Protesting Sean Feucht Down in New Orleans
When Christian Nationalism scholar and sociology doctoral fellow Karrie Gaspard-Hogewood saw that musician Sean Feucht would be leading a Christian Nationalistic rally in her city, she decided to blow the whistle at him — literally. As Feucht and his followers marched through New Orleans on Saturday (Feb. 8) singing songs and blowing shofars, Gaspard-Hogewood joined clergy, students, and others to follow behind while blowing whistles, singing songs, and carrying balloons and signs with slogans like “Christians Against Christian Nationalism,” “My Faith Does Not Discriminate,” and “Y’All Means All.”
“I’m married to a Methodist pastor. I am Christian. I don’t like to have to say I’m Christian but not that kind of Christian — not the storming the Capitol kind of Christian,” Gaspard-Hogewood told me on the latest episode of Dangerous Dogma. “It’s all of those types of things that really led me to say I need to do something. He’s coming here. … I need to do this. So I hope that people in other places start to do that as well, to stand up against what he stands for.”
Gaspard-Hogewood studies the New Apostolic Reformation movement and the religious-political efforts of people such as Feucht, Lance Wallnau, Paula White-Cain, Dutch Sheets, and other Trumpian Christian leaders. The NAR movement not only helped fuel the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, but it also inspires much of the rhetoric around President Donald Trump as a messianic figure and pushes a theology of fighting spiritual battles.
Feucht, the musical Forrest Gump of Christian Nationalism, pops up all over the place. He rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic by holding mass “worship” rallies to violate public health rules against public gatherings. That effort helped his “ministry” organization skyrocket, gaining millions in contributions.
Since then, Feucht’s traveled across the country with his guitar to push Trumpian politics, including at campaign rallies for far-right candidates like Kari Lake in Arizona, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, and Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado. He has also held political worship events in D.C. (with Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri) and at Mar-a-Lago. He was a frequent performer for the ReAwaken America Tour, a traveling carnival of MAGA politics, Trumpian “prophecies,” anti-vax rhetoric, and COVID-19 conspiracies. And he spent the last two years holding rallies at each state Capitol to push for Christian Nationalism with local politicians.
“There are a lot of reasons that I think people latch on to this without even understanding the full ideology that he encompasses,” Gaspard-Hogewood said as she criticized his “grift” and his politicizing of worship. “People want to follow the singing troubadour walking down the street. And, yeah, it’s nefarious in a way because he plays on the Christian persecution narrative, which he did a lot during COVID.”
So when Gaspard-Hogewood saw Feucht announcing a “Jesus March” in New Orleans for the day before the Super Bowl, she took a break from her studies at Tulane University and started organizing a counter event. Her online efforts to push for a different Christian witness led Feucht last week to call her “Woke Tulane Lady.” Undeterred, she showed up for the march with a sign reading “Woke Tulane Lady” and two arrows pointing toward herself.
Even after the event, she continued to poke at Feucht on social media, like when he posted how his march was “taking over Bourbon Street” when they were actually on Dauphine Street or when he claimed they had “over a thousand” people in the march when it was closer to 200 (as even his own videos show). Feucht also noted “the whistles of the protesters” in one of his posts. Meanwhile, Gaspard-Hogewood said she hopes more Christians will join efforts to counter the Christian Nationalism of NAR figures like Feucht.
“Prior to the election, I worked really hard trying to educate folks about what this [NAR] movement was about, how involved they were in politics. And now I feel like it’s time to push back,” Gaspard-Hogewood said. “It’s time to take what I know and to educate folks about that — like I did with him coming here — and rally the troops right to come and do battle against his spiritual battles.”
Learn more about Feucht and the protest rally to counter his Christian Nationalism in the latest episode of Dangerous Dogma.
As a public witness,
Brian Kaylor
“the musical Forrest Gump of Christian Nationalism” 🤭
Gaspard-Hogewood and Dr. Francis Collins..."Priests" and "Heroes"
https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathanbrownson/p/priests-and?r=gdp9j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true