Thousands attended the Rededicate 250 rally on the National Mall this past Sunday, standing in line for up to three hours and then sitting under the sun for up to seven. Stephanie McCrummen reports on what the event revealed about where American Christianity is heading. Sunday’s rally was part of a series of events celebrating the nation’s anniversary organized by a Donald Trump–aligned nonprofit called Freedom 250, which is funded by a public-private partnership including corporate donors such as Exxon Mobil, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir, and for which Congress has allocated $150 million. “The event was a long-sought triumph for those who came and for millions more grassroots believers who helped elect Trump twice, embracing prophecies that God anointed him for the great spiritual battle against demonic forces that they understand to be animating current events,” McCrummen writes. Many of the attendees considered the event space as an “occupied territory in a cosmic spiritual war,” while others told McCrummen that their participation on Sunday was just one part of a long list of prayer sessions they’ve participated in to “shape the spiritual destiny of the country.” The idea for the rally “was the work of the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation, a charismatic movement that began gathering momentum in the 1990s and is now the leading edge of the Christian right,” McCrummen writes. “Sunday was a clear display of the influence of the movement, whose leaders were instrumental in mobilizing voters to turn out in recent elections and to take part in the January 6 insurrection, when many people believed that they were taking the U.S. Capitol for God’s kingdom.” “Administration officials including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose own theologies do not exactly align with the movement, told stories about God deploying miracles at key moments in the nation’s history, leveraging these anecdotes to argue that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation,” McCrummen continues at the link. “Historians say this is a clear misunderstanding of the American Revolution.” 📸: Matthew Hatcher / AFP / Getty
Thousands attended the Rededicate 250 rally on the National Mall this past Sunday, standing in line for up to three hours and then sitting under the sun for up to seven. Stephanie McCrummen reports on what the event revealed about where American Christianity is heading. Sunday’s rally was part of a series of events celebrating the nation’s anniversary organized by a Donald Trump–aligned nonprofit called Freedom 250, which is funded by a public-private partnership including corporate donors such as Exxon Mobil, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir, and for which Congress has allocated $150 million. “The event was a long-sought triumph for those who came and for millions more grassroots believers who helped elect Trump twice, embracing prophecies that God anointed him for the great spiritual battle against demonic forces that they understand to be animating current events,” McCrummen writes. Many of the attendees considered the event space as an “occupied territory in a cosmic spiritual war,” while others told McCrummen that their participation on Sunday was just one part of a long list of prayer sessions they’ve participated in to “shape the spiritual destiny of the country.” The idea for the rally “was the work of the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation, a charismatic movement that began gathering momentum in the 1990s and is now the leading edge of the Christian right,” McCrummen writes. “Sunday was a clear display of the influence of the movement, whose leaders were instrumental in mobilizing voters to turn out in recent elections and to take part in the January 6 insurrection, when many people believed that they were taking the U.S. Capitol for God’s kingdom.” “Administration officials including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose own theologies do not exactly align with the movement, told stories about God deploying miracles at key moments in the nation’s history, leveraging these anecdotes to argue that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation,” McCrummen continues at the link. “Historians say this is a clear misunderstanding of the American Revolution.” 📸: Matthew Hatcher / AFP / Getty
