The Cost of Turning Prayer Into Politics
What is lost when the language of prayer turns into the language of war.
Spiritual warfare language has long been part of evangelical subculture. For most, it remains metaphor—prayers against unseen forces, sermons about moral struggle. But recent events show how quickly metaphor can become literal and how easily that language can be absorbed into politics.
Earlier this summer, a shooting in Minnesota revealed the darker side of this rhetoric. Vance Boelter, immersed in teaching from the New Apostolic Reformation, believed he was living in an apocalyptic battle. What began as prayer language for many in his circles became for him a justification for violence. The case is extreme, but it illustrates how spiritual warfare metaphors can condition people to see their neighbors as enemies in a cosmic struggle.
Few scholars have tracked this movement more closely than Matthew D. Taylor. In his recent book The Violent Take It by Force (2024), Taylor lays out how the New Apostolic Reformation has grown from a cluster of charismatic churches into a sprawling network with national political ambitions. He describes how self-proclaimed apostles and prophets claim authority not only over congregations but over governments, and how spiritual warfare language has become a political rallying cry. For Taylor, the movement represents a “spiritual oligarchy,” where leaders insist they speak directly for God in matters of culture and policy.
Taylor has also worked to make this research accessible outside academic circles. His podcast Charismatic Revival Fury offers a gripping primer on how the NAR rose to prominence and how its networks helped fuel the mobilization around January 6. Taken together, his work helps explain why rhetoric that once sounded like harmless revival talk now echoes in the language of militancy, with real consequences for American politics and public life.
Taylor’s scholarship has shaped the way I approach my own research into Christian nationalism and leadership. His framing of the NAR as a spiritual oligarchy offers a powerful lens for understanding how apocalyptic rhetoric and spiritual warfare metaphors are being weaponized to mobilize followers. It is a reminder that this is not fringe language but an influential current in American religious and political life — one that demands careful, public attention.
Other scholars point to the interpretive side of the story. In An Inspired Word in Season: Reading the Bible Responsibly in a Polarized World (2025), Thomas M. Bolin examines how Scripture itself is repeatedly invoked to sanctify political positions. He argues that Christians must learn to “read the Bible responsibly in a polarized world,” resisting the temptation to weaponize verses in support of partisan battles. If Taylor helps us see how leaders mobilize networks with apocalyptic urgency, Bolin shows how biblical texts become the raw material of polarization itself. Both perspectives illuminate why language, metaphor, and interpretation matter for democracy.
At the same time, Donald Trump’s movement has adopted this language and reshaped it into a broader political faith. Scholars describe it as a “religion of the nation” a civic theology where loyalty to America, defined by white, heterosexual, Christian identity, takes precedence over traditional religious practice. The theological details matter less than the rituals of allegiance: rallies, chants, and symbolic acts that fuse faith with nationalism.
The connection between these stories is not accidental. The spiritual battle frame provides the intensity; the national religion frame provides the structure. Together they transform politics into a sacred mission. A disagreement about policy becomes a matter of spiritual fidelity. Violence, in rare but tragic cases, becomes imaginable.
Christian nationalism thrives when political identity is cast as divine purpose and support for privileging Christianity in public life consistently correlates with acceptance of anti-democratic measures if they are seen as protecting the faith. Boelter’s story illustrates one endpoint of that logic; Trump’s rallies illustrate another. Both depend on the fusion of religion and nationalism, presented as spiritual destiny.
There is a cost for the church. When faith is enlisted into a nationalist project, dissent becomes treasonous. Christians who object to the rhetoric of holy war or who reject Trump as a spiritual figure are cast as weak, compromised, or even demonic. The internal diversity of American Christianity is erased in favor of a singular political theology. This reshaping of the faith community is not just cultural; it carries implications for democracy itself. If opponents are cast as enemies of God, compromise becomes impossible and pluralism becomes intolerable. When that view extends beyond church walls, it fuels restrictions on curricula, attacks on pluralist institutions, and efforts to privilege Christianity in law and policy.
What do you see in your own communities? Where do you hear prayer language shaping politics, and how do you think it affects our ability to live together across difference?
We are watching in real time as political strategy becomes religious devotion, and religious devotion becomes political strategy. The task is not only to trace the pattern but to recognize what is at stake for democracy, faith, and the possibility of common life.
Editor’s Note: An Inspired Word in Season is published by Liturgical Press, where I work on the periodicals side. I purchased my own copy and was not paid or asked to write about it. I highlight it here because I find the work especially relevant to this moment and valuable as an academic resource.
Further Reading (and Listening)
These articles and analyses provide context for the themes in this piece: