Fascist Christianity 1
The work of sociologist Nelay Salya makes clear how certain forms of Christianity in the United States have become alt-right bait. He also makes clear that the rise of this fascist Christianity cannot be understood without confronting the role of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and the sprawling networks of Charismatic Dominionism that have fused prophecy, spiritual warfare, and authoritarian politics into a potent ideological force. This is the slow crystallisation of a parallel state vision, one where biblical authority replaces civil law, prophetic revelation overrides constitutional restraint, and charismatic leaders, self-appointed as apostles and prophets, speak directly for God in matters of government.
This movement now commands serious influence at the heart of the Republican Party and the broader alt-right political ecosystem, with Donald Trump functioning as both its political vessel and symbolic fulfilment. At the heart of this theocratic insurgency lies a peculiar theological synthesis. Charismatic Dominionism blends the ecstatic, supernatural orientation of charismatic Christianity, - visions, tongues, healing, prophecy - with a dominionist imperative: that Christians must take godly control of every institution of society. The theological roots lie in Pauline texts - Ephesians and Corinthians especially - which are reinterpreted through a modern apocalyptic lens. God is seen as a commanding general in a cosmic war, in which believers are tasked with reclaiming the ‘seven mountains’ of culture: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and above all, government. This Seven Mountains Mandate is a literal strategy of cultural and political conquest.
C. Peter Wagner, a former professor at Fuller Seminary, formalised the NAR in the early 2000s as a loose but deeply interconnected network of independent churches and ministries, rejecting denominational oversight in favour of apostolic authority. Wagner’s vision was one of spiritual warfare on a planetary scale, involving direct confrontation with 'territorial spirits' believed to govern cities, nations, and political institutions. The NAR is not a denomination in the traditional sense; it is a flexible and fluid constellation of charismatic ministries, united not by doctrine but by warfare, spiritual, cultural, and increasingly political. Among its most influential organs are Bethel Church in California, the International House of Prayer in Missouri, and MorningStar Ministries in South Carolina. Figures like Bill Johnson, Mike Bickle, Dutch Sheets, Lance Wallnau, and Cindy Jacobs wield immense influence across millions of believers, many of whom may not even recognise the NAR as an organisational entity, they simply attend churches where this language, theology, and mobilisation strategy has become the norm.
The alliance with Trump was not incidental, it was literally prophetic. Wallnau and other NAR leaders declared Trump a modern-day Cyrus, a flawed but divinely appointed figure who would protect the faithful and dismantle demonic strongholds embedded in American institutions. Trump, who is neither theologically literate nor spiritually inclined in any traditional sense, became the ideal vessel: crude enough to break the rules, yet compliant enough to bless with spiritual anointing. His presidency became a theatre for charismatic prophecy, with Paula White-Cain, an NAR-style prosperity preacher, offering public prayers at his inauguration and later serving as his spiritual advisor. As Trump’s nationalist rhetoric and disdain for pluralism deepened, so too did his appeal among dominionist leaders who saw in him not just a political ally but a messianic instrument. By the time of the January 6 insurrection, the convergence was complete. Figures from the NAR staged Jericho-style marches around the Capitol, invoking Old Testament war rituals to symbolically collapse the walls of the deep state. Prayer rallies, exorcisms, shofar-blowing ceremonies, and spontaneous prophecy were not fringe sideshows, they were central components of the insurrectionist movement. ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flags, drawn from the revolutionary-era pine tree banners and now repurposed as symbols of divine rebellion against secular government, were flown alongside MAGA hats and QAnon placards.
The insurrection marked not only a political crisis but a theological one: an attempt by self-styled apostles and prophets to manifest the kingdom of God through direct action against the existing democratic order. Since then, the movement has only deepened its ambitions. Michael Flynn, disgraced former national security adviser, now tours the country leading ReAwaken America rallies that openly advocate for the fusion of church and state. Sean Feucht, a charismatic worship leader turned political activist, stages mass revivals that double as anti-lockdown protests and public declarations of Christian dominion. Lance Wallnau, together with right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, has mobilised conservative churches into political action networks explicitly aligned with Trump’s 2024 campaign. The language is no longer coded: they speak of taking territory, dethroning principalities, and installing Christian governance. Elected officials are increasingly echoing this vision. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s political theology is rooted in dominionist thinking.
Figures like Lauren Boebert and Ted Cruz have courted NAR leaders and adopted their rhetoric, blurring the boundary between spiritual warfare and political legislation. This is the slow, deliberate construction of a Christian nationalist regime that derives its legitimacy not from constitutional principles or democratic consent but from prophetic revelation and the eschatological imperatives of a spiritual elite. The danger lies not only in the content of their beliefs but in their growing capacity to act upon them. What once seemed fringe now occupies centre stage. Fascist Christianity in the United States is an indigenous, improvised, and thoroughly modern phenomenon: a post-denominational spiritual insurgency grafted onto the machinery of American conservatism, with Trump as its cynical prophet-king and the alt-right as its cultural wing. The attempt to replace civil society with a prophetic theocracy has already begun, not through legislative coups but through cultural capture, charismatic fervour, and the slow erosion of the boundary between divine mandate and state power.
Running parallel to the emotionally immersive theatrics of charismatic dominionism is a colder, more calculated vision of American Christian nationalism: Calvinist nationalism. Where the former rallies around prophecy and ecstatic experience, this latter formation is driven by a severe intellectualism grounded in Reformed theology. It does not seek popular appeal through spectacle; it demands obedience to a system in which divine sovereignty admits no negotiation. Rooted in the legacy of John Calvin, this tradition conceives of the state not as a neutral arbiter but as a divine instrument, charged with enforcing the moral order laid out in Scripture. It is a worldview that sees liberalism as heresy, a rebellion against God's authority.
Though modern in its ambitions, Calvinist nationalism draws heavily from early American Puritanism, where civil life was yoked to a covenantal theology and dissent was met with theological discipline. In today’s incarnation, however, it is shaped by a more systematised intellectual lineage: the legacy of Abraham Kuyper, whose vision of Christian sovereignty over all domains of life has been reinterpreted into a call for total political transformation. Kuyper’s principle of ‘sphere sovereignty,’ originally meant to prevent the church from overstepping into the authority of family, state, or education, is now invoked to justify the reverse, namely, the subordination of all these spheres to a purified Christian order. In this movement, separation of church and state is not a constitutional safeguard but a satanic ruse. The most theologically extreme form of this vision is found in Christian Reconstructionism, an ideology rooted in the work of Rousas John Rushdoony and expanded by Gary North. Here, the democratic compromise of pluralism is wholly rejected. Instead, the Reconstructionist imagines a society governed by biblical law in its entirety with mosaic punishments reinstated, secular jurisprudence abolished, and all forms of dissent, sexual or religious, criminalised. The society they envision is not one in which Christianity influences politics, but one in which Christianity is politics: the civil code becomes a theological instrument, and the state, a theocratic mechanism of sanctification and exclusion.
Such views might be dismissed as fringe if they did not resonate so clearly within broader conservative Christian networks. The publication and popular uptake of Stephen Wolfe’s The Case for Christian Nationalism has marked a turning point. Drawing from the Reformed tradition, Wolfe advances a vision of America as a confessional nation, defined not by civic principles or constitutional history, but by ethnic homogeneity and shared Calvinist doctrine. Unlike the charismatic wing, which can at times be racially inclusive or rhetorically populist, Wolfe’s vision is unapologetically elitist and exclusionary. His ideal is not a multiracial church united under the Spirit, but a culturally and theologically uniform ethno-state rooted in European Christian heritage. He names this vision ‘measured theocratic Caesarism,’ a phrase which barely disguises its authoritarian core. Under Wolfe’s schema, pluralism is framed not as a fact of modern life but as a symptom of civilisational decay. The state must act as protector of the elect, guardian of theological purity, and enforcer of moral law. Heresy is not a private error but a public threat, deserving of punishment. Women are subordinate by divine decree; non-Christians exist only under the shadow of tolerated disobedience. Racial integration is a breach of divine order, and immigration, a spiritual contagion. This is fascism.
The institutional manifestation of this vision finds its centre in Moscow, Idaho, under the leadership of Pastor Douglas Wilson. Through Christ Church and Canon Press, Wilson has constructed an ecosystem: a Christian college, a classical school, a publishing house, a media platform, all committed to advancing theocratic rule. This is a project of cultural conquest, designed to model and replicate a total Christian polity. The production values are high, the rhetoric disciplined, the ambitions vast. With ties to high-profile right-wing influencers like Tucker Carlson and various alt-right adjacent figures, the Moscow project has become a hub for the respectable face of Christian authoritarianism. This austere Calvinist strain of Christian nationalism differs in tone and strategy from charismatic dominionism, but shares a teleological endpoint: the seizure of the state for God. One appeals through prophecy, affect, and warfare against demons; the other through doctrine, order, and war against pluralism. One baptises Trump as a divinely chosen Cyrus; the other tolerates him as a pagan prince used to shield the faithful until a proper theocracy can be established. Both reject the premises of liberal democracy and treat secularism as a betrayal of the nation’s sacred destiny. Both share a vision in which the American state becomes the instrument of divine sovereignty, crushing sin, dissent, and deviation under the weight of holy authority.
There are Roman Catholics who have joined the fascistic Christians in contemporary America. Catholic integralists are a growing contingent of young, highly educated, and digitally fluent reactionaries for whom liberalism is not merely misguided but heretical, a deformation of political life that can only be corrected by the reassertion of sacred authority. Their formation is neither populist nor charismatic but liturgical and scholastic. They are shaped less by revival tents than by Thomistic disputations, Gregorian chant, and the structural beauty of canon law. In their forums and subcultures, memes about Aquinas and monarchy sit alongside critiques of transgender ideology and the pornified West. They reject the democratic compromise as a false peace, a spiritual détente that masks metaphysical war. And unlike earlier forms of Catholic social teaching, which sought to moderate capital or protect labour within a pluralist framework, these integralists reject pluralism itself. They do not want a seat at the table of secular modernity; they want to upend the table, re-establish throne and altar, and return the Church to her rightful place as the soul of the polity. In this sense, their project is a reactionary revolution waged in the name of eternal truth.
Their intellectual lodestar is often Thomas Aquinas, whose synthesis of faith and reason they treat not as a medieval relic but as a living alternative to Enlightenment secularism. Nature and grace, order and hierarchy, law and beatitude, these are the coordinates by which they navigate the political horizon. But their use of Thomism is highly selective. The classical understanding of natural law as broadly accessible to all rational creatures is subordinated to a more confessional model, in which right reason becomes almost indistinguishable from Catholic dogma. In this reconfiguration, the unbeliever is not a fellow seeker of truth but a threat to moral order, an agent of disintegration. Religious liberty, once embraced as a prudential good, is recast as spiritual relativism. Dialogue gives way to discipline.
Much of this movement’s energy comes from the disillusionment of former liberals, those who once believed in the promise of constitutional neutrality but now see in liberalism only decadence, hypocrisy, and nihilism. For them, the crisis is civilisational. The collapse of sexual norms, the breakdown of family structures, and the ubiquity of digital vice are not social problems to be managed but symptoms of metaphysical disorder. And so, in place of procedural justice, they propose liturgical justice; in place of moral autonomy, obedience to revealed truth. They are not ashamed to speak of sin, punishment, and hell. Indeed, they take pride in their willingness to name what modernity has rendered unspeakable. Integralism thus presents itself as a kind of spiritual hardening, a steeling of the soul against the liquefaction of all stable forms. In this way, it bears a family resemblance to other forms of Christian fascism: to Calvinist theonomy, with its biblical legalism; to charismatic dominionism, with its prophetic nationalism. But integralism is unique in its institutional ambition.
It sees the Catholic Church not merely as a community of believers but as a juridical body with sovereign claims and as such a perfect society tasked with ruling temporal affairs in the light of eternal ends. The polity must become, in this vision, an extension of the altar; the magistrate, a servant of the priesthood. The institutional expression of this project remains embryonic. Yet there are signs of coordination. Vermeule’s legal scholarship is taught in elite law schools; Catholic media outlets like First Things and The Josias provide intellectual scaffolding; organisations such as the Benedict XVI Institute promote sacred art and liturgy as vehicles of civilisational renewal. These are not mass movements but elite vanguards, small, coherent, and strategically placed within legal, academic, and ecclesial institutions. Their influence lies not in numbers but in ideas: ideas that restore purpose, structure, and transcendence to a disenchanted world.
This restorationist longing is not confined to America. It finds echoes in Poland’s Catholic-nationalist revival, in Orbán’s Hungary, in the traditionalist enclaves of France and Italy. But in the American context, it takes on a peculiar tension: the fusion of papal authority with republican forms, Roman hierarchy with Protestant soil. The result is a hybridised vision, simultaneously nostalgic and insurgent, at once anti-modern and hypermodern in its use of media and technology. For its critics, this fusion is dangerous, a blueprint for clerical authoritarianism dressed in Latin and incense. But for its adherents, it is an antidote to spiritual fragmentation, a re-founding of the West on its true metaphysical basis.
What truly fuels the alt-right and makes both the porn industry and the religious right indispensable to its rise is the immense financial ecosystem that underpins and sustains these movements. Both these strange bedfellows operate as powerful cultural bait, capturing attention and loyalty, but their real significance lies in the vast streams of money, influence, and organisation they channel into alt-right agendas. As I’ve written about previously, the porn industry is not simply about explicit content; it is a multi-billion-dollar global business deeply intertwined with surveillance capitalism, data monetisation, and networks of investors often connected to far-right funding. Beyond the surface spectacle, porn mobilises white supremacist, anti-women, anti-queer, anti-immigrant, and anti-Islam narratives, coded or explicit, that fuel hatred and division while attracting a broad audience. This sensational content acts as the hook, but behind it is a colossal flow of capital that powers digital radicalisation, political operatives, and media platforms promoting alt-right ideology.
Equally significant, and often less visible, is the religious right’s vast financial and institutional infrastructure. Megachurches, publishing empires, homeschooling networks, media outlets, and political action committees create a multi-billion-dollar economy that mobilises resources on a national scale. This ecosystem channels donations from millions of committed followers into think tanks, lobbying groups, legal foundations, and electoral campaigns aligned with alt-right and white nationalist objectives. Through sermons, publications, and cultural messaging, the religious right spreads anti-women, anti-queer, anti-immigrant, and anti-Islam rhetoric that fuels exclusion and fear, galvanising its base. This religious ecosystem is a highly organised funnel for capital and influence, undergirding political power and cultural control far beyond the pulpit.
Both the porn industry and the religious right function as strategic economic engines: their cultural content, whether sacred or profane, is bait that hooks mass audiences, drawing them into consumer and donor networks. These networks, in turn, circulate vast sums of money into alt-right infrastructure, financing everything from media empires and tech platforms to paramilitary groups and political operatives. The spectacle of sex or faith masks the immense financial power underpinning the movement.
Donald Trump and his allies understand this dynamic thoroughly. They exploit these dual financial engines not out of ideological commitment to pornography or religion per se, but because these sectors open channels to enormous funds and organisational resources essential to sustaining their political project. The religious right’s fundraising prowess and cultural reach, combined with the porn industry’s staggering cash flow and digital penetration, provide the economic foundation that keeps alt-right fascism in motion.
In sum, the Christian fascists are not merely cultural phenomena but massive financial ecosystems. They serve as the economic backbone of alt-right movements, turning emotional investment into vast pools of capital and political influence. Behind the surface content lies a sprawling machine of money and power, mobilising divisive white supremacist, anti-women, anti-queer, anti-immigrant, and anti-Islam narratives to fuel hatred and sustain authoritarian agendas that seek to reshape society along exclusionary, fascist lines.