Dr. André Gagné on Christian Dominionism and the Politics of Spiritual Warfare

Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing branch of Christianity worldwide—expected to top 1 billion by 2050. But what happens when elements of this movement intersect with far-right politics and spiritual warfare rhetoric? In this episode, Canadian scholar Dr. André Gagné returns to Faithful Politics to unpack the rise of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), dominion theology, and the Seven Mountain Mandate—ideologies fueling an increasingly militant form of Christian nationalism. Gagné explains how these movements evolved from church growth strategies into political frameworks now embraced by Trump allies like Paula White-Cain and Lance Wallnau. The conversation explores how spiritual language can dehumanize political opponents, what “spiritual warfare” really means, and why Christians should be concerned about the blurring line between faith and authoritarianism.

👤 Guest Bio
Dr. André Gagné is a professor of theological studies at Concordia University in Montreal and a leading expert on the intersection of religion and politics. His research focuses on how the Bible is mobilized in contemporary politics, with a particular interest in dominion theology, Pentecostal-charismatic networks, and religious violence. He is the author of American Evangelicals for Trump: Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and End Times and co-editor of Religion and Violence in Western Traditions. He also hosts the Spirit, State, and Society podcast.

🔗 Resource Links
American Evangelicals for Trump by André Gagné:https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9781032415680

Spirit, State, and Society Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCg1iGewURbw0G1Ggfo0I7fA 

André Gagné on Substack: https://substack.com/@andregagne

Transcript

0:17

Well, hey there, Faithful Politics viewers and listeners. If you're joining us on the podcast stream, viewers, if you're here on YouTube, guys, thanks for being here for another great episode of the Faithful Politics podcast. I'm Josh Bircham. I'm your faithful host. And of course, I'm joined by Will, your political host. Hello, Will. Hey, um good to see you, Josh. It is good to be seen. Well, see, I got you on that one. Anyway, that's a little that's a little inside joke there. But it's great to have another episode of the Faithful Politics podcast. Make sure you guys are liking and subscribing so we can get this great content out to people because we want to get controversial issues that are talked about by people who know what they're talking about, well studied and are able to talk through it. And today. We have a great guest he's been on before. This is second time. It's Dr. André Gagnier. He's a Canadian scholar of religion and a full professor currently chair of the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. His work probes how the Bible is interpreted and mobilized in contemporary politics with special attention to dominion, theology, global Pentecostal charismatic networks, and religious violence. has recent books, American Evangelicals for Trump. even Jella Cole's for Trump, Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and End Times, and Coeditive Volume, Religion and Violence in Western Traditions. And we're here to talk about today, pick his brain on the NAR movement, Dominionism, Trumpism, and all that fun stuff. So how are things going in Canada? You had a pretty good newsworthy line before I hit record. yes, yes, of course. First of all, thank you to both of you very much for inviting me again. I really enjoyed my first uh episode with both of you. It was uh fun. I think we talked about a lot of uh important things and that was before, of course, uh the 2020 for election. think it was back as you were mentioning before, Josh, probably around 2021 or so. Trump had lost. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh no, it's not going well. I pity you guys, especially for us, even also for Canadians, as you know. I've been myself very much uh kind of holding back from going to the US. I had two conferences planned for this year. But with everything that we're hearing, seeing people stopped at the borders, I'm not too, I don't wanna put myself in a situation where... I don't know what will happen. A lot of scholars, even in Quebec here, there's people from the education, uh milieu, education ministry, that are even warning scholars from going to the US. We would have never thought that, but this is where we are now. So I'm putting a... some hold on going to the US. I'm still collaborating with a lot of people, but this is done through online and through email and stuff like that. So it's unfortunate that we're in this situation, but I think, you know, we... We're not experiencing the level of Christian nationalism in Canada, of course. As you know, Canada is very much secular. We just elected a new Premier who uh sat in the Oval Office recently with Trump and was able to, you know, uh stick to his points, stick to his guns. I think he performed very well compared to others that... It's an incredible scene, when you see Trump in the Oval Office with all these world leaders and he's trying to trip them up every time. It's quite daunting when you think about it. uh So yeah, but I'm still continuing my research, of course, in the relationship between politics and religion. I'm very much interested in Christian political thought in general. And as you said, Josh, very much concerned and interested in global Pentecostal and charismatic movements and how they intersect with politics, society and culture. And my work is actually going a lot in that direction. In the past, I would say seven or eight years, I focused a lot on the US and arguably for a good reason with everything that was happening with Trump and still is. uh but now trying to kind of, okay, still continue looking at what's going on in the US, but looking at it also globally. Because what's important to understand when we talk about global Pentecostalism and charismatic movements, it is the fastest growing expression of Christianity in the world at the moment. Like in 2025, there's 665 million. Pentecostal Charismatics in the world. And by 2050, they will be over one billion. And when we talk about that, of course, we have to qualify what we mean by Pentecostals and Charismatics because we're talking about Pentecostal spirituality in general. And that covers a lot of people. It even covers traditional denominations like Roman Catholics and Anglicans and Methodists through the Charismatic Renewal. So they're Pentecostalized in a sense, you see, even if for them the emphasis of classical Pentecostal as being, you know, the initial sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is speaking in tongues, even for them if that's not the main focus, they are still embracing Spirit-empowered Christianity. So that's a lot of people and it's the fastest growing uh expression of Christianity and that's why it's important for people to understand what it is. We've seen a lot of, even in journalists, wondering what is this all about? Seeing Paulo White Cain praying, spiritual warfare prayers. What is this all about? Where does this come from? Are Pentecostals all like this? So I think... uh I see my work as being one of uh educating or at least helping people understand, having a better sense of the complexity and the variety that exists within Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. Yeah, oh one of the things that we forgot to mention at the top is you have a podcast now. Oh, yes. And your latest, you actually talked quite a bit about Pentecostalism. uh So for our audience that isn't familiar with this kind of language, can we just level set for a minute? And can you define what it means to be a Pentecostal? And even like you use the word charismatic, so you can define those. yeah. Essentially, Pentecostalism could be understood in various ways. You have Pentecostal denominations, but you have what I would say a kind of a Pentecostal spirituality. So those that embrace Pentecostalism are those Christians that know, like evangelicals, we'll believe that Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and humankind and that they need to be saved through the saving work of Christ on the cross. But the emphasis is also on being filled and empowered by the Spirit. uh And this empowerment gives them uh the ability through the distribution of what is called spiritual gifts or charismata in the Greek, various gifts like prophecy, healing, miracles, speaking in tongues is part of that, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, discernment of spirit and so on, to be able to play an active role in the building up of the church. So it's Spirit-empowered Christianity. So there's a very strong emphasis on the third person of the Trinity, which is the Holy Spirit, and to be filled with that empowerment because it's all about when we talk about Pentecostalism and especially classical Pentecostalism, it's rooted in the Book of Acts, in the experience of the Christians in the Book of Acts, Acts chapter 2. They were all together waiting to be empowered. Jesus had told them, go to Jerusalem, wait there until you receive power. And when you will receive power, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be my witnesses. So it's empowerment for being efficient, efficacious witnesses of the Christian message. And of course, this is accompanied by various spiritual gifts. Now, Charismatics are people that sometimes would not label themselves as Pentecostals because they see Pentecostals or often understand Pentecostals as emphasizing this idea of speaking in tongues. Because in classical Pentecostalism, the first one to kind of make this connection between the baptism or the infilling of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of glossolalia speaking in tongues was this individual by the name of Charles Parham. And that's at the beginning of the 20th century. So he made that connection by reading Acts of the Apostles because when they were filled with the spirit, they spoke in tongues. So there's people that embrace the... I would say the Pentecostal experience, but they see speaking in tongues not necessarily as the initial sign or the initial physical manifestation of that infilling, but rather a gift amongst others. You see, amongst other gifts. Now, there are Pentecostals that don't necessarily either emphasize that also. They would say, you know, spiritual gifts. Speaking in tongues is one of the gifts. But when you look at the very first classical denominations, assemblies of God and so on, they emphasize this initial sign, you see? So, but charismatics don't necessarily. They value speaking in tongues, but it's not, it's one of the gifts. So charismatics are that too, you see? So when I talk about, and I'll just finish on this, when I talk about For example, the charismatic renewal in the 60s and 70s by Roman Catholics and so on. They experience Pentecost. They do, some of them speak in tongues, but others won't. And it's okay because they believe in the multiplicity of gifts of the Spirit. So this is so fascinating because I grew up as somebody's a God. I was ordained in the assembly of God for years. My dad was in denominational leadership in the assembly and I had a very positive experience as somebody's a God. I mean, obviously there's issues, you know, that you face in any denomination. And growing up, I never heard anything about seven mountain mandates. I never heard anything about New Apostolic Reformation. I mean, and I really didn't, but then I did start to hear about it in the last few years from some people and then now it feels like there's a absolute growing movement and when Matthew Taylor he makes a really um a really helpful matrix um or yeah basically a chart that has yeah quadrant that has four categories and and he puts like there are basically denominational charismatics and as somebody's a god, basically any, as somebody's god will be in there. And then there's non-denominational charismatics and they're kind of at the center of what he considers like the spiritual orbit around Trump. And I would love to... kind of hear from you, like, why do you want to focus on the Pentecostals? I mean, you had made kind of that a point, their large growing denomination, but what exactly are they doing? And then even focusing how their theology is getting into the political realm. What's going on that we need to be concerned about, focused on, and why Pentecostals? What is it about the Pentecostals you think that's... Why is it their age, their time right now? Yeah, the thing is, I think it's important to kind of clarify these things because there's a tendency of lumping up, you know, everybody in the same boat. And as you said, Josh, know, Assemblies of God, New Epistolic Reformation, Seven Mountain Mandate, even talking about modern day apostles and prophets, they don't, you know, they don't embrace that. At the same time, when... Of course, we can talk about New Apostolic Reformation, which is one thing that was constituted. It's a label, in fact, that this theologian, I'm not even sure if we can call him a theologian, rather a church growth specialist, missiologist by the name of C.P. De Wagner, put a tag on specific types of churches and how they operated. In his observation as a missiologist and a church growth specialist, the mid 1990s, he gave a name to a certain type of church that he saw elsewhere that were often not linked to specific denominations. They were often independent and often functioned in loose networks amongst independent churches. And what they did is essentially they all had very strong charismatic leaders at the helm. And these leaders, they kind of ran their churches like CEOs. They're very, very much entrepreneurial in their very much outgoing. And for Wagner, He didn't invent the NAR. In a sense, he just gave a title. For him, he saw the NAR in particular churches that he knew about even in Africa. For example, in many of his books, but in one anthology on apostolic leadership that he wrote, he wrote the kind of the introduction, I think it's in 2012, for an anthology on apostolic on the apostolic. He tried to explain what the NAR was for him. And he actually saw the roots of the NAR starting at the beginning of the 20th century with African independent or initiated churches. He said, these are the roots of the NAR. The NAR is like that. These are the roots of the NAR. And then he talked about other types of churches like the Latin, Latin American church, the Chinese house churches, and so on in the 70s. And he had to give a label to this kind of church leadership. And he called it New Apostolic Reformation. So New Apostolic Reformation for Wagner at the beginning was an ecclesiology, was a way of doing church. that eventually politicized itself because Wagner had a tendency of aggregating things, uh or adding things to new discoveries that he had. For example, was very much at one point he was very much interested in spiritual warfare. So he added that to his idea of new apostolic reformation. Then he was interested in money. So he took ideas from prosperity preachers and added that. And then he was interested in politics and he added elements of dominion theology to that. it kind of this what we now see as the New Apostolic Reformation is kind of a grew out of different things. And today we label it as, okay, new apostolic Reformation, but at the beginning it's very, very much ecclesial. And it was not at first very political. It was very, very ecclesial. But then, you know, seven mountain mandate, people like Lance Wallnau started gravitating around Wagner. Wagner took him under his wing. That came into the fold, seven mountain mandate. How do we mobilize Christians to accomplish the dominion mandate? We need a strategy. This strategy is the seven mountain mandate. So you see the politicization of this ecclesiology was a progressive thing. And then injecting ideas of spiritual warfare. If you want to conquer the land, you need to conquer the heavenlies over the land. You need to conquer the powers that are kind of uh keeping people under control. this is where ideas of territoriality and territorial spirits and spiritual warfare for Wagner comes into play. But the idea of spiritual warfare itself as a concept is a Christian idea. Like there's nothing like, ugh. My goodness, spiritual warfare. Like people in general freak out today because it's been so politicized. But you see spiritual warfare very early on in the Christian tradition. You see it in the New Testament, but then you see the desert fathers in the third, fourth century, the monks, they go to the desert and they fight the devil, but they fight the devil against their own. deficiencies, their own sins and their own problems. It's when spiritual warfare becomes externalized towards others that the problem arises. And that's what we see with, of course, the way that spiritual warfare is practiced in those circles today. So for me, Pentecostalism, Charismaticism, to study that and to talk about it. in a sense is important because we can't just label everything as NAR. You see, like we can't just put every Pentecostal and every charismatic into that box. We need to understand, okay, you know, there's classical Pentecostals and then there's charismatic renewalists and then there's older independent churches and then... There's these neo-Pentecostals and neo-charismatics and within that you have all of these different subgroups. You have word of faith people, you have third wave, you have new apostolics and you have a bunch of churches today that you can't even like scholars when they're looking at all these new churches growing up and popping up everywhere across the globe in Africa, in South America, in Asia, in the United States and elsewhere. They have a hard time even classifying these groups because they're kind of combinations of everything else. Culminations of everything else. So the first thing for me at this stage, at least I've talked a lot about NAR and stuff like that and related to politics in the US, but I think that there needs to be somewhere where we step back. and we're actually understanding what is all of this about? Like, who are all these Pentecostals and who are all these these Charismatics? And can we all associate them necessarily to Trump or to what's going on in the US? No, we can't do that. And because when we look at the early classical Pentecostals, there were very much apolitical. They didn't want to do anything with politics. So later on you have these neo-charismatic, neo-Panacostals that start to politicize themselves. And that's what we see the result of this now today in the US. you know the poli... And of course we see this when the demographics matter. Like at the moment in the US there's 250 million Christians. People that label themselves Christians. Within the Pentecostal, charismatic, like if we take all of them together, okay, there's currently about 55 million. In 2050, there'll be 85 million, okay? But that I'm putting everybody together, you see? If I just, if I take away, let's say, the more traditional churches, like Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants that would have Pentecostal leanings or charismatic leanings, but I would just keep classical Pentecostals and independents, there's about 30 million now. So when the demographics are important, there will be a tendency on parts of religious groups to say, we want to have a voice. We want to have a say in the government. You see, we have a worldview, we have a way of life, and our voice counts. And of course, in a democracy, a voice counts. You can't, or else you're not democratic. If you're telling people, no, you can't, you can't express yourself and you shouldn't vote and whatever, that's not democracy. Democracy is about everybody being able to vote. But democracy also is about, I, can I live in the context of America? Can I operate in a pluralistic context? Can I engage in dialogue with others that have different perspectives, different voices? If I can, then democracy works very well. But if I'm trying to shut down everybody that has a different opinion than mine, then the ultimate goal for some of these groups is hegemony. It's about dominion. It's about, you know, turning the place into a form of theocracy. So for me, it's very important, I think, to kind of shed light on all of this, on all of these charismatic and Pentecostal groups so that we don't get things mixed up. You know, I really appreciate you mentioning that we should, you know, maybe take a step back just to make sure that we really understand kind of the full scope of all these groups. And um one of the things that Josh and I had been talking about is as our show is growing, our message is getting out there. And a lot of times, like, it's weird. Like, I find myself having to ask questions I already know the answers to. But like I do it, I do it really on the behalf of the audience, because if you hadn't listened to, you know, previous talks with you or our other experts on Seven Mountain Mandate stuff, like you'd be like, what he's like, Andre's using a bunch of words I've never heard before. So like, so I would love for you to uh maybe just just talk about. Talk about the NAR, maybe in its current state today, because I did learn something about how it's sort of like a mosaic of all these different sort of late-life theologies. uh So talk about NAR, Mountain Mandate, and dominionism, uh where they kind of differ, where they're the same. I think that'd be really helpful. So, New Apostolic Reformation. Again, like I said, initially was an ecclesiology and it focuses a lot on this idea of apostolic leadership or apostolic governance. So, Wagner really believed and he's not the only one, he had a very much what we call a restorationist perspective. He really believed that, you know, the gifts uh in the New Testament we're still in operation today and should be in operation. And when we talk about gifts, we're not just talking about spiritual gifts like healing and tongues and prophecy, but also ministry gifts like apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, and pastors. So it focuses a lot on what we call the five-fold ministry, you see? So the NAR is about that, okay? It's essentially that. Now with time, like I said, Wagner with his idea of New Apostolic Reformation kind of incorporated other elements, other theological strands or streams that existed outside the New, this idea of New Apostolic Reformation, outside this ecclesiological perspective. For example, this idea of dominion. Okay, some call it dominionism. Others call it dominion theology. Now one of the best definitions, and I give this all the time, is the one that is provided by Fred Clarkson that you probably know who's a senior researcher at Political Research Associates where he explains that dominion is this idea, it's a theocratic idea that is believed by Christians where for Christians God has mandated them. to take control of every aspect of society, be in political, social, cultural, um and exercise their authority on society. And it's rooted a lot on an interpretation of Genesis chapter 1 where God, when the first creation story, God says, you know, you've been created now, go and subdue the earth. Go and rule. uh chapter one, verses 26 to 28. So you can read that. And for them, go and rule essentially is that Christians have the mandate to go and exercise authority. They don't see it as, you know, this idea that God is asking the first human beings to actually manage the earth. It's not a mandate of managing, taking care of creation. For them, it's dominating, dominion. So that's one thing. That's one aspect of the dominion mandate. And that, of course, was very much popularized in the 60s, but mainly in the 70s by uh a strand of Christian reconstructionism. uh Ruzash Rushduni, who is the founder of Christian Reconstructionism, who is not a Pentecostal, not a Charismatic, very far from that, much more of the reform tradition, Presbyterian pastor for many years, a very strong biblical literalist, we can say. And he emphasized that, that idea that Christians have a voice. and they need to spread the gospel and it's through their action that we will be able to bring about the Kingdom of God. But it's a long-term project, very, very long-term project. Now, in the end of the 70s and in the 80s, some charismatics picked up on this idea of dominion theology. But for them, they wanted this to happen faster, you see, in a much quicker way. So there's people that came up with this idea of seven mountains, like society can be understood as seven molders of culture or seven mountains or areas of culture that exist, politics, religion, education, the family, media and entertainment, business and so on. So if Christians occupy these mountains or these mold or these areas, these spheres of culture, then culture will be able to change. You see, culture will be transformed and this is how we will bring about the dominion mandate. So, New Elder's Dog Reformation has kind of, with Wagner, Wagner starts with this idea of apostles and so on. kind of ecclesial model that he picks up from elsewhere. He says, this is new apostolic Reformation, but we're going to apply it here now in America. We're going to try to sustain it through networks and churches and apostolic centers and so on. But then he kind of adds to this dominionism or dominion theology and then a strategy to accomplish dominion, which is the seven mountain mandate. So what I tell uh When I teach this, for example, to help students understand what all of these layers are, I say Dominion theology is the political theology of people like NAR people or New Apostolic Reformation individuals. That's their theology. This is their raison d'être. But then how do you go from theology to practice? I said you need a strategy. And the kind of marketing, because for me the seven mountain mandate is more of a marketing tool, a kind of mobilizing marketing tool. So in order to mobilize Christians to fulfill the theology of dominion, you need this strategy called the seven mountain mandate, which incites or trains Christians to occupy these spheres. be it political, education, the family, arts and entertainment, media, and so on, business world and so on. And when they occupy those fields, they will be able to transform, especially if they're at the top of the mountain, they'll be able to transform everything below. Now with Rajdhani, because Rajdhani had another kind of plan, was more grassroots, was about, you know, uh Christian homeschooling, training the young at a young age, uh transforming the young that would eventually grow up and then take on jobs in various sectors of society and make a difference. But it's a very, long-term project, you see. Whereas the seven mountain mandate is that, no, no, you got to go to the top right away as much as possible. and we need the right people. So for Trump, that's what I was arguing in my book. Trump is kind of the facilitator of that, you see? Because if Trump already is at the top of some of these mountains, and then we manage to get him into uh the perfect political position where we need him, then he's going to facilitate Christians to acquire influence in the other mountains. You see, the issue, again, we need to kind of qualify this a bit because sometimes when we talk about seven mountain mandate, people will say, what's wrong with that? You know, it's just about influence. It's just about like influencing people. And all political parties do that. Everybody can influence individuals. You know, we're allowed to influence. We're allowed to do things. It's not a problem if you stick to the language of influence. It becomes a problem when your language of influence becomes the language of hegemony, where there's no more room for different voices and different perspectives and that you're just imposing one specific kind of vision on the rest of society or, you know, a segment of society per se. That's the problem. I would love to pause there for a second because part of what you address is the militarization of prayer. Things like Jezebel rhetoric, things like demon mapping. Yes, my friends, that is a real thing. And if you want to learn how to demon map just for six easy payments of $199.99 to Andre Gagnier, he can help you figure that out and figure out which demon is making your life difficult. right, so I'm joking, but this is the kind of stuff though, right? They're already gonna make a, uh thrown out the ideas uh of a show about which citizen is gonna earn their, which non-undocumented worker is gonna earn their citizenship, right? So it's like this weird uh melding of entertainment and politics. And it's like, um what's going on? like looking at people as a literal spirits of darkness or powers of darkness. So I guess what I'm trying to get at and what you can help us understand is the power of language and why this language is so um upsetting and how language kind of like the connection between language and then action. Right. um Why. So yeah again go into the question more of why should we care. Well, there's this connection between language and action, and once your language takes a certain direction, I would love for you to talk about the language and any connections to real life things that are happening. yeah. No, this is important, Josh, because, yeah, it could all be theoretical, but in the end, how does it translate itself in the real world, on the political stage, but in society and culture? And what we've seen is that You know, with all this strategy of dominion theology and seven mountain mandate is an added element, which is the spiritual warfare aspect, where if you want to really conquer. And a lot of the metaphors, they don't become metaphors, they become real things for them. But when you read or you listen to a lot of these people that gravitate around Trump and that are often uh labeled New Apostolic Reformation, uh they inspire themselves constantly from war narratives that you read in the Old Testament, narratives of conquest. But these are not interpreted just spiritually. It becomes a real thing. It becomes a real thing because what you're doing is that everybody that doesn't fall in line with our particular view of the Christian faith or what Christianity should be then is under the influence of demonic forces. So it matters because what happens is that it dehumanizes individuals. You see, it dehumanizes those that are not like me, that don't think like me. In some cases, it's even racial. We've seen this even during the 2024 election. We've seen people like Lance Wallnau throwing out the Jezebel kind of label to uh attack uh Kamala Harris. So she's animated by a spirit of Jezebel. Why? Because she tried during the debate, and everybody saw this in the debate between Trump and Kamala Harris, she tried to emasculate. She won the debate, so she had a spirit of Jezebel to kind of emasculate Trump. So the story of Jezebel, which is found in the book of Kings in the Hebrew Bible, becomes a spiritual kind of story that is placated to a modern day thing like a presidential election and Trump is this of course Cyrus but he's more than that he's Jehu who will destroy Jezebel and the inheritance of Hayhab. So you had like these prophets going around, Lou Engle at one point saying, you know, Trump is a Jehu and he will destroy the legacy of Jezebel and he needs to be inaugurated properly because he's going to destroy the legacy of Jezebel and Ahab. Who are Jezebel and Ahab? It's Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. Do you see? So there's a demonization of political adversaries and it's a way for them to disqualify the legitimacy of these political actors. It's a way to ostracize them. And the ultimate result of this we saw on January 6th, how rhetoric sometimes, you know, they will defend themselves and saying, this is just spiritual language. But there's people that listen to them and they go beyond this idea that this is just spiritual language. When they go and they start blowing shofars, a shofar is this, you know, ancient Israelite trumpet that was used to call, to order or to celebrate certain feasts, but also in times of war. and you're reenacting stories of war and genocide by doing Jericho marches, you're actually reenacting that, you're making a very strong political statement when you're doing these things. You're saying we have to topple the current political order. And especially when you're going in the public sphere and reacting these things, you see, or, um, yeah, expressing these, these stories through embodied performativity. That says a lot, you see, about your own political positioning and how you view your political adversaries. This is why it's so polarized at the moment in the U.S. because there's one side that constantly just sees the other side as real enemies. You see, enemies of God. You saw this, we all saw this at the rally at Madison Square Garden, as you said Josh, this kind of blending of entertainment with politics. And you had this, one of Trump's former friend or whatever, coming up to the podium at one point and pulling out his cross and saying, oh Kamala Harris, she is the anti-Christ. She is the anti-Christ. So what are you doing? You're targeting your political adversaries. and the targeting is more than just spiritual. It has the potentiality of becoming physical. That's why it matters. That's why we need to understand the theology behind it, you see? uh At the same time, it's important to understand the theology behind these words because the media sometimes doesn't understand it. You see, need to explain it. We need to explain the implications of what this rhetoric can have. But sometimes we need to also be careful and saying, okay, you think this is what it means, but it actually doesn't mean that. There was an example in 2020. I don't know if you recall when Paula White-Cain was talking about uh Satanic pregnancies. You know, I come against all satanic pregnancies in the name of Jesus and everything. And the media ran with this, you know, and she's calling for the abortion or the miscarriages of women that will be voting for Trump. Now, at the time I reacted on social media, I said, no, no, you didn't get it here. This is not what that means. First of all, she's not for miscarriages. She's not for abortion. So it makes no sense. What you're saying doesn't jive. And they didn't understand that she's, in this case, I'm not uh necessarily advocating for people to follow Paula White-Cain, but in this case, she wasn't talking about something literal. She was actually talking about something very, very spiritual. It was about the miscarriages of the plans of the enemy that are impregnating individuals' lives. That's what it was about. So you see, this is why we need competent people that understand, you know, this kind of rhetoric, understand the varieties of Pentecostals and Charismatics so that we don't broad brush uh in a general way people that don't associate with that. But be able to really pinpoint those that do. And what are the implications politically and socially and how damaging it could be even for the witness of the Christian faith. Even for the witness of the Christian faith. You know, since you brought up Paula White-Cain, I want to talk about her for a second, because I know that you've written about her and talked about her in the past. But the fact that she is sitting in an office ostensibly next door to the president, I think a large swath of Americans, myself included, don't really understand quite the weight of that. like and what that really actually means represents given kind of her her background, her past or whatever. So can you maybe just put that into perspective for us, maybe talk about who is Paula White Cane and and yeah, and what should we know as as Americans that she's sitting so close to the president? It's important. She's an important figure. She was there, first of all, in the first Trump mandate. She was in charge of that same office. If you remember, she was always present and many, many on the campaign trail. In 2019, she used to open up big, big rallies with prayers for the president and sometimes what I call warfare prayers for the president calling on principalities and powers and all of that. She's known Trump for over 20 years. Even before he was president, Trump was sometimes watching her on television. uh She's what we would call a tele-evangelist, often associated to what is labeled by many as the prosperity gospel idea or what is called word of faith. It's this idea that God, they believe that God wants you to prosper in every aspect of your life, either materially, physically, socially, on every aspect. You should prosper. If you don't, there's probably a problem in your life somewhere that could be sin or some form of hindrance that prevents that. could be demonic forces or so on. Of course, if you ask Paula White-Kane, are you part of the prosperity, are you a prosperity gospel preacher? She's not going to say yes. They see this as a pejorative term, but it's more word of faith. People like Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagen, these individuals. And it's significant the fact that she's so close to the president because she does have the ear of the president. She's influential. You see this new bill that came out against Christian bias, anti-Christian bias. They're going to make sure that this is applicable, you see? And what constitutes anti-Christian bias? What does that actually mean? Does it mean that if you have a scholar, you see, this is why I'm even worried for people like you and even like you're sympathetic to the Christian cause, like you're sympathetic to Christianity. Mm-hmm. But because you have, you know, you look at this from a critical lens and that you're able to say, okay, this works, but this doesn't, this is to politicize and it causes problems socially and politically, that could be viewed as an anti-Christian bias, you see? That's problematic. You can be targeted for that. uh Scholars working in universities that do critical studies on Christianity, on the history of Christianity or whatever. That could be seen as anti-Christian bias. So, of course she's there and she speaks for evangelicals. She speaks, and it's interesting her coming on the scene and Trump coming on the scene. Because there are two outsiders when you think about it. Trump is a political outsider. You see, he wasn't from the political class. He's not part of, you know, the Republicans. He wasn't... Like he's an outsider. And when you think about Paula White-Kane, she's also on the brink of being like almost like on the outside because she's seen even by other evangelicals as a problem. There's evangelicals that really have a problem with Paula White-Kane. People like Russell Moore and others, Shane Claiborne and others uh that are conservative evangelicals, but for them, Paula White-Kane is a heretic. You see? And why is she there? You see? So at the same time, it's very interesting. You have two outsiders that kind of meshed. They're in a political situation that's favorable for both of them. But at the same time, Paul of White King was also able to bring some evangelicals together to form this evangelicals for Trump coalition. A lot of people are happy about that, you see? So, uh she is significant, she's close to Trump, uh she's influential. uh You see all the photo ops with all the evangelicals around and laying their hands on Trump. That's Paula Wynkain, you see? And if there's anything that hinders uh what she sees as her view of Christianity hinders or becomes uh targeted, by know outsiders somehow she will speak to the president and and the president will listen to her. uh Situation with Israel she was happy to do photo ops with Netanyahu you know so so you so it's she's an she's key to the success of evangelicals to be close to political power. When you have people like Shawn Voight you know going to the White House or to the capital on almost on a daily basis doing Christian shows. Who gives him access to that? You know, who makes this possible? People like Paula White-Kane. Yeah, he was playing at the White House, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what, how does this even, how can you even think about that? Like we couldn't even think about that here in Canada. That wouldn't be like, it's not even imaginable, something like that here in Canada. We can't even fan them that. And the guy is like preaching in the White House, doing a Christian concert in the White House. Like it's mind boggling. I have seen a video with very prominent Christian leaders and people I know in the White House, like people I know personally in the White House, yeah, pastors worshiping in the White House. that's uh very, it's interesting. It's different. um Yeah. midst of all of that, you have evangelical leaders that don't agree with what's going on, that see this as uh a toxic mix between politics and religion. You have Pentecostals, I've been talking with seasoned. Pentecostal leaders about the situation in the US and they're there. They have churches in the US and they can't phantom what's going on. And some of them have known in the past as very good friends, some of those close relations to Trump. And today they can't phantom that this has actually happened. They don't agree with what's going on politically in your country. So we have to see both of these things, you see. uh And at the same time, those that are close to the political power, they're going to see all this opposition, even from their comrades, as spiritual warfare. You see, they're going to see this as spiritual warfare. I'm thinking about one or two episodes, even after the Trump election, where... You have Lance Wallnau, for example, who says in reaction to a piece in The Christianity Today that was a bit probing on Charlie Kirk. you know, his turning point USA organization. And uh Lance Wallnau saying on social media, Christianity today is garbage. And then saying that Christianity today is under the influence of the spirit of religion. Now, and this is significant. Again, you need to kind of say, okay, what does he mean? That's a spiritual warfare trope, actually. This idea of the spirit of religion is something that C. Peter Wagner used to say. uh He wrote a book on that, by the way, on freedom from the religious spirit. And he says that the spirit of religion Wagner used to say that. The spirit of religion is an agent of Satan that is sent against the church so that the church will stay mediocre, that it will not progress. And uh Walnau knows this, so he takes that, he uses that rhetoric to label Christianity today as being under the influence of his of a spirit of religion. So I think that with Trump's election now, uh they're in a situation of power. I think we're gonna see more intensification of spiritual warfare. You see, this idea of spiritual warfare, wrote a piece recently that was published in the Journal of Illiberalism Study. And I explained in that piece that The idea of spiritual warfare has become the new rapture. In the sense that if you remember in the 70s and 80s, the rapture was a thing. Everybody talked about the rapture. Everybody was thinking about Armageddon. You had the late great planet Earth, Hal Lindsay, you had the Left Behind series. Everybody was talking about the rapture. And the idea of rapture entered into the American, you know, collective consciousness. If you talk to an American, even a non-religious American, and you ask him about the rapture, he knows. People know in general what the rapture is. Spiritual warfare has become that now. Everybody knows about spiritual warfare or talks about spiritual warfare. Even Tucker Carlson was attacked by demons, you see. So, you know, it has become this new thing now. And I think it's going to intensify. And it's interesting because when we think about spiritual warfare, and if you remember I said that, it is a Christian idea. In the end it is a Christian idea. But it's how you understand principalities and powers. What are principalities and powers? For NAR type of people, principalities and powers are demonic spirits that are controlling territories, political parties, peoples, and so on, and we need to engage in spiritual warfare to get rid of this stuff. For others, like Shane Claiborne, for example, he tweeted something very interesting following uh the Trump election. He says, we're gonna have to engage in spiritual warfare against principalities and powers. And he started naming what those principalities and powers were. Racism, injustice, poverty. and engaging in spiritual warfare was to be persecuted. They might imprison us, but we will love them nonetheless. That's what Claiborne was saying, you see? So we're at a different, we're still in spiritual warfare, but it's practiced very, very differently. You see? I mean, I just did this whole thing is like, it's so important for us to understand what's happening because these things are affecting the culture. They're changing the culture. They're making a big difference. And that's why we love having guys like you on the program. Andre, man, it's been such a. It's been such a pleasure to have you on and to talk with us. What's your next project that you have going on? How can people follow you? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Thank you, Will, for uh saying that we started this new podcast. Actually, it was a public facing uh idea in terms of scholarship because I'm trying to encourage my own uh graduate students to really engage in public scholarship. So I started that with one of my graduate students, the Spirit State and Society podcast. So you can find us on Spotify, on YouTube, on my Substack page, on Blue Sky we popularize it. So that is something we'll continue. This will be a kind of a bi-monthly thing where we look at, like I said, global Pentecostal and Charismatic movements and how they intersect with politics, society and culture. But we need to in the first few episodes kind of... Give definitions, a bit what you were asking me, you know, what is this? What is that? What does that mean? What does it mean to speak in tongues? Give definitions and then we'll kind of unpack other things that are more current. So that's one thing. I'm going on a six months research leave starting in July, which is a good thing. Some people call this a sabbatical, but we're not on sabbatical. We're just on a sabbatical on an administrative sabbatical, which is a good thing, and a teaching sabbatical. But we still have to do work. So my next project is an introductory volume, but in French, on Pentecostalism. What I realized is that the English-speaking world, there's a lot of production, there's a lot of books, there's a lot of podcasts, there's all sorts of stuff that's out there and people can... access easily. But in the French speaking world, this is completely, wow, what is this? You know, they don't understand. My book, uh American Evangelicals for Trump, was first published in French in 2020. And it was published, the publishing house was in Switzerland, and the book did very well in Europe. in the French speaking world in Europe because people were wondering what is happening to the US? Who are these people? Like, why is there such a mix of politics and religion? People didn't understand. So the book kind of gave keys to decipher what was going on, talking about major players and so on. So I'm gonna be doing that, writing a kind of an introductory volume. Pentecostalism, the differences, the beliefs, the practice, the implications politically and so on. So that's going to be the main uh work uh for the research leave. yeah, continuing to teach on this. When I come back, I'm gonna have a seminar on global Pentecostalism for my graduate students. yeah, continuing to just put... material out there, public scholarship out there so that people have a better sense of what this is. uh hopefully being invited to other podcasts like yours, thank you so much again. This was great. You guys always have phenomenal questions. I didn't know what you were going to ask me. we surfed on that. These were great, great questions. It's always a pleasure. chatting with both of you. You're very insightful. Your work is so, so much needed. Never stop. Never stop. I appreciate it so much, That encouragement means a lot. And I know that our audience really appreciates you. And we'll put all the links to Dr. Gagnier's research in the show notes. And you guys can check that out when you want to, in your own convenience. Make sure you do share it with someone that needs to hear this. guys, until next time, keep your conversations that right or left, but up. Thanks and God bless. Dude, are you