With less than a month until the presidential election, MLM expert turned Christian apostle Jenny Donnelly is fasting, praying and affirming “the Lord’s authority over the election process and our nation’s leaders.” Women are convening on the National Mall to protect them.
This is the first in a series of Christian nationalist rallies to be held in Washington, D.C., to rally believers to the Capitol ahead of the 2024 election.
Pro-Trump influencers touted the event as a rally for mothers concerned about changing gender norms in modern America, with a woman standing under a pink and blue banner emblazoned with the anti-trans hashtag #DontMessWithOurKids. We gathered together. In promotional materials, Donnelly casts the Capitol event as an opportunity for women to assert themselves and play a pivotal role in changing America’s cultural and political trajectory.
Donnelly will be headlining a prayer demonstration, an event that is being held by several far-right groups affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation, a Christian right-wing movement seeking to establish long-term Christian control over government and society. It is a collaboration organized by Christian leaders. We will elect Trump in the near future.
Matthew Taylor, a senior fellow at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, said the goal of the effort was to “create a network of many people who see occupying Washington, D.C., as a spiritual mission.” .
The most prominent figure in the movement to bring women to the National Mall is Lou Engle, a right-wing pastor and staunch opponent of LGBTQ+ rights and abortion. He gained international notoriety and celebrity for leading anti-gay Ugandan pastors and coordinating mass prayer mobilizations. .
The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Mr. Engle an anti-LGBTQ+ extremist, and has said in the past that Mr. Engle has likened his anti-LGBTQ+ push to Southern segregationists during the Civil War, and has criticized those opposed to gay rights. He points out that he was calling on Americans to emulate Confederate General Robert. E. Lee “was able to keep Washington in check.”
Donnelly’s vision of mothers descending on the Capitol in pink and blue is her own. Engle, who has held mass prayer rallies that have drawn hundreds of thousands of people to Washington, D.C., in the past, is providing a platform to bring people back.
“We see a million women and their families coming together to see this great nation turn its heart back to God,” Donnelly said in June promoting the march. He spoke on the podcast on the 21st. Donnelly, who lives with her family in Portland, Oregon, has learned how to cope during the COVID-19 lockdown and Black Lives Matter protests (two forces she says have forced churches to close). He spoke about how God called him to delve deeper into the realm of politics.
“I said, ‘Lord, I’m a mother of five children. I have a great church, but it’s not very big. I’ve done women’s retreats, and I’ve done my part in the kingdom. “I feel like I’ve fulfilled my mission and I love Jesus so much, but I don’t even know where to start. Can you please join me in the fight?” she said. .
Donnelly has been trying to share that message with other Christian women through an organization called Her Voices Movement Action. The organization organizes women into decentralized, independently run “prayer hubs” that serve as both a source of spiritual community for women and a political mobilization tool. .
The decentralized organizational model is a vestige of Donnelly’s previous life. Before his reincarnation as leader of the New Apostolic Reformation, Donnelly earned millions of dollars through the multilevel marketing company Advocare, which he closed after settling a lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission for $150 million. I went bankrupt. The company was an illegal pyramid scheme.
From Peru to Portland
A few years before Donnelly raised the #DontMessWithOurKids flag, a movement of the same name took off in Peru, championed by Christian Rosas, a conservative Christian political strategist and mining industry consultant. The evangelical “No te metas con miss hijos” (“Don’t touch our children”) coalition, which opposes LGBTQ+ inclusion and abortion, will introduce themes of gender equality and gender equality in 2016. It gained supporters amid a wave of conservative opposition to the government’s efforts to do so. LGBTQ+ inclusion in the school system.
When governments issued lockdown orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus, they issued travel restrictions by gender, allowing women and men to go out on different days of the week, and when enforcing this rule, Confirmed that the gender identity of transgender people will be respected. . Rosas has challenged trans-inclusive policies, arguing that police officers are obligated to enforce rules based on a traveler’s ID rather than their gender identification.
During the lockdown order, Peruvian investigative news outlet Ojo Public reported 18 incidents of humiliating and abusive police arrests of trans women.
What started as a street protest turned into an electoral strategy to elect ultra-conservative allies of the Christian Right in Peru. These lawmakers have passed a number of socially conservative laws, including this year’s law classifying transgender identity as a mental illness.
Donnelly took charge of the movement among Christian mothers in the United States, drawing directly from Rosas’ vision in Peru and consulting him on strategy.
“We challenged the law, and why? Because the law was unjust. We challenged the curriculum. Why? Because the curriculum was unjust,” Rosas said on November 6, 2023. He said this in a podcast interview with Donnelly. “Radical, religious, whatever,” but they saw that we would not back down. ”
Both “Don’t Mess With Our Kids” and “No te metas con miss hijos” attempt to operate their organizations as grassroots movements. In a 2017 interview with Vice News, a spokesperson for the group spoke on condition of anonymity and claimed to be speaking for “the collective.”
Donnelly’s “Her Voice Movement” takes a similar approach. In a recording of an August Zoom call obtained by journalist Dominic Bonney and shared with the Guardian, Naomi van Wyk, a spokeswoman for Her Voices Movement, said the group was working with Moms for Liberty. said it launched a “March for Kids” campaign in multiple states in partnership with the organization, but members who raised the alarm must keep the association private.
“The parent company is Moms for Liberty, but they don’t want to be recognized. I would really like to see that expressed publicly,” Van Wyk said.
Elizabeth Salazar Vega, a reporter covering gender and politics in Peru, said she was not surprised that the movement had taken hold in the United States, or that it was expressed just weeks before the presidential election.
“This is an ideal scenario to unite these voices that normally seem isolated in civil society,” Salazar Vega said. “I don’t think this is likely to escalate quickly in the United States.”
Christian nationalist pastor Sean Feucht, who organized the “Kingdom to Capitol” protests in battleground states, is planning a similar march in Washington, D.C., later this month.
