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.
Shea now pastors On Fire Ministries, and on Wednesday night, Christian nationalist worship leader and political activist Sean Feucht spoke at Shea’s church. Feucht’s Christian nationalist activism has brought him powerful allies, including Sen. Josh Hawley, who has appeared at Feucht rallies on the National Mall, and Rep. Lauren Boebert, who was one of seven members of Congress who took part in Feucht-led worship in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. When former President Donald Trump was running for reelection—and Feucht was running for Congress—Feucht was among a group of religious-right leaders who prayed over Trump in the Oval Office.
Just before Feucht took the stage at Shea’s church Wednesday, Shea announced that he had been told by God to present Feucht with a metal carving of the Liberty Bell in recognition of his role as a leading “defender of liberty.”
“Several years ago, somebody cut out of solid metal a Liberty Bell,” Shea declared. “And God’s like, ‘Matt, will you part with that and give it to my defender of liberty?’ And, of course, you got to say, ‘Yeah, okay. Yes, Lord.'”
“Sean, I just want to just tell you that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” Shea continued. “And where you go, you not only bring liberty in the sense of freedom, but you bring liberty for people’s eyes to be open to the new and fresh revelation of who God is, who he really is. He’s not some god sitting on a throne room that doesn’t care about his people, but he’s a god who transforms nations, and he’s using you as a tool to do that. So the defender of liberty, Sean Feucht, we honor you.”
Shea then led the congregation in laying hands upon and praying over Feucht as he carries out his “Kingdom to the Capitol” tour, which is a joint project that Feucht launched with right-wing youth organization Turning Point USA to bring their mixture of worship and hard-right politics to every state capitol in the nation.
“God, I thank you for unleashing through him a new anointing for healing and deliverance, prophecy, and just an uncontrolled, total outpouring that cannot be contained,” Shea proclaimed. “So when he walks into a capitol, the atmosphere doesn’t change him, he changes the atmosphere because you’re in him, Lord God.”
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