Faytene Grasseschi: political candidate and spokesperson for God?

In her 2009 book, Marked: A Generation of Dread Champions Rising to Shift Nations, Faytene Grasseschi, PC candidate for the riding of Hampton-Fundy-St. Martins in the forthcoming provincial election, enthusiastically quotes “a preacher friend” of hers, Banning Liebscher, that “the new breed of revivalists that God is raising up has a ‘take-over’ mentality. They are convinced that God has called them to take over the world!” (Marked, 32). This “take-over,” she clarifies, was not to be done the traditional way of converting inhabitants until they are in the majority, but to essentially seize control of governments in the name of Christ, since these, according to Grasseschi and her fellow travellers, are now Christ’s inheritance.

In this scheme, democracy merely stands in the way of getting parliament and the courts to accede to God’s righteous decrees. As historian Matthew D. Taylor, author of the forthcoming book, The Violent Take it by Force: The Christian movement that is threatening our democracy puts it in the publisher’s blurb, “When people long to conquer a nation for God, democracy can be brought to the brink” (Taylor blurb).

This is precisely what is happening now in the U.S. Zealous Christians who believe God speaks directly to them are fighting to have laws passed they believe are mandated by God, heedless of popular support or legal precedent or concerns over human rights. This is essentially a form of theocracy, of rule by God through his chosen prophets.

As an historian, I see the parallels to the period of history when secular rulers indeed supported and enforced a single faith on their people. During the Middle Ages, this was the Roman Catholic Church, and to dissent from its teachings, even in seemingly minor ways, could lead to arrest and punishment as a “heretic.” Even after the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s divided Europe into competing religious states – some Catholic, some Lutheran, some Calvinist – each of these nations enforced conformity to their particular brand of Christianity.

For comparison sake, let’s have a little quiz. Which of these two legal statements was made in February 2024, and which was written in February 1532?

“human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”

“… we pray, with inwardly righteous hearts, that [God] turn graciously away from such punishment and plagues … and cease his divine wrath.”

Well, if you’ve been watching American news, you might have spotted the first quote to be from the Alabama Supreme Court Judge Tom Parker in his ruling that embryos are humans made in the image of God, hence disposing of them is a form of wrongful death. In justification of his ruling, Judge Parker quotes liberally from the Bible and Christian theologians from centuries ago.

The other quotation was, like Judge Parker’s, a legal mandate. Issued by Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria, it was intended to eradicate the cause of God’s anger: people who, following Jesus’s words in the gospels, believed that only adults should be baptized. Since there was only one true church allowed, any dissenters, such as these “Baptists,” had to be punished.

Despite the intervening centuries, these two legal decisions were motivated by the same thing: fear of the wrath of a righteous God. His anger was seen in economic crises, damaging storms, floods, fires, and warfare. To stop these disasters, those incurring divine anger had to be dealt with.

Yet, in the earlier period, it became clear that even after the courts had burned hundreds of religious dissenters as heretics, God’s anger was unabated. There must be other blasphemers out there! And they found them in other supposed agents of the Devil: witches. Those fires did not die down completely until the eighteenth century.

In the meantime, some rulers, beginning with the Dutch Republic, abandoned enforcing religious conformity. They discovered that this did not incite divine anger, but the reverse, as they were doing quite well thank you very much. This experiment began the long process of secularizing government, leaving religion as a private matter of little concern to the state. Such a policy is in fact essential for modern democracy.

And now that principle is under threat today as Christian Nationalists seek to revive fears of God’s wrath and to restore a single, narrowly defined version of Christianity to the government. On Thursday, February 22, 2024, this goal was made clear at the American Conservative Political Action Conference when the opening speaker, Jack Posobiec, proclaimed: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely,” replacing it, he announced, with “this right here,” pointing to a cross necklace. Once the new Christian republic was established, he warned, “our first order of business will be righteous retribution for those who betrayed America.” “All glory,” he concluded, belongs not to government, “but to God” (Posobiec CPAC Feb22). One presumes some of that glory will also accrue to their hero, Donald Trump.

While modern Christian Nationalists may not at this moment be targeting those who differ from their particular religious perspective, history has shown that such attacks will come. Since there is only one God, they reason, there can be only one true faith, only one interpretation, only one correct scripture. Alternatives therefore anger their God. The recent rise in Antisemitism and Islamophobia suggests that this development is already happening, while the LGBTQIA2S+ communities face increased hostility thanks to the demonizing rhetoric of Christian zealots. Judge Parker’s ruling is, moreover, another example of religious oppression of women and their families who merely want to manage their own fertility and health.

A leading force in this Christian Nationalism is the so-called New Apostolic Movement led by charismatic Christians who believe they speak for God, such as the Alabama Judge Parker (Huffpost on Parker), who associates with even more extreme proponents like Johnny Enlow, a Christian Nationalist prophet and QAnon conspiracist who has described most world leaders as “‘satanic’ pedophiles who ‘steal blood’ and ‘do sacrifices.’” (Right Wing Watch). Who knew?

Such bizarre fantasies are reminiscent of the writings of sixteenth-century preachers who believed there was a conspiracy of witches in league with Satan, kidnapping and sacrificing infants to him. Dissenting voices like the Jesuit priest Frederick Spee von Langenfeld called the ensuing witch panics “the disastrous consequence of Germany’s religious zeal,” which, he concluded, were doing the devil’s work by slaughtering the innocent.

And now Grasseschi, who like Judge Parker affiliates with this New Apostolic Reformation, advocates what is called the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” that Christians must “conquer” the seven mountains of society: education, media, religion, family, business, entertainment, and government. They must infiltrate all of these areas of social life and “force fundamentalist Christian values onto every part of American life, in order to pave the path for Christ’s return” (reporter Christopher Mathias in the Huffpost). Like in the sixteenth century, belief in the return of Christ is adding urgency, might one suggest panic, to the efforts to purify society of all blasphemies arousing God’s wrath.

Prophets like Grasseschi are seeking to fulfil that mandate here in New Brunswick and Canada. She has claimed that God has punished Canada for allowing same-sex marriage and abortion. She has also asserted that she was cursed by a group of “witches” in a coffee shop that resulted in a medical condition that she maintains was cured not by medical intervention, but through a faith healer. And she complains that she and her fellow-travellers are being demonized by “secular media” simply for professing “faith in Christ” (Marked, p.141).

Like Judge Parker, such Christian Nationalists believe that government should be ruled by and for God. That courts and parliaments must enact God’s righteous decrees, else we will be back to incurring God’s wrath, won’t we? Who will suffer next when those in charge of the courts and governments believe they speak for God and identify their opponents as God’s enemies?

Who then gets to decide what makes God angry or happy? Obviously not the majority of voters, since most of us don’t want a theocracy. Hence Grasseschi’s push for a “take-over” of nations for God, one that would bypass democracy. Prophets do not need to heed the people, but simply govern as God’s voice commands them. Looking at theocracies in the past and in parts of the world today, we can see who suffers: the free press, democratic rights, individual freedom, including a woman’s right to choose, a free and widely available secular education open to all, religious diversity and richness, free expression in arts and culture, and LGBTQIA2S+ communities, to name a few. We can already see this style of oppression in certain quarters. I doubt very much this is what a vast majority of Canadians would want.

If the past is anything to go by, these spokespersons for God would then determine who are the enemies making God angry, and act accordingly.

Gary K. Waite is a Professor Emeritus of History, University of New Brunswick.