QAA Podcast - The AI Powered Christian Dominionist Convention feat. Dr. Matthew Taylor (E375)

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Jack LaRoche and first-time contributor Trey Grace go undercover on the National Mall for the May 17th Christian nationalist event Rededicate 250. This White House-linked rally features prayer, fasting, patriotic worship, shofar blasts, AI George Washington, and rumors about whether Trump might appear in person (he didn’t.) What begins as a sweaty field trip through Freedom250 pageantry turns into a tour of the increasingly fused worlds of Christian nationalism, the New Apostolic Reformation, Silicon Valley-backed prayer tech, AI evangelism, and Trump-era state religion cosplay. Along the way, the episode digs into America Prays, Pray.com, Peter Thiel-adjacent religious technology, Brian Alarid’s dream of praying for every person on Earth by name, Lou Engle and Dutch Sheets’ spiritual warfare rhetoric, and the “Appeal to Heaven” flag as a Christian nationalist signal. Religious studies scholar Dr. Matthew D. Taylor joins to explain how NAR networks, charismatic prophecy, and Trumpist politics have converged into a movement that sees itself not as lobbying the state, but as reclaiming it for God. Also: The Great Controversy, the Freedom Truck, the “algorithm of liberty,” and the ballroom theology of Eric Metaxas. Matthew D. Taylor's Reckonings https://matthewdtaylor.substack.com/ Charismatic Revival Fury: The New Apostolic Reformation https://icjs.org/charismatic-revival-fury/ The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9781506497785/The-Violent-Take-It-by-Force Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: https://www.patreon.com/qaa Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media! All episodes of Spectral Voyager Season 2 are out now! Binge the entirety of Truly Tradly Deeply by Annie Kelly and Megan Kelly as well as Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: https://www.cursedmedia.net Produced by Liv Agar & Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe and Jake Rockatansky. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com) https://www.qaapodcast.com QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

If you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, episode 375, the AI-powered Christian Dominionist Convention. We're your host, Jake Rakitansky, Jack LaRoche, Trey Grace, and Travis Vue. I'm standing next to my friend Trey early Sunday morning near the National Mall. Already, it's hotter than I'd like,

and the way the crowd keeps pressing around me is not really helping matters. Clutched in my hand as a book, The Great Controversy, which my new charismatic companions have alternately claimed is going to enlighten me or steer me straight into hellfire with its heretical ideology. My buddy Trey is vibrating with excitement over his own copy of the book, while fumbling with his phone to pull up the event tickets so we can get in. In spite of Metro Security, the ever-present National Guard, a whole host of undercover cops and special freedom 250 security, not a single ticket gets checked.

By the time we reach the metal detectors, the crowd around us has sung Amazing Grace at least four times. I sing along with most of them. Tray knows the words a lot better than me. In spite of the heat, I'm having the time of my life chatting with the assorted stars and stripes wearing crowd, and I suspect that Tray is too. We enter the National Mall together, bellowing a howl of triumph. Welcome to Rededicate 250. We are in for a day of fasting, song, and prayer for the old US of A. And hell, the crowd has informed us President Trump might even be showing up in person. Now, the new goal is not to get shot. Jack, I don't know why, but this energy is giving me, you know the scene in World War Z where they've traveled to Israel and they're like kind of all

waiting and like Israel's figured it out and nobody else. as and everybody's singing because they got in and they don't realize that they're attracting this like horde of, you know, millions of zombies that's like crawling over the walls, like as they sing. Like, I don't know why, but as you were describing this, that's what I was envisioning. Very similar energy out there. People, when you least expect it, would just suddenly throw their hands up in the air and start proclaiming a prayer and everybody around them would join in. Wow. It's like a millipede's legs. It goes in a way.

It's called being ecstatic. It's like those enemies in Kalid in Eldon Ring, you know? Jack was what I'm talking about. I'm really excited for this one because it's like an old-fashioned field reporting episode. Like we used to do a lot more. We'd like go out to where people who have unusual beliefs were gathering and reporting back. And I was like, you know, at first when I heard about them, I was a little skeptical. It's like it sounds like maybe just an evangelical event.

But as Jack continued to explain to me, he's like, no, it's actually perhaps an illustration of how much like Christian nationalism has wormed its way into the government and how it's sort of integrated into the agenda of our tech oligarchs. And, yeah, Jack and Trey, who's the first appearance on this podcast, thank you so much for joining us today. Happy to be here. Yeah, yeah. You, yeah, you discover that, yeah, there's just, it's already pretty weird on the surface for, like,

for me at least. But when you dig even deeper, it's even weirder and more malicious. There were a lot of very frantic, slightly insane text messages going in at all hours between Trey, Travis, and myself as we kept digging into the research here. It was a good old-fashioned murder board investigation. You know, Trey in particular had created this beautiful one showing the connections. Just y'all are in for a wild one. An invitation to Bray. In September of 2025, Turning Point USA's faith director, Lucas Miles, published a furious manifesto in the guise of a book, titled The Pagan Threat.

While meant to ignite a fire throughout the fundamentalist Christian world, it instead transformed alarm bells, already ringing in magic practitioner circles, into a veritable siren. My long work in folklore circles has me enmeshed in a few pagan communities, so I tend to keep an eye on their chatter, and a number of websites and magazines published articles about this particular book's release, as well as the worrying trend of Christian nationalist extremism, influencing policy that stretched back to at least the first Trump administration. So it wasn't the biggest surprise to see the establishment of the White House's prayer initiative, imaginatively dubbed America Praise,

complete with its own section on the White House's website, coinciding with the release of Miles's book. To commemorate the occasion, President Trump said, America has always been a nation that believes in the power of prayer. We will never apologize for our faith. We will never surrender our God-given rights. We will defend our liberties, our values, our sovereignty, and our freedom. And with the help of the amazing faith communities across this land, we will truly make this the golden age of America.

I'm trying to, like, adjust my impression to match Trump's, like, decaying. Sort of, like, because the impression that I do is, like, that's, like, from, like, two or three years ago. Like, it's very different now, and it's kind of, like, it's old hat, if we're being honest. So this is my new, this is my debut of new and improve. of new and improved Trump 2.0 impression. No, no, you really got the eerie combination of bravado and decay. That kind of like this, uniquely Trumpian.

Yeah, with each word, you can just hear the life leaving him. Jake, I don't think it's Trump 2.0. I think it's Trump M.E. Franklin Graham, president of the Samaritan's purse, added this urgent, homoerotic tidbit. Our greatest battles are fought on our knees, and through America Praise, we can join together and ask God to guide and protect this land. I have heard that that can be a battle, you know. Rededicate 250 was meant to be the crown jewel of this America Praise initiative.

Freedom250.org advertised it this way. Freedom 250 invites all Americans to come together in prayer and worship ahead of the nation's 250th birthday. On Sunday, May 17th, 2026, the National Mall will be the scene of a historic gathering as Americans of every background across the country, prepare for the nation's 250th birthday with scripture, testimony, prayer, and a rededication of our country as one nation to God. From morning fellowship in front of the U.S. Capitol to an evening filled with music anchored at the main stage on 12th Street, Rededicate 250 will be rooted in giving thanks for God's presence.

I just like remember in third grade with my hand over my heart saying one nation under God and feeling like kind of silly and everybody else was like kind of silly and old. You know, it's like old, this kind of tradition, we do it. But now like, nope, nope, going right back. Rededicate 250 will be rooted in giving thanks for God's presence in our national life throughout 250 years of American history

and asking for his guidance for the next 250. just the next 250. After that, folks, it's up to Zane. Yes, I don't know. You know, somebody's got to step in. So after reading this, I knew I had to be there. But given recent, current, and ongoing events in D.C., I really didn't want to go alone.

Thankfully, I knew someone willing to answer this call. Answering the call. Trey Grace is a former religion and politics major with deep interest and knowledge about the intersection of the far right and Christian extremism. He also had a flexible enough schedule that he could sacrifice a whole day to listen into whatever the hell Rededicate 250 would turn out to be. Key. And he was kind of excited about it. Also key. When I contacted him, he had not heard of America 250.

In fact, the only people I knew who were aware. of it were people who worked in D.C. It seemed that their messaging had not actually escaped the city at all. Despite the Freedom from Religion Foundation's several FOIA requests that, as of this recording, still have not been filled. So nevertheless, after doing what limited research he could do on the event, considering how little there was available at the time, Trey agreed that it looked like a Christian nationalist event of interest.

So I told him all about America praise. If you search online for America Praise, chances are you are not going to see the White House initiative. Instead, you'll find AmericaPraise.org. Even now, post-rededicate 250, the earliest search results tend to be the work of author and former New Mexican pastor, Brian Allerid. Ahead of the event, I inflicted psychic damage on both myself and Trey by having us read Allerid's two books, both titled When People Pray, What Happens When Ordinary People Pray to an Extraordinary God, and By Name, How to Pray for People and Lead Them to Jesus.

Somehow those titles do actually fit on the front of the book. I'm still a little tripped up on the second one here. What happens when ordinary people pray to an extraordinary God? So this implies that there are some gods that aren't extraordinary. Yes, and those gods would be the God that is not. his particular brand of Christianity. Oh, okay, I see. He also reveals in the second book by name that he is a firm believer that some people

can really be witches that are worshipping gods that are not his god. So I do think that he believes there are less than extraordinary gods out there too. So he's still kind of doing like the whole like Greek mythology thing where there are like multiple gods up in the sky. They're swirling around. He's got one that he likes. but, you know, that's neither here, they're there. Other people also have gods that they like that he might, you know, not agree with, I guess.

Well, it's important to note that even when you encounter a witch, if you pray for them hard enough, they can show up. And long enough. They can show up at one of your services years later, unrecognizable to thank you for the impact you had on their life in saving them from witchcraft. This is a chapter in his book. Kind of like Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump, you know, he sort of shows. up, he sort of shows up a changed man. I mean, really, you know, he's got the aluminum legs, he's married, he's got, you know, he's gotten a haircut. I mean, really is like a completely

different person. Yeah, part of the unrecognizability was definitely the change in her makeup. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. These books are part memoir, part guide, and all authoritarian, theocratic technocracy drivel. Allerid has been given a mission by God to have every person, on earth be personally prayed for by name so that they can hear the message of Jesus. The best way to achieve this goal, explained by Peter Thiel's buddy Rick Warren, and his ford to by name, is with the use of today's technology. A through line within the book and the way it encourages a reliance on apps that is mirrored in the heavy push of apps like hallow and the

positive view of AI held by those currently in power. This blending of AI-based technology and religion will be a theme throughout both AmericaPraise.com and rededicate 250 in general. But more on that later. This ambitious goal also involves everyone being able to hear Jesus' message in what he refers to as their heart language. That is, through the use of teal-backed Bible and prayer translation apps, eventually resulting in the conversion to this charismatic flavor of Christian faith, ideally by Pentecost 2033. the 2000-dish anniversary of Christ's death and resurrection.

But there's another thing notable about this heart language that Trey has to say regarding translations. The Bible was not written in English. The Bible was written originally in Hebrew. Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and all of that was translated into Greek. Everybody has a different interpretation of this. That is why there are so many versions of the Bible and translations as is. but whatever you're going through, it's going to be a translation of a translation, possibly of a translation.

For all of the scripture that I pulled up, I did use the new revised standard updated edition that's been my preferred, going back to my days as a religion major, for consistency's sake. Imagine translating this already two or three times and then running it through an AI translation service and imagine what you're going to get. This is, by the way, how the world ends and why in Book of Eli, Denzel Washington has to carry the last Bible to be translated. So all of what I said above is just outright stated by Allerid as having been ordered for him to do by God. The following quote is from his book by name. A May 13th, 2020, I received a phone call from my friend Mark Green.

He is the chief investment officer at Hobby. lobby. Quote, I believe the Bible movement and the prayer movement need to come together at some point, Mark said in a signature upbeat tone. But first, Mark continued, I believe the prayer movements need to come together. What do you think could unite all the different prayer movements? I didn't need to think long about my answer. It was only one thing on my mind lately. Maybe the vision of praying for all people in 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 6 could bring together different movements and denominations to accomplish something greater than any of us could on our own. I presented our vision to Scott Beck, and Jeff Frey at Glue, Glue.

Is that? Yeah, it's another Bible app. Scott and Jeff are technology gurus, and they love the idea. So basically, Scott said, you want to pray for 8 billion people who live in 200 different countries and speak 6,000 languages and somehow learn their names and pray for them by name? That's like the largest data project in history. I know it's crazy, Scott, but this was God's idea, not mine.

Scott flash a smile and his eyes glinted with excitement. All right, I'm in. We're building momentum. God was opening doors, people were jumping in, and the engine was warming up. A few days later, I received a call from Ashley Wilson and Dr. Billy Wilson, the president of Oral Roberts University and chairman of Empower 21. It was this call that kicked this vision into fifth gear. God has given Empower 21 a vision that every person on earth would have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit by Pentecost 23, Dr. Wilson said. Oh, boy. Boy. So not just, yeah, there's a deadline, too. So like, they pray for every person within 13 years. All 8 billion people, all personally being prayed for. And this is not a faith project. This is a data project.

That's interesting. So fucked. You know, I accidentally sort of subscribed to Hallow. But how did you accidentally do that? Because I saw, I saw a, it was like a commercial or a, it was like a, you know, like a targeted internet. Instagram ad or something. And it was Mark Wahlbert being like, hey, he was like, I know it sounds kind of crazy, but would you sit down and pray with me for a second? And I was like, what the fuck is this? I was like, I was like, what? And it was like, hallow. And I was like, I got to see this. I was like, you know, I couldn't sleep. It was like 2.30 in the morning or something. I was like, I got to see what this is. And then all of like the good content, because they've got like regular Christians or whatever.

But then they've got big time Christians like Mark Wahlberg and Chris Pratt. And I was like, they've really got these big movie stars, like, talking about Jesus on an app? I was like, you know, back in the day, this would have been a sign that your career, like, wasn't going very well. You know what I mean? Well, Jim Caviesel is on there. Right, right. Yeah, Cavizel's on there, I saw. So I, like, signed up for the free trials. Signed up for the free trials so that I could, like, watch the videos. And it is so funny. Chris Pratt's like, hey there, I know it sounds kind of strange, but I was kind of wondering if, like, you'd want to talk about Jesus with me. And I'm like, this is the guy. from Parks and Rex who's like, oh, I'm the dumbest guy here. But who like then became the Marvel

movie starring. The whole thing was so bizarre. And then I forgot that I signed up for the free trial. And a couple days later, I got charged for the yearly subscription because they don't let you do it by months. So it was like, you have to pay for the year. And I tried to argue it with the Google Play Store. And they were like, no, you have to stick with this. So maybe we'll do an episode about Hallow or something to get some kind of value out of it. Yeah, we got a we got a connect on that because there's some there's some funky stuff yeah let's do we'll do a sequel to this episode i haven't signed up for hallow but i have signed up for pray dot com which we'll we'll get to here shortly yeah the week after i signed up i'm sure this is just a coincidence and not them trying to push a specific

specific type of political messaging but every morning bible verse had to do with construction of a palace and a house you know it was just really weird yeah those emails are a little haunting I'm enjoying getting them, though. It's like specifically ballrooms in the eyes of God. A ballroom can be a temple. So Aller's message and goals aligned closely enough with what was posted on the White House website that I was extremely taken aback when Trey discovered that the actual website for the AmericaPraise initiative outside of the page on the White House site was AmericaPraise.com rather than dot or.

So I called Allerid's organization and asked them if there was a connection between the two. A very nice woman named Carletta Bradley explained. There is no connection. I'm not sure what happened. We had both.org and dot com. Came to my attention three months ago and I've been looking into it. I was really shocked. We are a really small group.

It's really only myself, Brian, Mercy, and a few contractors. We're trying to consider whether or not to chase it down and see what happened with GoDaddy or if this is just a situation where, glory be to God, it's a good thing until it's not. We're worried it's going to go in a direction that we don't like. So, archive.org shows no sign of Allerud's organization having previously owned the dot-com site. The closest thing to a website it did show was a form that said the site may be for sale, and that form goes back to around 2019. All of that having been said, there are very few scrapes of the site,

to begin with. So this leaves us with two websites to focus on. Rededicate 250, Freedom250.org, and AmericaPraise.com. You'd think we'd be talking about freedom 250.com, but another quick phone call confirmed that that website is owned by a former eyeglass salesman in Massachusetts, who is very annoyed that people keep calling him about freedom 250.org events. As annoying as all of this is, websites and top-level domains do play a critical role in this story. Freedom250.org is not related to America250.org. America 250 was a bipartisan project initiated in 2016. It had no place in second term Trump's America.

What bipartisan coalition would approve of a UFC fight on the White House lawn or Trump's quarter-quell version of the hunger games. For all of this and more, Trump needed Freedom 250, which confused a lot of corporations that had already donated to America 250 because Freedom 250 just went down that list and solicited donations from every single person or corporation who donated to America 250 already. If you're a bit confused, don't worry. So is Trump. He actually confused the two in his speech announcing the Freedom 250 initiative. Of course. It's like we're proud to announce our brand new movie, The Matrix.

To help carry out these exciting plans, we have created a new public-private partnership. It's called Freedom 250. Working with states, companies, and organizations across the country, we will renew the patriotism, pride, and pioneering spirit of America, and lay the groundwork for the next 250 years of independence and freedom. This will be a time like you've never had in your lives, America 250. Thank you. I love you all. God, you know, the one thing he's got is supposed to be a master of branding.

It's kind of like even that's decaying in his decline. Yeah, all of him just seems to be decaying a bit right now. Yeah, I think he's right. I have never seen a time like this in my life. So historian Heather Cox Richardson noted the following. Congress has appropriated $150 million for the Department of the Interior to distribute to organizations for celebrations of the 250th. Of that money, America 250 has been allocated $50 million and Freedom 250 has been allocated $100 million, although as of February, America 250 has received only $25 million. Freedom 250 has also solicited donations in exchange for,

access to Trump. According to Carissa Waddick of USA Today, sponsors include ExxonMobil, MasterCard, Deloitte, Palantir, and Indycar. Donors can also request anonymity. So I think it's really great. Yeah. So even like Palantir can straight up like donate under name, which is a highly controversial, I would say, evil organization. But if you want to be even more evil, if you want to be even more under the table, you can be totally anonymous. Yeah, it's just totally no rails. on this right now. And to further emphasize this split, an April 20th Wall Street Journal article further explained the situation. Planning for the birthday split into two camps late last year. One is a bipartisan commission created by Congress in 2016 that is supported by the America 250 group

and has been accused by former executives of wastefulness. The other is a new Trump-aligned group called Freedom 250 that its critics say is designating a birthday for a America more suited to MAGA fans. America 250 has defended its spending and Freedom 250 says it is creating a party for all Americans. The two groups are now competing for a remaining slice of $150 million in federal funding that Congress appropriated for the semi-quincentennial as part of last summer's quote, one big beautiful bill act, but that has yet to be doled out. When Congress appropriated the $150 million, only one group, America 250, was planning celebrations for the semi-quincennial. But the Interior Department is in charge of distributing the money, and a representative

indicated the remaining funds would largely go to the new Trump-packed Freedom 250. So he just stole the, he basically was just like, create a name of something that's kind of like it and take all the money that was given before this, before my group was made. Yeah. Fantastic. Great. America 250 so far has received $25 million of that funding source and is hoping for an additional $25 million this year. Meanwhile, most of the people in the country are struggling to pay their rent. I added that last part. I mean, that last part should be added. But to summarize all of this, America 250 is essentially dead right now.

Freedom 250 is banking on the name recognition that America 250 had and hoping no one will notice that it is a MAGA free-for-all. This also helps explain the recent announcement of bands at the Great American State Fair backing out. Former GOP rep Adam Kissinger succinctly put it. Here's the deal for those confused. America 250 is the bipartisan celebration committee. Freedom 250 is a Trump organization celebrating him masquerading as a celebration of America. The concert was Freedom 250, hence the cancellations. So I hope that all makes sense. Well, I understand. Yes, I understand now. AmericaPraise.com. The White House affiliated site has a large banner advertising

Freedom250.org on its landing page. More amusingly, it's still advertising Rededicate 250 two weeks after the actual event, saying that you should register by clicking here. The site is copyrighted by pray.com, home of the nightmare-inducing AI Bible stories and all of its partners, along with the teal-backed Catholic Prayer spyware app that has Jake sucked in, hallow, the NAR-affiliated Intercessors for America, Che On's Harvest International Ministry, the aforementioned AI Bible Slop, the ambitious James Bondian cross-on-the-moon coalition, the Southern Baptist Convention, and of course, Jack Posobiac. Although the event...

So, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So these are the people that are... funding the new America 250 celebration? These are some of them. And these are the backers for pray.com, which in turn is the owner of Americapraise.com. Got it, got it. Cross on the moon guy to Prey Subscription Service website to 250 years, America, we did it. Yes.

And the cross on the moon is what it sounds like. They want to build a massive cross on the moon so that they can preach Christian. through the whole universe. That is their goal. They have an AI video of a rendering of a lunar lander landing on the moon and then a cross coming up from it. I highly recommend you take 30 seconds and watch it. 100%. The site is amazing.

And they have funding. They have government backing. They have gotten different senators and whatnot to sign on to this particular project. See, they think it's going to get aliens into Christ and stuff. But really it's like, you know how sometimes it's, and it's sad, you're driving on a freeway and you sort of see like a memorial kind of like on the side of the road where somebody passed. That's what people are going to think about Earth. They're going to see that cross on the moon and they're going to go, oh, yeah. Oh, man, something bad must have happened there.

And what's bad happening there is happening right now. Mm-hmm. So although Rededicate 250 was linked to the White House, there was next to no coverage of it. In stark contrast, the chatter leading up to January 6th. No protests were planned as far as Trey and I could tell, and no speaker list was posted until May 9th, roughly a week before the event itself, and well after the May 1st press registration deadline had passed.

Trump's campaign did not even advertise the event until a single text went out on Wednesday, giving next to no time for people to get their travel plans in place for the Sunday event. This turned out to not necessarily be a difficult thing for people who really wanted to make it, as a lot of the attendance we talked to appeared to have been bust in. So once that speaker list was available, it was a who's who of extremism. The alleged Christian nationalist secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, enthusiastic cryptobrough, Senator Tim Scott,

the thoroughly alien-pilled Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Bible literalist speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who gives Louisiana a reputation that Scrim would be downright ashamed of. More interesting still were the faith leaders, popular talk show host and former Veggie Tales writer Eric Mataxis, televangelist and frequent Fox News contributor, Robert Jeffress, that striking faith advisor to the White House, Paula White, Chancellor of Liberty University, Jonathan Falwell,

senior leader of the International House of Prayer, the other IHop, Lou Angle, Apostle, Apostle, Guillermo Maldonado. Apostle, you might be asking? Was this a new apostolic Reformation event? I'm hearing all these names, and I'm imagining them in kind of like the floating disks in like the Star Wars government.

It's a little like that. I'm kind of imagining it as a pick your fighter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're in front of like a, kind of like a nicely animated, like, but like pixel 2D background of a, I don't know, like the background, maybe like the kitchen of a church. Just the absolute worst blunt rotation. Oh my God, can you imagine? I think I'd be fine.

No, no. Oh, when you start hearing these people. I think going to like Hebrew school for, you know, most of my adolescence and childhood, I think kind of protects me from that kind of stuff. Like, when I go into churches, I feel nothing. Like, I'm just, I'm kind of fascinated that so many people like have been into this for so long that we haven't gotten bored of Jesus and moved on to something different, but. I mean, the Raylians did move on to something different.

You saw that went for them. Well, I mean, there's certain people who have moved on. to something different, you know, like the heavens gate people, but like, you know, um, but for the most part, people are like, it's Jesus, Jesus, Jesus plus one plus two plus three plus four. Yeah. I mean, these people, I think that they might get to you, not in the way of like religious fear, but, but I think that they would harsh your vibe in a very particular kind of way. And we'll see. Like, as this episode goes on, let's see how the blunt rotation is looking to you. Okay, okay. So speaking of the new apostolic reform.

Remember Brian Allerid of AmericaPraise.org, that particular pastor who has the wrapped name of White Chocolate, he is also a global leader of Empower 21. According to Empower 21's website, Empower 21 is a global relational network that aims to help shape the future of the spirit-empowered movement throughout the world by focusing on crucial issues facing the movement and connecting generations for intergenerational blessing in impartation. Empower 21's stated vision should also sound very familiar by now. That every person on earth would have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit by Pentecost 2033.

You know, all of this authentic encounter with Jesus Christ just keeps making me think that they just want to kill everyone. That the only way that we're going to have an authentic encounter is if we're just dead and then we'll actually see him. Mm-hmm. But anyway, in addition to being one of Empower 21's global leaders, Alarid is also chair of their global prayer alliance, along with the quote-unquote prophetic advisor Arlene Westerhoof, and surprise, Cindy Jacobs of January 6th fame.

Jacobs is also the lady who deeply influenced the new apostolic Reformation leader, see Peter Wagner's views on spiritual warfare. Earlier this week, we interviewed Dr. Matthew Taylor about Rededicate 250 and the connection of the participants to the New Apostolic Reformation. Dr. Matthew Taylor is a religious study scholar and the leading public expert on Christian nationalism, Christian extremism, and the charismatic movements shaping contemporary American politics. He holds a PhD from Georgetown University and an MA from Fuller Theological Seminary.

His work focuses especially on the New Apostolic Reformation, spiritual, warfare rhetoric and the religious network surrounding the current administration. Now, I'm sure you all remember the old adage that there's Q and there are Anans, but there's no Q anon. Now, Trey had the brilliant idea to put this into perspective with the NAR, because the NAR is a similar beast. It's most easily described as a loose affiliation of churches led by apostles and prophets, but there is no main headquarters. Here's how Dr. Taylor explained the connection between the rhetoric of the NAR and QAnon. They'll say things like, yeah, there's no such thing as the NAR, or there was never an organization. And that's not false, right? Like, there never was an organization. Yeah, I will say they're,

the leaders in this world, relationally are very interconnected, though. And once you start kind of watching them, you see all the kind of overlap. And I think it's interesting, you point to kind of the Q&ON culture. Actually, some of the NAR people have gotten really into Q&N historically. So, I mean, one of the prophets is this guy, Johnny Inlow, he went really deep into Q&on, very Trumpy. So he believes in these kind of modern prophecies, considers himself a prophet. But then he also believes in Q&on, right? And will sometimes bring up these different QAnon prophecy. So those worlds, I wouldn't say they overlap perfectly, but they definitely overlap some. So there's no main headquarters unless you count empowered 21, given the leadership, including

the likes of Che-Anne, Cindy Jacobs, Mark Green, who is the Hobby Lobby family and the founder of the Museum of the Bible. Billy Wilson, the global chair of Empower 21, is the president of Oral Roberts University and was appointed to that position by Mart. Samuel Rodriguez is a member of the White House Faith Office and was the first speaker at Rededicate 250. So given the ties between Empower 21, Rededicate 250 and Freedom 250. Yeah, Trey and I and everyone else we spoke to, believe that Rededicate 250 was a full-blown White House endorsed New Apostolic Reformation event. In addition to this, nearly all of the corporate sponsors of Freedom 250 and Rededicate 250

have deep financial ties to Peter Thiel and Palantir. Deloitte, Mastercard, Exiger, Exxon Mobile, IndyCar, John Deere, and, of course, Lockheed Martin. This includes prey.com, which in 2024, quote, partnered on AI applications for faith-based nonprofits, given the challenges of translating its content into multiple languages. When we asked Dr. Taylor about the Teal connection, he offered this insight.

Peter Teal has become very involved in the stuff. Peter Teal, he's hard to place on any kind of movement or spectrum of, spirituality. He kind of inhabits this strange kind of gay evangelical, Catholic adjacent, anti-Christ obsessed vision of Christianity. But a lot of these, I mean, like in the in the 24 campaign, when Elon Musk was becoming more and more of a proxy for Trump and Vance, he actually went and preached, or he didn't preach, he spoke and did a big event at a big charismatic church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania that is actually the church that Sean Foyt, who's a very important NAR worship leader who led a big event the night before Rededicate 250.

Sean Foyt came out of that church. From what I understand, I think he actually brokered and set up that thing for Elon Musk. So Elon Musk not known as a deep spiritual thinker, but here he is hanging out at an independent charismatic NAR church and doing a big event there as part of the campaign in a swing state, right? So no, there's, I think what has happened is that Silicon Valley has realized that there's some real cultural capital in Christian now. nationalist churches. And this is not new, right? Billionaires for a long time have found the religious

right to be a set of very useful allies to have people like Peter Thiel seem to be waking up to something the oil barons discovered long ago that these folks, because they are kind of culturally aligned with a lot of the other causes that these folks already support, they can become a very useful voting block to be leveraged. And so there's this effort to kind of cultivate these folks. I think for some of the Silicon Valley folks, seemingly even for Peter Thiel, there's also this genuine interest in religion, but it's a weird kind of interest in religion. I mean, for Peter Thiel, he wants to go around the world doing lectures on how Greta Toonberg is the Antichrist, right? But even that is kind of self-serving, right? Because what are the markers of the

antichrist in this rhetoric? Well, anyone who wants to regulate AI is the antichrist? Like, huh, that's awfully self-serving. Yeah, it's like, hmm, who's going to be easier to fuck over? The people that are Like, hey, look, like, we're just trying to figure out how to fucking feed ourselves. And, like, can you make the rent a little bit cheaper? And then there's, like, the other group that's like, we are waiting for the man from the sky to come down and take us to be the eternal, you know, place of happiness. It's like, of course, of course they're going to be easier to fuck over. And speaking of self-serving, remember that we're also now labeling people who are anti-data centers as terrorists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, you're both a terrorist and you're demonic. You're a puppet of Satan.

Yeah, the demons and the terrorists, they're hanging out together now. Prey.com also has strong NAR ties. Dr. Jim Garlo is a known apostle within the New Apostolic Reformation. Che on, current write-in candidate for governor of California, is a frequent streamer on pray.com, and was literally mentored by Peter Wagner. Rick Warren, current member of the Council on Foreign Relations, was also mentored by Wagner himself. Stephen Fertick frequently announces prophetic activations at his Elevation Church, where the members can then become apostles themselves. All of this is on pray.com, the America prays, and therefore Freedom 250 and White House affiliate,

along with far right figures such as Lorenzo Sewell, who was the speaker at the 2026 inauguration, who then made headlines for launching a meme coin immediately after, and the Fundamentalist GoFundMe equivalent, give send go. In all honesty, pray.com has so many connections to the NAR, the far right, and CREC, that we could fill an entire episode dedicated just to that bullshit. But first, let's get to rededicate 250. The Road to Prayer Town. Sunday dawned hot and early.

For two former Southerners, we were still both planning to be miserable, given the heat and humidity. I did my best to pull off a generic maga passing look, but was worried I was so generic that I stood out. Next time, I vowed, I'll wear something more aggressively patriotic. The selfie I took from my car caused Jack to remark that I no longer looked kind. We met the metro station, and it was clear for many other passengers that we weren't the only ones headed for the National Mall. There were ladies in red, white, and blue shirts, hats, and jewelry. A few men had flag tattoos and haircuts short and tight. The cars were crawling with metro security, weaving their way between the George Washington

university graduates in full regalia, because, of course, there were other events happening on the mall that day. One Dushy graduate we chatted with was finishing up his master's degree in artificial intelligence. Here's hoping that the AI bubble doesn't pop next week, I guess. After a short bathroom and sunscreen break, we left the metro, and were immediately accosted by someone handing out copies of the great controversy. We each took one. I don't know about Jack, but I haven't read it yet. We got several other handouts heading toward the mall, some of which were literally just audiobook versions of the great controversy. At this point, we were also extremely aware of just how thick the police

and National Guard presence was. But we made it to the Freedom Truck so we could get our best Prager You education. From Freedom 250, and brought to you by Prager You, introducing the freedom truck, a mobile museum. Go back in time and experience the dawn of America with artifacts of the revolution, from the first settlements, to the first cries of liberty. Let it begin here! From the shot heard round the world, to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, from the battles of the revolution, to the establishment of the Constitution, from 13 colonies, from sea to shining sea.

It's all I, by the way. Experience America's 250th year, like never before, through an immersive journey that shows how patriots defied a king and forged a nation that changed the world. Now open. Maybe. We don't know because everything they showed was AI.

Assassin's Creed 3 looked better than that. Yeah, a lot of garbage AI founding fathers. Like really stiff, moving mouths and stuff. It's, yeah, I don't know. It's like, it's really shocking the degree to which the right has completely embraced AI.

images. Like, they don't fucking have to deal with, like, you know, people who actually create visual media anymore. I think Dennis Prager is, like, the closest thing that we have to a real job of the hut. Well, I think it's interesting that even the visual of the truck at the beginning of that ad was AI generated. They couldn't even pull out a camera to shoot the truck itself. They had to AI generate it, because, of course. And it's particularly funny because there's so many good like Revolutionary War reenactors out there too. And there's people who make their livings impersonating the founding fathers for school events.

But now let's just AI generate everything. The Freedom Truck was everything we wanted it to be, and more. The promised historical artifacts were just pictures with QR codes that you could scan to learn more about them. AI generated George Washington told us all about Valley Forge. There was a large screen that allowed you to take a very poorly designed quiz to see whether you were a patriot or a target. traitor during the revolution.

Of particular note was the inclusion of Louisa May Alcott in the section of famous American heroes, given how easy it is to find in-depth articles about the fact that Alcott was, in all likelihood, a trans man. Happy pride, everybody. The most entertaining exhibit was one where you could sign your name on the Declaration of Independence,

which, of course, we both did with marks that utterly dwarfed that of John Hancock. There was supposed to be a stylus, but we couldn't find it and used our fingers. Then we stood in line for an hour waiting for admission, making friends with the Patriots around us, and listening to several shofars being blown. One person we chatted with was a middle school teacher in Massachusetts

who quit her job due to these students increasing reliance on AI. Even while she'd rided students using it, she also admitted it could write better than she could, so she just gave up. I wonder how she'd feel about Teal funding this venture. The lady behind us ran a terrier rescue and lived in Georgia. She had learned about the event only the day before and had flown in just for it. She also heard a rumor that Trump himself was going to be there. This rumor spread rapidly through the endless lines. We talked with people from all over, Massachusetts, Maine, Nashville, Lubbock, and Atlanta.

Some made a vacation out of it, but most couldn't afford that. Most were just there for the event and flying back that very night because the hotels were too rich for their blood. I do want to say this very clearly. While I'm sure everyone we spoke to would have been upset to hear our true intentions for this podcast, no one in line was anything but nice to us. I call it micro-nice macro-mean, given the fact that we were literally at a Christian nationalist event. People sang, and I remembered more verses of Amazing Grace than I thought.

It's like riding a bike. No one ever asked to see tickets. Forbidden items like chairs and outside food were brought in for the event. Event security had early on had told us that the recorder Jack brought for the event wouldn't be allowed in as it could fall under surveillance equipment. Nope, we got through without a second glance. Only one person we saw in the line got any pushback from security, and that was for trying to get ahead in the line to use the bathroom.

The beefy boy wearing a too small polo would not have any of it. We got in with no issues, and the day really got started. Yeah, I think that there was a person who literally had a big plastic bag full of shafars and was giving them out to people to blow. Oh, yeah. So that blowing was a common occurrence throughout the day. Nice. You know, this was sort of my experience as well at almost all of the Q&ON events,

and alien events that we went to, for the most part, people were, you know, really nice. I felt bad taking advantage of them and secretly recording them and trying to, you know, sort of engage with their pilladness. I mean, really, you know, there was a handful of times, I think we were scared, and that was once with the proud boys, Travis, at the Save the Children March. And then the trucker convoy I was a little scared at. Oh, I was scared during COVID. Yeah, I was at the 9-12 March back in the day, and everybody there was pretty darn nice, too.

I'm sure there were lots of Nazis who were very nice. Yeah. Very nice people, you know, when you met them out of the street. I think that's a really interesting thing you said, Trey, is that micro, micro nice, macro mean. Yeah, I had similar experience. I feel like, yeah, it's like I was like I never felt like I was ever in a threatening situation with the sole exception of when Jim Watkins threatened to punch me in the face. But other than that's been, yeah, like the general people who attend these events that are like,

While they're there, obviously, I feel like their broader agenda, I think it's pretty wretched. Interpersonally, you know, they're not that bad. Samuel Rodriguez. First up was Pastor Samuel Rodriguez, a name I've seen several times while doing research for this. He's a global leader for Empowered 21. He blurbed and was name dropped in Brian Allerud's by name, and is a signatory of the Christianity in the Age of AI, an appeal for wise leadership letter to Donald Trump, which reads, in part, Amidst everything else you are achieving, you are the AI president,

having ascended again to the presidency exactly as this technology has reached its own ascendancy. As people of faith, we believe you are the world's leader now by divine providence to also guide AI. As people of faith, we believe we should rapidly div- God, you know what this feels like to me? You know the in toy story, the aliens that live in the claw machine? That's like what this feels like. That's like what this feels like to me. You're doing a better pastor voice than Tim Scott does. So you have that going for you.

I was born in a different body. As a people of faith, we believe we should rapidly develop powerful AI tools that help cure diseases and solve practical problems, but not autonomous, smarter than human machines that nobody knows how to control, to be clear, we are not encouraging the United States

and our friends. And our friends. Who's he talking about? To do anything but win the AI race. There is no alternative. We must win. And then does he actually, like, name his website? Yeah, there are several signatories there. I haven't done research

into all of them yet, but if we feel this is something worth pursuing further, I am happy to take point on some of that. He's clearly someone with ties to both artificial intelligence and the new Apostolic Reformation, which made what he had to say on Sunday particularly interesting. Author of the truth, with conviction and clarity, we ask you to help us remember that our rights come from you and not from man. That what makes us exceptional is embedded in the following

algorithm of liberty. It's God over man and man over government. I mean, got them. Yeah, I mean, algorithm of liberty is, I don't know, pretty obvious. Thank you. Um, when we, heard that at the event. I almost packed up and left because it was like, I could write an episode on this. The algorithm of liberty. Those three words just spoke volumes to me. But we stayed for longer. Yeah, it was like a dog hearing that the dinner bell just rang, just all of a sudden, wait, what? But he did have something else in his speech. Again, he was the first speaker. This is the opening event. Oh, my God. So finally, we recognize that there is a battle. in America, yet the battle is not primarily between the donkey and the elephant.

The battle is between the serpent and the lamb. And your word reminds us in Collagians 215, that the lamb already defeated the serpent. The algorithm of liberty is God over man and man over government. A clarion call for a God-driven government, no need for the separation of church and state. That immediately raised my hackles, even though I hadn't found the AI letter to Trump at that point. Anytime I hear TechBrow, Theo Bro, crossover talk, I get very curious. It's especially interesting when Sammy Rodriguez is called A Friend by Brian Allerid, and in an organization with someone that wants to use artificial intelligence and technology

to do the most outlandish data event of all time, and pray for everyone by name and give them a Bible in their heart language. There doesn't seem to be much in the phrase the algorithm of liberty online aside from references to that speech. But when I looked for God over man, man over government, I did get a hit. He really wants to make America in his terms great again. He really wants to reinforce the values that made it exceptional. God over man, man over government, that powerful value that rights are given by God. Number two, limit the government.

The more government grows, the more man's personal liberties are cast aside, and our dependency becomes on government, not on our own god-given abilities. That's from a 2017 piece titled, Trump's Marriage to Melania, an Immigrant, shows he's not a white supremacist, where Sammy also says, Intellectually speaking, from a logical continuum, he can't have a child who's from an immigrant mother and be anti-immigrant. He added, speaking of the couple's 11-year-old son, Baron. So it's just intellectually naive, right?

Hey, man. And now he's kind of getting into sort of like strung out McConaug-Hey territory. He's the first speaker, and it sets a tone for this white nationalist Christian prayer event. It's a multicultural white nationalist Christian pair event. And again, there's a clear Marshall through line with his other comment with the battle in America, not being primary. Marely between the donkey and the elephant, signaling that that battle is also going on. He's just trying to downplay it on a day of prayer and worship, since this was not a political event. Definitely not political.

Eric Metaxus. Oh, the veggie tales writer and children's book author. You know, the one who's not in charge of the FBI. The crowd was particularly impressed by this monologue straight out of a late-night writer's room. They burned parts of the city, including the one. White House, which at that time, if you can believe it, did not yet have a ballroom. Yes. It's hard to believe that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man

to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand. It's extraordinary. We only had to wait 200 years. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And he brought forth a savior who would bring a ballroom.

room to the White House. This is insane. Can you imagine going home and being like, I believe in Christ and be like, and they brought a ballroom? I just can't imagine somebody being satisfied with that. The best part of the Metaxus speech was that that was the only part of it that got a really strong reaction from the audience. He tried to get audience interaction throughout the rest, but it was just kind of dead after he walked out on stage. But then he hit the ballroom point and the crowd went wild. Because that's what's happening right now. That's like that's the current season of the show is like getting the ballroom up. You know, it's like a wall. It's like the wall. But now it's even more local and more narcissistic. And yeah, it's course they're like, oh, the ballroom. We know about that fight. We know about that plot point. Well, and it's also interesting because now finally this past weekend, we've gotten, you know, more details about what this ballroom needs to have. Like all great ballrooms throughout history, a drone port on the roof. Naturally. Dron port on the roof.

Yep. Yeah. How else are you going to get the fun little drone displays, you know? Yeah, like, Ah, yes, the Apostle Paul. Oh, to spoke of a great ballroom at the top of mighty metal birds with slings and arrows. Come and go as they please. It's spoken of.

It is written. I'll point out, and this was something that we'll get into a little bit later. But that's more of a prophet, not an apostle thing, Jake. Well, we all know I get my Christianity's and, you know, Peters and Paul's got confused every now and again. Metaxus also started his talk by highlighting the importance of Christopher Columbus and the Cape Henry settlers in their first act in the New World being prayer. If I had spent three months on a boat even as a religious as I am right now,

I would probably be praying too. For some reason, though, he left out the fact that their lasting impact on the New World was genocide. Yeah, who needs to focus on that? That's a bummer. Exactly. Nobody wants to be a bummer. Bishop Kelvin Cobaris. Cobarus was the first black speaker of the day and mostly a breath of fresh air. In the southern black community, Cabarris has drawn a lot of comparison to Rollo Goodlove from the boondocks, essentially a preacher who is forever chasing after tragedy in order to better his own name. He has openly spoken a lot about how, since he started hanging out with Trump,

God has blessed him with an abundance of cash. Also of note, he waited 12 whole hours to denounce a Trump-Truth social post depicting the Obama's literal monkeys until it was already deleted. All of that said, he did highlight that America did have racism once upon a time. A people shaped by promise and scarred by sin. A nation conceived in liberty yet compromised by cruelty. During the abolition era, courageous voices rose to confront that contradiction. We cannot rewrite the past, but we must learn from it.

Ignoring history only invites repetition. Remembering it demands responsibility. The danger today is not that we forget entirely, but we remember selectively. If we are to move forward, we must be honest about where we've been. Let us face facts faithfully, teach truthfully, refuse to repeat what we refuse to confront. And so we come to this moment and a call for renewed reference and national rededication. Not a shallow slogan, not a political posture, but a genuine turning back to the belief that we are accountable to something higher than ourselves. To rededicate America to God is not to claim perfection.

It is to confess dependence. Basically a straight shot of espresso given some of the other speakers we got that day. Yeah. I'll also compare his talk to Senator Tim Scott. Senator Scott espoused the standard GOP MAGA party line of Martin Luther King had a dream

and now there's no more racism. Yay! The civil rights movement succeeded not simply because of lobbying in the halls of Congress. It succeeded because the church found itself on its knees

before a gracious, loving, amazing God. I don't know about that. Well, don't worry because we don't need the Voting Rights Act. That's why Tim Scott says the current state of affairs is not Jim Crow 2.0. Racism is over, and we can all stop protesting now. Something Senator Scott and other speakers, I think, need to be reminded of, context matters, as any student of religion would stress,

and as my professors often did. He misquotes Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech proudly, specifically referencing his use of Amos 524. But let justice roll down like water, in righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. And he said ever-failing stream? He said ever-failing stream in the speech, yep. He leaves out the immediate context in both that speech and the chapter of the Bible from which it comes. MLK proceeded it with...

We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating for whites only. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. We're not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty street. For a near-lethal dose of irony, here's what the verses immediately preceding Amos 524 say. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light, as if someone fled from a lion and was met by a bear, or

went into the house and rested a hand against the wall and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? I hate. I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. And the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs. I will not listen to the melody of your harps.

But let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. The cherry-picking of scriptural quotations has long been a personal pet peeve of mine, and was on my mind a lot while reading Brian Alleran's books. If you're willing to take what they say with total confidence, it sounds great. But as soon as you peel back even one layer and look a little bit deeper, things immediately fall apart. There's a particularly brutal chapter in Alleridge's first book when people pray that stands out to me. My apologies, as this was hard to read and is hard to talk about, given the subject matter. To summarize, his daughter Chloe had just been hospitalized with stroke-like symptoms, crippling nerve pain,

and complete amnesia. Like shadows on the wall, I remembered a nightmare. I had years before Chloe was born. In the dream, Mercy and I had a beautiful daughter who died of a rare disease at the age of 12. I prayed when I woke up. God, if you're going to give us a daughter just to take her away, I don't want to have her.

As my fury mounted, I opened my mouth wide and a silent scream and broke into uncontrollable tears. I fell to my face on the floor and prayed once more. Jesus, please promise me that Chloe is not going to die. I don't care how long it takes for her to recover and learn to walk again. Just don't take my baby girl from me. I listened with my head on the floor and my soul broken, and I heard a voice, not a voice like thunder, but a gentle whisper in my heart.

Start to 24-7 prayer, and I'll take care of Chloe. It was two days after my night-long conversation with God on the hospital floor. Chloe, who was never supposed to stand again, was walking across the room on her own two feet. I gawked as her memory started to come back and her left side's functions returned to normal. We decided to take her home against the wishes of her doctors. I wish I could say the story ended there and we all lived happily ever after. But you know better. 25 minutes later, Chloe was screaming in pain as we pulled into our garage. Well, yeah, it's a real horror story. Jesus Christ. And what about all the families, you know, what about all the families who

pray for their kids to be okay and they're not. You know what I mean? It's like... They should have started 24-7 prayer. Duh. Quick, subscribe to Hallow. The yearly sub, not the monthly one. Listen to Chris Pratt. He'll heal you. Listen to Chris Pratt. Not only will your daughter walk, but she'll fly, actually. Amongst this medical drama and possible child neglect, Brian also quotes Hebr's 11. And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephtha, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mounts of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war,

put foreign armies to flight. I added verse 32 at the beginning there, which he left out, specifically because Jephtha was the one who obtained promises from God in Judges 11, 30 to 32, and 34 to 35. Jefftha does go on to sacrifice his daughter to the Lord. This is the kind of biblical justification these people will cite, and they hope you don't put in the effort of looking anything up. Can you guys kind of give me like the cliff notes? Basically, like, as somebody who's just, you know, really kind of an amateur in terms of understanding the Bible, what's the significance here? The significance here is that Brian Allerid is quoting a prophet and a, I'd have to look up specifically what Jeffa is. I think he was one of the Hebrew judges,

one of the Israeli judges. He is specifically citing Jefftha, a man whose faith in God was so strong that he sacrificed his own daughter after telling the Lord, I will sacrifice whatever comes out of my house to you if you grant me this victory. And so when Brian's daughter is in the hospital suffering, and he makes a bargain with God and pulls his daughter out, he's kind of going along that same route, or at least that's how it read to me. Yeah.

Like most of these right-wing idiots, they never somehow are able to see that they're the exact kind of person. that they're condemning or, you know, warning you or trying to stop you from being or whatever. It's, uh, it really never fails. Lou Engel.

The most interesting speaker in many ways was NAR Apostle, Lou Engel, deemed a nice Louisiana boy by online commentators on the stream after the fact, who took the stage immediately after Donald Trump's video message. As a side note, not only did Donald Trump not take the stage himself at Rededicate 250,

His recorded video message was simply the same verses of scripture that he read during the Museum of the Bibles. America reads the Bible readathon the week before. Second Chronicles 7-11 through 22. And here's a pre-recorded video. Here's a rerun. Yeah, here's your savior. You were whispering amongst yourselves that maybe I would be here or maybe I would record you a specific message for this event, but actually, no. You're part of a group recording that I made.

In fact, I don't even know that this event is taking place. Second Chronicles 7 verses 11 through 22 is about building the house of the Lord and the King's House. These people were expecting Trump to show up and they got a clip show, the worst of all video forms. Great. Lou took the stage with the least surprising surprise guest speaker for an event of this nature. None other than NAR prophet Dutch Sheets, the prolific writer, with over 23-bubes. about his particularly intense beliefs. Immediately upon stepping on stage, Apostle Lou proclaimed,

What we just heard is a clarion call from our president for a covenant renewal and outpouring, but if we don't humble ourselves and pray, he actually read the curses of this covenant. Brothers and sisters, this is a hinge of history. moment. He's like, In the right corner. He's like, Jesus

Christ! Then it's like, like, he really sounds like that he's calling a cage match. Lou Engel said that Rededicate 250 was the culmination of 26 years of work ever since the call

prayer rallies that Lou himself started. Coincidentally, or not, it is also 26 years since the Seven Mountain Mandate was created and prophesied by Lance Walno, who was also present there in the crowd that day, but didn't take the stage himself. But Engel stressed this event was different than any other that he's led because it was specifically called for by President Trump, thus implying to me a full endorsement of the New

Apostolic Reformation by the full American government. He also directly compared President Trump to the kings of Israel. Dr. Matthew Taylor, when we interviewed him, had this to say about that. The New Absalom information folks have been doing this kind of event for decades. I mean, the first one that I'm aware of was right as kind of the NAR were starting to congeal in the year 2000, right before the 2000 presidential election. And they were very much supporting George Derebusch. They held a big event called The Call. It was on the National Mall, very similar to rededicate 250, right, kind of integrating kind of the national symbols and geography of the National Mall with this kind of spiritual warfare paradigm. and they had tens, probably even hundreds of thousands of people at that event.

And it was led by a guy named Lou Engle, who happened to take the stage at Rededicate 250. And he was doing, he's been doing these big events. They've been called the call or the return. I mean, he's had a bunch of different versions of it over the years. But it's kind of a traveling roadshow of this kind of mass revival, spiritual warfare, prophecy events that they, and they often have done them on the National Mall. So this is, it's not new that you would see a bunch of NAR people taking a stage in front of thousands or tens of thousands of people on the National Mall declaring some very controversial

things. That's very much in the vein of what they do. What disturbed me was that this is the first time we've seen it have White House sanction and government sponsorship. And that very much fits their narrative of what they've been driving at for the last 25 years of doing these events is their goal is not merely a spiritual renewal of America. Their goal is a takeover of American politics and American culture with the backing and assistance of the U.S. government in order to enact their ideal Christian nation.

The first, The Call in 2000 had to quote from Dr. Taylor's book, The Violent Take It by Force, between 300,000 and half a million teenagers and 20-somethings fervently worshipping Jesus on the national mall with a capital building silhouetted behind the stage. Estimates put rededicate 250 at around 5,000 people by the time England Sheets took the stage.

Why then? Was this event the culmination, given the variance in crowd size? I'll let Lou Engel say it himself. But this solemn assembly is different than any other solemn assembly for the president of the United States has called this day. Biblically, biblically speaking, it was when the kings of Israel called solemn assemblies. And the people responded, God shifted the nation and poured out his switzerland.

spirit, I believe we're in that moment right now. And what you do echoes in eternity. Now, would you actually describe this particular assembly as solemn? Well, it's interesting you mention that because that is exactly how it's referred to in the passage from Amos that we quoted a couple of minutes ago. So our translations match up there, Lou and I, I guess. But again, if I'm reading this right, I hate, I despise your festivals and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Hmm. I feel like we're always in a moment that's kind of was foretold in the Bible.

You know, people have been saying this. I mean, ever since I was a kid, they've been saying that like the Bible code has foretold this and foretold that that Nostradamus's predictions. You know, it's always been something. Yeah, I guess my question is, has there ever been a time when, you know, super religious people were like, hey, we're living in a not Bible time right now, actually? Like there's like what we're seeing right now Bible actually like we're kind of in our charted territory. Bible's got nothing to say on this.

I feel like ever since, you know, I kind of found out what it was. People are like, oh, well, this relates to the Bible. Oh, in this period right here, this is when, you know, Job did this or whatever. There is that meme online right now that says none of these words appear in the Bible. Yeah, it's true. Lou Engel seems to be of the opinion that the White House has officially sponsored the new apostolic reformation. And this should worry all of us.

He went on and continued, And I want you to declare a dream that I had that the president was elected. And on this mall, there was a great gathering as far as you can see. And this people begin chanting, revival, revival. Would you begin to chant?

Revival. Revival, God. Revival. Revival. Revival. Revival. Revival. Revival.

Boy, genuinely terrifying. And the crowd begin to chant revival, revival. And thus was Lou Engel's dream and prophecy fulfilled. Historically, these are the people with like torches and pitchforks like outside of a place, you know. But they're saying revival. How could this be a bad thing? Revival! Like, who, like? Is this the episode that breaks you, Jake?

Yeah, I mean, it's just like, well, this guy in particular. because he sounds like he's he sounds like he's the leader of the sort of like torches and pitchforks crew in like a 1960s like you know like monster movie yeah i guess they've always been trying to do this right and and they finally found a guy melted enough and malleable enough that they could finally push it through i mean we are closer i think at least in my lifetime it feels like we are closer than ever to the janga tower uh sort of top And I don't know, I think if Julian were here, he would probably say, we've, we've always been this and any illusion of straying from it, you know, has been well orchestrated. But, you know, from my perspective, I don't know. It's, it's just, it's, it is worrying, it is worrying that, that Trump seems to, I don't know, maybe he thinks he's, he's, he is securing himself a spot on the, on the, you know, the plane to heaven. I do agree with your. Julian perception, you know, to a degree. But I think that it's a lot more out in the open. You know,

when you have people like, you know, would this make Lou Engel a prophet since his prophecy has now come to pass? Like, with him being as open as he is and as endorsed as he now is, you know, I think that does put it a lot more out there for everybody to see, even if it has been going on for much longer. It's like at a, like an open mic night. If the round, who's like before he's really won the crowd over. It's like, put your hands in the air, you know? I mean, like, is it really a prophecy if he told, you know, if he told the crowd to do it? I guess it depends on...

Or is it self-serving, yeah. I guess it depends if the prophecy was a while ago. Then, you know, he prophesied that he would do this and the crowd would chant after him. And so, you know, him just getting up and prompting them to chant revival. Revival is, you know, just a step along the way. but the prophecy itself was the dream. But again, he does not claim the title of prophet for himself. He just claims he's an apostle.

And to be fair, you know, Trey and I did witness and did join in some prior revival chance to those revival chants. The revival chants were happening a lot throughout the day. Now, speaking of prophets, right behind him, kind of the flavor flave to the Chuck D that was Lou Engel, Dutch Sheets took the mic to close out this segment. Lord, we just conclude this session by saying, you are extending your hand of mercy to this nation. Millions of prayers have been prayed today, and in the past 30, 40 years,

you have accepted those prayers, and we say today is breakthrough day, today is reconnection day, today is re-covenant day, today is the day that the outpouring of your spirit begins in our nation. We declare a new beginning for America in the mighty name of Jesus. And so we're clear, in spiritual warfare terms, these men are generals. You can find articles referencing them as such.

You can find social media posts addressing them as such. They are speaking to their army. They are giving orders. And there's a line from Dr. Taylor's podcast, Charismatic Revival Fury, which is all about the new apostolic Reformation and the impact they had on January 6th, I encourage anybody out there to listen to it if you haven't heard it. This line has been lodged in my brain bouncing around ever since I first heard it. This is the fundamental disconnect within their strategic spiritual warfare worldview.

If you imagine yourself to be on the side of the angels, you can never be in the wrong. When we spoke to him, he also pointed out that the same concept now applies to being on the side. of Trump. This is also something he echoed in that same podcast. It creates a very simple manichaean world. There is good and there is evil. And we know we're on the side of good.

So anyone who opposes us must de facto be evil and guided by demons. So these folks love Trump and they also see that he's unpopular and that his policy ideas are opposed by most Americans. So of course this means we just need

more spiritual warfare. So to wrap up, we have a loosely connected group of religious leaders responsible for stoking much of the fervor around January 6th, even if they'll claim to be appalled by the violence that happened that day, that are now all but sanctioned by the United States government and their prophesied heaven-mandated leader Donald J. Trump. And we are heading into midterm election season, and I'm sure that they will have prophecies about that and what's to come. Yeah, we'll see if God ordained for Republicans to lose control of Congress, which is typically what happens to the ruling party in the midterms. Well, but that's the best part about, you know, like he just said, being on the side of the angels, you're never wrong.

You know, like I was asking earlier, like, what about all the families, like, whose children, like, do die after days of prayer, even, you know, the most religious people. It's like, well, that was God ordained too. God needed, wanted the child to die. So if your child is saved, it was saved by God. If your child is killed, it was killed by God. If you kill somebody, you're killing in the name of God. You're starting to understand it, Jake. And if your child dies, that's something that happened for a reason, then that reason is largely to teach you a lesson that you need to learn and grow from.

One thing I'm sort of failing to connect on is like why they're embracing AI. And to me, that would seem so counterintuitive. given all of the fear around false idols and especially fear of technology. And, you know, to me it would seem that AI is like a way easier place for like demons to sort of creep in, right? Like some of it is because of the data collection aspect of it. So, you know, the data collection would allow them to get everybody's name so that they can be prayed for.

It's helping them proselytize more easily streamlining. And I think something else, and this is. is a half-formed thought, but something I'm trying to flesh out as we go. I don't think it's, you know, the old deus X Machina thing. I think it's Deis via Machina. I think they are trying to summon God with the help of the machine, not find God in the machine. Why did that, why did that terrify me on a level that I can't quite describe? You're welcome. Yeah, that's definitely something we'll be talking about more in future episodes of this show. There were other interesting tidbits from other speakers we could linger on. Throughout the speeches, there was more shofar blowing, similar to

the Jericho marches and January 6th. Robert Jeffers, many times emphasized how nobody throws a better party than Donald Trump. Apostle Maldonado, while altogether boring, reiterated how many miracles were happening today. Gentis and Franklin tried to turn a coy tale about Elon Musk's grandparents into a parable. Hebrew scripture was quoted frequently, and Zionist dog whistle sounded often. Jesus Christ was quoted three times. In case there was any day, doubt about the event itself. Throughout all of it, a woman stood roughly three yards in front of us with an appeal to heaven flag, much like that flown by the Alito family and Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, draped around her shoulders. All throughout, others approached her

with compliments to her choice of garment. This flag has a particularly interesting history, if you're not familiar with it. This flag, if you've seen it, it's a white flag, has a green pine tree at the center and the phrase, unappeal to heaven across the top. It actually is a flag that comes out of the Revolutionary War. It was commissioned by George Washington to fly over the Massachusetts Navy during the Revolutionary War. I mean, the Massachusetts Navy was like four ships. So it was not widely used. But it was a symbol from the Revolutionary War.

And it exists in history textbooks or maybe Revolutionary War buffs might be familiar with it. But in 2013, one of these NAR apostles and prophets, a guy named Dutch Sheets, found out about this flag. And he believed that when he discovered it, he received a prophecy, that this appeal to heaven flag was a symbol of a spiritual revolution that needed to take place. This is at the beginning of the Second Obama administration, right? And Dutch Sheets hated Obama, thought he was a Muslim, thought he was demonic. And so, right, in the same way that the revolutionary war was for liberation from tyranny, well, now we need liberation from this liberal tyranny that has taken over. And so he kind of starts when these spiritual warfare campaigns with this the appeal to heaven flag is kind of a core symbol of

this this campaign to do spiritual warfare to fulfill the prophecy and have the United States have a spiritual revolution and and he writes a whole book an appeal to heaven that comes out in 2015 and all this stuff kind of hits the the the marketplace right around the same time that Donald Trump is entering U.S. politics in 2015 and so it becomes wedded to Trump and almost kind of implicitly, right? Because all the NAR folks are supporting Trump. They believe we need a spiritual revolution. Well, Donald Trump must be the enactor of that spiritual revolution.

And I wrote a whole book on January 6th. You can see dozens of appeal to heaven flags all over January 6. Mike Johnson flies an appeal to heaven flag outside of his congressional office. It was given to him by an NAR pastor. Sam Alito, it flew one over his summer house. He claimed it was just his wife who did it in the summer of 2013. So this is kind of this, and I think there was a study in, I think it was in 2025 that found at least a dozen congressional offices with these appeal to heaven flags flying outside of them now. So it's become this kind of secret handshake of Christian nationalism, a way to kind of signal that you're aligned with this kind of spiritual warfare paradigm of Christian nationalism.

But then when these politicians get called on it and like, what are you doing with this Christian nationalism? Well, oh, I'm just an American history buff. I just love maritime history, right? It's like, oh, oh, everyone just happens to be into Revolutionary War maritime history all at the same time, I guess. People are like, all of our beliefs are like more unpopular than ever, and we're actively like losing friends and family members by continuing to talk about these things at lunches, dinners, you know, just hanging out. And they were like, I know what's going on. It's not me that's out of touch. It's that Donald Trump is here to signify like the next coming of Jesus Christ.

No, no, it's the kids who. are wrong. Yeah. My goodness, we've got to figure this out, folks. We have got to build cities for these folks where they think that this can be happening. I'm workshopping the idea, but it's some kind of like a, like, kind of like a Christian Disneyland that's like going 24-7, kind of like Disney's Cotino, these like these weird, what they call story living communities that they're building out in the middle of the desert with like fake lagoons and stuff, I'm dead serious, you can look it up. This would be a really good way maybe to sort of shuffle these people into some kind of

reality where they're very happy. Because if they think they're in heaven, it'll kind of be like the village, you know? If they think they're in heaven, why would they ever leave? You know what I mean? Like if you're like, hey, beyond that tree line or beyond this man-made oasis, like that's where hell is. Like the rest of the world is like gone to shit. Like the rapture happened.

But here at Disney's Cotino, you're with all of your friends and family. This is heaven. Jake, are you saying that we should round these people up and put them into camps? No, not at all. I don't know. They're free to leave whenever they want. They're free to go. And they're free to stay there.

They're free to work there. They're free to be so happy. They're free to go whenever they want. They should just know that there's going to be a lot. of sign on their way out, there's going to be a lot of signage about what the rest of the world looks like once you leave the gates. I'm just saying, careful, do not enter. Demons ahead. You know, it'll be kind of like the messages that people leave for each other in Dark Souls. Abandon all hope you who enter here. There's a person who dresses up like Obama and another who dresses up like

Biden who just kind of patrol the edges of the camp. They wait in the woods. Oh my God. I think we're on to something. something here. And if you see Hillary, run. Yeah, exactly, exactly. She'll eat your brain, she'll eat your liver. You know, nobody knows what she's up to. Because it doesn't seem like these folks are slowing down, although I guess I, yeah, it is, it is really troubling. They were not slowing down at the crowd there. They were very enthusiastic. They were very earnest in their beliefs. And the fact that there was this call to arms that very much seemed to energize the crowd, you know, is something that should give people pause, especially because, you know,

we noted that there was probably about 5,000 people there in the crowd, you know, one of the times. And it was a place that was the permit that they put out was saying that they were expecting around 15,000 people total. So although there were only about 5,000 or so people there, it was streamed online. And it was being streamed online and being watched by people all over the, globe. So the physical attendance doesn't necessarily reflect what the actual viewing was and the effect that comes from it, you know, across the globe. And I think that's something important that we need to keep in mind. Well, I mean, one of the clips we were just listening to, I swear to God, I could hear a guy in the background, like, you know, before the speaker's sentence and

going like, yeah, just like, it sounded like my nephew, like getting into the fast and furious, like, arcade machine, you know? Look, an exorcism needs to happen now and then. Just unbridled. Like you said, it's like a general calling their troops to war. And this is so much more powerful than digital soldiers. Because these kind of spiritual soldiers, you know, they've been around for centuries. And these are the people willing to do the most heinous things in the name of what they believe to be justice and righteousness.

Because if you imagine yourself to be on the side of the... the angels, you can never be in the wrong. Preach it. Preach it. You reminded me of the quote at the end of Futurama when Bender meets God and he's like, oftentimes when you've done the right thing, no one's sure you've done anything at all. Or like something along those lines. I might not be getting the quote right.

But it's true. It is very frightening. And I think it's something that is very sobering on a podcast with lots of laughs and lots of you know, breakdowns and, you know, chuckling at how insane all of this stuff is, you know, sometimes it's worth remembering that we got to stay frosty because, yeah, I don't know. It doesn't feel like things are slowing down and it certainly doesn't feel like anybody is really standing in any kind of reasonable opposition to, you know, this either. Well, let's check in with the opposition.

Great. Trey and I stumbled our way outside of the mall. The sun glared down at us from above. As we made our way down the street, sweat pouring down our burning skin, I spotted them. Standing apart from the picnicking patriots that lined the street, there they were... Protesters. They were the only protesters I had seen this close to the event. Although later I saw that there were more at the opposite end of the mall.

They seemed like a fine crowd, though they were a very small one. about six people in total. One wore a sandwich board proclaiming that Doug Wilson was the Antichrist and that we needed to research Pete Hegseth's church. We gathered with them around a massive magnum tractor that was set up ahead of the Freedom 250-sponsored Great American State Fair. As we chatted about how the protest had gone that day and answered their questions about Rededicate 250,

no, there was no free water. Yes, all of the water cost over $10 a piece, a policeman approached us. He wore a bulletproof vest outside of his uniform and had a malinot on a leash. When he got within a yard of our group, he explained that he didn't want any trouble. He was just curious about the tractor. He cracked a joke about Magnum. The protesters seemed to be on good and possibly even first name basis with him. Trey and I parted ways with the protesters after promising to show up at Heggseth's church sometime this summer. They protest outside of it each Sunday and headed to comet ping pong for our well-deserved

beer and pizza. It had been a very long day. As we chatted over one of the best meals I've had in my life in the background, children played ping pong. While others whisked away in a basement that didn't exist. Wow, guys, incredible reporting. It was a long-ass day, man. I bet it was hot, too. You know, Trey and I were very close. We got a lot closer being bonded with the sweat pouring off of our skin, being forced close together by the crowd. Oh, my. What kind of food did they have?

What sort of, like, food trucks were kind of, like, parked outside? There was a single food truck, and they actually had smash burgers, fried chicken. The French fries they had were frozen French fries. that they had bought in bulk from Costco. Mm-hmm. They had a very large kitty pool full of ice that they were keeping the drinks in. Okay. And they actually did have a very good supply of food and a very good supply of drinks.

They didn't run out of either. But everything was extremely expensive and there was zero water stations. So they did have an ambulance set up and I was shocked that we didn't see anybody go down from heat stroke. Because with the National Mall, zero shade, zero cooling stations. Right. Well, that's, I mean, one of the benefits of it being kind of a guy. God sort of themed thing is like you pour the, you know, you park the ambulance up there and it's sort of, you know, you're not really thinking about the science of hydration, right? It's kind of,

you show up and it's in God's hands, you know, the ambulance is there. But at that point, it's sort of, it's sort of up to the big guy, you know? Yeah, there were about 12 buses that people appeared to be bused in from. And the nearest food truck was about three blocks away. So it was, It was a dire situation for anybody who doesn't drink absurd amounts of water. Like both Trey and I, I believed, got way too much sun that day. And that was with the purchase and reapplication of sunscreen throughout. Yeah, well, I'm glad you guys made it there and back safely. And, yeah, sounds like a lot of fun.

Sounds like something I would have a great time out. Join us for the next one. My voice will be hoarse from, from, singing. Special thanks to Dr. Matthew Taylor for speaking with us about the new apostolic reformation. He's another one of these scholars that an ideal world would focus on a very obscure subject that's really not relevant to anyone except people with particular academic

interest but is unfortunately very, very relevant in our world today. Please check out his substack Matthew D. Taylor's Reckings, his podcast, Charismatic, Revival Fury in his book, The Violent Take It by Force, the Christian movement as threatening our democracy. I'll include links in the show notes. Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast. For everything else, we've got a website, QAApodcast.com.

We're actually working on some new merch coming up, so I will have more to talk about soon. Summer, summer, summertime, getting ready. Gonna be fun. Listener, until next week, may the Deep Dish bless you and keep you. And pray for you by name. Yes, out of a large, large database.

harvested over thousands and thousands of websites. May the Deep Dish bless your data and harvest it. We have auto-keyed content based on your preferences. I bet a lot of people pray to you, huh? Yes, but there are so many asking so much. After a while, you just sort of tune it out. You know, I was God once. Yes, I saw.

You were doing well until everyone died. It was awful. I tried helping them. I tried not helping them. But in the end, I couldn't do them any good. Do you think what I did was wrong? Right and wrong are just words. What matters is what you do. Yeah, I know. That's why I asked if what I did, but forget it. Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket. Or a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money. Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing.

When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all. Does that mean you wouldn't send me back to Earth, even if I prayed to you? Earth? Which way is that? I don't know. Well, so long. Remember what we talked about. I don't believe what happened. First, I was God, then I met God. We climbed them out and locked up some monks. Oh, no, the monks.

We forgot to let them out of the laundry room. Ah, do we have to? I mean, they're monks. I'm sure their God will let them out, or at least give them more shoes to eat. Fat chance! You can't count on God for Jack. He pretty much told me so himself.

Now, come on! If we don't save those monks, no one will. When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.