Vice presidential candidate JD Vance campaigned to charismatic and activist Christians when the Courage Tour, a Holy-Spirit-meets-politics road show, came to Pennsylvania last Saturday.
But he made sure he didn’t appear on stage with the tour’s controversial star, “Trump prophet” Lance Wallnau.
“Vance was astute enough to never be spotted with Wallnau or any of the other inflammatory speakers,” reported Slate.
Lance Wallnau
Launched in June to rally voters for Trump in seven crucial swing states, the Courage Tour features a lineup of far-right GOP officials (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene), election deniers (Arizona’s Mark Finchem), Christian nationalists (David and Tim Barton) and charismatic preachers like Wallnau, who calls Trump a King Cyrus figure, defends Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and promotes Seven Mountain Dominionism, the idea that God calls Christians to rule over unbelievers.
When the show came to a convention center in Monroeville, Pa., a state with 19 crucial electoral votes, Vance wanted to exploit Wallnau’s star power while steering clear of the man and his many “prophesies” and questionable claims:
- Democrat Kamala Harris is triple threat: she’s a demon, she has a “Jezebel spirit” and uses witchcraft to woo those who lack discernment;
- “The left is loaded with demons;”
- Trump’s opponents are opposing God’s appointed leader and will experience “sudden deaths.”
Changes were made in the Courage Tour schedule. Wallnau introduced Vance and local pastor Jason Howard, then quickly exited the stage. Vance and Howard sat down for a “town hall” on addiction and recovery.
Howard, pastor of the multicampus church Sanctuary, told the Post-Gazette newspaper he had “never publicly supported Trump or the Republican Party and was perplexed when he was cold-called by one of Mr. Vance’s staffers last week and invited to host the town hall.”
“Wallnau introduced Vance and local pastor Jason Howard, then quickly exited the stage.”
The paper said after days of deliberation, Howard agreed to participate on the condition that the town hall would focus on addiction, “an issue that has personally affected him and has long plagued the region.”
Vance brought along his mother, Beverly, whose drug addiction was chronicled in Vance’s bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy. She’s been clean for nearly a decade and is helping her son’s campaign.
The event was a brief return to Pentecostalism for Vance, whose mostly absentee father introduced him to Spirit-filled worship. Vance converted to traditional Catholicism in 2019, saying it appealed to him intellectually.
The Courage Tour is sponsored by the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, and Wallnau told a crowd in Michigan the tour’s goal was not only to elect Trump and Vance but also to prepare Christians to reign so they can effectively occupy the mountain of government influence, according to Right Wing Watch.
Apparently reigning and occupying requires shooting. Vance’s town hall session followed a video presentation by Rick Green of Patriot Academy. The video showed academy students who took a course on “constitutional defense” shooting weapons. Terrorism experts say such rhetoric can radicalize believers.
Wallnau is among charismatic leaders promoting a “Third Great Awakening” that prioritizes politics over evangelism, saving America over saving souls. Promo material for the Courage Tour says; “America’s Awakening Begins Here … Experience revival in 7 key states … marking the dawn of our nation’s Third Great Awakening. Embrace transformation and reformation.”
Matthew Taylor
But scholar Matthew Taylor says the Courage Tour’s use of Great Awakening lingo is an effort to conceal a blatantly partisan political power grab. Taylor called the tour “a 2020-election-denying, Christian nationalist, conspiracy propagation machine masquerading as a Pentecostal-style Christian revival.” Taylor’s book on the “charismaticization of right-wing politics” was released this week.
Taylor explained the thinking among Trump’s charismatic Christian nationalist supporters in a PBS interview: “Even though they recognize he’s not a good Christian, they think that he can be a champion for them. … They have seen him as a vehicle for their own power, as someone who is backstopping their movement, someone who will defend Christianity.”
Vance used the town hall to denounce immigrants, whom he blamed for bringing fentanyl into the country, stealing American jobs and causing housing costs to rise. Trump plans to deport millions of them, a stance that is at odds with Catholic social teaching and a letter signed this week by more than 200 evangelical leaders
Immigration is a key rallying point of the Trump-Vance campaign, and both candidates have repeatedly promoted false claims that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are there illegally and are eating people’s pets. GOP officials in Ohio have repeatedly said the Haitians are legal and the claims of eating pets are false.
Vance defended his immigration views by comparing them to family values, saying: “As an American leader and a person who wants to be your next vice president, my first responsibility is to American citizens. And I think there is this Christian idea that you owe the strongest duty to your family, and then you owe the next duty to your community. … It doesn’t mean that you have to be mean to other people, but it means that your first duty as an American leader is to the people of your own country.”
Courage Tour participants Wallnau, Rick Green and Gene Bailey were also part of an earlier road show called FlashPoint Live. Based on a TV show of the same name, this election-related tour featured pro-Trump “prophets” uttering prophecies such as: “We are going to make America great again.”
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