What could be spookier on Halloween than a fifteen-hour political prayer rally hosted by dominionist and Christian nationalist religious leaders and attended by members of Congress?
This Saturday, October 31, the religious-right coalition Nehemiah Alliance will gather on the National Mall for a “sacred assembly” that has been called for “seeking God’s protection, blessing, and restoration for our families, communities, and nation ahead of the midterm elections.” It comes at the end of a 52-day period of prayer that is meant to refer to the biblical story of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in 52 days. Participants have been asked to set aside three of those days for fasting.
Among the event’s listed speakers and promoters are dominionist New Apostolic Reformation figures and MAGA activists Lou Engel, Cindy Jacobs, Jim Garlow, and Abby Abildness.
The Nehemiah Alliance website lists a whopping 229 “confirmed & anticipated” speakers and worship leaders, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. The Nehemiah Alliance website lists other elected officials as members of the Alliance, including Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Katie Britt, Rep. Marlin Stutzman, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, who recorded a video promoting the 52-day initiative. MAGA pundit Eric Metaxas is also listed. Among the religious-right organizations listed as alliance members are legal groups Liberty Counsel and the American Center for Law and Justice, David Barton’s WallBuilders, and the MAGA prayer warriors at Intercessors for America.
Johnson, who has been insisting that the polls are wrong and God will keep Republicans in control of Congress, promoted the project with an interview in which he called for national repentance and contending for the faith. The interview was interspersed with clips of Johnson denouncing “radical” Democratic candidates from around the country.
In a Newsmax interview in July, Tennessee pastor Tyler Feller promoted the alliance, denouncing “candidates that are carrying communist Marxist ideology” and are “in direct opposition against our Christian faith,” and then claiming in his next breath that the Nehemiah Alliance “is not a political movement.”
“There’s no time like today for Christians in America to rise up, quit being passive in our Christianity, and instead be aggressive with the mission that God has for us, which includes being responsible in the influence that we have,” Feller told host David Harris Jr.
While the D.C. rally falls on Halloween, event organizers prefer to note that October 31 commemorates Reformation Day, the anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation, and that the 52-day prayer-and-fasting period is set to end on Nov. 1, All Saints Sunday. Participants are not likely to show up in costume; they have been asked to “dress as the Holy Spirit leads so the Sacred Assembly represents the Body of Christ.”
Saturday's "sacred assembly" is one of a long line of right-wing political prayer rallies organized by Lou Engle and his compatriots in recent decades.
