grievances against the government. But the evidence of a Christian supremacist presence –– in raised crucifixes, bibles, and “An Appeal to Heaven” flags –– was obvious and powerful.
While the history of the An Appeal to Heaven flag goes back to the American Revolution, some argue that the flag has been co-opted to promote a Christian nation and justification for violence in order to create a theocracy, and to hell with the Constitution.Dutch Sheets and Trump
“At the end of the day, this book is not about the physical violence that occurred on January 6. It is about the theologies of violence, the ideation of violence, and the romanticization of spiritual violence that have grown up in charismatic evangelicalism. It is about the culture of violent rhetoric that has spread from there into broader American Christianity and into American politics.
My objection to the NAR leaders is not that they believe in demons or practice spiritual warfare, which is fairly common across many forms of Christian belief and practice. My complaint is that they are spiritual war-mongers, constantly expanding the arena of spiritual warfare, mapping it onto geographical territory and divisive politics in a deeply destabilizing and antidemocratic manner. Buttressed by latent American Christian entitlement and indignation, that impulse to violence is the iceberg from which the outcropping of violence on January 6 protrudes. And that iceberg still sits just under the surface of the waters of American Christianity.”
The antidote to a violent NAR revival and reformation movement trying to topple the government is a coalition of peace-loving Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and other religious people –– along with free-thinking and independent nonbelievers –– who will take peaceful action in spite of intimidation, suppression, and retribution. Otherwise, as Taylor asks in his conclusion, “what will become of our pluralistic democracy?”
Matthew Taylor, who grew up in an evangelical family, is a scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies. (J6 images are from U.S. Congress public domain.)
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