A prominent religious right leader thinks that Christians need to realize that they are “God’s governing force on earth”–and once they realize this, they’ll be able to seize control of this nation.
Dutch Sheets is a prominent leader in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), an overtly fascist offshoot of the religious right that believes it can bring about the Second Coming by taking over the world and sweeping out all who dare to resist. This movement has mostly stayed out of the limelight until very recently. However, Sheets’ word carries a lot of weight in social conservative circles. According to an extensive directory on the NAR compiled by the team at Talk2Action, Sheets is one of the “apostles” overseeing a network of “prayer alliances” in all 50 states, and is also a member of one of the NAR’s main leadership groups, the Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders. However, he’s known enough in the conservative movement that Newt Gingrich named him to the “Faith Leaders Coalition” for his 2012 presidential campaign. All you need to know about his politics is that he believes the church’s first priority should be taking over the world above all else (even caring for the poor), and that Obama is a Muslim who is in the White House because God turned this country over to Satan.
Earlier this week, People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch stumbled on a blog post Sheets made on December 30. Sheets wrote that in biblical times, “ekklesia,” the Greek word now normally used for “church,” was a select group of people whom the Romans sent out to a conquered region not only to govern it, but to make it more like Rome. The church is supposed to be the same way–it was intended to be “a body of people that would legislate specifically for him” and extend godly influence all over the world. To Sheets’ mind, when Jesus said in Matthew 18:19 that he was giving Peter–and hence the church–the “keys of the kingdom of heaven,” he was referring to the keys mentioned in Isaiah 22:22 which open and close spiritual doors that bind the decisions of hell and loose the decisions of heaven. For that reason, Sheets has taken Isaiah 22:22 to be his life verse.
If that doesn’t sound off-the-charts crazy enough, Sheets tells us how we’re supposed to use those keys.
“We cannot place all hope for change in a wrong interpretation of God’s sovereignty?a belief that when God wants and chooses to, He will change a particular problem or situation to be in accordance with His will, with or without our involvement. We must realize that we are God’s governing force on the earth, which have been given keys of authority from Him to legislate from the spiritual realm. With those keys, we are to close spiritual doors through which evil and destruction might otherwise enter.”
Sheets then goes on to say that God has called “Kingdom ambassadors” to “shape our national destiny.” He tells his followers that God is releasing “keys” that are “yours for the taking.” His followers may be called to pray for the federal government, their state, or even another nation. Others may be used in the financial or entertainment sectors, or in education.
This article looks even scarier when put next to a similar article he penned for Charisma magazine in 2013, in which he called for his followers to remember they can “legislate through prayer.” In that article, Sheets called for his followers to ramp up their prayers in order to defeat the “Hamans” in our government. Haman, for those who don’t know, was an adviser to the king of Persia. He’d cooked up a scheme to massacre all of Persia’s Jews, only to have it backfire when Queen Esther, herself a Jew, told her husband about it. The king then ordered Haman hanged on the spot–on the very gallows that he’d intended to use to kill several Jewish leaders. The implication is obvious–if Sheets and his followers ever get their hands on this country, they intend to turn Washington and our state capitals into bloodbaths.
I’m very familiar with this type of talk. It’s the “seven mountains” strategy–the idea that Christians should work to take over the forces, or mountains, that influence our culture in order to bring Jesus back. I first ran into it in my college days at Carolina. That cultish charismatic group that tricked me into joining it was heavily influenced by the NAR.
Bear in mind, folks–Sheets thinks he’s only speaking to his followers. He doesn’t know that we’re watching him. This is the latest evidence that the religious right is getting more and more extreme by the minute.
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Darrell Lucus, also known as Christian Dem in NC on Daily Kos, is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.
