New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) / Seven Mountains Mandate

The New Apostolic Reformation is the most explicitly dominionist mass movement in contemporary American Christianity. Its theology holds that the church is entering a 'Second Apostolic Age' in which God is restoring the five-fold ministry of Ephesians 4:11 — including, crucially, the offices of apostle and prophet that most Protestant traditions have held ceased with the early church. Living apostles and prophets receive direct revelation from God, can bind and loose spiritual forces over territories, and are commissioned to bring all areas of society under Christian governance. C. Peter Wagner (1930–2016) arrived at NAR through an unexpected path: he was first and foremost a Church Growth Movement theorist. He studied under Donald McGavran at Fuller Theological Seminary's School of World Mission and became the primary domesticator of McGavran's missionary church-growth principles — teaching American pastors how to apply demographic targeting and barrier removal to grow large congregations. His books and courses at Fuller were the intellectual foundation for the seeker-sensitive megachurch movement that produced Willow Creek and Saddleback. Wagner then pivoted. In the 1980s he became convinced the Holy Spirit was doing something new, developing the 'Third Wave' charismatic theology alongside John Wimber. By the early 1990s, he had synthesized church growth methodology with dominionist theology into what he named the New Apostolic Reformation in 1994. The man who taught pastors how to fill buildings also taught that those buildings should be staging grounds for taking dominion over government, media, and education. Wagner systematized his theology through his Global Harvest Ministries and the International Coalition of Apostles (founded 2000). He was explicit that NAR's goal was the replacement of secular democratic governance with Christian theocracy — what movement theologians called 'Kingdom Now' or dominion theology. The Seven Mountains Mandate — the strategic framework that translates NAR theology into political action — holds that seven 'mountains' (spheres) of culture must be 'taken' for Christ before his return: religion, family, education, government, media, arts and entertainment, and business. This is not merely metaphor; NAR leaders deploy apostles and prophets to specific mountains as a coordinated spiritual warfare strategy. Key NAR figures: - C. Peter Wagner: Founder/systematizer - Lance Wallnau: Primary popularizer of Seven Mountains theology; connected to Trump's 2016 evangelical coalition - Lou Engle: TheCall prayer rallies; connected to Uganda anti-gay legislation - Mike Bickle (IHOP — International House of Prayer, Kansas City): 24/7 prayer ministry, prophetic culture - Cindy Jacobs: 'Generals International' — apostle and prophet - Paula White: Prosperity gospel pastor who became Trump's 'spiritual advisor' (see separate node) - Dutch Sheets: Intercession for America; participant in Stop the Steal spiritual warfare, 2020–2021 NAR's political activation followed a clear arc: - 2008: The Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was filmed being blessed by Kenyan pastor Thomas Muthee — a prominent NAR figure who claimed to have driven a witch from his Kenyan town — at Wasilla Assembly of God. The video circulated widely. - 2016: Lance Wallnau published 'God and Donald Trump' framing, claiming Trump was a 'wrecking ball' sent by God to break the power of the liberal establishment on all Seven Mountains. This framing was widely circulated in NAR networks. - 2020 election: NAR apostles and prophets, including Kat Kerr, Robin Bullock, and many others, prophesied Trump's re-election victory. When Biden won, the 'Stop the Steal' movement received massive NAR spiritual warfare support, including Dutch Sheets' 'Give Him 15' daily prayer briefings that claimed the election had been stolen and called for spiritual and physical action to reverse it. - January 6, 2021: NAR imagery, language, and participants were documented at the Capitol insurrection. ProPublica, Rolling Stone, and the Public Eye have documented NAR's connections to Uganda's anti-homosexuality legislation, to the Stop the Steal movement, and to Republican elected officials at the state and national level. The ideology transmitted: Christian governance of all societal spheres is a divine mandate; secular democracy is a satanic construction; prophets receive direct political revelation; spiritual warfare requires physical action.

Documented themes

• Christian Nationalism
• Dominionism
• Anti-LGBTQ
• Anti-Democratic
• Gender & Patriarchy

Connections from New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) / Seven Mountains Mandate

• influenced → Trump Evangelical Advisory Board (2016) (2016) — NAR figures including Lance Wallnau developed the theological framing ('Trump as a Cyrus figure,' a wrecking ball sent by God to disrupt the demonic control of the Seven Mountains) that made Trump theologically acceptable to charismatic and Pentecostal evangelicals who otherwise found his character disqualifying. Paula White — Trump's personal pastor and advisory board member — provided the direct institutional connection between NAR networks and the Trump campaign's evangelical outreach.
• influenced → January 6, 2021 (2021) — The New Apostolic Reformation network was directly embedded in the organization and theological framing of January 6. The Jericho Marches preceding the assault were organized by figures within the NAR network, invoking the biblical siege of Jericho as their explicit template. Lou Engle, Dutch Sheets, and other NAR apostles and prophets had spent months declaring prophetically that Trump would retain the presidency and calling for prayer warfare against demonic forces stealing the election. The Seven Mountains Mandate — NAR's theological claim that Christians must take dominion over government — was not background theology on January 6. It was the operative framework.

Connections to New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) / Seven Mountains Mandate

• Church Growth Movement influenced (1994) — C. Peter Wagner was both the Church Growth Movement's leading domestic theorist and the founder of the New Apostolic Reformation — not sequentially but as an evolution of the same underlying question. Wagner taught church growth principles at Fuller Theological Seminary's School of World Mission from the 1970s through the 1990s: how to build large churches by applying demographic and sociological analysis to congregation growth. His pivot to charismatic theology in the 1980s (the 'Third Wave of the Holy Spirit,' developed with John Wimber at Fuller) and then to apostolic/dominionist theology in the 1990s was an extension, not a departure. If the goal of church growth was to bring maximum numbers of people under Christian influence, the next question — how do we ensure that Christian influence shapes all of society? — followed from the same logic. Wagner coined the term 'New Apostolic Reformation' in 1994. The man who built the methodology for filling churches also built the theology for taking dominion over governments.
• Bush / Iraq War Evangelical Framing influenced (2003) — Bush's evangelical framing of the Iraq War — particularly his documented references to Gog and Magog biblical imagery in conversations with foreign leaders — confirmed the NAR's framework in which American military action in the Middle East was spiritually significant and eschatologically relevant. NAR figures who understood spiritual warfare as literal armed combat found in the Iraq War confirmation of their theological framework, deepening the merger of charismatic Christianity with American military power that Du Mez documents.
• Paula White member-of (2010) — Paula White's spiritual and professional networks overlap substantially with the New Apostolic Reformation — she has spoken at NAR events, collaborated with NAR apostles and prophets, and her post-2020-election spiritual warfare activity (praying in tongues, calling angels from Africa, prophesying Trump's victory) reflected NAR spiritual warfare theology and connected her White House access to the NAR network.

Sources

• God and Donald Trump — Stephen Strang (2017), pp. 1–200
• The New Apostolic Reformation: Disrupting Democracy — Frederick Clarkson, Political Research Associates (2016)
• The Charismatic Movement Comes for Democracy — Rolling Stone (2022)
• The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism — Katherine Stewart (2020), pp. 160–185