A new charismatic Christian movement that seeks to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and Jesus’ return is becoming more of a presence in American politics. The leaders are considered apostles and prophets, gifted by God for this role. Several apostles affiliated with the movement helped organize or spoke at Rick Perry’s August prayer rally, The Response.

The international “apostolic and prophetic” movement has been dubbed the New Apostolic Reformation by C. Peter Wagner, who has become one of its leaders. He describes himself as the first person who noticed the movement, gave a name to it and started writing books about it. He was, until recently retiring, the president of Global Harvest Ministries. For 30 years, he was a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Missions.

On Fresh Air, Wagner joins Terry Gross for a discussion about NAR and its mission.

Interview Highlights

On the tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan being connected to the emperor of Japan having sex with the sun goddess
“That happened many, many years ago, and that created a spiritual atmosphere over Japan which was an atmosphere ruled by the powers of darkness. The sun goddess is not a very nice lady. The sun goddess is a power of darkness, which is headed up by the kingdom of Satan. And so the sun goddess wants natural disasters to come to Japan. Sometimes the hand of God, which is more powerful, will prevent them. And when he decides to prevent them and when he doesn’t is far beyond anything that we can predict.”

“But in this case, God could have prevented that tsunami and the destruction, but he didn’t. He just took his hand off and allowed these natural forces to work. And one of the background pieces of information is Japan is under control of the sun goddess.”

On Alice Patterson, a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation and one of the leadership team members at Rick Perry’s prayer rally, saying on stage at the rally that the Democratic Party is a demon structure
“I personally would not endorse each one of her statements and especially the statement about the Democratic Party being demonized, any more than the Republican Party is. I mean, I believe there’s a lot of demonic control over Congress in general that needs to be dispersed.”

On demons
“As we talk, in Oklahoma City there is an annual meeting of a professional society called the Apostolic — called the International Society of Deliverance Ministers, which my wife and I founded many years ago. … This is a society of a large number, a couple hundred, of Christian ministers who are in the ministry of deliverance. Their seven-day-a-week occupation is casting demons out of people. And they have professional expertise in this and they happen to meeting — to be meeting right now. My wife is one of them. She’s written a whole book called How to Cast Out Demons. And I don’t do that much. Once in a while when I get in a corner, I might. But that’s — that’s been her ministry. And so I’ve been very, very close to that for years. We’ve been married for 60 years.”

On people in American politics being possessed by demons
“We don’t like to use the word possessed because that means they don’t have any power of their own. We like to use the word afflicted or, technical term, demonized. But there are people who — yes, who are — who are directly affected by demons, not only in politics, but also in the arts, in the media and religion in the Christian church.”

On demon identification
“Sometimes they know. Sometimes the demon has identified itself to the person. Sometimes you can tell by manifestations of superhuman, unhuman behavior. Sometimes you can tell by skilled deliverance ministers. My wife has a five-page questionnaire that she has people fill out before she ministers to them. So she asks the kind of questions that a medical doctor would ask to find out, to diagnose an illness. So she actually does diagnostic work on people to discover not only if they have demons, but what those demons might be.”

On homosexuality
“I do not think homosexuality is the will of God. I don’t think it’s God’s plan A.”

On whether other religions and nonbelieving Christians are demonic
“Well, it means they’re not part of the kingdom of heaven. It means they’re part of the kingdom of darkness. An apostle, a friend of mine in Nepal, once told me that every Christian believer in Nepal that he knows of has been delivered from demons. That their former Hindu religion had implanted, or the demons had gained access, and that in order to become Christian believers, the demons had to be cast out. Of course, we have many examples in the Bible of the same thing.”

Editor’s Note: Other topics in the discussion included

On what it means to be an apostle

On the role of the prophet

On what he means when he describes the NAR’s mission as taking dominion over business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family and religion

On dominionism and acquiring leadership positions in government

On 40 Days of Light Over D.C., a prayer rally being organized by John Benefiel, the head of the Heartland Apostolic Reformation Network, and Cindy Jacobs, a prophet and the president of the missionary training group Generals International, using a picture of the Capitol with an illuminated cross on it

On spiritual mapping to cast demons out of cities

On Thomas Muthee praying over Sarah Palin at the Wasilla Assembly of God, and asking for Jesus to protect her from the spirit of witchcraft

On the role of Israel and Jews in preparing for the second coming

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