The New Apostolic Reformation
by IAND75 (2024-03-05 10:30:06)
Edited on 2024-03-05 10:53:57
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I found the linked article, “Alabama’s Chief Justice Isn’t Just a Conservative”, in The Atlantic disturbing. The subject matter is problematic enough. But it is also the fact that I have never heard of the New Apostolic Reformation. It may be seen as a fringe movement, but it is apparently much larger than that and is gaining adherents, including the Speaker of the House, and power.

Some may view it as Christian Nationalism, another term or movement that has only recently crept into my consciousness. They view themselves as more than that.

From the article:

But the New Apostolic Reformation remains a gathering force in American politics.

“The Parker point of view, the NAR point of view, is deep and complicated,” Frederick Clarkson, a research analyst who has been studying the Christian right for decades, told me. He considers the NAR to be one of the most important shifts in Christianity in modern times. “Christian nationalism is a handy term, but it is a box into which NAR does not quite fit,” Clarkson said—the movement is “so much bigger than that.”


One adherent that has become known nationally is the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Tom Parker. He is open about his deep commitment to the movement and faith.


Again, from the article:

The judge went on to explain his legal philosophy. He said that there is natural law and God’s law, and that God’s law is necessary because man cannot trust his own reason. “Because of the impact of the fall of man in the Garden, man’s reason became corrupted and could no longer properly discern God’s law from nature,” Parker said. “So he had to give them the revealed law. The holy scripture.”

Continuing:

The people who advanced the notion that God was using Trump were not merely Christian nationalists. They were prominent apostles such as Dutch Sheets, who is as familiar to those in the movement as Billy Graham once was to your average Southern Baptist.

Sheets was a key figure in the run-up to January 6, exhorting his followers to go to Washington, D.C., to take the Capitol not just for Trump but for God. They came by the busload, bearing the Revolutionary War–era flag that Sheets popularized and repurposed as a symbol of the Kingdom movement.

The flag is white with a green pine tree and the words An Appeal to Heaven, and it is now posted outside the district office of House Speaker Mike Johnson.


I recommend reading the full article. If for no other reason to become aware of the movement if you are ignorant of it like me.




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