Rolling Stone reports:

Lance Wallnau, A self-styled “prophet” and one of America’s most strident Christian Nationalists, and Doug Mastriano, the GOP candidate who casts his bid for governor of Pennsylvania as a mission from God, are birds of a feather.

They each fired up the faithful at the Jericho March / ”Let the Church ROAR!” event in Washington, D.C., in December 2020, a Christian protest seeking divine intervention to keep Donald Trump in office. And both men were on the ground in Washington a few weeks later on Jan. 6 — each billed as speakers at Stop the Steal’s “Wild Protest” event in the shadow of the Capitol. (The speeches were preempted by the insurrection that overran the Halls of Congress.)

So it’s little surprise that the pair flocked together in mid-September, when Wallnau landed in Pennsylvania to stump for Mastriano at a rally in the candidate’s hometown near Gettysburg.

Wallnau believes that America should be a theocracy, declaring unequivocally in a 2021 online rant: “I am a Christian Nationalist.” But in his stump speech for Mastriano, Wallnau used more coded language. He turned to local history to hype up the GOP candidate, comparing him to the “Christian colonel” who led a desperate bayonet charge to victory down from Little Round Top.

Wallnau insisted that Mastriano, a former Army officer, is also poised to change history: “Now there’s another Christian colonel, who is in charge of the mountain.” Referring to Mastriano’s followers as “a remnant” — a biblical term favored by fundamentalists to recognize fellow hardcore believers — Wallnau exhorted them to hold the line against the enemy. “They may out-gather, they may outmaneuver; in my opinion they know how to out-cheat,” Wallnau said of Democrats. “But they cannot outflank us if we move as one.”

Casting the Republican’s mission as guided by the hand of God — “Colonel Mastriano is anointed to lead” — Wallnau then insisted, “the whole country will be affected by what happens in Pennsylvania.” [Continue reading…]