In 2019, the Washington state House of Representatives released a 108-page report detailing how one of its own members, Rep. Matt Shea, had “participated in an act of domestic terrorism” and “planned, engaged in and promoted a total of three armed conflicts of political violence against the United States Government in three states outside the state of Washington over a three-year period.”
The report exposed Shea’s deep ties to the far-right militia movement, as well as a document he authored laying out the “Biblical Basis for War,” in which he declared that “the enemy” must agree to accept bans on abortion, same-sex marriage, communism, and idolatry and agree to live under biblical law. If these demands were refused, Shea declared that the only solution was to “kill all males.”
In the wake of the report, the state’s House Republican Caucus stripped Shea of his committee assignments and booted him out of the party. Shea refused to resign his seat but did not run for reelection in 2020 and eventually took a position as a pastor of a far-right local church.
Last Sunday, Shea delivered a sermon called “Christian Nationalism, Dominion, and Theology” in which he promoted and defended both Seven Mountains Dominionism and Christian nationalism, insisting that right-wing Christians are “supposed to rule over the nations.”
During the sermon, Shea revealed that he had recently met with MAGA cultist Lance Wallnau, an unabashed Christian nationalist and leading advocate of Seven Mountains Dominionism, a far-right theology that teaches that Christians are to “do whatever is necessary” to take control of the seven “mountains” that shape our culture—education, government, media, business, arts and entertainment, family, and religion—in order to implement the will of God throughout the nation and the world.
Along the same lines, Christian nationalists insist that the United States was founded as an explicitly Christian nation and therefore right-wing Christians must do everything they can to keep it that way, including making laws that align with their particular religious and political worldview even if they are opposed by many Americans, including other Christians.
Shea used his sermon to fully endorse both agendas.
“If this is true that God is the author of nationalism, he’s the author of the boundaries of our country, then what should Christians be doing?” Shea asked. “If the Word is supposed to rule over the nations—and who is the Word? [Jesus]. If he is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over all nations, then the Lord is supposed to rule over all nations, then the Word is supposed to rule over all nations.”
“If that’s the case, then my nationalism is not being driven out of some weird thing of trying to conquer the world like the Nazis,” Shea insisted. “My love of God and my love for his word is the source of my nationalism, because I want to see it rule.”
“The most important thing we will ever do is proclaim the kingdom of Jesus Christ throughout all the world,” declared Shea. “The second most important thing is to make sure we can do the first most important thing, and that’s the purpose of government.”
Earlier this year, Shea teamed up with Christian nationalist worship leader and political activist Sean Feucht, presenting Feucht with a “defender of liberty award” and joining him to pray over the mayor of Spokane, Nadine Woodward. Though Woodward quickly attempted to distance herself from Shea, the Spokane City Council is poised to take a vote at an upcoming meeting to formally denounce Woodward for appearing with him.
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