When Worship Becomes Weaponized

Sean Feucht and the politics of persecution shaping Christian nationalism.

Sep 05, 2025

silhouette of person hand — Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash

“We’re not just singing songs—we’re sounding the alarm of our faith.” That is how Sean Feucht has built his career, and it is what makes his concerts more than music. A former Bethel Church musician and failed congressional candidate, he has recast himself as both revivalist and culture warrior. His image is carefully curated: long hair, evangelical charisma, and the consistent framing of himself as a martyr whenever his events are challenged. That posture makes him dangerous. His brand of praise is inseparable from politics, and the stage he carries from city to city is less about song than power. What looks like worship is also a rally. What sounds like revival is also recruitment. He embodies the politics of persecution on which this movement depends, presenting himself as both victim and warrior while channeling political energy through the language of worship.

Seattle saw this dynamic in sharp relief. Thousands of worshippers gathered downtown for one of Feucht’s outdoor concerts. Across the street, protesters held signs and blared kazoos to drown out the music. Feucht posted videos of the clash online, casting it as proof of hostility to Christianity. For his audience, the opposition was not just background noise but evidence that they were on the frontlines of a spiritual war.

That framing is deliberate. Feucht thrives on conflict. When his Canadian tour was canceled earlier this year, he didn’t chalk it up to business disputes. He called it persecution, warning of creeping tyranny and anti-Christian bias. What could have been a logistical failure became a rallying cry. The politics of persecution turns every obstacle into validation.

This strategy is not unique to Feucht. Christian nationalism has long depended on stories of believers under siege. From Cold War rhetoric about “godless communism” to today’s talk of “attacks on religious freedom,” persecution is a narrative that binds communities together. What Feucht adds is the performance and his “persecution” gets not only described but staged, recorded, and monetized. The louder the protest, the more compelling the story.

And there is money behind it. Investigations into Feucht’s nonprofit networks reveal significant donations routed through organizations like the Great Commission Foundation in Canada. Far from a scrappy grassroots revival, these concerts are sustained by donor pipelines and political allies.

Conservative media completes the loop. Fox News framed Feucht’s Seattle rally as worship under siege by intolerant activists. They offered no background or context into Sean Feucht other than that of the poor musician. Viewers weren’t just seeing a concert — they were watching a very familiar story where Christians were cast as victims and cultural liberals as aggressors. That narrative is sticky. Persecution, once broadcast, becomes proof.

The power of this politics lies in what it produces. Persecution stories forge identity. They energize participation. They delegitimize dissent by casting critics not as neighbors but as enemies of God. They create a community where citizenship and faith collapse into one.

Feucht is not the first to play this role. Revivalism in America has always blurred the line between religion and politics, from the Second Great Awakening’s role in fueling abolition and women’s rights movements to the Cold War evangelism of Billy Graham. This is pattern historians like Nathan Hatch, in The Democratization of American Christianity, argue is central to how faith movements have shaped public life. But his version is calibrated for an era of social media, polarized politics, and Christian nationalism. His concerts are not just worship but public theater, dramatizing the claim that Christianity is under siege and must fight back.

Faith shaping leaders and communities is not itself a danger. Many of America’s most important reform movements grew from religious conviction. What makes the current moment different is the way exclusionary narratives are elevated above empathy. The rhetoric of persecution and othering transforms faith into a zero-sum contest, where the presence of different beliefs, or no belief at all, is cast as a threat. None of this is illegal, and many of the actors may be animated by sincerely held convictions. But when those convictions are mobilized as battle cries, amplified through networks of money and media, the effect is not pluralism but division on a massive scale.

That is the warning. The politics of persecution conditions citizens to see democracy itself as hostile territory. It recasts pluralism as threat and disagreement as oppression. When every critique is persecution, the only legitimate response is resistance. And when worship becomes resistance, faith is no longer simply expressed — it is weaponized.

When Worship Becomes Weaponized

Sean Feucht and the politics of persecution shaping Christian nationalism.

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