A conservative Christian movement that has been quietly consolidating power for years is now making moves, and it's all starting in Pennsylvania, according to a report from Salon.
The movement is centered on "unfriending" anyone who believes any differently, including other less-extreme sects of Christianity, according to Frederick Clarkson, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates. Writing for Salon, Clarkson added that Pennsylvania is the first target.
"'You've got a friend in Pennsylvania!' was the theme of the state's ad campaign to promote tourism in the 1980s. That was a veiled historical reference to the Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, the liberal Christian sect to which William Penn, for whom Pennsylvania is named, belonged," Clarkson writes. But since the early 2000s there has been a quiet campaign in the Keystone State and beyond to unfriend anyone outside certain precincts of Christianity — and most Quakers would almost certainly be among the outcasts."
That campaign "got a lot less quiet" this April, as many leaders of the neo-charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, who have been hiding in plain sight for a generation, "began ramping up a contest for theocratic power in the nation and the world." Their first target is Pennsylvania, but there will be many more cities on the schedule, court records show.
"On April 30, Sean Feucht, a musician and evangelist for conservative Christian dominion, spoke at Life Center Ministries, the Harrisburg megachurch of Apostle Charles Stock. (The honorific 'Apostle' designates a leading church office in the NAR. That said, there are many apostles in the movement, and not all of them pastor churches.) During his appearance, Feucht highlighted his national tour of state capitals, called Kingdom to the Capitol, that he was conducting along with Turning Point USA, the far-right youth group led by Charlie Kirk. "[W]e are going to end this 50-state tour here in Harrisburg," he announced.
