A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A gathering of nationalist Christians in Washington, D.C., last weekend brought together a deeply pro-Trump crowd from across the country. The people that came challenged many preconceptions about the former president's base. NPR's domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef was there.
ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: The gathering was called A Million Women. It was an appeal to nationalist, conservative Christian women to repent for what this movement considers to be the nation's sins. Many said they felt a divine call to travel there. But also, it was a political thing.
NNEKA ELEOGU: Oh, well, I'm just a believer in Jesus Christ. I love God. And, yeah, not all Black people...
STEPHANIE LIU: But then, about election, you know (ph)?
ELEOGU: Oh, yeah. And not all Black people are going to vote for Kamala Harris. We are...
YOUSEF: Nneka Eleogu is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. She had come up from Texas. And she joined as I had been speaking with two other women, Stephanie Liu and Yelena Hu. Both of them had immigrated to the U.S. from China over 20 years ago. One of them was decked head to toe in MAGA gear.
YELENA HU: I will not vote any Asian Democrats. No way.
ELEOGU: Oh, no. Even if they're a Black Democrat...
HU: Yeah.
ELEOGU: ...I'm never going to vote for them...
HU: Yeah.
LIU: It's not about color, OK?
ELEOGU: ...Because I will not vote blue no matter who.
LIU: About policy.
HU: Yeah, we're not voting for color, you know. We're voting for righteous. We vote for law, you know, goodness - all the good things.
YOUSEF: Matthew Taylor says these nationalist Christians represent a corner of the American evangelical right that is not well understood. He's a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore.
MATTHEW TAYLOR: I feel like I read a news article almost weekly, puzzling over why Donald Trump, in the polls, at least, seems to be winning over Latino and Latina and African American and Asian American voters. A big part of that story is religion.
YOUSEF: And Taylor says this religion, this particular type of Christianity, was historically on the fringe.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Yelling) Oh, Lord, shine on us.
YOUSEF: Walking through the crowd, people are blowing shofars - rams' horns - that trace back to ancient Jewish traditions. Some lay hands on each other in prayer. Others weep or break out into expressive dance.
ANTHEA BUTLER: They are not regular Christians.
YOUSEF: Anthea Butler is at the University of Pennsylvania.
BUTLER: They believe in prophecy. They believe that, you know, there are demons on this Earth. They believe that there are spirits that inhabit places, that take over things.
YOUSEF: And they believe in what they call spiritual warfare to retake those places and the culture. At this gathering, attention was focused on one of those spirits. Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jewish pastor from New Jersey, spoke of an ancient Babylonian goddess named Ishtar.
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JONATHAN CAHN: She turns a man into a woman and a woman into a man. This spirit, as it has taken control of this culture, begins to war against gender.
YOUSEF: Gender here refers to everything from the advancement of women's rights in the '60s to gender relativism and LGBTQ equality. In this space, all that is viewed as godlessness. Many of the speakers are prominent leaders in a network called the New Apostolic Reformation. And Taylor says they were all here before for similar gatherings four years ago.
TAYLOR: Communicating similar messages about the desperation, the need to take back America, the need to Christianize America, the cause of Donald Trump and how all those things fit neatly together. And so I do worry that the crowd here is the recruiting pool for the Christians who would show up at a next January 6-style event.
YOUSEF: Taylor says he can't think of any national politician in U.S. history that has figured into as many religious prophecies as Trump has with this crowd and that this dynamic sets up a permission structure to do whatever it takes to fulfill the prophecy.
Odette Yousef, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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