Armageddon Briefings: US Commanders Said Iran War to Bring Armageddon - with Jonathan Larsen

Some US service members say they were told a war with Iran wouldn’t just be strategic—it would be biblical.

According to complaints gathered by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, certain US commanders allegedly framed the conflict as part of God’s plan: a step toward Armageddon and the return of Jesus.

If true, that raises urgent questions about how religious ideology may be shaping military culture—and potentially influencing decisions with global consequences.

In this episode of Breaking Green, we speak with journalist Jonathan Larsen about what troops are reporting, why the Pentagon’s silence matters, and what this reveals about the growing influence of religious nationalism in US policy.

On this episode:

• Why the Pentagon didn’t deny this
• What the Armageddon messaging looked like in a combat preparation context
• How religious framing of war can amplify danger and widen perceived enemies
• How end-times beliefs can influence real-world military and foreign policy decisions
• Why corporate media rarely investigates religion’s influence on geopolitics
• Who The Family is, how the National Prayer Breakfast fits in, and what “ministering to power” means
• Why we should avoid conspiratorial thinking and focus on systems and incentives 

Jonathan Larsen is a veteran reporter and former executive producer at MSNBC, where he worked on shows including Up with Chris Hayes and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. He has also reported for United Press International and Al Jazeera America.

Find more on Jonathan Larsen at: JonathanLarsen.substack.com
thefuckingnews.substack.com

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Setup

Steve Taylor 0:00

Welcome to Breaking Green, a podcast by Global Justice Ecology Project. On this special episode of Breaking Green, we will be talking with Jonathan Larson, the journalist who broke the story that some U.S. commanders allegedly told troops during combat briefings that the Iran War was part of God's plan to trigger Armageddon. Jonathan Larson is a veteran reporter and TV news producer who has worked as an executive producer at MSNBC on such shows as Up with Chris Hayes and Countdown with Keith Olberman. Larson also worked for United Press International and Al Jazeera America. Jonathan Larson, welcome to Breaking Green. Thanks so much. So I'm so excited to have have you here on the show. I uh saw the report on I believe it was March 3rd on your Substack channel. The headline was U.S. Troops Were Told That War is for Armageddon and the Return of Jesus. The subheader was Advocacy Group reports that commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military. So tell

How The Armageddon Claims Emerged

Speaker 1 1:20

us about it. How did you come about it and what did you learn? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Pentagon Silence And Reporting Standards

Jonathan Larson 1:24

So the organization that's really responsible for this, I'm just a mere errand boy, is the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. And they are pretty much what you would expect. They're advocates for the religious rights of service members in the military not to be proselytized to, not to be told they are living, working, fighting in a religious context. All of those things. And so typically what the Milit Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the MRFF, does is when a commander gets the bright idea to put up a Christmas tree or a Bible display or anything privileging one religion, it's almost always Christianity, over others. And I think it's really important for people to understand that the vast majority of the MRFF's clients, they call the people who complain the whistleblowers' clients, the vast majority of them are Christians complaining about Christian proselytization. So I've um I've done any number of stories about um the MRFF getting complaints about various things. And this was honestly just another one of those. And the numbers actually went up after I um posted my report, I think Monday night, the the the first Monday after the war started. And um, I believe at last count it was something like they had received 200 individual calls regarding 50 specific installations. Um I haven't checked in with them since last week, so I couldn't tell you if it's gone up since then. But the um yeah, so the I was surprised, to be honest, because I'm familiar with it. I this is I was surprised that it took off the way it did. Um I'm not entirely sure I can explain it other than the vagaries of the algorithms. But the reality is that it's it would this kind of thing was happening before the Iran War started, and this kind of thing always uh intensifies whenever there's even the whiff of conflict, and certainly whenever the Middle East is implicated. So after the October 7th attacks, um the MRFF reported a similar uh spike in in terms of proselytizing. And I I do want to be clear, and I think the article itself was pretty clear, that there is no evidence this came from the top. There's certainly evidence to wonder whether it came from the top, given what we know about Defense Secretary Pete Hegzetth. But I, you know, neither the MRFF nor I am aware of anything to indicate that commanders were told this is the message for the troops.

Speaker 1 4:27

Aaron Powell I mean you come from uh a journalistic background. I I believe AP, UPI, and and then you did uh, you know, executive producer, MSNBC. And uh I have seen no denials of this uh in in your reporting.

Speaker 2 4:41

Aaron Powell So yeah, I shouldn't I should note never made it to the AP, but but I actually was at UPI for anyone who remembers UPI. I was there. I do, I do. But um I I hope people understand that um the rules of journalism say that before you say that you know a phenomenon is happening within an institution, you give that institution a chance to respond. And despite my being a humble Substack journalist now, um, I've actually found the Pentagon and to some extent the the Trump White House to be pretty responsive to me specifically. I email them questions. Um, you know, it's pretty common for me to actually get a response and a back and forth. And just last year, they they the Pentagon, in fact, it was Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, gave me a stoke a statement about my reporting about Pete Hexeth attending um sponsoring a Bible study for cabinet secretaries. And they they basically said, yeah, what's the what's it to you, buddy? I'm obviously being flip here, but but that was sort of the that was sort of the tone of it. And it was so it was fascinating this time before I published, I gave them a chance to say, no, no, no, no, no, please don't print that. It's not true. That would inflame, you know, a lot of people, uh potentially a billion people, um, against Americans if they believed that. And of course it's not true. You they had lots of motive to say, to be clear, this is not a thing. I don't know where you're getting your facts, but they're not facts. And not only did they not respond to me prior to press time, I say press time like I've got a press in my basement. When I hit publish, um, not only, not only was that the case, but I was hearing from Mikey Weinstein, the president of the MRFF, a U.S. Air Force veteran, a veteran of the Reagan White House, I was hearing from him that other journalists from outlets who are used to getting their calls and emails returned, they were also getting just total radio silence. And that was a fascinating development in and of itself, which which I ended up reporting on a little uh later in the week, uh Friday, a week ago, which we can get to if you want. This thing has a lot of tentacles.

Speaker 1 7:12

Yeah, I'm interested in those tentacles. I I I really am.

Speaker 2 7:16

Um I spoke to Mikey Weinstein again on Friday, and he told me that a senior Pentagon official had said that the Pentagon internally had heard from commanders that yes, this was happening, and they did not have a strategy or a message with which to respond. Now, apparently, according to this, again, it's just one source speaking to Mikey Weinstein at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, but they suggested that the explanation for it was the the thinking was sort of circling around the idea that under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act from the early 90s, military commanders had the right to express their personal religious opinions. Now, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a jag, certainly, but it's my understanding, I I don't believe that that's um that the that RIFRA, the the bill I was talking about, the the law I was talking about, actually does that. Um there's plenty of instances where Pentagon rules and military guidelines and the Uniform Code of Military Justice overrule what what would otherwise be First Amendment considerations out in the civilian world. So uh but either way, we haven't heard from them, one way or the other.

What One Complaint Specifically Alleged

Speaker 1 8:40

Aaron Powell These were military officers in a a combat preparation meeting.

Speaker 2 8:46

Aaron Powell Yeah. So there were there were um, as uh as I said before, ultimately there was something like 200 complaints. The vast all excuse me, all of them but one, I believe, were submitted by phone. And so they didn't have specific details, but but according to the MRFF, they all sort of fell into this general pattern. The one where we had specific information came from a combat unit that was not in the Iran um combat zone area of responsibility, but was on, I think, ready support status, it's called, so that they were literally ready to support, ready potentially to deploy at any point. And this was a non-commissioned officer who said that their commander had instructed NCOs, including them, to tell the troops. I'm gonna, I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but it was essentially that uh Jesus had anointed President Trump to light a signal fire in Iran for Armageddon, which would, per this unique Protestant interpretation of biblical prophecy, bring about the return of Jesus. So that was the specific complaint. Again, came from one source emailing it into the MRFF.

Why Religious War Framing Is Dangerous

Speaker 1 10:08

Aaron Ross Powell Statements like that have been made in the past and then addressed by the United States government like no, no, no, we don't want to engage in religious warfare. So could you talk about why this is such a serious uh accusation or event? I mean, it's it's not being denied. Why is this so serious?

Speaker 2 10:35

So the most famous example, I think, is uh came in the run-up to the war on terror. And President George W. Bush at the time was speaking occasionally, privately and otherwise, in terms that that cast this conflict in um religious terms. Most famously he referred to it as a crusade. And so the big danger there, uh, which has a number of pieces, the big danger there is that no longer is this now the government of the United States eliminating a specific uh regime, administration, or government of uh that is hostile in another country. Once you put it in religious Christian terms, especially going up against um uh an officially or majority Muslim country, as both Iran and Iraq and obviously any number of others were, now all of a sudden it's not anyone of that faith, any Muslim out there, can with with understandable reason see themselves as being having been declared the enemy of the United States. Uh, not just the United States, the United States as an arm of Christendom, which, you know, we should remember the crusades were a real thing, in which, you know, there there are uh history tells us that that Christian faith has motivated political leaders before to do horrific things to entire peoples, wipe them out in the name of converting them, all of these things. So crusade is not just sort of a wispy ethereal concept, it is a very real thing in the history of both these religious cultures. And so the danger is that you awaken a roughly one billion persons strong force that now considers every American or potentially even every Christian as a hostile combatant in essentially a civilizational conflict. That's much worse and opens the door to any kind of you know, any number of lone wolf or coordinated terrorist attacks in the name of defending Islam, not the Islamic Republic of Iran. So basically, it is a force multiplier for the other side exponentially. That's why you don't do it.

Speaker 1 13:07

This is your host, Steve Taylor, and we will be back right after this.

Speaker 13:13

If you're enjoying this episode of Breaking Green, please subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. The interviews heard here are often ignored by mainstream media, and without your support, these stories would not be covered. Consider leaving a review and sharing it with friends and colleagues. You can find the full catalog of previous episodes and sign up to have future episodes delivered straight to your inbox at breakinggreen.org.

Christian Nationalism And Theocracy Fears

Speaker 1 13:40

Welcome back to Breaking Green. I'm a bit older than you, I think, and I I remember the moral majority back in the 70s and 80s. And and I remember when um that brand of Christianity started to involve itself more and more into politics. And there seemed to be a worldview that the world's going to end at some point, Jesus is going to come back, and there's this there's this story, this there's there's this vision. And currently, there's, you know, with stories like yours, uh with this this uh rise in influence, it almost seems to be this sort of, is it religion? Is it is it is it uh political dog whistling? What's going on with all of this? But it it's like I I I I go in and I look at my news wondering if we're still around, because this war with Iran, one of the one just one of the reasons was given for it was that we needed to prevent this uh theocracy from getting a nuclear weapon. Well, the United States has a lot of nuclear weapons, and I see a rise in theologi- or uh a rise in in tendencies towards a theocracy. Are we becoming a theocracy which has a whole bunch of nuclear weapons in situ? I mean, this is this is very scary stuff.

Speaker 2 15:12

Aaron Powell It is scary stuff, and I'm I'm often accused at my other substack of being a uh uh uh looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. But I do think that, you know, it's when you hear the president speak as he has, and as he did at the national prayer breakfast, about a rise in religiosity, when we see overt Christian nationalism espoused openly as part of the platform by the highest, some of the most powerful people in the country, it's very hard, understandably, to resist the notion that not only are they taking over, they've taken over. Um but but I think it's important to separate that from the country at large. I I would tend to argue that the election of Donald Trump was something of a historical accident and not reflective of the way the country is going. I just saw today an article from the Religious News Service or Religion News Service uh polling last week showing, you know, the, as always for the past half century or so, a declining trend of religiosity within the U.S. population. The United States is getting less religious all the time. Now, is it possible that that there are some strains, especially of hardcore fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, that are picking up people? There have been, I don't think the numbers bear it out, but certainly anecdotally, you hear stories of how like young men are gravitating towards the Greek Orthodox Church because there's something appealing. This is the theory. There's something appealing about the strict uh discipline required and the rigid rules. It creates a sense of meaning and order that in theory we're supposed to believe young men as opposed to other people crave and find in these organizations. And I do think, you know, that that the secular world, and I'm an atheist, I think the secular world has done a pretty poor job of answering um institutionally and collectively sort of humanity's hunger for meaning, right? There's there's this assumption with the absence of religiosity that you don't believe in anything and life has no meaning. That's pretty bleak. You could understand why people would would resist that. And I think I think that one of the things we need to see, and I do think we're seeing it more. There are a lot more secular organizations out there. It used to be the ACLU all alone. Now you've got the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Americans United. The list literally goes on. And so I think the the things that we need to see happen next are one is Democrats have to change their tune. They just have to decide, you know what? We went too far. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, bad idea. National Prayer Breakfast, bad idea. We need to be vigilant on the watch walls of secularism, and we need to be unapologetic about it, and we need to be proud champions, whatever our personal beliefs are. We need to be proud champions of keeping those beliefs out of the political sphere. That's one thing. And the other would be culturally, I think the secular world has to start stepping up and becoming something like a cultural um uh movement is the wrong word, but place to be. I think in you know, northern Europe and and largely secular countries, you have enough national, cultural um uh what's the word I'm looking for, um impetus already, inertia, that that you don't need it quite so much. There's a much stronger sense of national identity. I I suspect America is uniquely prone to that hunger for meaning because we're only defined by the fact that there are lots of different people here, which again makes it harder to sort of latch on to well, what does it mean for me to be a person here now in this time? So I I think you asked me to solve all the problems ever, right? So I think I've addressed that.

Speaker 1 19:36

But when it comes to the lack of religiosity in a country, I mean, here's the thing: there's a lot of people in Iran who probably don't identify as Muslim. I mean, you have a faction, a theocratic faction that that militates against democracy. So I I I believe secularism is not atheism, uh. I think it it respects people's freedoms to to um have the spirituality that they want to pursue. Right. But it but it doesn't put people in charge who say, I know what God wants us to do. Right. Trevor Burrus When you say you know what God wants us to do and you're in charge and and you're saying we're gonna do this because God wants us to do that, that's just it just it it it seems to militate a bit against democracy.

Speaker 2 20:36

Yeah. Uh that it so you've got you've kind of got there's an interesting split on the religious right on some of the stuff. There are some people, I would argue probably the less thoughtful folks who just say everything should be as the Bible says and as I think God wants it. You have a more thoughtful uh strain, I think. And again, to your point, these are these are these are very much minority strains within Christianity, which you know Jimmy Carter was an evangelical Christian, Billy Graham was an evangelical Christian. They both represented different kinds of let's not get into politics the way people do now. But there is a there is a considerable you know, chunk of people running things who believe that the system should still operate the way it does, that the constitution should run things and that checks and balances should survive another day. Within that, to your point, within that, they will still pursue what they believe. And so maybe the the difference between that and a theocracy is they're not willing to just blow up the system in order to impose their beliefs. They will pursue their beliefs through the introduction of bills, through filibusters. Through lobbying, through log rolling, all of that stuff. They will use the system with arguably theocratic end goals.

End Times Beliefs And Policy Table Setting

Speaker 1 22:08

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But what I worry about is self-fulfilling prophecy. The United States is a nuclear power. It has a very strong military. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Under Trump, we're bombing more countries than ever before. I mean, imperialism, all of that aside, not discussing that for the moment, it's really scary to me that people are so close to this power, this lever of destructive power who believe in an Armageddon, who believe that their faith tells them that in the near future, you know, they're going to be raptured off the planet, and that's a good thing, and that's going to come about through some sort of Armageddon, some war between Gog and Magog. This is unnerving to me. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Speaker 2 23:01

Sure. Sure. But I think we've seen I don't think this is terribly new in our politics. We've seen for a long time, and I think there's there's an internal firewall kind of where the thinking seems to be, okay, all of this stuff that's laid out in Revelation and Daniel and whichever other books it's in, um, that's something that needs to happen. And so, accord, you know, according to biblical prophecy, there will be an Israel when when all of this stuff happens. And so you can understand why uh Christian politicians would not be okay with anything that says there's not going to be an Israel, or even hints at that way. And similarly, we saw Trump a pander to uh evangelical Christian supporters in his first term by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, which more closely syncs up. And my point, I think, is that the folks we're talking about, first of all, I think it's really important to keep in mind that I don't think we know very many for sure who do believe in the rapture, like Mike Huckabee, very much one of these guys. Is he a rapture guy? I'm not quite sure. I believe Mike Pompeo was, former Secretary of State CIA administrator. I believe that's right. Hegseth, I'm not sure we've heard the rapture stuff. But the rapture is potentially not so important if you still think that there needs to be an Armageddon for that to happen. And there's disagreements about where in the timeline the rapture comes, which is when what's going to happen when it's actually not really in the original prophecies. But so I think what we tend to see with these people is um an urge for, an urge toward and an inclination towards setting the table, right? Making sure that the pieces are in place. These the Israeli people, the Jewish people need to be protected, not for human rights and normal, empathetic, non-monstrous reasons, but because you need at least 144,000 of them on the last day, right? Um, so I think they tend to do those things, but it's I think I I think I think it in my experience, we haven't seen too many of the people who are in power who actually did things like push the US towards a nuclear confrontation, hoping to see that. I don't think I don't think we've we've seen that. That doesn't mean that people don't believe won't believe don't believe it won't happen. But for the most part, I think what we've seen is what I've just called table setting, ensuring that the conditions are there for whenever and look, luckily, one of the prophecies says, no man shall know the hour. And if that holds true, well then no one can do it because then they wouldn't know the hour. So hopefully they've all subscribed to that, and they're gonna let the big guy take care of that last domino.

The Family And Global Political Influence

Speaker 1 26:11

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: There's an important point, though. You you talk about the table settings, you talk about the national prayer breakfast, you referred moving the uh U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This language, this belief, um, it does affect policy, international policy. So why and it's not being reported on by the corporate media. When I w when I look at the corporate media, it's like I'm looking at this war, and it's mostly market reports. You know, what's going to happen, popularity of the war. Well, how does how does this work how you know was Vietnam more popular, or is this a better war? I I don't know. It's sort of like sports betting, it's it's it's like market reports. Has very little to do about what's causing it. Uh is it moral? Is it ethical? You know, I uh you know Is it legal? I don't like playing the moral equivalency games, odd infinitum. But these thoughts- this thinking, this thinking, and you mentioned Mike Huckabee, who I believe is the ambassador to uh Israel. Aaron Ross Powell Yes, yes. Okay, you have all of this. Uh you know, and you have these national prayer prayer breakfasts. You know, there's a surge of of of uh right-wing leaders in South America. And I believe some of them are are affiliated with the these uh evangelical movements. World events uh are are being shaped by uh by uh Christian eschatologies. I mean, and to be fair, uh you know, uh there's other religions and viewpoints shaping that, but but are we seeing uh fundamental Christianity having more impact on world events?

Speaker 2 27:59

Aaron Ross Powell I think that's a great point, because I do think that first of all, the corporate media, in my experience, both inside it and outside, definitely turn far too much a dangerously blind eye to that. But but people generally, I think are much more focused on the literally apocalyptic notions and scenarios of religion changing the world when the vast, you know, there are vast seismic changes uh being accomplished, as you say, in slow-moving, incremental, day-by-day chip-away at it. I did a fair amount of reporting on on the people who run the National Prayer Breakfast, the Fellowship Foundation, much better known as the Family. And these are generally, they're not, they're not religiously uniform, but they're generally speaking uh right-wing Republican Protestants, for sure. Um and they they basically, for instance, one story I uncovered, they they protected an evangelical, allegedly corrupt president in Guatemala from a UN anti-corruption task force. The corruption task force was coming for him, and the the family and its allies, including Marco Rubio and other senators, they basically made Toxic a UN anti-corruption task force that was successful, popular, and enjoyed bipartisan support right up until the family and its allies in Congress, especially the Senate, saw that it was potentially a threat to their ally. And to your point about these things being interwoven, that's their goal is to interweave them, um, religion and politics. And so this is why it didn't get too much attention. But uh El Salvador's Naeib Bukele was on the stage for the national prayer breakfast just this year, one year, less than one year, after we got horrifying reports about not only the systemic torture and abuse at the Seacot prison, the notorious Seacot prison, but this is a guy who suspended civil rights, forget human rights, suspended even basic civil rights due process something like four years ago. And the month before the national prayer breakfast here in Washington, a bunch of members of Congress affiliated with the family went to El Salvador and celebrated Bukele at his first national prayer breakfast. They got up there and talked about how El Salvador is so safe now because of God's miracle there, which happens to consist in the real world of tossing tens of thousands of people in prison without due process and uh, you know, uh abusing them there and terrifying everyone else into compliance and away from dissent. Journalists and activists have fled the country. And there you have on stage United States members of Congress saying, way to go, God. So, yeah, that's how the world is being changed with religion. And I could give you other examples every day.

Speaker 1 31:21

Aaron Powell it seems to be happening more and more. There seems to be more coordination and and more autocrats leaning in to this uh religious evangelical lingo. I I I can't judge whether they believe it or not, but isn't this the case?

Speaker 2 31:41

I don't I don't sweat too much whether people believe stuff genuinely or not. And in fact, I would argue that that potentially the biggest danger is not the right-leaning autocrats, but the secular uh democratic small D leaders who see opportunity in aligning themselves with these movements. I don't think it's necessarily accurate to say that we have more of it now. Jeff Charlotte, the guy who wrote the definitive book, The Family, about all of this stuff, he went back decades. The family was involved in in um uh uh overturning, um uh overthrowing uh Mossadegh, if I'm saying his name correctly, in Iran in 1953, right? So the the family's been involved for decades in pushing this whole, you know, we have to be anti-communist, which means we have to be pro-God. Um, and therefore, you know, we have to be all the things that we say God is. That's been going on for decades in Africa, in Asia, um, in Europe as well. And in terms of like the quote-unquote good guy examples, I don't know if you remember, but a couple of years ago, uh Mike Johnson was holding up $61 billion in funding for Ukraine. And I actually reported 10 days before this happened that there was a good chance that Johnson was going to flip and do what he eventually did, which was decide, okay, we'll have a vote and I'll support it, and this is important. And now all of a sudden, I'm backing $61 billion in mostly military aid for Ukraine. Ten days before that happened, I reported that Johnson had held meetings with the family's Ukraine liaison, who had also, I reported, had meetings with Vladimir Zelensky. And so now you've got this Jewish, maybe atheist stand-up comic guy agreeing to do a national prayer breakfast. And the families guy, I don't mean to invoke the Seth McRuland show, but the families guy was making the rounds in the US before Johnson flipped, telling evangelical audiences at these evangelical town halls and such that look, if you support Ukraine, because at the time the the right was very split on this, he was saying if you support Ukraine, you will get an evangelical oasis in the middle of atheist Europe. You, if you are the ones to decide we get aid, you will get to chart Ukraine's future course. And to some extent, Zelensky has been understandably giving them some of the things they want. So, and this is all happening right under uh everyone's nose. Like the these meetings with Johnson were happening in Cap on in the Capitol, on Capitol Hill, which is full of reporters. None of them reported on it. Me, I'm on social media and I discovered these meetings from my couch in New Jersey. That's a problem, right?

Who The Family Is And Origins

Speaker 1 34:48

So you've caught me a little flat-footed. I I'm familiar with the moral majority. I'm familiar somewhat uh uh with the national pro breakfast. You you mentioned the family and the what what is the history? Who are they? What is the history here?

Speaker 2 35:05

Aaron Ross Powell So they're very tough to pin down because they're not centrally um run per se. At least they can't they kind of have been in the past. For the last decade almost, uh they've been without their leader. But but basically this came out of the sort of um in the 30s, if I remember my Jeff Charlotte correctly, there was sort of an anti-labor movement among business. And they were not at all happy with the New Deal. They were very happy with the old deal and wanted the old deal back. And one of the things they began to do was these small groups of business leaders, I think it started in Seattle, they would have weekly prayer breakfasts. And they weren't even necessarily political, but it was defined politically by who was there. And so the networking began. Eventually, the guy running it at the time took the show on the road to Washington. And the thing people should understand about the family is that um there's there's not really a strong central cabal running things, it's scores of individual associates. And what an associate is in this term, it's I guess it's um a nonprofit kind of term. The idea is that they go out in the world and they minister to power. So for instance, um, I exposed that the official Florida State House chaplain is a floor is a is a family associate. So the Florida State House manual or whatever says we have a volunteer chaplain. However, it turns out that the volunteer chaplain actually has wealthy supporters and they give donations to the family, which then acts as sort of an administrative um uh I forget the term I'm looking for, but but but they they they basically manage the money, insurance, things like that. It's sort of like a back office, but this guy can go do what he wants. He can go on trips that he wants to network overseas, which he does. Um, he can do all kinds of things. It's not like he's getting daily marching orders from Arlington, where they're where they're um you know corporately the nonprofit is is based. So but they're all like-minded, right? They're all they all tend towards Republican politics to varying degrees of of extremism, and they all believe that if if Jesus is right about everything, then why wouldn't you want him in your politics and in everything you do?

Speaker 1 37:51

So is there some continuity uh between the 1930s and now? I mean, when you say the family, is you're you're you're talking loosely, I guess, or are are are you speaking of a loose affiliation of um evangelicals or it or maybe people who are anti-New Deal that use religious language? I mean, how would you could you help define this a little bit better?

Speaker 2 38:18

Aaron Powell I don't think it's I don't think it's it's tough to define because it's not super orthodox. You don't have to be anything except friends to get in, basically. Um but what it is is a conjunction of political power and money and Christianity. And it's uh there are probably three phases of it over its history. It was started by a guy named Abram Varadi, uh whose name I always get wrong, uh Norwegian minister, immigrant, I believe. Then for a long time, it was run by a guy named Doug Koe, who was very um familiar with US presidents, administration after administration. You can find references. Uh Bill and Hillary Clinton knew Doug Coe. Um, and then he died in 2017. And to date, publicly anyway, they don't have one overarching single figure patriarch who's serving that purpose. And I've been covering it sort of like less um, you know, less homogenous, less top-down days a little bit because I do cover the national prayer breakfast. And it it kind of remains to be seen, but but individual members of Congress and individual donors and individual associates, they're all still empowered within this machine to pursue their missions. So there's not a whole ton of continuity because there is no central dictate that they're all sort of sworn to follow, other than, you know, um it's about it's about Jesus.

Speaker 1 39:59

Aaron Powell Well, it's about Jesus, but it's about right-wing politics as well, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 2 40:05

Aaron Powell Well, not explicitly, is my point.

Avoid Conspiracies And Closing Plug

Speaker 1 40:08

Explicitly, it's about Jesus. Aaron Powell Explicitly it's about Jesus, but you talked about ministering to power. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because because isn't that where the the the religion and politics come together here?

Speaker 2 40:23

Aaron Ross Powell In practice, what it tends to mean is that um you get these associates who make their who make the um who who sort of serve as connecting points between rich people and politicians and makes both of them feel good about doing basically whatever they want as long as it fits within sort of very basic fundamental things. They're not they're not keen on adultery, but genocide doesn't, you know, if a if a leader commits genocide, that doesn't mean they're gonna get disinvited. So um, but but the nature of that networking just by dint of of uh pursuing it creates these these religious political networks.

Speaker 1 41:15

Jonathan Larson, uh, is there anything I haven't ask you that you'd like to say quickly just to wrap it up?

Speaker 2 41:22

I think it's it's really important, and you've made this point a couple times, so I appreciate that, that people resist the temptation to view these things in monolithic terms. Um, in certainly in terms of the family, we're talking about lots of individuals with commonalities, but it's I would say, I would say avoid conspiratorial thinking and think more systemically about how these things work and operate and gain influence.

Speaker 1 41:49

Could you pitch your uh your uh Substack channel for us?

Speaker 2 41:53

Sure. Thank you so much. It's JonathanLarson.substack.com. I do original reporting there, and I have a weekday morning newsletter at another Substack, which I'm not sure I can say the name of on your podcast.

Speaker 1 42:05

Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. You sure?

Speaker 2 42:08

It's the fucking news.substack.com.

Speaker 1 42:10

And it is funny and it is informative. And also check out GJEP, uh GJEP.substack.com. That's uh where you can find this reporting as well. Thank you so much, Jonathan Larson, for joining us on Breaking Green. Thank you. You have been listening to Breaking Green, a Global Justice Ecology Project podcast. To learn more about Global Justice Ecology Project, visit GlobalJusticeEcology.org. Breaking Green is made possible by tax-deductible donations by people like you. Please help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights, and expose all solutions. Simply text GIV at GIVE2 1716 257 4187. That's 1716 257 4187.