At what point did the flag become linked to Trump?
When Donald Trump became the Republican candidate, people started attaching it to him. They even started a big NAR prayer movement in 2015 called the As One prayer movement, and the movement’s symbol was the Appeal to Heaven flag, the evergreen tree. This was an organized campaign. Throughout the Trump presidency, the flag became a symbol for Trump, for Christian America, for this insurgent Christian nationalism. And by the time you got to 2020 you had hundreds of charismatic prophets all prophesying that Donald Trump was destined to win this election.
Dutch Sheets very much believed these prophecies and that the 2020 election was a matter of spiritual warfare. In the fall of 2020, Donald Trump went to a Las Vegas megachurch led by an apostle who, as he was preaching, pulled out an Appeal to Heaven flag and said, “We’re going to appeal to heaven for your victory.” Someone in the crowd shot a photo of the apostle onstage holding the Appeal to Heaven flag with Donald Trump’s head silhouetted in the foreground, and it went viral.
So the Appeal to Heaven symbol is very closely linked to Trump and the 2020 campaign and what people believe about these prophecies.
When the election was called for Joe Biden and Trump refused to concede, almost all the prophets began saying God would have to intervene. Dutch Sheets converted his Give Him 15 prayer app into a YouTube show that became a clearinghouse for all the conversations about overturning the election, and Sheets was constantly infusing this Appeal to Heaven idea.
There was always an Appeal to Heaven flag in the background. Shortly after the election, Sheets met with people from the Trump administration who encouraged him to lead a prayer campaign in the swing states. He mobilized about 20 apostles and prophets to go to the contested states and hold these very intense prayer and prophecy meetings in megachurches. This was all part of this building fever pitch toward Jan. 6.
In late December, Dutch and this team of prophets and apostles had a two-hour meeting at the White House with unnamed officials. Some of the members who were there later said they received strategy from the highest levels of the government, and issued prophetic declarations inside the White House. A number of NAR prophets and apostles, including one who was at the White House, were there on Jan. 6.
They had a stage set up with a microphone and PA system just off the southeast corner of the Capitol during the riot, and they were singing worship songs, prophesying and wearing Appeal to Heaven flags. As the riot started, the NAR leaders became anxious and asked Sheets, who was elsewhere, to prophesy over the Capitol over speakerphone. I argue in my book that Dutch Sheets did more to mobilize Christians to be there on Jan. 6 than any other Christian leader.
It’s not a coincidence that you see Appeal to Heaven flags all over the place on Jan. 6. We know that at least one rioter wore an Appeal to Heaven flag inside the Capitol as a cape. When the FBI went to arrest him later, they found the Appeal to Heaven flag spattered with blood and mace. We can see in one video as the crowds breach the barricades, somebody with an Appeal to Heaven flag using that flagpole to beat down a police officer.
What’s in store for the New Apostolic Reformation in 2024?
NAR folks are mobilizing for the 2024 election. All of those prophecies about Donald Trump having a second term are still out there. When we think about the role Donald Trump is playing in American politics, this quasi-messianic aura that’s attached to him, I don’t think you can understand that without understanding the NAR.
Donald Trump has become a type of savior to many American Christians, and they have attached immense spiritual hope to him. And they believe fervently that the last election was stolen from them by demons. Donald Trump has these armies of Christians, prayer warriors, prophets who have backstopped his political career using charismatic theology, prophecies and spiritual warfare.
But what we saw on Jan. 6 was that at some point, spiritual warfare tips over into actual violence. And I am very concerned about the election we are barreling toward. Are these folks going to accept election results if Trump loses? And if Trump wins, in their mind they have conquered. They have free rein to enact their vision of a Christian America.
This article originally appeared here.
 that an "Appeal to Heaven" flag had been sighted last summer at a shore house owned by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, it wasn’t the first time the symbol had been linked to Christian judges and lawmakers.){kind=link}