By Paul A. Djupe, Denison University

This week the seven mountain mandate (7MM) was in the news as New Apostolic Reformation apostle Lance Wallnau is warming up Project 19 – an attempt to mobilize Christians to swing some key urban counties for Trump in 2024. Project 19 is the front lines of “the battle for the mountain of government.” It coincides with the “Courage Tour,” Wallnau’s current road show, which together probably best describes how the latest incarnation of the Christian Right engages in political campaigning.

Though it has older roots, the 7MM is Wallnau’s creation, articulated in a book he wrote just over a decade ago with Bill Johnson called Invading Babylon, where Christians are called to take by force the 7 mountains of society: education, entertainment, family, business, religion, media, and government. Government may be the linchpin, or at least is the most pressing mountain to dominate because, as apostle Mario Bramnick recently suggested, “We are in the greatest battle for the soul of our nation. Our battle is not between left or right…It’s spiritual war between light and darkness…and ultimately who is GOD of the USA.” It has also been in the news recently as the worldview behind the Alabama ruling to grant frozen embryos some basic rights.

As Matthew Taylor and I argued in RNS last week, such charismatic-style beliefs linked to the New Apostolic Reformation now dominate evangelical Christianity even beyond the portion of evangelicals in the charismatic/pentecostal camp.

In this post, I want to assess change – how much has belief in the 7MM changed in the past year and in what parts of the population? Is 7MM belief diffusing through particular religious and political channels?

I am just looking at Christians because a recent survey was just of 1,500 self-identified Christians (weighted to resemble the adult, Christian population). For comparison, I’m using data from the self-identified Christians in a 2,323 sample of American adults surveyed in March 2023 (again weighted).

As reported previously, I found in the March 2023 sample that 20 percent of American adults and 30 percent of American Christian adults believe in the 7MM: “God wants Christians to stand atop the ‘7 mountains of society,’ including the government, education, media, and others.” By January 2024, that figure had grown to 41 percent.

If the 7MM originated among charismatics, then perhaps the idea is spreading through charismatic networks. One measure I have access to in both surveys is belief in modern prophecy – that figures beyond the Bible “continue to reveal God’s plans to humanity.” It’s clear that 7MM support is higher in January 2024, but it has grown about equally regardless of modern prophecy belief, as shown below. Perhaps a different style of religion is helping to connect with the 7MM.

Though it may sound odd at first, apocalypticism is a more inclusive religious worldview widespread among Christians these days. Geared toward the latter books of the Bible, apocalypticism does not depend on any particular theology (see that link for more about the measure, too). Our measure includes four generic, but powerful components – belief in evil active in the world, belief that humans can channel God’s power, belief that we are in the end times, and belief that Christians are being persecuted. Together, they are linked to a toxic, zero sum, uncompromising politics. Below, 7MM belief is only growing among apocalyptics. Because of the very strong relationship between apocalypticism and 7MM belief, it is hard to see just how much 7MM has grown. At its peak (near where the survey dates are marked), 7MM belief has grown near 20 percent over where it was in March 2023. The growth subsides as apocalypticism tops out, but that’s because it is hard to exceed support from 90+ percent of the most apocalyptic believers.

New Apostolic Reformation figures, like Lance Wallnau, hitched their wagons to Donald Trump quite early in his first bid to be president. Wallnau was the first to suggest that Trump was anointed by God to be president. Savvy enough to realize the importance of conservative Christians, Trump tasked Paula White to put together an evangelical advisory board that leaned heavily on charismatics. Charismatics and charismatic ideas have gotten a lot more airplay as a result. All of this is to say that while the 7MM is only 1/7 about politics, the government mountain looms large over the others. The figure below suggests that 7MM belief is increasing somewhat faster among the politically interested. The growth among those who pay “a little” attention to politics is 8 points, and grows to 13 points in the highest two categories of political interest. Put another way, the most politically engaged Christians are likely to be 7MM believers, with a majority in support.

I have those data, and the figure below uses two of the most egregious theonomic commitments in the battery of questions: the church should have a veto over legislation and the US should only let Christians be full citizens. 7MM agreement is strongly linked to desired theonomy among Christians. Over 50 percent of those who strongly agree with the 7MM support a church veto (either agree or strongly agree), and 43% of them believe that only Christians should have full citizenship. There’s nothing innocuous about the 7MM given the structure of commitments behind it. Many 7MM believers are not climbing the government mountains because it’s there, they are climbing it because “Jesus was promised nations for his inheritance.”

A number of researchers are doing invaluable work documenting instances of 7MM (among many other things) used in rallies and speeches (thank you!). I wanted to help validate their work by assessing how widespread adoption of the 7MM is and show that it is growing along lines that suggest trouble on the horizon. Assuming our sample is representative and people understand what they are responding to, then the takeaway here is that charismatic-style religious beliefs about politics are growing among Christians so that a near majority agree with the 7MM in a recent survey. The pattern of growing adoption is troubling and sends a clear signal about how this spiritual meme spreads and the mindset of adopters. 7MM belief has gotten a boost across the board, but an especially strong one among the most politically interested and those who see the most active evil and persecution of Christians in the world today. The 7MM will be fully deployed in the run up to the 2024 elections.

Professor Paul A. Djupe directs the Data for Political Research program at Denison University, is an affiliated scholar with PRRI, the series editor of Religious Engagement in Democratic Politics (Temple), and co-creator of religioninpublic.blog. Further information about his work can be found on his website and on TwiX. He is also the coedior of the 2024 book Trump, White Evangelical Christians, and American Politics: Change and Continuity (check this out for a 30% discount).