Christian Nationalists Mobilize to Fight Campus Gaza Protests

MAGA pastor Sean Feucht and a band of Christian nationalists are glomming on to campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, leading “United for Israel” marches at Columbia and the University of Southern California while professing their belief that the conflict is a harbinger of the “End Times” predicted in the Bible.

On Wednesday night, Feucht’s followers and far-right extremists rallied outside USC with the help of a police escort—an image that stands in stark contrast to the LAPD officers in riot gear who previously arrested activists from the school’s pro-Palestinian camp.

The Christian Zionist parade kicked off with Feucht performing contemporary worship music (“Our God is an awesome God”) and anti-LGBTQ speakers like preachers Lou Engle and Ché Ahn, who once crowed at a “Stop the Steal” rally: “We’re gonna rule and reign through President Trump and under the lordship of Jesus Christ.”

Feucht, looking every bit the part of a Jesus rocker in a black jean jacket, fired up the crowd with a concert before the march.

“Lord, we stand together against hatred, bigotry, anti-semitism, violence that’s taken over this campus and the streets of the city,” Feucht said between songs. “God, I just pray today that America would see a different story tonight.”

“Where they’ve seen division, they would see unity and joy,” added the 40-year-old Sammy Hagar-coiffed pastor, who once prayed over former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey.

Afterward, Fox News portrayed Feucht as a hero of sorts for the Jewish people. “We want Americans to see that we are fed up with this rot of anti-Semitism on the college campuses, and that we’re gathering together in unity, bringing prayer, bringing hope,” said Feucht, who’s risen to MAGA fame and riches after holding worship concerts flouting COVID rules in 2020.

The irony of divisive activists making up the “unity” flock didn’t seem to be lost on reporters and extremism researchers, including Kate Burns, Jeremy Lindenfeld, and Kelly Stuart, who documented the scene in real time. They estimated a few hundred participants showed up versus Feucht’s projection of “thousands.”

Matthew D. Taylor, a religious studies scholar and expert in Christian nationalism, told The Daily Beast he is concerned the USC protest and similar rallies are normalizing extremism for Christians and giving cover to far-right groups.

“There’s a veneer of interfaith, there’s a veneer of solidarity,” said Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies (ICJS). “I do interfaith dialogue for a living. These people are not doing interfaith dialogue. They’re doing Christian supremacy, but they’re cloaking it in the garb of interfaith solidarity.”

“If Sean Feucht is an enemy of anti-Semitism, why does he hang out with Proud Boys and QAnon supporters and conspiracy theorists at places that tolerate outright anti-Semitism like the ReAwaken America tour?” Taylor added. “Why does he invite far-right militia members to be security at his own events? Color me skeptical that Sean Feucht cares one whit about anti-Semitism.” (A Proud Boy and a Jan. 6 insurrectionist reportedly belonged to Feucht’s security team at his Oregon “Let Us Worship” event in 2021.)

Feucht has also palled around with podcaster Elijah Schaffer, who has made anti-Semitic remarks along with his guest speakers like white supremacist Nick Fuentes. “Do you believe Jews disproportionately control the world institutions, banks, & are waging war on white, western society?” Schaffer asked in a 2023 Twitter poll.

Taylor said Feucht’s crew is choosing a polarizing debate, as they did with COVID and Black Lives Matter, to inject their extremist ideology.

“They are showing up with their happy-go-lucky worship songs and saying, ‘How can anybody possibly object to Christians singing worship music?’ but they’re doing it with all this far-right messaging and far-right allies.”

Multiple activists wore hats and flags for the group Lexit, or Latinos Exiting The Democrat Party, which once waged protests outside of a San Diego-area YMCA because it allowed transgender guests to use their preferred locker rooms.

Some attendees raised signs reading “Jesus is Alive, He is Risen!” and donned Jewish Lives Matter T-shirts with Patriot Mobile’s logo on the back. Patriot Mobile, the conservative wireless company known to bankroll right-wing school board candidates, also flew a plane overhead with the banner: “Israel is Forever, Jewish Lives Matter.us.”

Among the swarm, a man collected signatures for a “ban on sex changes for kids,” likely referring to a ballot initiative that would require schools to notify parents if a child asked to change their gender identification. Another guy, who was photographed at a Huntington Beach “White Lives Matter” rally three years ago, hoisted a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag.

One person raised an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a Revolutionary War banner that’s been championed by Christian nationalists. (One hangs in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s district office, Rolling Stone reported last November).

The march’s soundtrack included chants of “USA!” and the blowing of a shofar, a musical horn used in Jewish ceremonies that’s become a symbol for spiritual warfare for pro-Trump Christian nationalists—including at Feucht’s anti-COVID lockdown rallies and at the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Kelly Stuart, a photojournalist documenting extremism in California, told The Daily Beast the rally was a “dystopian cacophony” of shofar and shouts of “bring them home!”

“It was completely evangelical,” Stuart said. “These are people who are accelerationists. They want the rapture to come. They may talk about wanting peace but violence will bring the rapture sooner.”

Before the event concluded, some demonstrators took communion and Engle barked in a megaphone about Jesus’ betrayal and how “demonic powers were dislodged from their thrones” when Jesus said “Father, forgive them” from the cross.

“What we just did here today is a microcosm of a mass battle that’s going on that will be freed by the blood of the lamb!” Engle said to cheers.

The event seemed quieter than Feucht’s Columbia University march, where he declined to answer a HuffPost reporter’s questions about what would happen to Jewish people in the “End Times” he’s repeatedly referenced in connection with the Israel-Gaza conflict.

In New York, Feucht teamed up with conservative radio host Eric Metaxas, who, according to Media Matters, uses his platform to promote the belief that Christians should control the government, and once punched an anti-Trump protester in the face.

A day before descending on the Big Apple, Feucht went live on Facebook and appeared almost giddy about the “end days.”

“Yes, these are the end days,” Feucht said. “I know people say all the time, ‘Everyone’s saying it’s the end days.’ ‘Jesus said it was the end days 2000 years ago.’ Well, it is the end days, and we’re one day closer to the return of Jesus.”

“And as that ramps up, we’re going to see a rise of evil, we’re going to see a rise of glory, and we’re gonna see a rise of hatred for the Jewish people.”

Wearing a “Reagan Bush ’84” hat, fellow holy-roller, pastor Russell Johnson, chimed in that God specifically loves Israel because it “will serve as a redemptive sign” and “proof positive that God is faithful to his covenant” of Jesus’s return.

“We will see massive harvest, massive revival, massive souls turning to the Lord in the nation of Israel,” Johnson said.

Many evangelicals like Feucht believe in an End Times prophecy where Jews will return to Israel (and convert to Christianity) as part of Jesus’s Second Coming.

The Columbia rally saw a few clashes, with one pro-Israel protester telling a man in a keffiyeh, “I look forward to you delivering me my food on DoorDash.” In response, according to HuffPost, the man picked up a long metal pole and set it down. When he tried to grab it again, the pro-Israel crowd interceded and got NYPD to arrest him.

While Feucht left the rally, a pro-Israel contingent lingered at the gates of the Columbia pro-Palestine encampment, yelling at them to “go to Gaza!” and “Go home, terrorists!”

Meanwhile, at USC, one pro-Israel marcher was captured intimidating journalists; he was later identified as J6er and right-wing livestreamer Josh Fulfer.

Feucht’s events on both coasts featured players in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), a radical Christian movement that’s gaining ground in Republican circles, and has helped to promote Christian Trumpism and usher in the events of Jan. 6.

Ché Ahn, the leader of Pasadena’s Harvest Rock Church, was among them at USC.

During a prayer, Ahn asked God that “we would be one, that the world might believe that you sent your son” and “you’ve broken down the dividing wall and you made us one new man in Yeshua and we pray that this gathering will be catalytic in bringing a great harvest…”

By praying in the name of Yeshua Hamashiach, or “Jesus the Messiah,” Ahn was invoking the Messianic Jewish name for Jesus, Taylor said.

Messianic Judaism is a modern movement which blends together elements of Judaism and Christianity—where followers believe that Jesus is the Messiah—and is not recognized as a legitimate form of Judaism by most mainstream Jewish communities.

Taylor has closely studied and interviewed Ahn, who also leads Harvest International Ministry, a network of more than 25,000 churches and organizations in more than 65 countries. “Ché Ahn is what I call a Christian supremacist. He believes that not only should Christianity have a privileged place in American society but that God has mandated for Christians to rule over society,” Taylor said.

“When he’s there saying, ‘Hey, we’re standing with Israel,’ well, he’s not standing for Judaism or Jewish peoplehood. Israel is playing a role in his theological vision surrounding certain Christian prophecies,” Taylor said. “Israel is important to him for theological reasons.”

“If Ché Ahn’s intentions are fulfilled, as far as I can tell, there will be an Israel, but it will be a Christian Israel full of Christian Jews. Judaism will functionally cease to exist.”

“A lot of Jews, if they understood what he’s talking about, would say that is a form of Christian anti-Semitism. You’re talking about not respecting Jews as Jews, you’re talking about trying to convert them into something else.”