FRISCO, Texas (RNS) — The organizers of America’s Revival love Jesus and America, too.
And they believe God still has a plan for the United States.
“He loves the United States,” Joshua Feuerstein, a Oneness Pentecostal preacher and founder of America’s Church, told a crowd of more than 1,000 worshippers on Friday (Aug. 6).
“He’s not done with this country.”
The three-day Christian nationalist event being held at the Frisco Convention Center, north of Dallas, was part tent revival, part megachurch extravaganza and part political rally. It began with a video promoting a conservative online pharmacy and a word from the head of a pro-Trump conservative Christian insurance company who said he refuses to wear a mask and offered audience members a chance to win a new AR-15 rifle if they texted their number to his company.
“You come to worship Jesus and leave with a gun,” he told worshippers. “Amen.”
After the commercials, a megachurch-style service began, with recording artist Draylin Young leading the congregation through songs like “How Great Is Our God,” “You Are Good” and “Reckless Love” while on a stage flanked by a pair of giant American flags.
Christian nationalism — the idea that being a Christian is an essential part of America’s identity and destiny — was on full display.
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The words “America’s Revival” were projected on a screen behind the band, with an American flag waving in the background. At center stage was a pulpit resembling a presidential podium, with a seal of the United States on the front. The pulpit sat on a carpet that featured the same color scheme and seal found in the Oval Office.
Featured preachers Feuerstein and Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee filled their sermons with a mix of patriotism and piety, with callouts to Donald Trump and claims that faith was more powerful than COVID-19.
Related article: Pastor Greg Locke Tells CNN They ‘Will Burn in Hell’
In his sermon, Feuerstein told the biblical story of King Ahab and Jezebel and how they faced off against the prophet Elijah. He described Ahab as a senile old man and Jezebel as someone who “slept her way to the top.”
“Does that sound familiar?” he said, leading to raucous cheers from worshippers. A number of conservative pastors have referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as a “Jezebel” — a term used for an evil or corrupt woman.
The biggest name at Friday’s event was MyPillow Inc. CEO and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, who gave a rambling speech about how God saved him from a cocaine addiction and detailed how he “fully surrendered his life to Jesus” after meeting Trump.
He joked that his friends called him saying, “Who is that crackhead up there?” after Lindell was photographed in the White House with Trump.
Lindell then listed what he called a series of miracles that allowed him to uncover how the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump. He promised to reveal more evidence about the election in an upcoming “cyber-symposium” to be broadcast on his new website, Frankspeech.com.
The symposium is the latest election conspiracy project from Lindell, who told supporters the 2020 election would soon be overturned and Trump would return to the White House. He then promised the voting machines would be “melted down and turned into prison bars.”
Lindell told worshippers they should not fear because “God’s got his hands in all of this.”
“This is going to be the greatest uniting of our country ever and the biggest revival for Jesus in history,” he said.
